threewillcomehome.com – Page 4 – Two will go to China and three will come home

A Change is gonna come

Posted by Thom on October 9, 2009 in Thoughts

After 2 1/2 years of rock solid consistency Li Li’s daycare situation is changing. The family that takes care of Li Li has bought a house about 30 minutes away and will be moving at the end of the month. We couldn’t have asked for a better situation for Li Li and we’ll be sad to see them go but we’ll have playdates in the future and will remain in contact with them after they move.

Li Li, Xi Xi and Nai Nai playing outside recently.

Li Li has not only been taken care of by a loving family and had the chance to grow up with a brother and older sister but she’s also gotten the full Chinese grandmother experience. Nai nai – the Chinese word for the father’s mother – treats Li Li exactly as she treats Xi Xi (or Anthony). So even though Li Li has been feeding herself at the table since she was a year old Nai Nai still feeds her herself. Li Li seems to tolerate it just fine but it’s interesting how different cultures treat their children. She’s also gotten used to her Chinese breakfast each morning – sometimes its buns, sometimes dumplings and sometimes a savory pancake or crepe like dish. And if we were lucky we usually got a little taste as well. Catherine and I considered “getting Chinese breakfast” a highlight of our day. For Li Li it was normal.

Lei, Xi Xi and Fiona’s mother, went to China this summer for 3 months with Xi Xi and Fiona leaving Li Li with just Nai Nai who speaks no English. This made communicating a challenge to say the least. But through my limited Chinese, pantomime and repetition we managed to do just fine. Plus Li Li is beginning to do some translation for Nai Nai if we are there and don’t understand. If something complex needed to be conveyed Nai Nai would pick up the phone and call her son Yanchun, Xi Xi and Fiona’s father, who would translate for me. It worked out pretty well. Plus it gave Li Li a completely full immersion experience since Nai Nai can’t speak English at all.

The Chinese community here in RI has been very welcoming and we have quickly found a new family to take of Li Li who have a very cute 2 1/2 year son so Li Li will learn a little something of what it is like to be the Jie Jie, or older sister. While are sad to see Lei, Yanchun, Fiona, Xi Xi and Nai Nai move away, we are thankful for our time together and for their love of Li Li. We are also excited for the opportunity to get to know a new family and for Li Li to get a chance to continue learning Chinese in a loving home. -t

Daycare

Bike Ride to Bristol

Posted by Thom on September 28, 2009 in Thoughts

Warm sunny days in late September in New England are rare enough that one must take advantage of them. So today Li Li and I hopped on the bike and rode to Bristol, RI for lunch. We had a very nice ride there with many bird sightings: egrets, herons, swans, gulls, cormorants, ducks and pigeons. Not too mention a lighthouse, boats and big waves.

Li Li enjoyed looking at the water and the boats in Bristol harbor.

32 miles roundtrip and a fun day was had by all. -t

Bike Ride, Bristol

Raptor Weekend

Posted by Thom on September 17, 2009 in Thoughts

Last Saturday we went to the Audubon society’s annual raptor weekend. Lots of raptors including: a Gyrfalcon; an Eagle Owl; a Bald Eagle; a Kite and a Baird owl and others. As you can see Li Li was able to get inches away from these awesome birds. Besides the live raptors they had lots of activities throughout the Audubon center. We went walking on their boardwalk down to the beach and got see to see many great examples of funnel web spiders along the walkway. We stopped to tap a web and watched the spider come scurrying out of the funnel to look for the latest victim.

Li Li was a little scared by the owls at first.

We also spent an hour dissecting an owl pellet. For those of you who don’t know. Owls don’t digest the bones, fur and feathers of the animals they eat.

Li Li conducting her first dissection. You can see the little rodent bones and fur on the plate.

So they collect them all and cough them up in a tightly packed chunk about the size of your thumb. We got to dissect one – It was Li Li’s first dissection and she really enjoyed teasing apart the pellet and picking out the bones.

This is a european eagle owl. It looks a lot like a horned owl.

Despite the rain it was a good day and we spent about 5 hours hanging out with the birds.

On a different topic. The blog back-end has been updated so the updates should be more frequent and may even include video. More on that later. -t

Whoopie Pies

Posted by Puck on June 7, 2009 in Thoughts

LiLi is becoming quite a good helper in the kitchen. She can clean lettuce, take the skins off of garlic, take the ends off of asparagus and crack eggs. However, she has not done a lot of baking because that is not my forte. This weekend, however, we made whoopie pies and LiLi enjoyed every step of the process. We made the cakes on Saturday and as you can see below, she really enjoyed tasting the batter. Then we frosted them on Sunday. Initially, she had trouble with frosting the cakes and her first couple of whoopie pies were a little skimpy on the icing but as time went on she got better and better. Here is LiLi enjoying the fruits of her labor(actually, the only person I know who does not like whoopie pies is my mother).