Two weeks.

Yesterday marked two weeks of our new life in Beijing. Some days are harder than others. It can be easy to feel scared and lost if you let yourself... In my opinion it's natural. I don't speak the language, I can't understand street signs, I am not familiar with the entire area and the food..... The food is a mystery. The other night we went out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant (we have mostly been trying to find foods we are missing or familiar with) but anyways, we are at the restaurant and there are no regular utensils in sight. I'm not a stranger to chopsticks but I'm used to the wooden ones. These ones were plastic and trying to pick my food up was really embarrassing! I must've looked like a buffoon with my food slipping and sliding all over my plate while trying to win the battle of the plastic chopsticks! Needless to say, I didn't end up eating much at dinner. I was having my butt handed to me by that scrawny pair of dumb dumb chopsticks. 

Putting all difficulties aside for the moment, this is one of the first times in my life I have felt almost completely dependent on myself. James works a lot and I have had to find ways to keep both myself and a toddler busy, happy and entertained in a very foreign country. Let me tell you: IT IS A BIG JOB! I have had to try to discover what it is that makes me happy and not who. Don't get me wrong, my husband and my baby of course make me a very happy woman, but I don't have many people outside of them to hang out with. So I have taken a few test drives with some old hobbies. Drawing, for example. I used to love drawing when I was younger. In fact, as a little kid I wanted to write and illustrate my own children's books. Unfortunately, that hobby somehow got put on the shelf as my selfish teenage years came in to play and I explored stupider ways to entertain myself. I'm happy to say after some doodling in my notebook I have relit the fire! I am going to buy some official supplies and look into maybe taking a few classes out here. Gotta keep busy. 

I will end with a quote:

"Sometimes your only available form of transportation is a leap of faith." Margaret Shepard

 And that is exactly the transportation I'm taking today. Zai jian!

Ketchup & Mustard

Hi there. It has been a while, hasn't it? It's hard to keep up with a blog when I can barely keep up with everything going on around me. Life has me spinning in merry-go-round circles most days while other days I feel like I'm waiting forever for D-Day: June 6th, ladies & Gents. June freaking SIXTH. That is six days from today when we will be packed up and leaving on a jet plane not knowing when we will be back again.... but seriously, who knows!? My little sister/best friend is getting married in August and I don't even know if I will be back for said wedding! Life, you are so terribly unpredictable, ain't ya? 

Anyways, on to other things. It's been 3 weeks to the night that I lost my Grandfather. Pa. Elmer Carter. The only Grandpa I ever knew. He passed away May 9th at 8 P.M. and I was so lucky to have seen him twice in his last week here with us. The last time was the day before we lost him. He looked so tired and could barely speak. A part of me thought he still had time, though. I had a moment with him while he was in the hospital. I took his frail, well-worn hand in mine and told him that it was all okay. Not to worry about Grama anymore and that we were all behind him. I told him it was okay for him to go. As hard as those words were to speak to him, I was able to find peace in the simple and exhausted "Thank you" he replied to me. I love my Pa. I know he is happier. I know he is free from his suffering and I know that in a year he will accept the temple promises we make for him. I think of him daily and am grateful for the legacy he lead in our family. I'm so proud of the man he was. I see a lot of him in my Mom!

Mei Li continues to shape me into the mommy I need to be everyday. Her personality is already shining through! Just today my friend, Natalie, was over visiting and Mei Li thought it would be funny to mimic her laugh. The girl is a ham. She's got an attitude, too, Heaven help me! But she is so sweet! She offers plenty of kisses when asked, waves bye-bye, loves to say "uh-oh", is thrilled to be tickled and does not hesitate to shake her money maker when a good song comes on! When I'm frustrated with her, her smile never wavers in turning me into a big softy; it's infectious! She can drive me crazy but I'm even crazier about her.

That's all for tonight.

Sweet dreams.

smartypants

So I confessed to James the other night that I feel bad that my Book of Mormon understanding is pretty elementary... I know the stories but when it comes down to reading it and transforming the words into something that will turn the lightbulb on in my head, that lightbulb is a no-show.
But that is exactly where having a smarty husband comes in handy! He read with me today and was there to answer my questions when I needed him. Surprising enough I didn't need to ask him much!! I actually found myself getting caught up in the words and turning the lightbulb on! It was empowering!
We read Jacob Chapters 1 and 2. The best thing I took from it is that the Lord knows and feels our pain and concerns. He does not want to see us hurt in any way. He really is a protective, loving older brother.
I love that.

I like to play a game at the end of the day called high/low. You just have to say the high of your day and the low.
High: Picnic and walk in the park with James and Mei and scripture reading
Low: I saw a spider in the bath tub and had no choice but to kill it in the defense of my family! R.I.P. Spide.

10:30 on a Friday night, eh?

Here I am. Friday night, sporting some pajamas and kicking back on my forever unmade king sized bed. Florence + the Machine is playing the music I wish I had the capacity in my lungs to sing. The girl has got some chops. Is that the right expression for someone who can sing well?? Welp, I guess it is now! But seriously, the music is (excuse my french) damned beautiful. Don't really know how else to put it.
James is sprawled on the couch doing last minute homework and baby girl is finally sleeping after a long, long day of growing at warp-speed! I just did the dishes and somehow more just kept showing up until I finally decided in the constant battle between dishes and Amara; dishes were victorious for tonight. Ugh.
That's just the way it is sometimes. I was becoming a fairly organized person before getting pregnant. it seems the lesson I am always learning is that I can't control everything completely. Yes, that has become the theme of my life. It's good, though- I look at it as prep for raising a teen aged girl in a few years :)
When all is said and done I am one happy mama. We may live in an area where there are questionable things going on and our meth head neighbor may have named herself after a fruit but hey- there's a roof over our head and food in our tummies!
How did I get to rambling? What I really got on here to write is that I have made a few simple goals to improve myself.

1. Pick my clothes up off the floor
2. Be able to exercise for more than 5 minutes without feeling like I my lungs are going to collapse.
3. Remember what the rest of my goals are

HA! I'll put pictures up of our new place soon :)

I can't believe my baby girl is already 7 weeks. The moment she was born was a moment that will remain clearly and perfectly in my mind forever. It was a moment that was so monumentous and changed my entire existence. I will keep it filed with some of my favorite memories- when I first laid eyes on James, the look in his eyes when we were binded together forever and when I saw the "positive" sign on the pregnancy test slowly illuminate.

I can't lie, though. The days and weeks that followed Mei's birth were some of the longest and most difficult I have ever experienced. When the adrenaline of child birth wore off a few days after, I found myself suddenly slapped with a pretty bad case of the post partum blues. I was exhausted and overwhelmed with the reality of it all. James and I were made responsible for a sweet defenseless little being. I didn't want to eat and I could have slept for weeks on end, but I wouldn't. I had to man up and face the music that she needed me- needed me to be the mother every girl deserves to have.

The last couple of weeks have slowly but surely been improving. Once I put my selfishness aside everything seemed so clear. I love when we lock eyes and I know that she loves me and knows that I am trying to be the best mother to her. I would and WILL do everything possible to protect her from harm! There is something so special I see in those eyes. She has such a spark already. 

My baby girl... you can count on me and Dad to do anything for you.

She's here :)

As of today at 5:53 P.M. our baby girl will be 13 days old!! It feels like we have had her longer and i don't mean that as a bad thing; just that it seems like she's always been there.
James came down a week before Thanksgiving so he could be here in the event that I went in to labor. We did everything we could to get the labor started that week. I did some walking and sat on a birthing ball as much as I could and by Monday I was 3 cm dilated!! Still, the hospital wouldn't admit me because I wasn't considered to be in "active labor" until 4 cm. We had a false alarm run to the hospital that same night which is pretty frustrating but also a good thing because the hospital we went to was NASTY! So the week progressed and my contractions were still irregular. We did enjoy the time we got to spend together just me and James :) We celebrated our first anniversary and went out to dinner a few times to some nice restaurants. Sunday, the 27th, James was due to go back to Utah to finish up his semester. So that morning we planned to go to the hospital to have them check my cervix again hoping I would be at 4 cm so they would admit me. When I woke up I felt like it was a lost cause because I wasn't having any contractions at all... until we got in the car!! As soon as I sat down my contractions started and were all 2-3 minutes apart! It was crazy!! The hospital checked me and I was between 3-4 cm dilated but because my contractions were so close together they admitted me and gave me my epidural. That part was the scariest part but I knew for us to have a calm delivery where I wouldn't want to kick everyone's heads in, I would have to have the epidural.
This was all around 11 A.M. The nurses told me to get some sleep but it was impossible with how excited I was!! They checked me every hour and my cervix wasn't really progressing so they broke my water just before 3 o'clock. By that time they were thinking it would be at least 5 more hours before I had to start pushing but at 5:30 I started to feel my contractions more and like I had a lot of pressure "down there". Mom, Lise, Lex and Bart were all there just waiting around with James and I playing Words With Friends and Lex went and told the nurse. When she pulled the sheet up she was amazed that I was complete and she could see the head!! I had gone from 4 1/2 cm to 10 in 2 hours when usually you only dilate a cm per hour!! Immediately the energy in the room picked up but it seemed like forever until they were ready for me to push because I was so ready to go! I started pushing at about 5:45 and by 5:53 she was born!! I just remember everyone telling me she was almost there and keep going but that's about it. I was trying to block everything out and just push. Seeing her for the first time was surreal and I couldn't help but just cry at the amazing sight of her! I was in awe at how beautiful she was and how much James and I had anticipated meeting her! She was the most perfect thing I had ever seen!!!!
Adjusting to life with a new baby has been tough. She usually is up at 2 A.M. and doesn't go back to sleep for hours. She just wants to be held and at that time I just want to sleep haha but THANK GOODNESS for my own mama! She has been an angel taking the first half of the night  shift while James is gone. He left on Sunday to finish up his semester and finals. We both miss each other so much and James just wants to be here with the baby. Mei Mei has melted his heart more than I thought she would. She is his little girl for sure :)

Wishful Thinking

Today is 11/11/11 and everyone is making a big deal out of making wishes. Sure I wish for lots of things. I wish for a healthy baby and smooth delivery. I wish I were with James right now. I wish my Pa didn't have to suffer. I wish my grandparents didn't have dementia. I wish money magically appeared in our bank account. I wish people didn't have to be homeless. I my eye would stop twitching and so on and so forth...

but you know what?? Wishing won't change a single thing. It's having FAITH that everything will work out and doing the work to go along with it.
....And that's all I have to say about that =)