love boxes

Valentine's day the girls left for school smiling about their creations. 

Grandma Martha and I took Sophie and our little men out to lunch at Carl's, because Grant loves to jump through the shark's teeth in the playzone. Then I dropped the group off at home, and drove to the elementary school, marveling at the day's perfection.  

The grey skies had given way to brilliant blue and sun-- creating thin silver shadows on the crusty patches of snow, as the tree branches stretched out in proud, bare, elegance. I noticed that muddy brown earth was beginning to appear in odd shaped circles around the warmth of tree trunk and root, and the evidence of a hundred twisting paths and a thousand steps in January could be observed melting into too long ago to remember.

And while the teenagers had groused traditionally about Valentines--facing the prospect of the potential mentioning of the holiday at school with obligatory annoyance, the elementary school was all 1979 and I was eight again when I saw the parking lot filled with mini-vans and moms carrying sheets of cupcakes veiled in foil.

I had signed up to help in Mary's classroom.

As I have mentioned before, Mary and her teacher are both from Hong Kong. I had a happy Asian moment  when Mary's teacher asked me to serve the pizza--with a chopstick.  Caucasian means uncoordinated.

In the evening we made homemade heart-shaped pizza.  Sam's dough was especially delicious!

 For desert I passed out little heart shaped boxes of cheap chocolates filled with bright pink and orange flavored goo.  Grandma Martha said it was the most fun she'd ever had on Valentine's Day, and I agreed.

seven days of stink

Judging by the archives, it would seem there wasn't much to say about January 2013.  But if there were just one word, it would be pollution.

Throughout the month Sam kept saying, "This is what I don't miss about Beijing."

And I kept wondering to myself-- Whatever happened to The English Beat?-- a band that will always remind me of Santa Barbara mornings riding from early morning seminary to high school with the Mormon kids in the Mills girls' Land Rover. The lyrics to Mirror in the Bathroom were stuck in my head, but just one line really.

Drift gently into mental illness.

 It seemed like that was what everyone was talking about... in Utah Valley... in the Salt Lake valley. It was about the terrible cold, and the terrible stink, and the cold that kept in the stink. Or was it the stink that kept the in the cold?



Toxins must have been on Ben's mind too. I walked into his room one January morning and found this Ben Raines pen-on-canvas newly displayed on the wall among the movie posters.

 One Saturday we drove to Draper, and as we ascended I prepared myself to enjoy the majestic view at the top.  Winding up the mountain road, just as we reached the summit where our friends live, we all gasped. It was like a B-grade horror flick.  The black, amorphous, mass--heavy and foul, hovered over the valley, and from our view point, threatened to envelope and smother the inhabitants with a blanket of particulates. Meanwhile, everyone below, though pausing to bemoan their mild displeasure with another stinky day, continued innocently to inhale and exhale.

Facebook was rife with comments.  And I started to notice a meltdown trend among the family.  One night after the next, this child or that decided that life was tragic and meaningless, and on about the fifth day of stink I started to agree.

The ill tempered children brought back affectionate memories of our time in Guangzhou, and the wisdom of our dear Chinese ayis.  If the children were depressed, throwing fits, or running a fever, the polite explanation was always kongqi bu hao--bad air. For that matter if the washing machine wasn't working, the traffic was terrible, the milkman was late kongqi bu hao could also be held to blame. At the time, I dismissed so much of their insight and carefulness--umbrellas in the sunshine, watermelon makes you cough, the fear of cold beverages...

 But years later, after just one week of bad air in this mountain paradise, I realized how right they were.  A little kongqi bu hao  and  everyone you knew had a cold or complaint.

At the same time, Beijing was suffering its own bad air crisis, with the particulate index at 725. That's 225 points off the U.S. Embassy charts, much worse than any day we experienced there.

 Even this February 2010 morning...can you even recognize this as River Garden?

Vice Beta blogger George Ding wrote this post, Beijing's Pollution Problem is Becoming Harder to Ignore including unbelievable photographs of the city shrouded in toxic air, and discussing the more serious effects of long term pollution, and The Sydney Morning Herald published this story, Canned Air for Sale in China about a Beijing business man who sold flavored air to increase awareness and concern about China's environmental crisis.


George Ding wrote, "Like with other global crises, self-delusion helps to get you through the day."  

Jobs were the big focus of our 2012 election, and shipping to jobs to China a big part of the discussion. Between all our competitiveness and complaints about our weakening national economy, do we give China any credit for bearing the environmental burden of global commerce?  While we've shipped jobs overseas, we've also shipped the bad air, taking advantage of fewer restrictions to decrease costs, but leaving our toxic mark on the cities and villages abroad. At some point we will need to set new priorities, for the sake of their children, and ours.

 This was the snow that broke through the inversion.  It came in with warmer air and cleaned the skies.



 This was the fairly impressive accumulation of several January snows.




 After a month of permafrost, we were blessed with a typical Utah melt.  While we were loading into the van one morning I noticed that Grant had paused in on this green patch and was quietly speaking to the ground. "Hello grass. I missed you."

so many santas

Sunday evening we opened the seven or eight tubs of Christmas decorations. Some Chinese friends gave us these Santa costumes in Guangzhou, about eight years ago, but I think this is the first year the kids have discovered them before I could tuck them away. I am not sure why I had them in some kind of safe keeping. Sentimental reasons, I guess.

 Guangzhou is the world's crappy stuff market, and at Christmastime, communism takes a backseat to capitalism and a somewhat gawdy sort of Christiany. While we were there the trees frosted in disco colors and garish plastic Santas were a bit nauseating, however after the fact I've looked upon these thinly woven crimson costumes with nostalgic affection.

 But even I have a letting go point where the tangible, and fragile, can no longer keep a memory hostage, preventing it from taking life. And at some point our attachment to distant and romantic far away adventures, whether they be in deep distracted thought, or in the form of a treasured keepsake, must become less important and less compelling than the life that is right in front of us, demanding our love and attention, and needing our appreciation

 My Christmas decorations don't seem to be staying where they are put, and will probably end up broken, but at least I have a William


So in Guangzhou there is a place called HaiZhu square where we spent many afternoons browsing the hundreds of stalls. The smell was cigarettes and street food, the scent of which wafted from the carts owned by little men outside the square selling roasted sweet potatoes and fried noodles. And in one section, there was the overwhelming unmistakable acrid odor of urine, and it was essential to ex-pat life in China that it become loveable, that let you know right where to find the bathroom.

 In the fall, the square was filled with the most ghorry and horrifying take on Halloween costumes and decorations you can imagine. At Chnese New Year it was decked in red laterns and stuffed monkeys, or roosters, or tigers, depending on the year. It was always a great place to shop for take-home-to America trinkets, for birthday party favors, or for cheap toys that you only wanted to last the afternoon.  But if you winded yourself past the endless booths of  hair accesories, and office supplies, into the center of the square you would come to my favorite place, which actually had it's own door and looked like a real shop: the cookie jar vendor.  I fantasized about having a cookie jar for every season.  My mother-in-law bought me a glass ginger bread house that comes out at Chistmas, and I returned to the states with a pumpkin head scarecrow too.  I think he appeared in a post a few weeks ago...but he has since lost his head to King William, and has been sent the way of letting go.

Sunday night I was hit by a bad case of mean grumpy stressed out mom. Maybe it was too many consecutive days of eating pie, or too much Christmas clutter, or the realization that tomorrow was not a sleep in day, or just the single parent at the holidays blues.... Stated that way it would seem almost justified. I promise it had nothing to do with the broken cookie jar.

Monday was better. I am intensely grateful for warm days in late November. The little kids were too tired Monday to wake up for preschool. William had been awake most of the night with a cough and had finally fallen in to a comfortable sleep, so I let the morning stay quiet, as I finished arranging the nativity sets on the mantel, and boxed up the remaining ornaments that I hide away for that year when we have more space, more time, less need to keep things simple.

Before lunch we drove Bethany's cello to school, then went to our park to play without jackets. They thought it was a unique dynamic to drive to our park across the street and park in the parking lot. Sophie wanted to roll down the hill, which was sparkling with the melted frost... Not quite as idyllic as the weeks before when the grass was warm and dry.

 "Your turn Momma" she insisted.



 I hate pictures with my shadow in them. But I have that parental need to excessively archive perfect moments with the kids on the swings.

Tuesday morning we got a new faucet in the kitchen, and I made some progress with the laundry piles on my bed and bedroom floor. The afternoon was busy with dentist appointments, dance, sewing which turned out to be cancelled, drove to get a hair cut for Sam which we postponed when we saw the crowd, grocery shopping, shoe shopping, back for dance pick up, home for a quick dinner, and then to an appointment with Kyle. I was grateful that Judith brought us her delicious meatloaf, which made things easier.

Meanwhile our sweet friends from the ward brought us an enormous load of clothing they had outgrown.They were beautiful, designer dresses and shoes, and their mom had ironed them and put them on hangers, so they looked brand new. William claimed a little grey jacket that he insisted said Green Lantern, because there was a G and the letters were green.

There were even things for me. When I looked at the size I thought I wouldn't even be able to stick my arms in. Caitlin insisted I try on a pretty red dress that she had been wearing herself. The girls stood in undisguised disapproval as I presented myself in the dress, which fit, but greatly accentuated my need to find a personal trainer. Fertlilty Goddess Abs. The white cotton socks, and white legs were reportedly awkward as well.

"Maybe with stockings..." They said.

"So I guess I won't wear it dancing just yet," I said.

At which Caitlin brightened and said "Yes! Wear it. Noone will ask you to dance."

To which Bethany sagely added," But if they do, you'll know they really love you for you."

"How about we keep in in the closet for dieting inspiration," I said.

Everyone pledged to monitor my food intake.

Wednesday the school portait people were at the preschool.  William reported that he smiled for "his camera teacher."  The little boys wore their new shoes, and as we arrived home they dashed out of the van, and ran to front door to show me how fast their shoes can run. Sophie ran after them before I could realize that I have no baby anymore.

In the evening, hair cut for Sam, shopping with Olivia, Young Mens.  Caitlin asked me how many pounds I had lost that day.

"Zero," I reported.

  

 

 

I don't think you believe me

Kyle, I don't think you believe me when I tell you that you were my easiest baby. Even in birth you seemed to be unwilling to trouble. In that sunny hospital room, on a morning in March, I listened to the swoosh of your heart beat, noticing it get more and more faint, as it seemed to travel downward, and I could actually see you wiggling yourself away from the device, and underneath the monitor belt. You were working your own way into this world.  The doctor recorded minutes pushing: zero.

In your Father's Blessing you were gifted with a light that would be a joy to your brothers. And you were the first thing to stir them from their two and three-year old worlds of egocentricity.

  When we brought you home they surrounded you and brought forth offerings of Hot Wheels and Thomas the Trains.  They couldn't wait to include you.

  

You were an easy tempered, sweet natured infant, and remained surprisingly so as you grew. A natural third child, you were the one to endear and entertain with your whimsical humor,

  and your affectionate spirit.

 You have grown in so many ways since we left China, two years ago.

Even though you never loved transitions, you have risen to the occasion and become the strong arms that your little sister reaches for, and I am so proud of you.

I hope you had a fun birthday.

building a library

Something I took for granted before I moved to China was my freedom to move. Here, when parents decide to move from their town of birth into the city, they have to leave their one child behind with relatives, or the child will lose his or her benefit to attend school. If the parents have two or more children they don't have any government benefits anyway. These kids moved with their parents. They attend what is called a migrant school. It's run by charity organizations.



Saturday afternoon, the boys, Bethany and Rob went to this migrant school to help Nick from our branch complete his Eagle project. He collected books and furniture to make a library for the school.

There's Nick. This is his project.

And Nick's mom. She's been quite busy too.

There's the Telly tubby I gave Ben for his first birthday. I'm a little wistful about that.

There's the stuffed lion my Laurel advisor gave me when I turned eighteen.
When I took it to college with me my roommate's boyfriend told me I should give it to charity. There you go.

Thank you to Nick. We have been hoping the kids would have an experience like this before they left China. And thank you to Rob for taking these great pictures and the beautiful pictures at the camp out. It will be a while before I'll be able to enjoy his photography on my blog again.