First and foremost, happy birthday, Uncle Jim!! He's home at Dana's house now, getting daily rehab and doing really well. It's a pretty special birthday for him - for us all really.
As for life here....sometimes Mommy needs a time out as much as the kid does.
So today while the kids were at school, I headed to Chinatown for some retail therapy. I didn't buy anything fancy - a few little gifts, some shoes for Maisie's Halloween costume and a nice, silk Chinese lantern. I know. I can probably buy a lantern for even less in China (though this one was only $16!), but since we're here for the Mooncake Festival, I wanted my lantern to be from here.
I got there at 9:15 figuring the stalls wouldn't open til 10 or even 11 like many of the stores here. Uh - no. They were all already hawking their wares. My guess is that it's because of the Mooncake Festival, but I was still surprised to see everybody at work already. Yea!
I did a bunch of other errands and picked up the kids at 12:30. Man - there is something just so nice about having some me time. I'm sure it'll get old, but for now, it's pretty cool.
On Fridays, the school sends home a packet of stuff they've worked on the past week. Hudson came home today with his first Mandarin book! I'm pretty sure it's a book about numbers. I'm probably supposed to review it with him, but I have no idea what it says! Hudson, however, sat on the floor making Chinese-like sounds so maybe he'll end up teaching me. I have visions of our kids talking behind our backs in Mandarin. Hmmm.
We had plans to go see the Turtle Farm with my Australian friend Heather and her son William, but this afternoon was not Maisie's afternoon. I was proud of her though. She said, "I need some time for myself," and went to sit in the hall alone to cry. That's huge! That means she's figuring out how to manage her own emotions. Eventually, she agreed to a nap - that lasted - get this - 2.5 hours! She woke up all reset and in great spirits.
Tonight was my time, too - Daddy took Mommy out to dinner at a very cool restaurant called Le Tonkin on Club Street - or near it anyway. Club Street is very near Chinatown and is a street with restaurant after restaurant after bar. It's a very fun area. Our original plan was to take a cooking class, but enough people didn't sign up so... we had delicious Vietnamese food cooked by somebody else instead. It was just nice to be out just me and my man - and to talk about what our plans are. We need to start figuring stuff out, eh?
The cool thing is that we got to see the lanterns in Chinatown all lit up as we made our way to dinner. Beautiful! Photos simply don't do it justice. We also sampled a bunch of jerky-like meat, a delicacy here. Yum! IN the photo below, you can maybe make out these thinly sliced pieces of beef stacked on top of each other. I really love the stuff.
Cheryl sat for us tonight, a luxury since Typhaine, Fred and Emmeline came back today! They've been gone since MARCH! Cheryl was so excited to see them! I know she's really missed Emmeline. Her first day working for Fred and Typhaine was the day Emmeline was born!
Tomorrow we're heading to the BRAND, SPANKING-NEW Legoland. It opened last weekend in Malaysia. Yes, we're crazy, but what the hey!