December « 2010 « American Family

The Mother#($*#% Flower Show

When my Mother-In-Law originally started talking about going to Taiwan, it was to see the 2010 Taipei Flower Expo. She was going to go with a tour group that had the primary focus on the Flower Expo. When MIL told me about it, she had a whole spiel down about the acreage of the expo grounds and the thousands of kinds of flowers there, yada yada yada.

When she found out we were also going to be in Taiwan then, she ditched the tour group idea, but not the flowers. (Dear God, I hope she doesn’t expect to spend the whole trip with us!) Ever time we see her, she tries a new (crazy) tactic to convince us we should really see the flower show.

Attempt #1: You should order tickets now for the flower show because they will be discounted if you buy them in advance!

Attempt #2: The children will love the flower show! They love beautiful colors. It will be very educational for them to learn about flowers and also their Taiwanese homeland!

Attempt #3: This is the most amazing flower show in the whole history of the entire world! We can’t miss it!

Shockingly enough, Mr. A and I really don’t want to go to the flower show. I could not care less about looking at stupid flowers. I am not going to drag the girls around looking at a bunch of dumb flowers while we are surrounded by a bazillion elderly Chinese and Taiwanese tour groups complete with visors and cameras. I would much rather spend an afternoon looking at the interesting crap that will be available in the Japanese department store near our hotel while drinking bubble tea.

Tonight, Mr. A called his mom to work out some details about visiting the 8,000 relatives I didn’t know he had in Taiwan when his mom started in again on the flower show and how it is absolutely VITAL that we go there.

Simultaneously, Mr. A’s dad was visiting our house to pick something up. While Mr. A was on the phone, he started telling me about the damn Taipei flower show. He said we should contact a travel agent and get a package deal because regular people would have to wait in line for TWO HOURS (he was outraged) while the tour groups could go right in.

To be clear, Mr. A’s mom and dad are divorced and do not speak to each other. How it came to be that I was trying to convince Mr. A’s dad that No, we are REALLY REALLY NOT INTERESTED in FUCKING FLOWERS while Mr. A was also on the phone telling his mom that NO! We will NOT GO WITH HER TO THE FLOWER SHOW, I don’t really know.

But OMG, I am afraid they might actually wear us down. Will we go to the 2010 Taipei Flower Expo? I am tempted to give in just to make the campaigning STOP.

Confusion

Talk of our trip has been hot and heavy in the last week or so. In these discussions, it has become clear that L is a little, shall we say confused about China.

“When we go to China, will I be a baby?” she asks almost every time it comes up.

“Uh, no.” we tell her “You will still be you and four years old.”

“But China has lots of BABIES.” she tells me in a clear slow voice that implies she thinks I am kind of dumb.

“We have babies here in America too,” I tell her. ”Look at your cousin B. She is a baby and she lives in America There are babies all over the world.”

“”Hmm.” says L, clearly unconvinced.

In a bid to add some cultural exposure before our trip*, we had a family movie night and watched Mulan last week.

A few minutes into the film, L sat straight up in her seat. Her face perplexed.

“Hey! ” she said, “This isn’t CHINA!”

“Yes. This story is supposed to be in China. But this a pretend version of China” we told her.

“Well, where are the ayis? (nannies)” she asked.

Clearly, L’s imagined China is basically just a big orphanage. In her experience (though it was in a pre-verbal time for her), I guess that is what it was. She has seen pictures of herself in the orphanage with other babies and ayis. She is a kid who likes concrete examples and no amount of other pictures of China will convince her that isn’t what it is like.

Girlfriend is in for a rude awakening when we get off the plane.

*Ok, that was total sarcasm. Mulan isn’t great cultural exposure, but at least it is vaguely realted to China and isn’t full of babies.

onward

Every year, I can’t wait to take down the christmas tree. I usually manage to wait until lunch is over on Christmas day, but then it comes down. This year, I had everything packed up by 2:00. Then I re-organized the whole basement storage area, the kid-clothing storage system and created a teeny playroom in the part of the house formally known as “the vestibule.”

I also cleaned out a friend’s office last week and forced my mom to let me have 30 minutes of decluttering fun in her basement. I am an organizing and purging force to be reckoned with, yo.

I started packing for the trip today too. I have been shopping and shopping and shopping. It turns out we need to take gifts for a number of family members and family friends in China and Taiwan. Buying these gifts is simply exhausting because I suspect there is a cultural weight to them that I don’t really understand. I don’t really know what these gifts might say about our relationship with these people. Also, they are hogging up a lot of valuable luggage real estate. Annoying.

It feels like we have too many balls in the air at the moment. I am hoping by the time we get on the plane, we will just be able to live in the moment for the duration of the trip without worrying about the minutia of every day life at home.

Big dreams. Big dreams.

Merry Christmas!

Be careful what you wish for.

sleep deprivation

Last night, M went to sleep over at a friends house for the first time. She had a great time, but she stayed up until 11:00. (For reference, she is in bed by 7:3o at home on a normal night.) We expected that she would get very little sleep, but I forgot how sleep deprivation tends to affect her.

Today, for the first time ever, she punched her sister…TWICE. She also threw a hairbrush when she was frustrated. She also did a lot of stomping and huffing and was generally a pain in the ass all day. (She is usually pretty pleasant and even-tempered, even when she is in a bad mood.)

This bodes so well for our upcoming 12 hour jet lag.

That is all.

The Mother#($*#% Flower Show

Confusion

onward

Merry Christmas!

sleep deprivation

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