A Modest Proposal

I'll be the first to admit that I am swimming in spam. In addition to all of the normal printer cartridge ink and astrology emails, apparently I am now on baby-related mailing lists too.

I opened my email today and saw a message entitled: "Put your baby's face on M&Ms."


Here - eat my baby. Because that is a totally normal thing to do.

Who in the world runs the marketing department at Mars, Incorporated these days?

Just so wrong.

Drive Through Immigration

I had to fly to Shenzhen yesterday. Well, kind of. You still can't REALLY fly direct to China from Taiwan, so I flew to Hong Kong and then had a car drive me to the Shenzhen hotel.

The crazy thing about the journey was this: the immigration check-points are drive-through. As in, you hand your passport and immigration form through the car window - first on the Hong Kong side to leave and then on the China side to enter - and then smile really big while the officer looks at your picture and then at you and then at your picture...

Five minutes, tops. And I didn't even have to get out and stand in the humid South China air. Um, yes, I would like an order of fries, a Big Mac, oh and permission to enter China please.

Thanks.

Butterfly on My Porch

The plants that my Dad and I planted in hanging baskets on the porch are full and lush now. I looked outside this afternoon and saw this ginormous butterfly. It is hard to get a sense of scale in this picture, but he was at least four inches wide. As I snuck outside to try to get a closer shot, he took off and flew around for a while. He looked almost like a little bat, all dark and fluttery.

Sweet Corn

I have been jonesing for some sweet corn lately. It is hard to find around here though. The last time we bought some fresh corn at a farmer's market, it turned out to be feed corn - all bland and chewy. I was bitterly disappointed. For the last two weeks, I have been quite depressed about the corn situation, even thinking through places when I could grown my own.

But today as I walked home from yoga, I saw a nice lady selling corn. Tien de ma? Is it sweet? Of course, she says. Hmmmm. Which one is sweeter, the white or the yellow? Well, they are both sweet, she says. OK. Let's try again.


And what do you know, they were indeed sweet. Luscious summery sweet corn. We ate them ALL. Life is infinitely better now.

A Girl Needs Shoes, Doesn't She?

About a month ago, Chris came to me and said, "the credit card company just called. Did you really buy US$XXX.XX worth of shoes over the internet." Ummm, yes. Busted. But they were not for me. Oh no.

I bought nine pairs for little Miss G in sizes 5.5 and 6, the next two sizes up. Oddly how they all seem to be different sizes now that I see them. One shoe is supposed to be a US6, but it is smaller than another shoe that purports to be a 5.5.

Little shoes, all in a row. So cute.

Big Day

Gioia's daddy has been in the US all week for work, so it has been just the two of us (OK, and the nanny during working hours). Yesterday, we went to my friend's house to swim in her super phat pool.

It was a seemingly small thing - go to pool, swim - but it took a whole lot of effort. First, Miss G babbled in her crib for a whole hour at naptime and then slept for another hour, so we were miserably late even getting started. When we finally made it out the door, I struggled to find a taxi with seatbelts, install the carseat, get Gioia settled, and then get in myself so we could get going. Stupid me remembered later that I could have just called up our car guy and had him drive us around for the day. That would have been immeasurably easier.*

We made it to the pool - albeit two hours later than promised - and had a fun time. The nice pool dude even blew up Gioia's floaty thing, so she was able to splash around with ease. She was much more comfortable in the pool this time, perhaps because she had so much practice in Indonesia.

We went to Costco next, to stock up on baby wipes and vittles. By the time we made it home, it was 6 p.m. We had missed Miss G's second nap and she was starting to lose it. I decided to lay her down in the crib for a quick cat nap. She slept, and slept, and slept. The catnap turned out to be "down for the night." Oops.

It is hard to work it all out alone. How in the world to single parents do it? Wow. Hats off to ya.

*We decided not to buy or lease a car here in Taiwan, primarily because it works out to be much cheaper to just rent a car and driver whenever we need it (which is usually for four hours or so on the weekend). But in order for this deal to work, I have to actually remember to hire the car service on days like these.

Bibs (again)

How is it that we have 5,421 bibs in this house, yet I cannot ever find a clean one at lunchtime? Seriously.


I cannot be bothered to figure out this great mystery. Certainly no one would expect me to simply manage the clean bib stock. Tra la LA.


So instead, I just made more bibs. You know, to have on hand. Because if we have 5,428 bibs in the house, surely I will be able to find a clean one when I need it. Right?