Raising Children

Parenting is...terrifying! I am always worried. Am I being too strict...too lenient? I was talking to Andrew the other day and apologized about something I did. I told him that there is no parenting test or license and we parents are doing the best job we can. I also told him what a shock it was when I realized my parents didn't know everything, and they made mistakes. He replied, "Don't worry about me being shocked mom, because I already know that you and dad don't know everything, and you make mistakes all the time." Well I guess that's one less thing for me to worry about! 

Punishments were much easier then too.  Time out worked really well for my little ones.  I remember one time when Andrew was about 4.  He was in time out and he yelled in his most serious voice that if I wasn't nice he was calling 911 or Oprah!  Now you have to ground them...From what? For how long?  I have a friend who threatened to ground her children from Trick-or-Treating one year.  I thought there was no way she would carry that out, but she did!  Her children now know that she'll carry out what she says.  However... I could have never gone through with that, especially since it only comes once a year!  It reminds me of the episode on Modern Family when Phil says, "That's it!  I'm cancelling Christmas!"  while shoving the family's Christmas tree out the back door. 

There were days when Andrew and Anslee were little that I thought it could never be harder to parent than right then.  Little did I know how much harder it gets...  Before they go to school, you have complete control on what they see or hear.  When they get to school you loose that control.  In first grade they come home and say, "My friend kept saying F word at lunch today."  Feeling sick you ask, "What is the "F" word?"  If you're lucky, they reply "fart".  I was lucky then, but by third, they tell you, and it is the real dreaded "F" word!

Keith had "the" talk with Andrew a couple of weeks ago.  At the end of 5th grade the school does a Health lesson on this and we wanted to preempt this.  Keith did a great job, and I don't think Andrew was scarred at all!  Anslee has always been much more mature than Andrew at each stage.  I'm assuming it's because she's the second child.  It seems that it's this way with all my friends' children too.  The other day she casually said, "Mom, I know how mommies get babies in their tummies."  I managed to squeak out, "How?'  She said, "You need the Dad too. He has to feed the mom a lot of food so her tummy can get really fat and then a baby is in there."  Whew.  "That sounds about right," I
said.  Yesterday we were eating, or maybe gorging is a better word, on dark chocolate covered pomegranate seeds (which might be the best thing I've ever put into my mouth), and I said that I needed to stop eating them.  Anslee said, "So you don't get a baby in your tummy?"  Of course, "Yep," was my reply. :-)

I know that as time goes on the ramifications of their choices becomes greater and greater.  That really scares me.  How did our parents do this??  Hopefully one day, I be sitting here and my children will be happy, successful adults.  That will be the greatest feeling ever!  To know that everything I did wrong while parenting didn't have a disastrous effect!!

My Dad Presents!

My parents love to travel!  Growing up, they drove us to all but one state in the continental United States (we didn't go to Michigan).  Now that they're mostly retired ~ The Christmas Store seems like more fun than work!! ~ they are going all over the place.  They went to Antartica in February aboard the National Geographic Expedition ship.  My class excitedly followed them on the trip through the internet.  At the end of the school year (when we finally have some extra time)  Dad came to do a presentation for my class.  The children LOVED it!!  My teacher friends had to stop by to hear my Dad's southern accent. 

 Thanks, Dad!  You did a fantastic job!

New York

My mom, Keith's mom (aka Nana) and I took Dandan to NYC for the weekend on May 6th.  She said that was the one place she'd love to see before she goes back home.  We packed as much into the weekend as we could.  My mom goes to New York quite often, so it was nice to have her experise on what to do and where to go.  By the end of the trip Nana was adept at hailing our cabs and figuring out the streets and avenues!   We stayed at the Mariott Times Square - which for touritsts, has to be the perfect location.  We walked a ton, although we did end up taking the double decker red bus and taxis to see the rest of the city. We had a great time!!

Delicious food!

Yummy drinks!! 

We saw Wicked.  This show now moves to #2 on my favorites list!  Chicago is still #1, but it bumped Les Miserables to #3.  When I rank the shows, I'm including everything ~ BUT as far as just the music goes, Les Miserables is #1.

                    We rode the ferris wheel in FAO.  I think it's called Toys R Us now, which is a little sad!

It seemed like the ride lasted forever.  You get your $5.00 worth!

The Empire State building

Dandan and I couldn't resist staying out late!

With all the stores open so late, it's hard to stop shopping!

A year with our foreign exchange student

I received an email in August informing me that more host families were needed for some foreign exchange students.  They were from many different countries, including China.  Keith and I discussed it and decided this would be great for our family.  We sent in our application and started the process.  In the middle of it, I felt like we were starting the adoption process again.  We were filling out paperwork, and sending in pictures of our house, of the room she would occupy and of our family.  My friends were getting phone calls to give us reccomendations and we had several home visits.

Dandan's bedroom

We were able to choose who we wanted to stay with us for a year.  We looked through the pictures of the avaliable girls.  There were two girls from Anslee's same municipality, but one was allergic to dogs and the other was ruled out for other reasons.  We decided on a girl from Kunming named Dandan.  After that, things happened quickly (unlike the adoption process), and before we knew it, we were at the airport picking her up.  We had her call her mom and dad to let them know she was safe and we headed home.

  Keith registered Dandan for her highschool classes.  The counselor helped us, but we had to make some adjustments here and there.  She loves the two electives we picked for her - photography and chorus.   She is doing extremely well in Chemisty and Algebra with over 100 averages.  U.S. History and American Lit have obviously been a little harder for her.  When I tried to help her at the beginning of the school year, it was overwhelming.  There was so much background she would have learned here in elementary and middle school that she had never heard.  She found a student tutor who comes to our house once a week, and that really made a difference.

                                               With some friends at lake Blackshear

We've had so much fun introducing Dandan to life in the United States.  She is amazed at all the holidays we have here.  She says Chinese New Year is like Christmas, New Year, Valentines Day and birthdays all wrapped into one holiday.  Halloween was a huge hit with her.  She loves american candy and thought it was so cool that they could knock on doors and people would hand her candy!

                                                         

Ready to go trick-or-treating

Breakfast with Santa at Buckhead Diner

Dandan was so excited for Christmas morning.  She doesn't get presents like this in China.  For gifts, she gets red envelopes with money inside.  We did make a blunder with one of the gifts we gave her.  In China, it is in extremely poor taste to ever give anyone an umbrella as a gift.  In chinese it sounds similar to the word seperate.  Andrew gave it to her for Christmas because she doesn't want to carry one of our big umbrellas at the bus stop when it's raining, so he found her a really cute small one.  She looked at us funny when she opened it, but didn't say anything.  It wasn't until I read about Chinese faux pas  that I found out.

I asked her about it, and she said she was suprised to open her first gift and find an umbrella!  Luckily, all her other gifts were a huge hit!

Dandan loved helping decorate for Christmas.  After we decorated the tree in the foyer, she would sit on the floor in front of it to skype with her parents or friends so they could see it.  She was so suprised at the effort we put into decorating.  She said she was going to do it at Christmas at home.

We had our first white Christmas in Georgia since 1882.  We were so excited!!  Little did we know how much snow we were going to get in January!

Dandan has never seen such exteme weather in one place.  Her hometown of Kunming feels like spring year round.  She was so hot in August and then so cold this winter!

I hope Dandan has enjoyed her experience in the U.S. as much as she expected she would.  She's made many new friends and has spent the night with them and had friends spend the night here. She has really enjoyed school and has done really well academically.  I asked her if there was anything she really wanted to do before she went home.  She said she wanted to go to New York City, so my mom, Nana and I are going to  take her in May.  We are going to stay right in Times Square, and we have tickets to see Wicked.  She is thrilled!  It's been a fun year.  It was hard getting used to having a teenager in the house, although I think we adjusted really quickly.  We are really going to miss her when she leaves in June!