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! 

Moonmeadow Farm

Andrew is staying at my sister's farm this week. He was able to be present at the birth of the newest addition. You can read about it on my sister's blog. I think this is the sweetest picture!!

Rosemary Beach 2010

This is our favorite vacation every year!

Every year my parents, several siblings and their families come for a week. Prentice came for a night and Shannon stayed most of the week. We all agree that Shannon is an awesome addition to our family! She's laid back, incredibly smart and just generally fun to hang out with. Our newest addition (Naomi) is such a great baby. We all enjoyed the opportunity to snuggle with her.
Anslee loved the ocean this year. Thankfully there wasn't any oil, tar balls or oily sheen in the ocean. She loved jumping the waves and became increasingly braver as the week went on. We had to start calling her back to more shallow water. The Sugar Shak is the greatest store she's ever seen. Our house was close enough to the town area that she could walk with Andrew to buy candy.

Andrew spends his time trying to catch ocean creatures. He found a really odd sea slug looking thing this year that opened up wings in the water. Riding bikes is another one of his favorite things to do. This year he was able to ride everywhere without us.

WWE

Keith and my brother Ben took Andrew and Wood to see the WWE when they were in Atlanta.

John Cena is their favorite wrestler. They both thought this was the coolest thing EVER.

Andrew at Moonmeadow Farm

Andrew LOVES the farm. He has no fear of the animals (except a charging 400lb pig!) He's not a great milker, but when he goes back up for a week at the end of the summer I'm sure he'll get the hang of that! His very favorite farm activity is riding the horses. My nieces move the horses daily to a pasture and to the barn. Andrew loves riding the horses back and forth and he was even galloping by the time we left. I was glad he was with his cousins, so I didn't see it! He is such a brave boy!!

Andrew is always in the kitchen with his Aunt Rosie. He loves watching her cook and helps when he gets to. A staple at the farm is homemade bread with homemade butter. The kids could (and do) eat this at every meal.

In the morning, Andrew and Aunt Rosie are usually the first awake. He'll go where she's sitting and talk about everything. He adores her and cherishes the time he has with her. I love the special relationship they have.

Anslee at Moonmeadow Farm

Anslee loves going to visit Moonmeadow Farm! My sister has had constant company all summer ~mostly relatives. She said it reminds her of the children's book, The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant. (How do you underline on here?!) As soon as some cousins (who'd been there for a week)left, we showed up.
My nieces are so awesome and patient with all their cousins, and we just adore them! Thanks to my fabulous sister for being such a gracious, incredible hostess!!
She liked to follow her cousins as they were doing their chores. I'm sure it's not easy milking a cow with a small child attached to your back!!

This cousin wins the most patience award! She answered question after question from both Andrew and Anslee.

Anslee didn't really want to ride the horses, but she really enjoyed grooming them.

Anslee lost her first tooth! She was so nervous about it coming out, and wouldn't let anyone help at all. It had been barely hanging and then just fell out. She almost started crying, but the cousins all hooped and hollered and made such a big deal about it that she held it in, and then was really proud.

Celebrating the lost tooth.

Anslee LOVES the Lion King. If she has her own money to spend, she buys anything about lions. Her favorite animals on the farm were the cats, because "lions are in the cat family." The first day she kept grabbing them and holding them. Gradually as they got sick of this, all the cats ended up scratching her. When pumpkin (her favorite) scratched her, she came in and cried, "I don't like the cat family anymore!! Not even lions. They are mean! I am only going to like...ELEPHANTS!" and she started sobbing. We talked with her (again) about how cats like to be treated. By the end of our visit, the cats loved her and would crawl up on her lap. Now she likes lions again. :-)

July Birthdays (Mom and USA)

Andrew, Anslee and I went to Asheville last week ~ we spent a couple of days with my sister and celebrated my Mom's 69th birthday. We met at the Christmas Store and then went to Chelsea's for a yummy lunch. Happy Birthday Mom!!

We had a very busy and fun 4th! We started the day at our friend's house. We went swimming and had a delicious early dinner.

Then we went to Nana's house to visit, and let Andrew and Anslee play with their cousins.

After that, we went home and watched fireworks with our neighbors.

Happy 234th birthday, USA!!!

Pirate Land ARRRRRRRRRGG!

We went to Pirate Land in Myrtle Beach with our good friends, the Stows. When we started talking about the trip, I was a little apprehensive as I'd never stayed at an RV park before. I was so pleasantly surprised!! Everything was so laid back and the ammenities were perfect for the kids (and us!) It was so much fun!

Tea Party with the WWE

Anslee wanted to have a tea party with me. This is how our conversation went:

Anslee: Mom, I'm going to pretend to be the Taker.
Mom: What do you mean?
Anslee: At the tea party I'm going to be the Taker and I'm going to see if Andrew will be John Cena.
Mom: (Now realizing she means the Undertaker from WWE) Why are you going to be the Undertaker?
Anslee: Because he's AWESOME!! He does his eyes like this (rolls eyes upwards) and he has a great song (meaning the song that plays when he comes out.)
Mom: Who can I be?
Anslee: You can be Triple H because you'd really like him, or Chris Jerico. I wish we really could have a tea party with all the wrestlers, because it would be really fun!!

Hmmm... I think she's really influenced by her big brother.