Happy Thanksgiving, AGAIN! We finally got around to a real celebration! Here are the images and pictures from a very fun Holiday weekend!
Sammi created this collage from our dinner on Saturday. Details below!
Friday afternoon, Q took off work early to adventure with us.
It was back to Shang Kai Shek Memorial to check out the INSIDE displays - we learned more about China's struggle with Japan before Communism took over and the KMT fled to Taiwan. Clearly, EV was ENGAGED!
Then, since we were so close, we went to meet a roommate candidate at the temple - she was doing a later session, so we chatted over dinner. And while we were there, it seemed about time to get Kai to his FIRST round of temple baptisms! (I would have joined him, but my voice was on it's second day of absence, so I opted to come home and rest.)
Me and the kids in front of the Taipei Mormon Temple.
One of these people is not like the other!.... Kai just happened to be at the temple for the Tamsui Ward's temple night! It meant he had to hang out to wait for all the adults pictured to finish their session to bring him home. (ALL of the people above are adults - though some don't look like it! My sweet Sister Wu, or grandma Shirley, as she asked us to call her, is all the way on the left. Next to her is Grandma Margaret. The sister two down from Margaret is Sherry, who took us to see a colleague from Ballet West at a nearby University. Left of her is Coreena, our Relief Society President. Left of her, not bending over, is Helen Wu, who took us to Costco. And directly above her and next to Kai are our two bishops - the one on the left is recently released, and the new bishop is on the right with a hand in front of part of his face.)
Meanwhile, the rest of the family headed home on the MRT. Arthur entertained himself, and more than a passenger or two, with his "funny hair" which he requested I do for him.
Finally, Saturday was the big feast. We were joined by Sammi, Alan, Sophia, Alan's friend from college, and later, Sammi's cousin who also wanted to meet with us about being a Chinese roommate when we go back to Utah.
Below is the adult table. Place-mats are the left-over craft paper I bought for crafting at the Halloween party. We even bought paper plates and clear plastic cups for the occasion. And Veeve colored fall colors on the paper towels we folded for napkins. (We haven't seen true napkins anywhere in this country.) We also scored Martinelli's Sparkling Cider from Costco for dinner. Fancy!
We served from the top of the shoe rack and the microwave cart, both in the front room. The mashed potatoes (my best batch ever) were made in the wok. It was a relief they turned out so yummy because Sammi and Alan reminded us that they had come to my family's Thanksgiving when they were staying in Utah and Alan specifically remembered the mashed potatoes and had missed them for years. Mine held up to his memory. The yams turned out to be every one's favorite, though most started with a very small serving, assuming they wouldn't like them. The rolls, in our oven pictured below, I bought two nights before from a bread store. (The bread stores are SO fabulous here, we didn't miss homemade rolls for one second. I DO however miss JAM! Everything here is jelly, short on fruit and long on sugar.)
Alan was given the assignment of buying the turkey. I don't think they hunted far, but opted to bring two chickens instead. However, sadly the didn't go to BUY the chickens until AFTER he dropped his family off to eat, so not only did he miss dinner, but the rest of us missed eating meat with ours. We were able to make a chicken gravy from the drippings, which come with your rotisserie purchases here, and it was a big hit. Thankfully there were plenty of potatoes, so everyone had another serving or two with the gravy. And we served a salad with a dressing I made from lemon juice, olive oil, sugar, and dried thyme which I bought from the grocery store. We put pomegranate, celery, chopped walnuts and chopped apples in the salad too.
Anyway, I was THRILLED for our feast - it tasted a lot like home, and equally important, the food was enjoyed by all our guests, more than half of whom had never had Thanksgiving before! Yes, that is pure delight and anticipation on my face!
We have officially worn out our original welcome in Taiwan. Had we not extended, we'd be home now. Our landlord rented our apartment here before we changed our minds and decided an extra month in Taiwan beat being homeless in cold Utah, hands down!
So we might have been homeless here a for a few nights except for the kindness of our landlord. His name is JJ and his wife is Mabel. They have 2 kids, now in their 20's, whom they raised in the town of Dayuan which is right where the international airport is. They still live there, though their kids now live in Taipei. Aside from their home there, and the three bedroom apartment in Tamsui where we live, they also own an English cram school in Zhongli. Mabel opened the school with 6 students in a rented room, and grew it from there. In fact, she has just retired from running it since we've been in Taiwan. And JJ works as an engineer for the high speed trains - he is a rocket scientist by education.
Anyway, they are lovely people and we have liked them since the moment we met, now two months ago. JJ is more reserved, but has a twinkle in his eye. Mabel is loud, opinionated, bossy with the kids, and a real hoot! She is a fun character through and through, and by the end of our time with them this past weekend, Arthur was vying to stay up later at night by asking to snuggle with Mabel!
Sadly, our pictures of our time together are few. I think I've been pretty tired (and wound up getting sick on Sunday) but we saw and did and learned a lot I am happy to record!
First, Mabel came on Thursday to clean for the new guests arriving Friday and staying through Sunday morning. I was grateful she offered to clean because packing up everything to empty the apartment was a big enough job for me. (We were blessed to be able to leave almost everything next door at Sister Yang's house. Her husband was home, but she was in Shanghai). Still, out of gratitude for our place here and for letting us stay with them elsewhere while this was booked, AND out of a curiosity about house cleaning in Taiwan, I happily cleaned with Mabel.
As it turns out, I don't think I learned much at all about how most women clean in Taiwan. Mabel has her very own interesting techniques! Her cleaning items (which I had hunted for here, and not found) turned out to be shampoo and toothpaste! So I'd found them after all. She used toothpaste for the kitchen sink, counters and stove, and for the bathroom sink as well. On the mirrors, glass, and chrome, she used rubbing alcohol. And for the showers, tubs, toilets and floor, she used shampoo! She liked using these products because of their "safety." By her reasoning, because we can use them on our bodies, they are probably less toxic than cleaning chemicals. I think she is probably right. But I don't know how disinfected the bathrooms are. I may stick to my toxic chemicals at home anyway.
But she and I cleaned, the kids played in the bally room, and Q worked until we'd made everything company-clean. Then we loaded her car with our overnight bags and were off to their Dayuan home. We heard it was very spacious. And by Taiwan standards, it was! It was actually 2 homes which they modified to be one - the last two in a row of about 8 town homes. They were built 25 years ago and had garages! So they had 2 garages and a large kitchen because it was the ground floor of both homes. The second floor they kept divided, so we stayed on one side, and their home was on the other.
Our space was a family room with a futon, two chairs and our air mattress we brought and put on the floor for Kai. Around the corner on the back was a small bedroom with 2 twin beds Q and I slept on, and a bathroom. On this same level on the other side, JJ and Mabel had a small living room with 4 chairs in it - it didn't look like anyone ever used it - another small room in which they had their kids' toys boxed up and a stocked wine closet, an upright piano was in the hall, and there was another bathroom too.
Our space didn't have another level up, so to get to the third floor from our space, you either had to go down to the kitchen and up the flight of stairs on the other side, OR go out our "front door" and into JJ and Mabel's front door and up from there. So this third level had 4 bedrooms - JJ's and Mabel's, a room for Mabel's mother, their daughter's room, and their son's room, plus a wide hall which was being used as office space for Mabel after she left her cram school. I didn't see other bathrooms here, but my guess is that JJ and Mabel's room had one, and there WAS one in the mother-in-law room. Finally, the top floor had two balconies, a large family room with couches and a TV, and an office for JJ, and a bathroom.
So I'm pretty sure their home had at least 6 bathrooms and 6 bedrooms, NOT counting the toy room/wine closet! It had lovely potential. Q honored me while we were there, however, by not noticing the potential but instead the press of stuff that crowded the corners and diminished the loveliness. It seems that for many women here, either a sense of homemaking isn't taught or felt, OR no one has time for it because of the long work hours everyone suffers through. So the home felt more like an old college dorm or missionary apartment. It was nice for me to have my family experience a home like this to come to a deeper understanding of the labor of making a home reflect a sense of loveliness, and the peace that can be felt as a result of the effort to dejunk, repair, decorate, and beautify.
I hope I'm not coming across snobby or ungrateful! I'm sure our feelings of roughing it were amplified by the gas water heater going out resulting in cold showers, the hard beds, and the ant infestation in our space. Needless to say, though the home was large, it wasn't a lap of luxury.
And we learned a lot from that too! First, we gained a deeper sense of gratitude for our Tamsui accommodations. The beds are soft. It's as cluttered or as clean as we decide to make it. But it's new so when we clean, if FEELS clean. And it's relatively bug free. Secondly, as Q and I discuss the conditions under which we might like to come back to Taiwan, I have floated the idea that the country might suit us better. My thought was that country life would be simpler - we would find people with time to have a conversation. What we found in this corner of country-side is that people were just as busy, but that because cars are necessary, we might feel all the more isolated from interaction. And though the country was lovely, LIVING there didn't FEEL like living in the country of Cache Valley - clean, open, peaceful. We discovered we could feel trapped by the inconvenience of country life as easily as we might feel trapped in a crowded city.
We didn't know any of this when we planned our present trip. And of course, our feelings about here only reflect what we know about THIS apartment in Tamsui, or one tiny spot of country in Taoyuan. But we have realized, traveling around, how blessed we are to be living where we are. There are not many places we've seen that feel as broad, peaceful, clean, and therefore homey as where we live right now. I think Heavenly Father was really looking out for us when THIS place came together.
But back to our weekend! We went to dinner with JJ and Mabel to a lovely restaurant and had GREAT food Thursday night after JJ got home from work.
The crew at the restaurant.
On Friday, Q worked on the fourth floor where he could connect to their wifi, and Mabel and I went out with the kids. She took us to two plant nurseries. The first was much like any nursery you might find in Utah. In fact, many of the plants for sale we recognized. We met the owner, a friend of Mabel's, and chatted for a bit. Then she took us to the second nursery. I wasn't quite sure it WAS a nursery. It had a large, beautiful restaurant with nice views where she ordered a yummy lunch for us. After lunch she took us to a fish pond and bought fish food for the kids. After Kai scared the fish out of eating by trying to grab a few with a net, we discovered the kiddie electric cars that you could actually drive and steer for about 5 minutes for $10 NTD. Though there were plants for sale, THIS seemed like the place in town to be, so I finally asked Mabel what sort of place it was. She then told me the following story.
She said when they moved to Dayuan, it was a regular nursery, much like the one we had just visited. She would come and buy plants there, and one day she thought to herself that it would be nice if there was somewhere to sit and enjoy oneself during a plant buying errand. She thought how nice it would be to sip some tea, and consider the plants, and if she sat longer, she might see more than just the plant that she'd come to find, and be inspired to buy more. So she told the boss that she thought he should put up benches and sell tea. Well, the boss said he didn't have money for benches, and he wasn't sure about tea, and he thought it was a lousy idea, and who was SHE anyway. She said, "I'm an English teacher. And you could buy wood and make the benches yourself. You don't have to. But you COULD try."
So the boss bought the wood and built the benches and sold tea, and sure enough, people came and drank tea, and the boss made money on the tea and sold more plants. A few years later, Mabel had her little kids with her and again she had an idea. She told the boss, "You have this land. You should do something with it kids could enjoy, like a fish pond, or coin-operated toys. Then parents would bring their families, and maybe the kids would like to eat something, so you could sell them real food, and the families would stay a long time, and spend more money and buy more plants."
Well, the boss really thought Mabel was dreaming then! "Are you crazy, lady!?" He asked. "I don't have money for kid toys! And what do YOU know about plants, nurseries, or restaurants that makes you think that would work!?"
"I'm an English teacher," she told him. "And you could rent the kid toys, or split the profits from them with whomever owns them. Anyway, you could TRY. But you don't have to."
So the boss rented the toys, and they made the money for the pond, and business went so well he built a restaurant, and now his nursery is a destination, all because he listened to Mabel! Mabel says NOW when she sees him (he wasn't in when we came) she is offered to sit at the best table, and given free vegetables, and plants, and he is very grateful for a wise customer who has become his friend. (Below is a video of MY kids enjoying the kiddie rides.)
Anyway, I loved this story. I tried to record it here with some of the personality of Mabel's telling, but my retelling has probably fallen short. However, the story DOES illustrate who Mabel IS - a fiery go-getter with a can-do attitude. On Saturday evening, I learned perhaps some of that is genetics.
As I asked her about her family, I found out her grand-father was a general in the Guo Ming Dang (KMT) army that helped defeat the Japanese in China. Mabel, in fact, did not know this when she was young. Her grandfather was invited to come to Taiwan when the KMT fled to Taiwan to be an assistant to the Vice President here, so Mabel grew up thinking he simply worked in government. But growing up, she lived in the same house as her grandfather, which she said was very large and lovely, and which was given to her family as part of her grandfather's work. So when her grandfather died, they had to move. She said at one point, her grandfather along with other military higher-ups in the KMT were invited by China to return to the mainland. They were promised homes and prestige. As Mabel told me the story, I wondered if China had been trying to sever the upper leadership from it's rebel state at the time, leaving it incapable of becoming a threat. Anyway, Mabel said that her grandfather didn't go, and it was a good thing he didn't. He had a friend who did return, and instead of a home and prestige, he was thrown into prison and held for ransom. His family back in Taiwan finally scraped together the large sum to free their father, whereupon he was returned, but Mabel said that his memory was gone. She said he had been beaten and tortured and was just a shadow of a man until he finally died.
Anyway, that was a gripping story too. And I wondered if Mabel's grandfather possessed the same wisdom and bravery that Mabel seemed to have. Perhaps she got her height from him as well - she is taller than I am! For an older woman in Taiwan, that makes her VERY tall, and she said she is the shortest of all her siblings!
Back to our weekend, JJ and Mabel had a family event and left us at home on Friday night. There was food in the fridge we were invited to cook for ourselves, but it was a completely unfamiliar kitchen and I couldn't find pans I felt comfortable using. Instead, we ate the bread and peanut butter they had taken us to buy on Thursday night after dinner. We wound up pretty hungry and a bit trapped because of the isolated nature of their neighborhood. NO convenience stores within MILES!
On Saturday, JJ and Mabel got back from Taipei where they had spent the night and took all of us to Yingge and to Daxi. The time we had already spent in Yingge resulted in me and the kids really wanting to go back to the old street with Q. I wanted him to see the place, and the kids wanted to try their hands at pottery. We got to! Actually, EV was picked up from JJ and Mabels by Alan Friday night and went to stay with Sammi and Sophia for the weekend, as Eloise had the previous weekend. So it was our crew less EV on Saturday. But luckily for her, Sammi and Alan brought her to Yingge on Sunday, so she didn't miss out!
Our family spent hours there! Kai and Eloise got to make pottery which is going to be dried, painted and fired and sent to JJ and Mabel's house for souvenirs the kids can treasure! We shopped - I was hunting for a small, rectangular ceramic planter for a shelf at home, which I didn't find, but got a small, $2 pot instead. Kai got a ceramic whistle in the form of a whale, and Eloise got a ceramic whistle which makes bird sounds (which was sadly busted by Arthur a few days later on our hard floors).
After 5 hours, we headed to our next destination: Daxi. Both Yingge and Daxi were places I went on my mission. I had been back to Yingge with my mom and had done ceramic shopping then, but Daxi I had never returned to. I remembered it was a tiny town and that there was a lovely hike to a suspension bridge somewhere around there. I still don't know about the hike and the bridge - we arrived after dark and were first taken to an ancient hole in the wall for dinner - the "famous" local fare being only somewhat to our liking, as the "famous" local fare generally is. But after dinner, we found ourselves on Daxi's Old Street, and it may just be my favorite spot in Taiwan so far!
The evening lighting was not adequate to capture images to do it justice, and being the country-side, things were closing up fast, but this narrow street had 180 year-old structures on both sides! The names of the old businesses or families were carved in stone above the shop fronts. More than anywhere else, this place transported me to a different time!
BEYOND cool, one place whose exposed rafters and old furniture called to me had a gate in the rear through which you could see part of an old, but refurnished and in good repair home and courtyard! It was so picturesque I asked if we could go inside. The owner explained we weren't able to - that it was her personal residence, and that it included the building next door and extended beyond where we could see to include a whole other courtyard!
Well, I thought this was fabulous, so I went next door to see if I could see more and discovered, through Mabel's help, that actually, this home, in the same family for 5 generations, was attempting to receive preservation funds from the government and that YOU CAN go in under one special condition: you can purchase a family meal and tour! Mabel and I were thrilled and immediately booked our return date! Thanks to the size of our family, our two groups just meet their minimum of 8 people! Q and JJ just looked puzzled that Mabel and I were so beside ourselves with excitement. But Q agreed to put up the $60 for the experience, and so we'll be back as one of the last things we do in Taiwan! As for the kids, Arthur had fallen asleep in his stroller and missed much of this, and Eloise and Kai took it all in in stride, probably amused that their mother's favorite phrase seemed to be, "Isn't that cool!?" or "Isn't this AMAZING!?"
So I didn't get the pictures I hoped for THIS time, but maybe NEXT time I will!
That brought us to the end of a very long and exhausting day, and the next morning I felt more tired than I expected. On the way to church with JJ (Mabel had other commitments), I told Q I thought I was getting sick, and about half-way through their meeting, I knew it. My joints were achy and I was feeling more spent.
But I did manage the energy to take in Chinese evangelism with a great measure of curiosity! As we drove Mabel to the train station, she told us about her experience speaking in tongues. It certainly peeked our curiosity for the meeting we were headed for. The church was like the branches I remember serving in in Taiwan - in rented space in a commercial building. Except of course on the stand was a drum set and electric piano. The preacher was a woman who gave a very nice - TED-talk-style presentation on the peace of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The kids only understood when she said, "Amen?" and then answered herself, "Amen!" and they were quite amused by that.
That meeting was on the third floor. On the second was a separate meeting for the kids. Arthur was pretty restless with the adults so they left quickly. I stepped out to find them, but Q later told me, he had stayed restless in the kid meeting so Q took him on a walk and to get food on the streets of Zhongli. Kai and Eloise made it down to the second floor kid meeting too, and just missed all the excitement upstairs. After the preacher's speech, the band came up and began to play. The music was very contemporary, but the words - the parts I could understand - seemed to be about God's grace, power, and mercy. It also seemed the lyrics were pretty familiar with the congregation of about 100 people. I don't know if they sing this same number every week or not.
The singing lasted for maybe 15 or 20 minutes. The song morphed into various related but different melodies. Sometimes the music would get very loud, and other times the band played softly. In and out of pauses in singing, the preacher would insert more preaching, also at times almost shouting "Praise Jesus!" and other worship instruction, and then getting soft as she encouraged the congregation to "look inside and give all their stress, and their unhappiness, and their worry to the Lord." The people swayed. Some raised their arms. Some heads were bowed, but others were raised in rapture.
Sometimes the preacher encouraged everyone to pray aloud, and then the music would get really loud and would almost drown out the sound of everyone saying their own prayers (I assume for the murmur of voices I would be surrounded in.) JJ missed all of this too. I don't know where he went. Anyway, I was all alone, and I stood sometimes, and sat again when I felt too tired. And I went back and forth between feeling pretty uncomfortable with all this public display of affection for Jesus and being quite moved by the enthusiasm for the Lord displayed by the worshipers.
I had two take-aways. The first was to get myself to an evangelical congregation back at home! I was so sad the best part was missed by hubby and ALL the kids, but they could not have understood the words anyway, though I'm sure they would have found the music and singing interesting. And the other thing I liked was the moments where we were encouraged to begin a new walk with Christ, right there. I thought that down time where no one says anything but we are given space to think our own thoughts is a good thing and might be used better in our own worship experience. The preacher reminded me and Q of ME. :) I loved seeing a kindred spirit who was pretty clearly on fire about the scriptures, and excited to tell everyone about it! So it was fun to thank her for her message and get a hug before we left.
The kids had a less interesting meeting, by the sound of it. They watched a movie about a bible story that had been translated into Chinese. But like our own ward in Tamsui, they got FABULOUS treats - full size Snickers candy bars for each of them! Eloise came away with two little gifts from girls in the children's class - a hair bow and a tiny flower. The church members were friendly and excited to know how a family of foreigners came to join them. They seemed so excited to see us I didn't want to make the point that we would probably never see them again.
After church, JJ had made reservations for us to enjoy a Hakkah dinner at a local restaurant. I was slowly but surely fading, but was glad I had enough energy to not ask to be taken home because the food was great, and some of it was the better stuff from my second area, Miaoli, where there are more Kejiaren. I wish I had a better appetite, but I think the kids filled in where my enthusiasm lagged.
Arthur had broken out in hives the night before. We would have been more concerned, but it didn't seem he was. Mabel thought it was a food allergy and IF they were, our guesses were the taro or steamed peanuts we'd had with our hot, soft, dessert tofu Saturday night. If it was the peanuts, Stew got a double dose because the restaurant gave us a huge ball of glutinous rice in a smashed peanut and sugar mixture and he and Eloise went to town on it - mostly preferring the crunchy sweet powder to the gooey rice. (In the end, the hives seemed to fade on their own a few days later, still not bothering Arthur much. We never did figure out what brought them on, but it wasn't his first mysterious rash since he's been here....)
JJ had planned to take us to a museum in Bali after we'd gathered our things from their home and headed back north toward Taipei. But I knew it wasn't going to happen for me, and that I needed to get to a bed, fast. So the museum trip was cancelled and after lunch, we packed up our things, loaded up the car, and came straight back. Only we got stuck in traffic on the way back through Bali. That was personal misery! Joint aches were increasing, and chills were setting in. I did some quiet writhing in the back seat, but hopefully stayed a pleasant enough travel companion for JJ and my family. When we finally got in, JJ just made a note of the gas meter. Thankfully the place was left fairly well taken care of, so he wished me good health and left quickly.
Home again! But our medicine, food, and everything else was still at the neighbors who weren't answering their door. I asked Q for help putting our used sheets back on the bed and laid down while he took the kids to find dinner and buy groceries in Zhuwei. They got back around 7:30 pm. At about 9 pm we were joined by EV, and shortly after that, the kids went to bed, and then we got a knock on our door that our neighbors had returned. All that had been missing was finally back and I could truly rest!
Happy Thanksgiving! It's been a quiet day here. Literally. I caught a cold that wiped me out on Sunday and Monday, and apparently it's still alive in my system because today my voice is gone and my throat is killing me. However, when I consider the epically poor health our family was suffering days before we came to Taiwan, all I can feel is grateful that our health has been so stellar, on the whole, for our entire trip!
Our "Thanksgiving" feast - Thai food!
So we have spent this Thanksgiving laying low. I've been clapping for attention and whispering to the kids. We've cleaned the apartment - which is tiny, so it's a tiny task when everyone helps. We've studied Chinese. We've played. Kai has worked on writing. The kids are watching the movie Cars on TV now, Q is working, and in a few minutes we are going to go to dinner (hopefully find a Thai restaurant that was recommended to us) as a very distant nod to the celebrations that would just be beginning if we were home.
Really, I should be grateful for this too! Between Nutcracker and being hostess for Thanksgiving or hauling our whole family to Salt Lake for the feast, this has been so much more quiet and restful than any past Thanksgiving in a long time, and probably the future ones stretching on for years too. But I can't help but miss all that Thanksgiving is - food, family, cooking, cleaning, and even Nutcracker season.
Still, this Thanksgiving is special for us in it's own way too. Like the pilgrims we remember, our family are strangers in a strange land at the moment. I have reflected on the pilgrim/pioneer/immigrant story ever since we got here, and I have a few thoughts I'd like to share.
They begin with WOW. I have a new and unbounded admiration for FAMILIES who leave the lives they knew in pursuit of their dreams of something better. Immigrants, pioneers, and pilgrims have all left lands that they love - family members and neighborhoods, support systems they have trusted, roads that they knew - to venture into the unknown. Many times the "new world" has meant a new language and the isolation one can feel when a perfectly capable adult finds himself freshly illiterate.
My journey pales in comparison to the unknown faced by others. I speak the language, sort of. I have come before. And I know I am going home. But I had no idea how hard it would be.
I thought, naively, that because so many of the foods we enjoy at home are from whole foods, that I would be able to easily cook them here. It turns out that not even the fruits, vegetables, and meats are the same. If, somewhere nearby, they ARE, I wouldn't know how to ask to find what I'm looking for anyway. Sugar, butter, herbs are all staples packaged in a foreign tongue and looking nothing like they do at home. I've reflected on the evolution of national flavor as a result. Perhaps many of the foods we Americans think of as Italian, or Irish, or Scandinavian are only the echos of what the cooks could create once they found themselves in America. I admire and praise mothers who have brought their children into an unfamiliar environment and braved the babble of market places, or sewn their own seeds in unfamiliar soil, all in the hope of creating a flavor of home that will nurture the bodies and souls of their families.
We left a house full of comfort and I didn't expect to miss it quite as much as I have. Again, I knew I was coming to a modern, first-world country. I can't imagine saying good-bye to my beloved house and all it's comforts forever! How DID women ever agree to leave so much behind to carve out lives in the wilderness?!
In dozens of small, little ways, living life as a family away from the family life we knew has been a challenge. Sometimes not one I can even put into words, but one I certainly feel. I am often alone as a mother in a country where most mothers work. I am alone by my illiteracy. The loneliness can feel like it's own wilderness. And yet, I am not alone. I DO speak the language and the kindness of the people here has made an eternal impression. I feel blessed to have a "big" family - that while my children feel this loneliness too because all of THEIR peers are in school all day, they still have each other.
And OF COURSE there is an utter joy for us to be in Taiwan as well. And maybe the immigrants, pioneers and pilgrims felt that too - marveled at the mountains, open spaces, flora, fauna, cities, or opportunities, or reunion with family, and felt blessed. But I am humbled by their sacrifices as I take the smallest taste of what their experience might have felt like. My own little sample has certainly become it's own feast of thanks giving.
"Hong Kong? Oh boy!" is what the three big siblings on my family's side used to say when we were hitting the ketchup bottle to get the ketchup to come out. This line, which we thought incredibly clever in our immaturity, came from an episode of the Brady Bunch where they found out they were going to Hong Kong, whereupon one of the brothers smacked the ketchup bottle and ketchup exploded out all over the place. (Guffaw, guffaw, guffaw.) Maybe we thought this phrase had ketchup-hastening powers.
Anyway, that is about the extend to which we thought of Hong Kong in our youth.
Now I'm MATURE, I only sometimes think of the Brady Bunch or ketchup when someone says Hong Kong. And after yesterday, I might just mentally reference a pleasant 5 hours spent there!
That's right, we went to Hong Kong! Well, to be more precise, we went to the Hong Kong airport. Not by choice, really. A person, or family, may enter Taiwan visa-free for 90 days. BUT if a person, or family, THEN decides to stay LONGER than 90 days, there is simply no way to get an extension on that visa-free time. This being our situation, we needed to physically LEAVE Taiwan, which, instead of producing an extension, gave us another 90 days.
Had we planned on this from the beginning, we might have done it less expensively. We CERTAINLY could have accomplished it with less trauma. The story of buying the tickets is a painful, drawn-out one. I will say two things about it. The first is that it took me more time to buy the tickets ON THE CONVENIENT INTERNET, than we actually spent IN Hong Kong. The second thing I will say is, if you can find the right combo of technology glitches, interaction in a foreign tongue (which taxes me), AND unresponsive and unempowered airline customer service, and toss in time restraints and the pressure to save money, you will likely bring this grown woman to cry like a two-year old in frustration. Yes, I did. I'm not proud of it, but it was the perfect storm of all my personal hells.
Blessedly, the trauma occurred weeks before our trip, so I could get over the exhaustion of BUYING the tickets. And given that we were NOT spending the night or going anywhere IN Hong Kong, packing and preparation was a breeze! It felt a little bizarre to plan and take a day trip in a NEW foreign country. And it felt a little against some unspoken family code of making the most of our time, diving in deep, and drinking deeply from the cultural cup to not even leave the airport.
BUT any venture outside the airport would just increase the money spent (when our digs here were already payed for), and the demands on our energy, which perhaps wasn't at any sort of sustainable, "adventure within the adventure" level - at least not for maneuvering 4 kids in a tight time-frame through a COMPLETELY unfamiliar city, which happens to be one of the world's largest and craziest. Even justifying this now just seems wrong, but trust me, it FELT and feels RIGHT that we handled this in this way.
Basking in Hello Kitty scent.
So we were picked up by a driver whom Sammi had helped us arrange at 8 am. It was lovely to be taken in comfort and peace through the heading-off-to-work, Taipei traffic all the way out of Taipei and on to the international airport. Once there, we had time to kill - we still had the 2 hour advance check-in for international travel. But airports and malls these days have a lot in common, so we were able to spend some serious time and not a cent in the Hello Kitty store a few doors down from our gate. The girls and I got a kick out of ALL the Hello Kitty products - she has her own perfume line! - while Arthur played on the store's slide and Kai junked on a Hello Kitty cartoon playing on a TV.
The kids were pretty pumped about the airplane ride too, especially once they heard it was just an hour and a half instead of 14 hours! We got lunch. Ordering Hindu vegan this time was a miss - I guess you win some and lose some. And the kids and I watched the Minion movie. At the airport, Q didn't miss a chance to add to his yoga world tour album, and on the plane, mostly he meditated. (My favorite part of the whole day was listening to Arthur giggle at the Minion movie. The movie wasn't my cup of tea, but hearing his giggles made every minute watching worth it.)
Neither Q nor I sat near a window there OR on the way back, and the kids were too engrossed in their viewing to look out at all. So we didn't even really SEE Hong Kong. But the airport was nice. I had done some research before going, and apparently it has a high ranking among the airports of the world, for travelers. Of course, being an airport, we set our expectations pretty low, so we were pleased it wasn't torture.
Lunch - Thai and Japanese from the food court - was hot, affordable, and delicious. We probably landed around 12:30. Got off the plane pretty much LAST waited another 20 minutes for China Air to get our gate-checked stroller to us, got through customs, into the other terminal, and had ordered food by 1:30. We ate at about 2, and at 2:30 had only another hour to kill before we needed to get to that two hour international flight check-in deadline. My mind kept functioning in lay-over mode and feeling like we could just saunter back to our gate. But it was like two whole separate trips squashed in one day, and I had to keep reminding myself of that to not skip any steps.
Beauties, bug-splatted on the plane.
In that hour, we checked out a aviation display area that might have been cool in it's day - less than a decade ago. I don't know how long everything had been busted for, but the place was a ghost town. Seeing that it was just us, and that things were broken anyway, it was nice to let the kids go free and play in, around, and on the broken displays. If the one or two workers behind the Imax theater desk noticed, they didn't care. (We didn't catch an Imax showing. As I mentioned, things were pretty deserted, so I assumed we'd missed a time, and all that was showing from what I could read and understand, was a James Bond film anyway. NOT one for the kids.)
The fun continues: Everybody pretend to not have neck! THIS is exciting!
After hitting this, we headed back to check-in. Though the lines were non-existent, the gal processing our tickets and passports was having some sort of issue made worse by the two travelers in our party with the same first name. So we stood there and amused ourselves for a full half hour!
If the plane had been on time, we would have barely made it through security and customs in time to board! But like the flight here, it was delayed. Thankfully, in THIS airport there was a whole children's playground a few gates down from ours and the kids finally got in play time with PEERS! And Q checked off another stop on his Yoga World Tour.
AND Q's Yoga world tour is finally gaining a following of devotees, albeit tiny ones.
Eloise and her 3.5 yr old little budy on her way from Australia to India
for the funeral of a grandpa she never knew. How can I complain about MY
travel conditions, when my fellow travelers are
traveling with conditions like this!
Right as they were getting nice and sweaty, and bonded to their playground friends, it was time to board and we went to get on the plane. We always try and get on LAST so there is less sitting-around-in-cramped-quarters plane time. It was a miracle that we didn't board first when we were supposed to! Once on the plane, we sat at the gate for maybe another 20 minutes. I don't know what that delay was about, but the in-flight entertainment wasn't running (as we had been told at the gate it WOULD be) so I fielded a lot of energy from Arthur about why he couldn't watch the Minion Movie AGAIN yet.
Finally, we pulled away from the gate, the entertainment began, and.... we sat for maybe another 30 minutes waiting for our turn to take off. But the kids were into their movies once again, so all was well. This time I watched a romantic comedy - 27 Dresses. Boo. The flight was only supposed to be about an hour and 15 minutes, so I had warned the kids they might not get to finish their movies.
Well, we got a big, fat chunk of extra time at the gate, AND because of our late arrival, we were again delayed by almost 20 minutes in the air! We had to circle around for a while before we were cleared to land! So everyone finished their movies - Q speed watched two! And we were fed dinner (they were out of Hindu vegetarian so we ate what everyone else got, whatever that was).
We were supposed to arrive just before 7pm, but didn't get out of the airport (no pausing for luggage, obviously) 'til nearly 9pm! I was so glad to have a cheerful driver and space to spread out in again on our way home! And the driver took us home by heading north, passing through Bali where we'd gone biking instead of driving all the way through Taipei, so it was a peaceful and interesting drive.
I know this is small pleasure, but a big van for the six of us, with everyone in his or her own seat, just feels delightful after cramped taxi rides or in the cars of friends. This was a shot on the way there. Arthur slept in my lap on the way home - another small pleasure!
Despite the CRAZY delays, all in all, it was a nice day. I was thrilled to be traveling simply to travel. There wasn't anywhere to BE, no one to meet, and nothing to do. It was all about the journey and we could just experience it for what it was. It was a far cry from being relaxing - in fact, the 14 hours return trip was exhausting and my neck was in a bad way the following morning. But we survived, and we got a new legal lease on life here in Taiwan, literally, so the journey was a success!
Farewell, Hong Kong! In the future we may find ourselves saying, quite as accurately as I once said of Texas, "We sometimes think of Hong Kong." And at least we won't be really thinking of the Brady Bunch. What a legacy I've given my children! Ha!
When we went through the National Palace Museum, home to all the treasures taken from the Imperial City in Beijing, China, one of our big take-aways is that we wanted to know more about the ceramic-making process. As it happens, Yingge, just outside of Taipei, used to be one of the ceramic capitals of the world before China took back the business it had exported here centuries ago.
So when the friend we met on the gondola suggested Yingge as a destination, I knew I was going to follow through and get us there!
This past Wednesday, it's just what we did!
This ceramic tile mosaic is at the Yingge Train Station.
We met Xiaoya and her twins, Zhongming and Shangming, at our MRT stop and we were off together. We actually went through another destination I wanted to hit with the kids as well - Taipei's Main Train Station. But we stayed beneath ground and didn't get any sense of the size of it, so we'll need to go back.
It took Arthur a while to feel brave enough to sit with the twins. But THEY had toys along for the ride, and he did not. So in the end, the toys won.
We transferred there to a real train as opposed to the trax-like MRT, and headed out of the Taipei basin.
Xiaoya explained the Ceramics Museum was a short walk from the train stop, but that the way was crowded with cars. Not having seen someone trying to maneuver a double-wide stroller anywhere, I may not have noted this any more than any other location in Taiwan. Being with Xiaoya makes me feel so blessed for the zoning and accessibility laws back home. But she is one tough cookie, and by her guidance (and extended hand to stop traffic from time to time) we were all guided safely to the museum.
So we arrived safe, but fairly wet too. Both she and I had checked the forecast and separately ruled out lugging umbrellas with our loads - her load of stuff, and my load of people. There was only a 10% chance of rain. But it was coming down in steady, small drops all the way from the station to the museum. At one point, paused at a light, I asked if there was any place we might stop to get food and let the rain pass. But Xiaoya said the most spacious place for her stroller and my kids WAS the museum, so we pressed on.
It was a blessing we did. The museum cafe was not too pricey - I got 4 sandwhiches for just over $10 and we beat the lunch rush. AND it was plenty roomy for the kids not only to sit, but to play chasing games as well. Beyond this, however, after we got to the museum, it started to dump rain outside. I was so relieved to not be caught in the downpour. So we ate, watched the rain, watched the kids run, and geared up to go see first what her kids liked most.
Trapped 6 kids in one ceramic blue castle sculpture!
Luckily, the rain let up just as we headed out to their favorite spot which happened to be outside, in the ceramic park. It was empty of patrons, which suited us fine. We walked past splash pads closed for the "winter" and other ceramic sculptures to a working kiln with an enormous sand-box play area near-by. But as Xiaoya was explaining that her kids mostly liked to come and play in the sand, it started raining again. My own children were completely tempted by the design of the sand-box - inside it there were structures built to look like Chinese ruins, providing interest and shade for the diggers. But I told them we had not come prepared for getting wet OR dirty, and there were sandboxes at home. I said we would let our friends play and go check out the museum itself - learning while we were in Taiwan something more about THIS place.
Kai is his own work of art!
So we ran through the rain back inside, and while exploring how to get to the museum's information displays, were rejoined by Xiaoya and her boys. She WAS prepared for the dirt (she had even hauled sand toys with her), and didn't seem to mind the rain, but one of her boys wanted to stay with us, so we took in the rest of the place as together as 3 three-year-olds allow... when they all have different ideas about what the MOST fun thing to do is... which may be completely different from the opinions of the other 3 non-three-year-olds.
I think that has been something I've loved about being with Xiaoya - it doesn't seem like she has an expectation that her kids won't climb, or won't be loud, or won't run, or won't interrupt. She is fully present with them - not on a device. And because she is comfortable allowing her kids to be who they are (including playing in the sandbox in the rain, or covering themselves with the tourist stamp ink) I feel much more comfortable about my kids being themselves, and neither of us seem to need to talk without kid interruption, and so while we comfortably chat, we can also comfortably (and without apology) NOT talk to one another while we referee, manage, feed, answer, and teach.
Engaged by displays...
As for the museum itself, that my kids learned anything means it gets an A! Six kids, half of them 3 years old, to two adults means it can get crazy. But EV learned that even simple works can take a lot of skill, Kai was fascinated by the technology possible with advanced ceramics, and Eloise liked the videos about how the pieces were made.
As we worked our way through the museum, I couldn't help but notice that the rain was getting worse, not better. Xiaoya and I had discussed when we needed to leave to walk back and catch the next train - 2pm. At 1:30 I looked out at the sheets of water and told the kids to each say a prayer. "Pray," I told them, "that by the time we go, it won't be raining outside." I really, really didn't want to be wet for the hour we would be in air-conditioned public transportation.
In that last half-hour I kept glancing out the window, and kept praying too, because it didn't seem to be letting up at all! At 1:50, Xiaoya commented that it sounded like a typhoon outside. I prayed harder. By 1:55, things had calmed into a drizzle and we headed for the door. At 1:58, it seemed to be merely sprinkling. "We can do sprinkling," I thought.
My last glance outside before we were out ourselves revealed NO drops in the giant puddles that had formed from the storm.
And then....
We exited the building and the sun broke through the clouds!
Xiaoya, her boys, the double-wide ride, and the SUN!
We walked all the way to the train with the sun shining down on us, though we had to do some impressive puddle leaping.
It was yet another miracle and I was sure to point it out to the kids. I have such confidence in the prayers of children! I told Xiaoya, too, of our secret prayers. She looked surprised and said, "Wow! Prayers are really useful!"
We made it back safe and mostly dry - I think it was sprinkling a bit in Tamsui. What an adventure! My favorite part was definitely the timely sunshine!
Faces turned towards the camera means everyone is feeling more confident on the return trip... or they are distracted by food!
For a long time, our cleaning day has been on Monday. Missionaries also rest from proselytizing on Mondays, but I didn't pick up the habit of cleaning on Monday on my mission. Instead, Monday is the first day after I have rested over the weekend, hence, it's the day when the house is the biggest disaster.
Our home here in Taiwan can only hope to be a little disaster, because it's simply not large enough to be a big disaster, but we still give it a little extra love on Mondays.
However, this past Monday, we found ourselves doing other things missionaries do with their "day off" too. In fact, we met up with the missionaries in the morning.
We go to the next MRT stop down from where we live to buy groceries. We were out of food and they needed to email their families. We crossed paths at 11am so they could drop off a green papaya salad a member had made for us the night before that we hadn't had time to come and get. Seeing them there, in their white shirts, smiles on their faces, and up to all the business of preparation, or P-day, my heart wanted to do something for them, and I asked if they wanted to come to our place for Oreo shakes (a soft spot with the elders when I was a missionary). Sure enough, their faces lit up. They were fasting, so I invited them to come for dinner too. At the store, I was able to grab food I knew at least the American elder would appreciate: makings for a fresh green salad.
Then we headed home, now needing to clean for company!
However, Q was in the mood to get OUT of the house, so he took the kids hiking. That's an activity missionaries often enjoy on their p-days as well.
So I cleaned and cooked, the kids got time with dad and a larger taste of the hills near our home, and the missionaries came at 5pm for chicken curry, green salad with homemade dressing, and my favorite veggie, water lily (xue lian). For dessert we DID have oreo shakes and they were a hit! Elder Dong washed all the dishes while I blended the shakes in our tiny, 2 serving blender.
Left: Shot on a later day, but none the less hard-core for it!
This picture is from the Elder's second visit - for a Thanksgiving themed meal.
Then, before they left, I had an idea. Arthur was still limping. I decided he could use a priesthood blessing and asked the Elders, who I knew would have oil, if they minded lending a hand. Q gave them the opportunity to do it all, and Arthur was anointed in Chinese and blessed in English by Elder Jensen.
It was a very nice blessing. The miracle of the blessing itself was the wild Arthur, who had been full of explosive noise and crazy personality all evening, sat in complete stillness in my lap for the whole thing. I think everyone felt something special in the room as the blessing was said, because afterwards, all the kids seemed a little different.
Anyway, the missionaries left at about 7 pm, and we cleaned up, finished our evening rituals, and went to bed. And....?
In the morning, Arthur was walking normal, and running too, and on his tippy-toes! I don't know what was healed, or how different things felt for him. I just knew that on Monday night I had been planning on taking him in for an x-ray on Tuesday if he showed no improvement. And on Tuesday morning, it didn't seem necessary.
I'm grateful for this missionary p-day to connect me, again, to the joys experienced by the missionaries!
On Sunday (Nov 8) after church, our friends, Sammi and Alan, came to take us hiking in our backyard national park, Yangminshan. After first having egg sandwiches here, the hikers set off. Stew and I were left behind. He had his foot stepped on in a bouncy house the day before and was still favoring it. I was hoping at some point that afternoon he'd actually take a nap with me, but he preferred to junk out on the TV, which he rarely does, so to keep the peace and minimize the disappointment of being left behind, I let him. He and I enjoyed the junk-out together. :)
Meanwhile, those who were whole headed back to the crazy-steep hike we'd only seen near the volcano with John Chang and his wife and son. That was the destination aimed for. Like all good goals, sometimes you realize you just aren't up for it, and Sammi and the girls turned back half-way up. They enjoyed a picnic back by the cars and relaxed and played for a bit. (Right: The mist-pollution combo you see in the air in the picture to the right made it no less HOT. Everyone took jackets, but even at this elevation, they were NOT needed.)
The girls missed the excruciating part, I'm told by the boys. It was the right choice, as the boys not only had one heck of a hike, but they had to feel their way back in the fading light after 5pm. I hear there were some slips and falls by all, but they all returned able to walk and home to dinner with me and Arthur just after 7pm.
We feasted on tillapia from Costco and spicy green beans, water lily, Korean-style potatoes that were a hit with Alan despite his official anti-potato stance, and Korean-style cucumbers that everyone loves. Then, we all enjoyed one another's company until after 9pm when Sammi, Alan, and Sophia headed home.
Though I missed the adventure, Q remarked how tough our family seemed. After all, we hike quite a steep hill to apartment complex about once a day, if not multiple times. He and I have visions of keeping it up back at home, utilizing the hills in Millville to keep us strong. After all, the adventures of life are so much more easy to enjoy when living life makes you ready to meet them!
When I let go of helping the kids obtain perfect Chinese by enrolling them in school in Taiwan, I increased my desire to find someone who could live in our home and continue to teach them. After all, I am nothing if not a firm believer in OUTSOURCING what seems difficult. And continually engaging the kids on this subject has been tricky, to put it mildly.
So we have announced to friends, acquaintances, social networks, etc. the specifics of hoping to find a Chinese live-in tutor for our family. Due to the live-in nature of the arrangement, we're only looking for girls. We hope to find someone who really likes and can engage with KIDS. It seems that is the most important characteristic, and after that, assuming they are a native Chinese speaker, everything else should fall into place.... Right?
So we've begun the "interview" process, which just looks like meeting with people who have expressed interest to gage their true connectivity with the kids. Our first candidate, Abby, was a hit. She came here Nov 1 and came to our ward Family Home Evening last week. She is investigating dates and tickets now.
We've had flaky issues with a few people and this past weekend were finally able to meet our next candidate, Vivian. That entailed a trip with Kai to the neighborhood of his Saturday ballet class. Q came along and we made quite a day of it. Near the MRT station in Yuanshan, there is an exhibition center and on weekends, a "farmer's market" (likely distinguishable from traditional markets in some way which I'm not aware). I hoped these would provide an engaging back-drop to relax and get to know someone.
Meanwhile, much of MY actual relaxing time was spent pulling away to get Kai to class, then on walking back from that drop off to spend 45 minutes with the fam, to pull away again to walk back to get Kai. Phew. (Hence, perhaps, the lack of meaningful photo documentation.)
But a good time WAS had by those who did less walking/dancing. The market was fun. Vivian took us to a lego cafe where the kids could play while the adults sat, ate, and looked at their phones. At least, that was what the other adults there did. The food didn't look like our scene - cake and pizza - and our other adult, Vivian, WAS into legos and did interact a bit with the kids but not so much with Q or myself. She didn't seem especially engaging either when we sat to watch Arthur and Eloise on the bouncy house, or when all the kids climbed on and through the banyan tree.
She came with EV and me to get Kai from class, and I tried to draw her out on that walk, but it mostly wound up being me carrying on about myself so that it wouldn't feel awkward. So I don't know that Vivian is the one. I think we may try to have her to our home to see if it's just a crowded atmosphere that kicks her inner-introvert into high gear.
But while our purpose in having the whole family go may have been a bust, the kids got to see a fantastic street performer who was part dancer (robotic movements to progressively push his torso low and parallel to the ground, like going under a limbo stick and then slowly raising again), part magician (like making a whole wine bottle disappear), and part stupid human tricks (sword swallowing and even balloon swallowing, which they reported he never removed so perhaps it popped. YIKES!). I missed it all, but judging from the enthusiasm with which the whole family recreated for me parts of his act, it was something to see!
The kids with the street performer who deserved to be much more, I'm told.
Meanwhile, I was trying to keep Arthur safe on his choice of entertainment: a bouncy slide and house. Only I didn't head the prompting to not let him go into the bouncy house. I didn't want to create a scene fighting him about it, after all. So I didn't interfere when he sauntered over to the bouncy house, and only minutes later, was kicking myself as he emerged screaming and limping. He was crying hard, as if he had busted something. The pressure on him and me as I tried to care for his needs - a thousand eyes on the foreigners - was too much so I summoned Eloise to grab their shoes and I carried him to a removed bench where I hoped to get him to calm down so I could assess things.
I started by wiping off his sweat and grime from playing. After I cleaned his face, then hands, then feet, fed him a "treat" from my bag, and had him take a big drink of water, he was just intermittently whimpering so I told him I was going to play piggy with his toes. He told me one was hurting. This distracted him further and I was able to confirm that all the piggies got to the market and could come home again. So we put on his shoes and headed back to the tree for more gentle play, but he didn't want to walk. And once I put him down there, he was still favoring it.
I snapped this picture, merely fascinated by the make-shift nature of this stroller. Little did I know that in a few hours, my little boy would be needing such a contraption!
Finally, after giving Kai some time after his class wrapped up to have fun, I called time and we said good-bye to Vivian, taking home from our day's adventure a few black sesame crackers and a limping little boy.
(Follow-up on Arthur: I gave him children's ibuprofen for the next two days, Sunday and Monday. By Monday night he was still favoring it, and I told Q we would need to take him in for an x-ray. Then.... well, that's for the next entry!)
In the imaginings of my youth, I was getting married when I was 25 in the midst of a fantastic career as a ballerina. Finally, when I was nearly ready to hang up my point shoes and walk away from the fame and leading roles, I would have a child or two at about 34 or 35.
A changing path - and sometimes I follow, but I lead and walk beside too!
Taiwan, the first time around, changed that path in two ways. As a missionary, I learned to like kids and even want some of my own. Not that before I had hated children or wanted to never be a mother. But before my mission, motherhood seemed more like an inescapable duty I could put off for a while, and ON my mission, a family came to be something I WANTED.
The second change was that I didn't want to put it off as long as possible either. A part of that was likely because I'd already retired from ballet, or so I had thought. But I remember a distinct experience of looking out on a congregation, likely before I spoke, and noticing these older women with little children. I remember thinking that if I waited 'til I was old to have little ones, that I would be OLD. I wanted my mothering to come in a time and season where I had more energy, youth, playfulness to give my children. I didn't want to be the old moms I saw.
The upside of less energy - still being in bed when your kids wake up so you can snuggle!
Who says I can't have playful energy! Here, me and EV compare
our crazy morning hair.
As it turned out, my first plan was closer to reality than I could have imagined on my mission. In the first place, I became a dancer again! Who would have guessed THAT was possible! But I also didn't feel especially drawn towards marriage for a few years after getting back either. I DID get married at the beautiful age of 25 after all. I didn't get the chance to walk away from leading roles, but I did walk away from the career to have a family. By Utah standards, that walk came late- I was 27 when I had my first kid! Still, I wasn't old. If anything, I was a peer to all the early-twenties moms!
Me and my first on the way to ballet - a love I have passed to my posterity!
Now I actually LIKED kids, and ESPECIALLY my OWN, I had a few, wrapping up with my last at 36. Still young. And brought them all back to Taiwan at 39, while I was young enough to have the energy for the adventure!
Hard hats for hard heads - Thank goodness for the guidance of God AND children in life's journey!
So I'm here in Taiwan, again, and looking out this time at the moms as peers. And I find myself wondering when things changed. When did the moms here marry and start their families earlier? For these were YOUNG moms! And then I realized, I've become the old mom to my 21 year-old self! Ha! And I guess I'm not the cute, playful, young mom I wanted to give my kids 18 years ago. But I am the wise mom with a life-time of experiences and passions I can share with them. And, like most mothers I know, I am the mom I was meant to be!
Maybe it's not our youth that makes us strong, but our experiences gained in it, and the love of those around us!
