my big sister

(This is the traditional dress of her minority people group.

She wears this each day, as do many of the women of her generation.

The younger generations do not continue this since many of the minorities are assimilating into the more popular culture and many traditions and languages are being lost.)

This is Da Jie (pronounce Da with a short A and Jie like Geah), meaning big sister. It's traditional that I would call her this but everyone calls her Da Jie. Her whole family, even her actual older sisters. The boys call her Da Ma, Big Momma. But no matter what you want to call her I call her a blessing.

Whenever I talk to anyone in the States and mention that I have a house helper I feel slightly guilty. I'm afraid that they won't understand why and I always feel the need to justify it. Because we do what we do I always feel like it gives other people the impression that I'm sitting here watching movies and eating bon bons (you know, like all SAHM do ;) while someone else is doing all the house work and taking care of the boys. I also sometimes think to myself, I could do it without help, having her here is just making me lazy...until this week. It is Mid-Autumn Festival and harvest time so she stayed in her village to help her family. After the last few days I am absolutely reminded that Da Jie plays an important role in our day to day life.

First of all, if you ever get the chance to come and visit we have to sit down and let you hear her amazing story. She came to know the Lord about 6 years ago, when she worked for some friends of ours that are now back in the States. She has strong faith and a servant's heart. So when our friends were leaving they asked her if she would like to work for us. In this culture anyone that has status (which we do by default) or is well off is expected to have a house helper. For us we find that it saves me time in the little things--this week the shopping process seriously took almost an entire day between the actual shopping and then the washing of everything, usually Da Jie helps and it goes much faster, mostly because she has been doing it her whole life. The time I save allows me to spend time with the boys and study, hopefully when the boys are older it will allow me time to get out and do work. The bonus of having a local in our home is that she helps me with culture and language learning. Anyway, some of you may still think I am lazy and I'm ok with that. What I really wanted to do is give credit where it's due. My big sister has become such an important part of our life here. We feel so completely blessed to have her in our home, to partner with her in work and to be her friend.

Autumn Apple Salad

Thank you to everyone who gave exercise and healthy eating suggestions. I even had a friend who has lived here and knows what's available, thanks AnnaLee! Keep any suggestions you have coming. I'm always looking for new ideas with meals because dieting can get awfully boring without trying new things. I found a good recipe at allrecipes.com for a fruit salad that didn't include mayo, cream cheese or whipped cream. Usually those things turn a perfectly healthy snack or side dish into a tasty but high calorie option but this kept the calories low without losing the tastiness. Bonus!

Autumn Apple Salad

(for 4 servings)
4 Granny Smith apples
1/4 cup walnuts (the recipe called for slivered almonds but I can't get those here)
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup raisins (called for dried cherries but raisins are easier and cheaper)
8 oz. low fat vanilla yogurt (I can't get low fat here but I think low fat yogurt in the States tastes better anyway, plus I had strawberry flavored on hand and used that.)
a drizzle of honey to taste

Chop apples into cubes and stir all together until all fruit is evenly coated by yogurt/honey mixture.

Simple as that. Next time I will add some banana in there too just because we all like them so much. Really you can add just about anything you want. The tartness of the apples was just so great mixed with the sweetness. This went great with blueberry pancakes and bacon when we made breakfast for dinner. The boys LOVED it. Any other healthy fallish dishes out there? Send them on!

nursing

OK, first of all let me start with saying that I am not one of those women that has a huge emotional tie to breast feeding or feel that I am intensely more connected to my child due to breast feeding. I have been blessed to be able to nurse my babies with relative ease. I do not practice attachment parenting. It is fine for some families but what has (and is) worked/ing best for our family is using the PDF method set forth in Babywise. I'm a scheduled person, I like knowing what my day will bring for the most part and how to get everything done around my baby's eating and sleeping schedule. But, as I step on my little parenting soapbox, I can in no way understand why we as mothers continue to place judgement on and criticize other mothers. Each of us knows the struggles and internal conflicts that come with being a mother. Should I work outside of the home or be a SAHM? Cloth or disposable diapers? How many children is the right number for my family? Public, private or homeschooling? Does he/she have a fever? Do I call the doctor? Has he/she eaten enough today? Oh no, another blow out! Ahhh, the only pair of comfortable jeans I own seriously smell like spit up! You get my point. We are in many ways all in the same boat. I'm just as guilty of the next mom for judging but I have to tell you I am seriously praying for my mind to stop that horrible mess. We should be more encouraging and supportive of each other. Especially now that there are far more serious things our children are facing at much younger ages. When it comes down to my children making important choices, like whether or not to except their friend's offer of drugs, it's not going to really matter if they were breast fed or not. Enough on that, I just got totally side tracked but I had to say it. I'm changing my thinking and praying so hard to be an encourager and not judger of other moms.

My real point is that this time around nursing is posing some new obstacles. With Kirby it was easy peasy. He was my only child so once we got the actual process down it was nothing. Then came Bennett, still not such a big deal. Kirby was 19 months old when Bennett was born so still very much at an age where I could keep him occupied for the time it took to nurse. A snack or short video was always a good option, not to mention the fact that at that point he was awesome at independent play. But now we have Judah. He is just as much a good nurser as the other two but Kirby and Bennett are at much different stages. Almost even more demanding simply for the fact that they are much less easy to occupy. Yes they do ok to play on their own, yes they can get their own snack if need be, yes Kirby can go to the potty unassisted. However, if you factor in the brotherly squabbles, the 'hey, I want to paint/play with play dough/go outside/etc.' and so many other things that only they can think of I find myself saying so very often...'I'm a little busy right now, you will have to wait.' I do not at all mind telling my children to wait but patience is not something they are very good at so I then have to endure whining, which is not so good for my patience. So we have resorted to watching much more TV than I had hoped and much less of the other activities that I would much rather the boys be doing. I am quite honestly putting off potty training Bennett because I know I can't give it enough attention. The preschool things I wanted to do with Kirby and Bennett will have to wait a while. Judah is ever so slowly working to extend his schedule so hopefully that will make life much easier on us all. I refuse to stop nursing just because it would make my days easier. The advantages, both for health (his and mine) and financial (formula is even more expensive here if you can believe it), far outweigh the inconvenience. But I definitely never thought that something that never really posed a problem two times before is now an issue. Alas, Bennett will eventually be potty trained and both will eventually know all the same things other preschool age children know. The added bonus is we will all continue to get a lesson in patience. Although in many ways this is a difficult season I don't want it to pass too quickly.

forgetful and clumsy

These are two of my very prominent yet personally disliked characteristics. Both come quite natural, are increased during pregnancy and have yet to return to normal levels. I've always been someone that has butter fingers and steps on the toes of others (literally). These occurrences greatly multiply during pregnancy, so much so that when I'm not pregnant and I'm having a particularly clumsy day Stan will start to get suspicious. And I definitely have my absent minded days. I feel like I used to have it together so much more but since becoming pregnant with Kirby, pregnancy brain turned into baby brain, turned into toddler brain, turned into preschooler brain, turned into mush. A good example happened just last week. I returned from my morning errands to find that we were without power. Since I had been at the market I needed to hop in the shower. I knew I could take a hot shower because our hot water heater connected to the shower is large and wouldn't have had time to cool down. So I shower and then go down stairs to get a bite to eat before time to feed Judah. I wanted to reheat some leftovers so I started to get it all ready, all the while having a conversation with DaJie (what we call our helper, meaning big sister) about how the power was out but I still had hot water, blah, blah, blah. She must have thought I was completely insane. I finished getting my lunch all prepared turned to the microwave and said 'Oh'. She laughed at me, as well she should have. She seems to laugh at me a lot. Sometimes I really wonder what she is thinking that she doesn't say out loud, probably something about her crazy American little sister. Thankfully now that she's been with us a year she is much more a friend than anything so she has come to expect me to spill, drop an trip frequently. Big sisters are good like that. Not only does she help me with language and cultural learning but she helps make sure I don't burn the house down. Which very well could be a risk with my coordination of late. And don't even ask me to prepare any type of food without some type of spill. That must be why whenever I start to make something she is extremely eager to help me, well that and she really is gifted with an incredible servant's heart. She needs a post all of her own, maybe soon to come.

So what I really want to know is will my clumsiness ever return to its more mild version of years before? Will my brain mush ever reform into a solid and be capable of retaining the slightest bit of information? Am I destined to depend on my Big Sister to keep me from disaster and sticky notes to keep my To Do's in order? Maybe, but I think I can handle it. If this is who I am to be permanently then I will accept it, move on and laugh at myself. Cause like Granny always says, 'It's better to laugh than to cry'!

i heart october

October is my absolute favorite month. Autumn is my absolute favorite season and alas October is Autumn to me. I decided to make an 'i heart October' list to bring in this wonderful month...enjoy.


-The humidity drops and is sometimes almost non-existent. This really only applies when I live in NC cause there seems to almost always be humidity in FL and hardly ever here, but growing up October brought great relief and the ability to straighten my hair with ease.

-Fall clothes are the best. I love to layer and my favorite is wearing jeans and a short sleeved shirt with flip flops and being so comfortable. Then throwing on a comfy sweater in the evening.

-The smell of clean, crisp air.

-The leaves changing color. The middle of October in the NC mountains is heavenly. I've never lived in the mountains (ok, well I do now but I meant in NC) but I remember lots of Fall time drives there as a kid. Or maybe I just made them up in my head, either way, it's the best. I'm seriously trying to plan for us to make it to NC in October during our first trip back to the States so Stan and I can have a weekend getaway in the mountains. I quite possibly might schedule the whole 6 months just around that. Grommy and Poppy, go ahead and mark your calendars now to watch the boys. Thanks.

-Stan and I met in October 10 years ago and started dating in October 9 years ago. Is is possible that Stan and I have been a couple that long!?!? I guess so since we started dating when I was 20...wow. I really wanted to get married in October but my love of the month wasn't worth putting the wedding off 7 more months.

-The State Fair. I love the crowds. I love the rides. I love the exhibits (even the animal ones believe it or not). Most of all I love the FOOD! Another great reason to make sure October 2011 is spent in NC.


There are so many more reasons but I think that is enough for now.
Happy October!