the other side of the world

well, it's happened. i resisted as long as i could, but it's finally happened: i turned 30. oh, yeah, and we have taken the kids on the longest trip ever and are in hong kong for the month. but really, which one of those is more important?

the girls actually did really well on the flights here. we were expecting much worse and i'm still expecting it on the way home. really, you can never let your guard down with them else the make liars and shrews of you! they took a while to adjust to the time difference, but i think we finally forced them to sleep at the right times. last night, they were in bed by 9pm and mali only got up once during the night, then not again until after the sun came up (a big step up from the previous days, i assure you, so i don't actually care what time the sun came up). they haven't fared as badly with the food, either, as i thought they would. i guess it's true what they say about kids being more resiliant and adjustable than adults (especially we really old ones at 30 and above...but i'm not bitter). they really like the family here. mali has latched onto yei yei much like noe did when they came over a couple years ago. she is completely spoiled now and will be useless when we get home! noe loves to play with her cousins and go to the millions of playgrounds around. daddy, of course, is in hog heaven.

as for myself, i am in my second trimester now and still feel like i'm in my first. i sleep a lot (which is nice since i have other adults around willing to watch the kids), have trouble with food textures and amounts, get breathless and exhausted, and have been having ligament pain for a while now. my friend Karma assures me that this just means that this is a very healthy pregnancy....i have to say, though, that's lost quite a bit of its luster every time i lose my lunch, so to speak. fai's family has been great to help me out, though, and actually won't let me do much of anything. they get really worried if i lift anything, walk too much, don't sleep enough, don't eat a ton, drink or eat something they don't think i should, or anything else. so really, all i do is follow along behind the line of people carrying my kids and my things sort of twiddling my thumbs until snack or nap time.

well, i've learned a couple of really important things since i've arrived. one, noe is small by any culture's standard, not just america's. i hear several times each day (at least fai says i hear it, and i have to take his word for it) from more than just his family (though that's the majority) about how she's too small. the "she's chinese" line doesn't fly around here. and i really need to get her to stop sucking her thumb before they visit next year or they may insist fai divorce me so they can work on her without me there to interfere! this is almost as much of a problem for them as her size! the only other complaint they seem to have is that i don't put enough clothes on her and mali. let me clarify, it's in the 70's and 80's here. they are in jeans and t-shirts, i brought jackets and even a couple of long sleeved t-shirts. fai and i have been sweating, but his mom keeps wanting to bundle them up! the other fact i've learned is that mali is big...by any culture's standard. of the four children, she apparently is the biggest (by height and weight ratio)...even though she is the youngest. she could take her cousins in a wrestling match, i'm pretty sure. everyone talks about her big belly! if it weren't for the fact that everyone also coos over how pretty she is, i'd worry that she is going to develope a complex!

well, that's it for now. i'll try to get pics up soon.