Fight!
I get home around 7:30pm after stopping at 711 to pick up my spaghetti dinner. The ayi's would have cooked my dinner but Yang is not going to be home in time and the babies eat dinner at preschool, so it didn't seem fair. Not fair because even if Yang tells them not to wait for me to eat they will wait for me. Part to be polite I guess, part to make sure I have enough food. Also not fair because they would have to cook something for my tastes when they could just cook something they like. Anyway, when I get home Aidan and Lydia rush up to me. Lydia wants me to see her Barbie book. Aidan wants to play fight.
We've been playing the Boxing game on the Wii lately and in that game you don't start fighting until the announcer says "FIGHT!". So Aidan says to me..."wait until I say fight" and then he pauses a moment and "FIGHT!" and we go at it. When we play fight Aidan has a smile on his face, he really enjoys it. Lately his strategy as been to either hit my butt (which he finds hilarious) or grab one of my ankles with both hands and pull. The latter is surprisingly effective and he's almost taken me down a time or two. Lydia, on the other hand, fights with a hard, determined, look. When she punches she swings. She means to connect.
When I sit down to eat my spaghetti, Aidan and Lydia are playing nicely with each other on the coach. Aidan is building a house out of the coach pillows and telling Lydia a story about it. Lydia is playing along. I only pick bits and pieces of the conversation as they speak in Chinese. Aidan will occasionally get excited and want to tell me something in English.
Aidan, Lydia, and Yihang at a play party
After a bit or two I hear Aidan yell. He's mad. Seems Lydia knocked down a house wall. Aidan is going through this stage where he gets mad and wants to go absolutely crazy yet he knows he needs to control himself. This attempt at self control seems to actually just make him more upset. In this case he steps away from the coach and comes to the dinner table and picks up my unused 711 chopsticks which are of the cheap wooden variety. He takes them to the living room, (which is like five feet from the dinner table), positions himself in the center of the room and flings the chopsticks. I tell Aidan to pick them up and put them in the trash. He says no. So I sit him down and tell him he can't go back to play until he picks them puts them in the garbage can. He pouts. More than pouts really, a grunt. He doesn't know how easy he's getting off. One of the thrown chopsticks is two feet away from where he is sitting. Chu Ayi (the older ayi who has been with us since we came to Beijing) conveniently picks up the chopstick and tells Aidan she will through it away. I have her put it back on the ground. So Chu Ayi goes finds the other chopstick and places together with the one by Aidan's foot. I guess she felt compelled to do something. Aidan continues to pout. Meanwhile, Lydia is happy as can be on the coach, seemingly oblivious to it all but I know she's not. She knows everything that is going on.
After about five minutes Aidan stands up, picks up the chopsticks, and throws them away. He's still not happy but starts to relax and after about five minutes is back to playing nicely with Lydia. Five minutes later, of course, there is another fight.