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She didn’t see him reaching for the lifeline. It was a windy late spring afternoon when they headed off for the sail. The small boat’s captain said always keep one hand for yourself and one hand for the boat. In the first hour he did this pretty well. But then he started to get a lizzy dizzy and a little weak. He guessed that the coffee only breakfast to avoid heaving was not such a good idea. Couple that with an exhausting work schedule the past few weeks and he was running on fumes. In the morning he tried to talk with her but she was annoyed at something. She has every right to be annoyed, he thought. After all, he was the classic nice guy/asshole combination that she had repeatedly made the mistake of falling for. He was a guy who would suck her kind personality dry…use if for his own interests…while giving nothing of himself to her. They argued…in their quiet seething way…over where to go for dinner the night before, who wasn’t paying which bill, who was the real breadwinner. The only common ground they could find was silence. As the sail reached 90 minute mark, he started to feel giddy and stood and walked toward the front of the boat. He lifted his arms in the big “look at me mom” way, in a way he hadn’t done since he was eight. And for the first time since he was eight, he felt like a kid again. Free and without a care. It was just then that the captain swung the boat around, tossing the man into the cold dark water under the cold dark moonless sky. He bobbled up for air and saw their flashlights but they could not see him and his sunk away. The lifeline was never really within reach. ...

Aidan is starting to see my flaws and Lydia is starting to see my values. I’ll call this progress. During our vacation Aidan noticed a toy gumball machine. One of those put in a quarter, turn the handle a few times, and a round hard piece of gum drops down. But in this case, the gumball machine was not dropping gum, but rather small plastic egg enclosed toys. And it wanted four quarters, not one. Aidan is a bit of a toy addict and as soon as he spotted the pokemon gumball machine he was asking for me to buy him one. I first told him no, too expensive. Then I told him I didn’t have four quarters. He protested, at which point I showed him all the coins in my pocket. The problem being that I actually did have four quarters. So, now I was stuck buying the toy. But the pokemon gumball machine was jammed, it would not take my quarters. Aidan wanted me to try anyway, I tried to show him that it was broken. He settled for another toy from a neighboring gumball machine. ...

I’m sitting alone in our Beijing apartment having just returned from a two week US vacation. It feels large and empty and they dryer takes a long time. Yang and the kids remain in Fremont for a few more days. We headed out on our vacation with some trepidation. We are not used to watching the three kids by ourselves and it must be said that the main worry in this regard was me. In our 3.5 years in Beijing, I’ve cooked three times, done laundry 4-5 times, changed at most a half dozen diapers, given the kids a dozen baths, and washed dishes maybe once. It is a hard life, I know. Another worry we had was that one of the kids might get sick as they have on past trips. ...

Sometimes it feels like I live in a commune. Shortly before Elisa was born, three goldfish appeared in a small fish bowl in our bedroom. I’m not sure how they got there and I didn’t ask. Last Saturday morning at 6am, Aidan came into the bedroom, woke me up, and with sheer glee taped a drawing he made onto the wall. There are now drawings of his all about the house. The drawings are remarkable for two reasons. First, they don’t show a lot of…how do we say…talent. Second, they are happy pictures drawn by a damn happy boy. I never used to buy into the thinking that pictures drawn by a child give some deep insight into the child’s mental health. I thought they more or less just demonstrated what crayons the kid had that day or some random thought in his mind that had nothing to do what we adults consider happy or sad. ...

Well, I was thinking of making the switch to soy anyway. Best I can tell, here’s the deal, and its a bad deal. Dairy farmers were adding melamine to their milk in order to fetch a decent price. It might be because their milk was of low quality to begin with or because they were adding water to it. In either case, melamine helps give the appearance of higher protein, hence higher quality milk. This makes it really bad news, as the problem now lies at the source and all dairy products are implicated. ...

I’m playing tennis. My body is moving slowly. My arm feels heavy. My coordination is remarkable for the lack of it. I break a sweat easily enough but I am not giving a good game to my partner. 30 minutes pass and the heat and humidity is wearing me down. I look across the court next to us and behind the chain link fence is my daughter. Except she isn’t four, she’s fourteen. She is watching me. She is seeing right though me. I turn to my partner, turn back, and my daughter is gone. ...

It is mid autumn festival day here and Yang says we should go out as a family some place. I guess it is tradition that we go look at the moon. And the nice thing is that with all the pollution controls still in place, we can see the orange moon clearly to the east. So we head to the new Solana Mall, to walk along its eastern most edge, where the modern shops and bars meet the lake at Chaoyang park. ...

She told me that never is a promise that I can’t afford to keep. It is 2am, I am in an expat bar in eastern Beijing. The music is loud and the 40 somethings have started to fade, giving way to the 20 somethings. Some are drunk and dancing on the bar with their Chinese girlfriends, looking like a pair of unmatched shoes; one cheap worn leather and the other a pink converse all star. I am at the bar with some friends who will eventually become acquaintances as we go on with our parallel lives. I never get to close to anyone for very long. My friends are high, but not drunk. I am stone sober, drinking diet coke and ginger ale. I am training for my next marathon, trying to get my time under 2:45. One of my friends there is an ABC, female, who I had the hots for when I first came to Beijing three years ago. But now my tastes have turned inward, more local one might say. But in any case, I have a wife back home, a good woman, looking after our kids. Every expat man I know except me, married or unmarried, has a Chinese girlfriend and seems to take it as just another benifit of living here, like having a driver or an ayi. Of course, I am being a bit cynical as some of these men truly — or at least truly think – they have found the love of their lives. I think it is ironic is that they finally found their soul mate yet they are bound to communicate at an 8th grade level due to the language barrier. ...

Somehow one month has passed since Elisa was born. It passed so fast it seems memories could hardly be formed, yet formed they were. It passed so fast that one could be mistake the two points in time connected as one. It passed so fast that I never did take that extra time off of work. It passed so fast that the magic 42 days is almost here. It passed so fast that Yang was overheard wondering out loud “why stop at three?”. Because three’s damn plenty, that’s why. It passed so fast we barely noticed Elisa grow, but grow she did. ...

I started this blog for three reasons. First, to let friends and family in the US get a sense of our life here. Second, to keep a rich record of what Aidan, Lydia, and now Elisa were actually like as they grew. You have to guess the third reason. So given the first two reasons, there is no way I could not write about our Olympic experience since it is by far the biggest event to happen to Beijing since we got here. And frankly, I didn’t still expect to be here when they came. ...