Family

“Go playground” I say to Amanda (21 months) and she scoots off the coach, grabs her shoes, and sits on the stairs. I put her shoes on, load her into the stroller, and we are off. The playground is in the mall across the street from our apartment. It’s about 35F outside and Amanda’s pants don’t quite reach her socks. A little skin is exposed. A middle age woman has a look of horror as we pass and asks if Amanda is cold. In my best Chinese, I say she is a little bit cold, how about you? Amanda’s pants are typically short and for these short walks I think it’s fine but there’s an ayi (auntie) army that thinks otherwise. This has been the case since I used to walk Lydia and Elisa to the playground many years ago. The ayi army has gotten new recruits and they are relentless. ...

It’s Thursday morning of the day we are supposed to fly to San Francisco. Except we had to cancel our trip and are now figuring out what to do with the day. Amanda stands by the couch and eagerly grabs her milk bottle and drinks it like a good Irish toddler. Technically, an Irish/Italian/Chinese toddler. It’s good to see her appetite is back. It’s good for a few minutes. Then she pukes up everything she drank onto the living room floor. Good news, is we now have a plan for the day. ...

It’s 10am and I haven’t slept much. I walk into Yang’s apartment. Amanda is sitting on the coach having just finished a bottle of milk. Yang’s mom, who treats Amanda like her own grandaughter, beams at me that Amanda is drinking milk. Add a little sugar to it, she says, and baby will drink it. She adds that Amanda won’t drink the milk Sabrina and I give her because it doesn’t have sugar in it. I tell her that’s not true. That Amanda drinks it just fine. It doesn’t discourage her from repeating the successful sugar milk story two more times. ...

Age is just a number. Expat or immigrant? Retired or unemployed? I turned 59 today. On a Saturday. It used to be weekend birthdays were a luxury back when I worked. Way back to a month ago. Now Saturday is much like a Wednesday except Elisa doesn’t need to go to school. I wake up with Happy Birthday texts from Toronto; from Aidan, Lydia, and Yang. Rest of my morning was pretty much the same - while Sabrina, Amanda, Elisa, and Kobe slept, I worked out, then had oats and coffee. Read the latest news - conspiracy theories or collusion? ...

From Toronto, Lydia asks when we are going to open presents. It dawns on me that she wants to do a coordinated Beijing/Toronto opening. I don’t remember if we did that last year or not. We had a lot going on last year. As we did this year. I cooked lasagna and a cheesy chicken casserole. The cheesy chicken casserole was an addition to the Christmas menu since it went over so well at Thanksgiving. I think mostly it went over so well because it wasn’t Turkey. We had Christmas dinner at Yang’s apartment meaning we had to pack up food, presents, Kobe and Amanda. We had Christmas at Yang’s apartment because Yang’s grandmother is there and for someone that makes it seem more festive. Yang herself is in Toronto with Lydia and Aidan. ...

I come down the stairs of our small loft and say to 18 month old Amanda “do you want to go playground?” She spins off the couch and makes her way towards the door. Without prompting, she sits waiting for me to put on her shoes. In these past two months I’ve had off work, I’m most grateful for the time with Amanda and seeing her grow day by day. And seeing her attachment for me grow in the process. ...

I am walking in The Box and carrying Amanda. She is squiggling in my arms like I imagine a ferret would. She wants down. I place her down. Down on her own two feet. She steadies herself a bit and then she’s off. We walks with joy and determination. I try to hold her hand and she brushes it aside. She turns, walks back in the direction from whist we came. She turns again. If she encounters a stair or uneven ground she will pause and wait for me to hold her hand for balance. Once past the obstacle, she shakes free and continues. ...

After 10 hours on the road from Chengdu, we arrive in Xian and then the driving really starts. First across the city in rush hour traffic. This takes maybe 45 minutes. Then, when we are two miles from our hotel, the road gets next level crowded with cars, scooters, and people. I’m inching along, checking the navigation to make sure I don’t make a wrong turn. Often, there are no easy corrections after wrong turns in the big cities, so one mistake could mean 20 minutes. I get through the most crowded narrow road and onto a big road. But wait, only 50 meters then a sharp right into an even narrower street which our hotel is on. All I’m thinking about is where to park. Well, that and not running over anyone. Or scratching the car. A spot magically appears on the left. Our car’s auto parking does’t recognize it, so I need to manually park. Parallel park to the left. Thankfully the car has lots of cameras and eventually I’m able to focus on the right three views and zig/zag my way into the spot. It’s then that I noticed we have parked at the base of Xian’s historical city wall. ...

The water is not hot. The shower water. I open the bathroom door a crack and yell to Sabrina “hot water” and she in turn yells to her father to turn it on. He responds with what sounds like frustration in Chinese. A few minutes pass and the shower still lacks hot water. I’m thinking maybe it’s the universe telling me to join the cold water immersion cult. Nah. I yell out the door again, Sabrina tells me it’s on but it’s not and then I hear the hot water heater fire up and a minute later the shower has hot water. ...

Five years ago when I visited Sabrina’s hometown of Xiangyang, I hatched a plan. What the plan lacked in substance, it made up for in naiveté. We would buy a new apartment and car and retire here. The new apartment would take two years to complete, which would give me enough time to self fund. We’d be able use the rent from our place in Beijing to pay for daily expenses. But a few things got in the way of the plan. First, real estate developers in China including ours went bankrupt leaving our apartment, mostly paid for, in limbo. Second, Amanda. ...