Family

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. ...

I’m taking the kids to school. Yang is with me, pushing Elisa in the stroller. I guess this is the life now. It the day after I returned from a business trip to Tokyo and I’m having an easy morning to offset the travel. We walk down a small alley where the brick school building sits. We pass a small chalkboard that during the Olympic games had this sign. ...

It is such a nice Friday afternoon that I decide to walk home from work. Two and a half hours later I arrive home tired and hungry. It is 8pm. Aidan is noticeably excited, not so much because I made it home but because he could show me his latest lego creation. Yang’s dad had bought him a pirate ship earlier in the day and Aidan has worked tirelessly on it for seven hours. He would spend two more on it before calling it a night. He was especially proud because the packaging said the pirate ship was for “9 and over”. ...

As I was running through the light rain in my “Free Winona” tee-shirt a couple of thoughts occurred to me. First, I hoped one of the Olympic security volunteers who I pass on every block do not interpret this to be a “Free Tibet” shirt because I’m not sure my Chinese is good enough to explain the context of my Winona shirt. But I am not too worried, the security volunteers are mainly young men who just sit around and observe and do not really appear to be paying much attention at all. They carry no guns or weapons of any kind and they look worn down by the heat and humidity. They are all over town and not just by the events. Their job is to report any strange behavior. A foreigner running in this heat may quality. ...

Random thoughts and observations. I’m pretty sure this is the first Allio born in Beijing. A thought popped into my head during labor. When Aidan was born, a group of nurses came into the room to help encourage Yang to push. It seemed like the whole floor of nurses. Today, during labor, it dawned on me the nurses may have in fact come in to watch over the elderly doctor who was rushing Yang and whose nurse disagreed with having Yang push at that time. ...

Yang is mad. They won’t give us the Olympic tickets I ordered online. They say it takes one day to process and we’ve only just placed the order today. Yang plays the “I’m nine months pregnant card” to full effect and eventually a nice American chap emerges with our tickets. Yang has a feeling that if we don’t pick up the tickets today, it could be a while. Tickets safely fetched (two baseball, two boxing, two basketball) Yang says she feels like Teppanyaki for dinner and we find an all you can eat, really nice, Teppanyaki place in the China View building. Next to The Den, but that is a story for another day. We eat well, really well, and make it home by 9:30pm. I tell Aidan and Lydia about the tickets and ask both what country they will cheer for in the Olympics. Lydia says China, Aidan America. When asked how about America and China, Lydia sticks with China and Aidan says, America, China, and just for good measure Cuba. ...

It is the night before Lydia’s birthday and Yang and I are sitting in the bread store trying to decide to have a snack in the store or just go home. Yang’s new cell phone rings but she doesn’t answer it because it is in my back pocket and the phone sounds like something a 13 year old village girl would have. I continue on the great stay/go debate when Yang asks for her phone, sees the Ayi called, calls back, and gets up with more speed than a nine month pregnant woman should have. She is still quite slow, so I am able to catch up and ask who’s called and she says “Lydia’s been hurt” and then Yang is out the back door and we see our Ayi holding Lydia near the playground behind the bakery. We see some blood in a cloth and Lydia has a gash under her chin, right away it is obvious that she will need stitches. Yang calls ahead to the hospital where the kids get their check ups and where Elisa will be born (any day now) and finds out they don’t take this kind of emergency. Luckily, another very western style hospital is a block away from our house and they have a full service emergency room. American, white doctor, chinese nurses speaking excellent English, and Lydia all stitched up within an hour. Aidan’s eyes swelled up when retelling the story of how Lydia got the cut. Lydia was very strong when getting the stitches and while she let us know she good feel the pain, she kept the wiggling and fussing to a minimum. The whole thing cost 3800 kuai (about $550 USD) and my insurance covered it. A year ago, the insurance I had would not of covered it so it is lucky Lydia decided to crack that chin this year. Yang told the Ayi the cost and the Ayi said that in her hometown, the cost of a c-section is less than half what these few stitches cost. ...

As Yang packs her bag thinking #3 is coming soon, I am left with thoughts of Fuwas and machine guns. What exactly is a Fuwa? A Fuwa is a mascot of the Beijing Olympics in the great tradition of Olympic mascots. I mean, who can forget Izzy, 1996 Atlantic mascot. In my 1997 trip to Atlanta, I bought an Izzy for $2.50. Beijing did not have a lot to live up but just to be safe, they came up with five fuwa mascots, which gives Izzy a run for his/her money. ...

Our family will make five soon and while Yang always wanted three kids, I had my doubts. Mainly around the numbers. Think about this: Five means longer waits at restaurants for a table. Five means two hotel rooms instead of two queen beds in one room. Five means two taxis or someone sitting on a lap. Five means a bigger car. Five means 2x2x1 seating on plane rides. Five means three bicycles instead of two w/kids seats. Five means a three bedroom house instead of two bedroom and forget about a den. And the topper ...

What is a man’s form of nesting? I’ve been wanting to buy some things for a few weeks now. Some out of need (cell phone, bike bag), some out of vanity (tee shirts), some out of obsession (head phones), and some out of insanity (R9 honda scooter). I was able to accomplish nearly all of these goals, minus the scooter which Yang told me was pure insanity in Beijing and if I were to be that insane the least I could do is buy a real bike. This way our kids would have some semblance of pride in describing their father’s death (“Well, you see, he was crossing on his scooter sanyuanqiao when his murse got entangled with a taxi’s mirror and the subsequent fall from the overpass led to his death”). ...