Farewell to our heating

This is has a week that has made me ask "why are we here again?" more than once. Not to complain, we still really like it here, but sometimes it's hard not to think that "we wouldn't have such and such problem if we were back in the States," problems like having no heat in March and privacy issues.... Will was down for a nap yesterday and I had just gotten out of the shower. There was a knock on our door and I didn't go answer it because I was getting dressed. When I didn't get there fast enough, the guy opened my front door wide open (of course, he came on the one day I forgot to lock the door when Joel left for work), and yelled a loud "Ni hao!" The yell woke up Will from his nap (which will incite immediate rage in any mother) and caught me right in the middle of putting my clothes on (just my luck, our bedroom is straight across from the front door so it's the first thing you see). I have been told by several other expats here that this is not an uncommon occurrence. Apparently, it's not at all rude to just open someone's door if they don't answer. What if I had still been in the shower? Would he have come all the way inside and dropped off my package? The more I thought about this yesterday the angrier I got. Who does that? Who just opens someone's front door? That's when I have to realize that he wasn't meaning to be rude, it's just different where I'm from and there's no sense in getting upset about it. It was a good lesson for me on just letting things go.

And, we have no heat again. Heating in Beijing is only on from mid-November until mid-March. So now it's off. And it snowed this morning- a good two inches of snow. So, after Will falls asleep, I sneak into his room and add three extra blankets to his bedding so he won't freeze at night. Poor kid.

On the plus side, David Beckham is apparently going to make an appearance at Joel's school today. I guess he's acting as a "soccer ambassador" to China so some of Joel's students get to play an after school game of soccer with Beckham. Will and I are heading over when school's out to see if we can "happen" to run into him....

These are some random pictures of our produce market, we try to make a trip here once a week to pick up our fresh fruit and veggies.

Eeeww. There's something about buying meat in an open air market that I still can't get over.

I never knew there were so many kinds of eggs.

Will is getting so big these days! In one month, he'll be a year old. The kid makes me laugh every day. He doesn't crawl, he just scoots. He pulls himself forward while sitting on his bum and because we have wood floors in our whole apartment, it's pretty efficient. But, if we ever go somewhere with carpet (like the church), he just gets frustrated because his mode of transportation suddenly doesn't work. Too much friction! He can clap, give baby kisses, feed himself finger foods, feed me & Joel finger foods, and walk with a little help.

Prep for our summer trip is coming along as well. We decided that I would go three weeks before Joel. At first, the motivation was mostly financial. School doesn't get out until mid July when flights are at their peak price. It saves me $600 to go at the end of June! The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I wanted to go home sooner than mid July. Even if that meant flying with a baby by myself for an 18 hour trip. And then, my sweet sister Annie decided she is going to come meet me at the Seattle airport for our 4.5 hour layover and then fly with me the rest of the way to SLC. I was really dreading that layover because it will be in the middle of the night according to our body clocks but I'll have Annie to help me, which is such a relief. And I won't have to do the last leg by myself. So I'll have almost 10 weeks at home and I can't wait!