Happy mother's day!

It's the 7th mother's day for me.

This time, it's a bit unusual, because it seems that everyone wants me to care more about my special day.

Come on, let's face it, I was born and raised in a country where everyone loves and respects mothers naturally, every single day and every single minute.  We Chinese simply don't need a special day to remember our moms.  I, for one, have never truly cared about this holiday.   

However, this mother's day is a bit special to me.  

It starts from my own kids. 

Last Thursday evening, I saw a big and long poster lying on the top of Zhuzhu's school bag, without giving it any thoughts, I picked it up just like I was picking up her regular junks that she sometimes leaves outside of her bag.  Then I waited for her at the play yard.  After a while, she appeared from another building, as soon as she spotted the poster in my hands, her face changed color, "Did you read the poster?!  You are not supposed to read it and you are not allowed to read it until Sunday!"  She was panicked and clearly assumed that I had read it.  "No, no, I was not even sure whether it's yours or not, I was going to ask you about it first."  I answered honestly and immediately said, "Let's better be hurry, the show is starting now.  Daddy and Niuniu are already there waiting for us."  I rushed her and also tried to get her mind off the poster.  

True.  I was in a hurry to get her to the show, a show to which she has been looking forward.  It is "Charlotte's web", she read the story and would love to see the performance about it by the middle schoolers of her own school!  Thus, it was not too hard to get her forget about her poster for a little bit.  

Then, it's came Saturday morning and as usual, we parents stay in bed late.  When I finally left the bed, I found the kids sat in front of the TV with their weekly dose of PBS on the couch.  After giving them each of my usual round of morning kisses, I snuggled with Niuniu as he is always warn and snuggly.  

"Mommy, I cannot give you anything for the mother's day."  Niuniu said to me sweetly.  Is that the first thing stuck in his little mind?  It's only Saturday, I thought, why he was already worried about this?  "It's not mother's day yet, you still have some time to think about something."  I tried to comfort him.  "No, no, I cannot."  Niuniu insisted, but seeing my not getting what he was trying to say, he added, "It should be a surprise, I cannot make you a surprise on a nonSchool day!"  He was almost in tears!

My poor baby, he was so sad for not being able to please me, I was simply speechless.  While trying to come up with some smart things to say to him, I heard this, 

"Breakfast time!"

Fabrice timely called us from the kitchen so we left our conversation at that.  

Then we saw a plate of heart-shaped pancakes on the table waiting for us.  "Happy mother's day!"  I said to myself.  

"Not yet, but do you want your gift earlier?"  Zhuzhu asked, she clearly could not wait to present me her gift.  

"No, no, I prefer to wait until the actual day."  I said, attentively, as I would not want to break Niuniu's heart knowing he might need the remaining time to come up with something for his mommy. 

Fast forward to the dinner time, Zhuzhu and Niuniu were kept speaking secretly to each others in their playroom, which is close to the kitchen where I was tidying up, I kept hearing "Don't tell mommy" from them.  Acting naughtily, I said loudly, "Hey guys, I am right here, you think that I cannot hear you?!"  They ignored me and continued to focus on whatever they were doing.  

"Dinner time!"  Fabrice was calling us again and then we all went out for a dinner.  This time, he made few heart shaped burgers!  

"Happy mother's day to me!"  I exclaimed again.  

The kids immediately giggled, maybe because they were thinking about the project that they were working on a minute ago.  After dinner, they stayed outside playing soccer with Fabrice, while I was loading the dishes to the washer.  Soon Zhuzhu and Niuniu brought in the house a big box and sat on the floor to start cutting it into pieces.  "I'll go to get a pair of bigger scissors?"  Seeing the tiny scissors in Zhuzhu's hands won't go fast enough, Niuniu tried to offer his help, but Zhuzhu screamed several "Nos" at him.  Finally after few attempts, he gave up contributing and went back outside to kick his soccer ball with daddy leaving the bigger pair of scissors on the floor.

As soon as he left, Zhuzhu switched to the bigger pair of scissors, yet they are the "fancy" kind that can easily be separated into 2 parts and needed to be put back together almost every time she used it.

"May I help you?"  I asked after seeing her struggling with them for a long while.  At that time, I finished my dish loading and began to worry about her little hands getting hurt by those thick cardboards and scissors, "No, you are not allowed to look."  She said.  I could only go out to replace Fabrice to entertain Niuniu so that he could go in the house to help Zhuzhu with her secret mother's day project.

Finally, it's time for bed and while I was sending the kids to bed, I said, "You guys'd better go to sleep early because I would need to sleep early as well so that I can get up early in the morning."  "Why?"  Zhuzhu asked, "Because I need yo give your daddy a haircut."  I told her.

"But tomorrow is mother's day, you don't have to work!"  Zhuzhu emphasized, passionately.

Wow, is there any better gift than that?!

Even I, as someone who grew up without knowing the existence of the mother's day and had never really gotten into the spirit of this holiday, is now completely anxious to see what my kids have prepared for me.

They clearly are affectionate about it.
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Until then, let me borrow few of our Zhuzhu's recent art work* to wish you all a happy mother's day!

- top left, "Angry mother"
- top right, "Random beauty"
- bottom left, "The Spring"
- bottom right, "A helpful robot".

Impressive, isn't it?

* Zhuzhu is already a better artist than the both of her parents, particularly better than me, although that was not too hard as I am defective as far as art goes.  I must say though even without artistic eyes, I am already getting a lot of visual pleasure looking at those pieces.  I am truly amazed by the fact that she is able to express herself with drawings and colors at ease.  Her art teacher said to me that she loves the "random beauty" the best, but I have to admit that I love every single piece of art work that she brought home ever since she was 2 - a mother's objectivity.  So, do you want to see what she is giving me tomorrow, let me know so that I can post it here.

Happy Thanksgiving, you all!

I know I know, I am quite late in the game.  I am supposed to write this post in a timely manner but my life recently has been out of ordinary because Fabrice has been traveling for almost the entire November!  I can enjoy being a single Mom for a short period of time, but for a whole month, well, that led to the following few incidents:

- Last Monday morning, I woke up at 7:30 am resulting in having Zhuzhu to miss her latest allowed drop off at 7:50 am.  We arrived at her school at 7:58 am and she had to enter from a side door.  Fortunately she was not alone and it was rainy...Sorry kiddo, it is the first time and hopefully the last time that you had to walk into the school through the door of shame.  

What, don't I know how to use an alarm clock?  Well, let me tell you, I am a dreamer and I love to dream in the mornings.  That morning I was listening to one of Fabrice's postdoctoral trainees to report her research progress in a lab meeting in my dream.  I remember being annoyed by some beeping sound while the meeting was going on and wished someone in the lab to turn that unattended timer off...it was actually my alarm went off in reality...

Oops!

- I also cheated by skipping regular breakfast at the table in order to get Zhuzhu to her school on time, at least 2 morning per week.  Shh, don't tell Fabrice that I fed the kids in the car since he is the one who cleans it!

- The house is a mess now.

Oh, alright, this post is not about my relying on Fabrice to live a life as a responsible parent.  It's about the T-day. 

Yes, I had learnt to appreciate this special day and in fact, our family has already spent our last 2 Thanksgiving dinner nights with the same close friends Mike/Vera and their close friends.  The 2012's T-dinner was even more specially personal to me because my parents were visiting.  After the dinner, my father could not stop talking about how much he appreciated the hospitality of our hosts.  He was trying to name each dish that he had as he had not had such typical/traditional American dinner before.  He was also offered a silver bracelet by one of the guests and surprisingly my father wore it all the way back to China - just so you know, this man had probably never worn any jewelry in his entire 82 years of life (well, at least I had never seen him wearing any in my entire life).  

It turns out that this year's T-holiday has made me in debt to our regular T-dinner hosts even more...

... right, we had planned to again join Mike/Vera and their close friends for another special T-dinner this year.  In my RSVP, I even emphasized the fact that we had to reject 4 other invitations to make it to their T-dinner indicating how much we appreciated the invitation and how much we were looking forward to another special evening.

However, just a day or 2 after I RSVPed, an email from SW airline lured me with a special offer to Denver, the ticket price was within our budget and I immediately booked 4 non-refundable tickets and then happily informed our hosts.  I did so NOT because I needed to change our RSVP from a Yes to a No, but because I thought that they might wish to jump into this opportunity as I did.

A bit of a background information here: we had been skiing together in the last 2 years and had been planning on having a ski trip together this winter too, except that we had failed to find reasonably priced tickets.

Well, guess what, things are not as easy as I thought. 

This year Chanukah/Hanukkah spans from Nov. 27 to Dec. 7, and our T-dinner hosts happen to be Jews who enjoy Jewish holidays.  That meant that their T-dinner guests included usual crowd and some unusual "out of town" Jewish friends.

That also meant that the T-dinner plan could not be easily changed.

After having found out this, I had tried to reschedule our ski trip but then was advised not to by our loving friends/T-dinner hosts.  They love me so much that they support, at least understood, my need of getting out of another 4 days of babysitting life.  Having been listening to Zhuzhu and Niuniu's complaints about how unfair it was that the Daddy got to travel everywhere in the world yet they had to stay home, I had been becoming more and more bothered by the fact that the T-holiday would need me to take care of them 5 whole days more straight while the Daddy is dealing with his jet lag from his international travel (Australia) and then catching up with his work!  

For the record, Fabrice was quite upset about my sudden change of plans.  He missed being home after a 12-days traveling in another continent; had to cancel several scheduled meetings including an important one with his biggest employer NIH; and of course, would have certainly not cancelled a T-dinner plan with our friends...However, I believed that he was mad at the fact that I had made a "mini family vacation plan" without his consent.

Sorry hubby, if you go out of town so often, I may run our lives like a true single Mom.

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Now, the end results? 

Fabrice has gotten his "home cooking" for not being "home" in the last 4 night straight - yes, I have cooked 4 dinners straight in our rental condo; he dealt with his jet lag effortlessly by flying on ski slopes; he also bonded with the kiddos by spending every single minute with them in beautiful Colorado Mountains; he even has not lifted a finger to decide which ski resort to take the kiddos - he followed my lead and we skied at the Breckenridge and Keystone, 2 days each resort.

Indeed, having a ski trip during T-holiday has been our tradition ever since Jay, one of my best friends, invited Fabrice and me to join him at Frisco years ago.  Following his lead, we have since invited many other groups of people, including friends and relatives, to Frisco to spend our T-holidays.  Together, we have had some special T-dinners at this small but friendly town.  I love Frisco and many other cities that welcome skiers during winter seasons.  T-holiday is particularly colorful as these cities put out the Christmas lights early enough for skiers like us who enjoy preseason skies - cheaper lift tickets with less people on the slopes.  I personally believe that a ski trip to CO mountains is the best way to spend T holiday for the ones who have not grown up with a holiday named Thanksgiving.  Therefore, I did go on the Facebook to thank Jay for taking us there years ago.  

On the other hand, I have lived the last week of my life in a terrible guilt.  The spirit of this T-day may have gotten into me after all.

Thank you to all of you for loving me as who I am and happy Thanksgiving to you all!!!