We don’t really believe in Valentine’s day. But hey, why not have our teeth cleaned together? Off to the clinic!

The doctor took a look at my teeth and decided they did not need cleaning since they were very clean already. Bad news was that most of my molars had cavities in them. Two very deep ones, a few medium ones and a few starting to go bad Ayaaaaaaaa!!

The fun started with lots of drilling, accompanied by a high screeching sound. Very romantic, as you can imagine. The bad molars were so bad that the dentist drilled away a bit in the front as well. When I did a quick tongue check it felt absolutely horrible: just a few sharp bits left with a huge hole in between. Yikes!! Luckily it didn’t hurt. After all the cavities, big and small, were filled up the screeching continued to get the surface fixed. I’m happy we went in today because I had no idea my molars were in such bad shape. Another nice prego surprise nobody tells you about…..

Since we were being so romantic and all the magic continued for a while when we went to the bank to open up an account for me. The orchestra got it in their head that everybody needs to switch banks. Don’t ask me why, probably some inexplicable Chinese logic. Nice thing is that I now have internet and phone banking. Even a snazzy iphone app All in Chinese I’m afraid, but I can read most of it. Will have to make sure though as not to send huge amounts of money to the wrong accounts (note: this comment is to welcome huge amounts of money coming in ).

After the account was opened we had a very nice dim-sum lunch. No worries, no gazing deeply into each other’s eyes: we were busy setting up the mobile functions of the bank. Haiwen then had to go to the factory and I walked home. The weather is completely nuts again as you can see in the pic. It was extremely comfortable today but the humidity is creeping up as well.

When we were gone 3 parcels  from taobao arrived. Taobao is the chinese website where you can order whatever you can think of. We ordered some stuff for Lexie and me. Taobao is made up of many small stores and each store sends their order separately. Two parcels arrived yesterday. It’s fun when they arrive because you don’t know what you are going to get exactly. There are pictures online, of course, but you can never be sure. When a product is bad or a bit disappointing it’s OK because everything is very cheap. A bit of hit and miss but the margins are quite safe.

Haiwen, Lexie and I went into work today. Well, we stood outside while my colleagues admired her and then had a chat in Starbucks with the manager. Lexie was a big hit and most people think she looks like me In this picture she looks more like daddy!

It was a constructive chat and the result is that I will work from the middle of March until the middle of June. They didn’t expect me back yet so the manager suggested that I ‘swap’ my holiday for June and July. Fine by me! Three months… let’s see how it goes and then it is decision time end of May.
After the chat we had a little stroll around Ersha. Of course everybody was super worried that Lexie might be cold but she was perfectly fine. Hello, she’s half Dutch!! We are getting used to the stroller quickly.It is so much easier to take her out now. It is a bit more difficult in an a cab but I’ll get the hang of it. One problem is that the stroller doesn’t completely fold up because Lexie needs a blanket inside; she’s a bit too small still. But on the other hand she is really big already and just keeps on growing!! Yes, yes, I know that’s what babies do but it is different up close.

Lexie didn’t sleep all day but she is napping now. She was super friendly to my colleagues. She gave them smiles and even ‘talked’ a bit.

Hanging out at home

First outing in the stroller! The little basinet is almost too small. This stroller is much easier to maneuver and much lighter. We have a blanket inside so Lexie is very comfortable.

Packed up and ready to go!

This is the link to the radio show of today. My bit starts around 9.30

http://www.rnw.nl/nederlands/radioshow/trouwen-het-buitenland

Hi everybody,

I hear mommy has been writing some stuff about me here, so I figured it’s time for me to come and say hi to you too. It’s been a busy week for me. I turned a hundred days old on Thursday. In my first hundred days I’ve almost doubled in size. Quite a feat, no? I’ve also started talking but mommy and daddy think I’m just making cute noises. If only they’d listen better!!! Well, they are confusing me with all these languages so I’m gonna take my time to figure it out. I like to sleep at night. Mommy and daddy seem to very happy about this so I’ve decided to keep it up. As long as mommy does not forget my morning snack I’m fine! A small price to pay for sleeping hours on end with a little baby in the house, me thinks. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not that small anymore, I almost weigh 6,5 kilo’s!! Do you know how much milk you need to drink for that? It’s a busy life I tell you.

Mommy and daddy seem to be adjusting to me well. I’ve got them right where I want to Mommy knows to come get me quickly if I start crying because I’m dying of hunger. If she waits to long to prepare all the pillows to lay me on I let her know by crying really loudly. She’s gotta learn!! Daddy and mommy are equally good at changing my nappies so it doesn’t matter who does it. I do like to way mommy kisses my belly. It tickles! Grandma gets really excited when I poo so I try to wait until I see her. She washes me and cleans me right up. I got this information from my cousin Demian, who does the same for his grandparents.

I like taking baths. I let mommy and daddy know by smiling a lot. They get so happy when I smile so I must show them the exact things that make me smile. It’s a tough business to train your parents! If I make a mistake and smile at something I don’t really like, they’ll keep doing it unless I cry…. That’s so sad because crying takes a lot of energy that I could use for better things such as growing. Luckily mommy always has milk for me so that hasn’t been a problem. My favorite spot in my house is the changing mat. I could lay there for hours. There’s a big mirror where I can see myself and whoever is in the bathroom with me. Unfortunately I can’t be there by myself because it is not safe. Fortunately there’s also the swinging chair and the play pan with a mobile. The mobile is a bit weird though; it’s only nice when it moves. When it stops I sometimes have to cry a bit to make mommy come over and wind it up again. I must say she’s getting better at this too because she does not let the mobile run out completely before winding it up again. I think I heard her sigh “they should make these things last for a lot longer than a few minutes”. Yeah, that’s true. Who wants to look at things that don’t move??

Well, that’s about it for now. I’ve asked mommy to upload a nice picture of me (hey, I’m only 3 months old!) but she tells me the internet is being weird again. She says there will be pictures in the next post.

I hope you liked hearing from me as well and I’m sure mommy will put up something about me again soon.

Love,

Lexie

初五is the fifth day of the Chinese New Year. 初 means start or beginning and 五 means five. Easy, no?

It was quite a relaxed day so far. Lexie woke up at 5.45 to drink and went back to sleep for a few more hours afterwards. Yes indeed, me too Well, you can’t blame us:

For once we can be sure that it is fog and not smog, since the factories are still closed. Miserable and cold weather.

Since PIL are driving me nuts by being in our house all the time we thought of a plan. Lexie went to their house at 12.00 and we will pick her up later. Mommy and daddy have the afternoon off duty and PIL can go nuts grandparenting away Everybody happy!
HW and I went to eat sushi (hurray to no longer being preggers!), had a coffee and then we went our separate ways. HW went to play tennis on one of the few courts that are roofed and I went to the gym. I was welcomed in hardcore chinese style: “wow, you are so fat”. OK…… stupid b*tch*s!!! UGH!!! And that on the first day I finally felt a bit better about my post partum body I had a good work out nevertheless. It was hard to cancel out the happy hardcore versions of Chinese New Year’s songs though. Muse and Nirvana did a reasonably good job.

After the gym I stopped by at PIL’s. I figured since they are coming here unannounced all the time, I can do the same. Hihi. They even had the heating on in Qiang’s old room since it is so cold. Wow, they don’t turn on the heating for anybody else!! Lexie was doing OK but was not very happy. I gave her a little feed and that seemed to help a bit. Then I went home to do some stuff around the house.

As you can see I even had some time left to write a blog

Hello, finally a post from me again. Something weird is going on with uploading pictures and it took forever to get these on here. Lexie is sleeping and HW is working on some stuff. It is very cold here; only 6C right now. That is extremely chilly in an un insulated house with no central heating. The air conditioner is blowing hot air now but that is only helping so much. When the air stops it’s cold almost instantly. I must say that the cold is not bothering me as much as before. A side effect after pregnancy?? HW seems to feel the cold more now and that is a strange new event in our relationship

Happy aunties
We seem to have survived all the Chinese New Year’s activities. Dinner, lunch, dinner, dinner, visit plus lunch in Shunde and one more dinner. Don’t think that we are all fat now; we didn’t eat that much. Lexie was the star, of course. She behaved very well and was only crying when we got home. Poor thing!! So many aunties and uncles up in her face. I would have cried on the spot!!

Very, uhmmm, ‘beautiful’ things in Shunde
Lexie turned 3 months old yesterday. Such a big girl already! She is cooing a lot now and even changing tones while doing so.

It’s hard to find time to write now. By the time Lexie is asleep at night I’m ready for bed too. Last night she slept until 7.00. That was super nice. Only downside was that the milk factory was about to explode Not so nice but after some pressure release everything was OK again.

All and all, all is well here in South China.

On Thursday Haiwen and I went to HongKong. Haiwen had to take care of some business and asked me to come along. OK! We were a bit tired because we had New Year’s drinks with the Dutch Consulate and the Bencham the night before. The event was held at the Paulaner brewery in the new TaiKooHui mall. That is a super bling bling mall in Tianhe. We had a good time and some nice beers. Lexie spent the night at grandparents Feng because we got home late and had to leave early in the morning.

Bodysuit by auntie Monica.

We got on the 9.03 through train, which was sold out. Actually all the trains up to 12.12 were sold out. Luckily we already bought tickets earlier. I was a bit afraid that traffic might be bad and the train station chaotic but everything went smoothly. A big difference between the East railway station and Central staion. Last few weeks there were about 800.000 people leaving from there each day (!). It’s exodus time leading up to Chinese New Year. Pfff, two New Years in one month is a bit much!

The plus side of taking the through train is that there are only so many people to go through customs at the same time; no more than can fit on the train. Other border crossings, like LuoHu, are packed with people.

Since Haiwen and I have a HongKong ID card now, getting through customs was a breeze. We inserted our card, went through, left a fingerprint and, tadaaa, we were in HK Very, very nice!

Haiwen went to take care of business and I went ahead to meet Ans and Mickey for lunch. Chiel and Haiwen also joined us. What a different set of people we were, compared to the last lunch, a few days before Lexie was born! Ans and Chiel have been in Holland and Florida in the mean time. Chiel ran the Goofy, which is a half and a full marathon in one weekenend and Mickey spent 6 weeks on an ice breaker in the South Pole region, combined with a visit to New Zealand. Well, what changes HW and I went through you already know .

After lunch HW and I took the ferry across the harbor and went to buy a Nespresso machine. We’ve been using it for 2 days now and the coffee is great. Definitely a great parenting tool!!

A visit to H&M was reasonably successful. I just bought some boring basics because the rest still doesn’t fit. Even size L mama collection is not generous enough for my over developed top half now :S Unfortunately the were out of L sized leggings I did buy a nice dress and a red rose to brighten it up a bit.

By then it was almost time to head back to Guangzhou. Boarding started early because the train (17.50 KTT) was sold out. In fact there were no more tickets available for the rest of the day. We were not in the mood for unnecessary queueing so we had a little snack first. When the lines were gone we went in as well. The trip back was fine.

Now it’s Saturday afternoon and I will tell you about that another time.  x

-Grandpa:Big grey wolf! With a long tail!
Right Lexie? He has a long tail doesn’t he?
-Lexie: coooooouuh
-Grandpa:Big grey wolf! With a long tail!
He wants to catch the small white rabbit.
是不是？
But the small white rabbit runs to its little hole.
Doesn’t he Lexie? He runs to his little hole, right?
-Lexie: ankieeeeeeeee
-Grandpa: The wolf can’t get into the hole because it’s too small.
Then what does the small white rabbit do?
-Lexie: grrrooooooo
-Grandpa: the small white rabbit lets one rip!!!
What does he do Lexie? He lets one rip!
Aaah, the wolf says, it’s so stinky!! I’m leaving now!
It is stinky, isn’t it Lexie?
-Lexie: coooo

-THE END-

*Translated and transcribed from Cantonese by J. Tummers*

I blinked once and then it was Sunday night!! I even forgot about blogging this week. Here I am again It was a good week all in all. I went to Zumba twice and that was great fun. Unfortunately our instructor has to go back to Finland next week so class will be suspended until after Chinese new year. My personal trainer from the gym just did her Zumba training and she is willing to take over our group I like all of the styles but especially Cumbia Funk and Reggeaton. Shake it, woohooo!!!

I was also shaking it on the tennis court between shots, hahaha.
This morning.

On Wednesday I went to the GWIC tea. We’ve moved to the Hilton, how decadent! The service was nice and we were chatting amicably.

The weekend was also nice. Yesterday we attended Jade’s first birthday party over in Golden Lake. Lots of parents and kids. Guess that will be our new style of partying now

We started our Sunday with dim sum and then Lexie spent the afternoon with the in laws. Haiwen and I went to the movies. This was not so easy because the parking garage was closed for some weird reason. Traffic was horrible in the streets around the mall. I got out to buy tickets and HW tried his best to find a parking spot. In the end he just left the car in a small side street. After coffee and some light shopping he checked out the situation and the parking was open again. He moved the car and then we could watch the movie without worrying.

We saw Sherlock Holmes but I didn’t really like it. I felt that the special effects (slow motion/normal speed) were a bit far fetched and reminded me of a “Matrix” wannabee spin off. The flow was also off. Never mind; it was still nice to have some time together with hubby.

In the evening we went to IN cafe to meet some family friends. Wouter and Frederique also walked in together with Abel. They are a Dutch couple living here in the same compound as us. Son Abel is 6 weeks younger than Lexie.

Just now Lexie was still wide awake and she was making very cute sounds