Let the Summer Begin ...

EHJ studies on the porch in the fading days of May

{Summer Holidays officially begin June 1}

For all intents and purposes the girls are done with school. They may have checked out a week or so ago .... with field trips and later bedtimes and all the end of the year activities the classrooms have been buzzing. They had their Field Day today and next Wednesday they will go back for a mere hour to collect their forth quarter report cards. The summer holidays are pretty much here.

MGJ came home with the end of the year pile ... combination locks, half used erasers, tattered notebooks. EHJ skipped off to a friend's house after their early release. Bei Bei had a classmate come home with her after her picnic at the park with her Kindergarten buddies.

It feels like the end of the year snuck up on us. {They are getting out a whole month earlier than their international school counterparts in Asia}. But as MGJ sagely noted, we needed this year to end earlier ... it's been a long slog. The transiton has gone relatively well, they have friends and have found their groove ... But summer has sometimes seemed a long way off, and now that it is here we are going to dig our bare toes into the green grass and live it up.

Happy long weekend, everyone!

Cheers,

On Forgetting {Another Five Minute Friday}

Sometimes I forget to pack someone's lunch {and then I scramble to throw something together for the kid who refuses to eat the All-American hot dog lunch with the rest of her class on Field Day}.

Sometimes I forget that she's only 12. {or she's only nine. or she's only six.}

Sometimes I forget what baby noises, and sounds, and faces look like until I hold a borrowed baby in my arms and all the memories come flooding back.

Sometimes, back in this land, where I lived for 17 years before moving away for five, I forget how to get somewhere and need to use a map. {Usually, it's only when I'm thinking about where I need to go, often once I'm actually behind the wheel I enter auto-pilot mode and remember the way after all. Which is not to say that I don't heavily rely on map apps and google!}

Sometimes I forget that we've only been here five months, and that boxes and longing, and a still-not-yet-completely-settled feeling is normal. Sometimes I just need to be reminded of that.

Sometimes when I talk to one of my sisters on the phone we say the exact same thing at the exact same time, and I forget that we are eight years and miles apart....

Linked up, again this Friday to the Gypsy Momma, who's prompt for this week's Five Minute Friday was: On Forgetting. Read more at: http://thegypsymama.com/2011/05/five-minute-friday-on-forgetting/

Moving Back into the Bungalow {Stories My Phone Photos Tell}

Circa Jan/Feb 2001

We spent several weeks working, living, sleeping and playing in a very sparsely furnished house as we prepared for the arrival of our shipment.

{Stories My Phone Photos Tell}

Starbucks Stop on the way to O'hare

circa April 2011

I certainly was more systematic about blogging whilst living in Asia.

Most likely it was the ease of doing it, and that we were relatively settled.

Maybe it was that I had an office space, and here I have a netbook (for the moment).

It could also be that here the options seem to be:

I could attack my laundry list of projects,

or sit down a write a little bloggy blog.

Inevitably, the laundry list wins out. (Quite possibly because the potential blog cannot be about mundane projects.)

But as it turns out, we have been documenting our American life, even as it happens chaotically around us, using our mobile phone cameras. I'll upload pics of from along the way ... the last four months of our repatriation journey, many of which I snapped on my phone. (At which point readers might ask, "why doesn't she just stick to her projects?")

Weekend Chinese School

When we moved home mid-school year, one of the ideals we were most committed to was keeping the girls in a Chinese learning environment. We lucked out to move within 45 minutes of a weekend Chinese school run by a group of Chinese Americans keen on keeping their kids' Mandarin skills sharp too.

Ten days after we landed, still living in the hotel out of our ten suitcases, we went for the first session. The older girls audited a couple of classes to figure out where they should be placed. They tested too high for the Chinese as a second language classes, so they were placed in Chinese as a first language classes. MGJ was placed in 2nd grade, and EHJ in 1st. Because they were studying with first language kids most of their classmates were actually 1st and 2nd graders (with a few exceptions, they do both have a few other classmates close to their ages .... Conversely, Bei Bei, who is doing the second language track, has a range of ages in her intro class from five to 11 years.)

The mention of Weekend Chinese School was often met with moans and protests this last semester. They each had a short lesson to prepare for, with about 45 minutes of homework a week. They probably could have studied more, and we could have pushed more, but the big girls ended up with high 80% on their final exams, which isn't bad considering there was no way I could help or coach them. Their teachers would email me their lessons (in Chinese characters) I would run the email and any attachments through Google Translate, and then we would try to make out the sometimes gibberish translation that came through. Working through backwards sentence structure, they would figure out their individual assignments and work through them.

It is the policy of the school that each family spend a session or two assisting with administrative tasks and helping out in the classrooms. This helps keep their costs low, and I'm sure that the lion's share of the tuition fee goes directly to renting the large junior high facility each week. The administrators and teachers are nearly volunteers (although the teachers receive a small stipend).

At my last volunteer session, I was photocopying some lessons, and one of the heads of the school approached me, and asked how our girls like Chinese classes. (Most of the students in the weekend school are Asian, and so when our three tow heads show up in qipaos ready to study zhongwen we are sometimes as much as a curiosity here as we were in China.)

"Mai ban fa," I answered her. (Literally "there is no way out," but often used in Chinese conversation the way we might say, 'it is what it is.')

"It's not their favorite," I continued, "but we don't want them to lose five years of Chinese language skills."

She leaned forward and whispered, "My daughter hates it."

With this confession, we delved more deeply into a conversation that swirled around our desire for the best possible for our kids in the long term, while in the short term they might not see it that way. (That conversation could probably be a whole other blog post, and probably will become one.)

My daughters too sometimes hated it. About the time Amy Chua started showing up in editorials as the "Tiger Mom" (shortly after the release of her book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother), I stood in a handicapped stall of the junior high girls bathroom at Weekend Chinese School debating the merits of studying Chinese, with my oldest (then 11) who was strongly reacting against the idea of sitting all semester in desks alongside eight-year-olds.

I didn't yet have the word "tiger mom" in my vernacular, (and I'm not sure if that's what I was trying to evoke), but I reached for another image MGJ and I could both relate to.

"I'm going to go 'Korean Mom' on you here, " I said, "And tell you this is non-negotiable. I want the best for you. I understand that it's uncomfortable to be with kids younger that you, but please consider that you have just tested into Chinese as a first language."

MGJ's Korean BFF in China had taken Chinese and Violin classes outside of school, and studied every Saturday afternoon at a Korean Academy meant to keep her up to date with her Korean classmates in Seoul. Her BFF got off pretty easily, compared to many other Korean expat kids, and her mom was trying her best to let her have a childhood along with her studies.

MGJ got it. Which is not to say that every week went smoothly with The Three. One two-hour a lesson doesn't compare to the five a week that they got in China at an international school with a program that was more fresh. We don't have Mandarin swirling around us, except for the hours we spend at Chinese school on Sunday afternoons, and our occasional jaunts into Chinatown. Still, I think they have at least maintained their language level.

We finished up Chinese classes for this term last Sunday. There were trophies handed out in the first language classrooms, and medals awarded to second language students. Considering way the semester went for us, the clip of Bei Bei receiving her award, and especially her teacher's comments, brought smiles to all of our faces!

Sleeping ...

The last few nights the littlest two have been falling asleep in our big bed .... and transfered, a few hours later, to their own respective beds when Mr Johnson and I come to bed.

There's something fun about cuddling together at the end of our day, sharing moments of our days.

There's something equally fun about listening to the muffled sisterly whispers after we turn out the lights.

The summer holidays are nearly here, and with them there will be lots of musical beds, I would imagine, along with relaxed bedtime schedules and more sisterly chatter ....

When Seasons Change: Another Five Minute Friday

The sun is setting on a phase of our lives. Six more mornings of kindergarten, and I will have my youngest child enrolled as a full-fledged, full-day school-aged child in the fall. Next year, with our oldest, we will also enter the teen years, and linger in them with three girls rotating through for 13 years. It's sad to think of this change in seasons. But exciting at the same time. Our baby is ready to move on. Our oldest is maturing towards that next phase of life. We can't stay in one season forever. (Thankfully). So wistfully we hold on to those last moments. Those last mid-day picnics in the playhouse with a little girl who will only have lunch at home on the weekends come autumn. Lots of trips to her favorite park. Reading and chatting and loving these last fleeting moments before we begin a new and exciting season of life.

-------------------------------

Take a deep breath. You made it. It’s Friday.

Got five minutes? Let’s write. Let’s write in shades of real and brave and unscripted.

Let’s just write and not worry if it’s just right or not.

1. Write for 5 minutes flat for pure unedited love of the written word.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. Go buck wild with encouragement for the five minuter who linked up before you.

This week's prompt: When Season's Change

From The Gypsy Momma http://thegypsymama.com/2011/05/five-minute-friday-when-seasons-change/

Mother's Day in America

The Johnson Girls - May 2005

The last Mother's Day I spent in America, my kids were this size.

I had no idea when we dined out that Mom's Day in 2005 (at a time conducive to breastfeeding and nap schedules) that it would be my last Mother's Day in America for ages. We had no idea that an offer to live in China would come just a few months later, and that a few months after that we would agree to to take the plunge. I don't remember many specifics of the day, except that it was warm and sunny, and that I was tired, and we were still working out the system of buckling three kids into their respective boosters, car seats and infant car carriers.

I had fabulous Mother's Days in China... Spent with our family of five and sometimes friends. We ate, almost every year, at the Shangri la Qingdao. We had long leisurely lunches and took seaside walks afterwards. May was one of the finest months in QD, with blue skies and roses spilling over the walls. At least one year my mom was with us on Mother's Day in China... Parenting abroad certainly had it's perks when it came to Mother's Day!

It's Friday, and we are rounding out the week that began with Mother's Day.

It was my first Mother's Day back Stateside.

On that Sunday devoted to moms, I had a cup of French pressed coffee in bed; received thoughtfully planned out, homemade cards; and, triplet clay pots of pansies hand-potted by hands that are growing every more graceful and further and further from the chubby, sticky ones of just a few years ago. There was a lovely chain bearing three simple monograms from The Vintage Pearl (there may have been some not-so-subtle hints towards my desire for this gift), and a totally un-nudged gift from Mr Johnson of a leather bound journal and some nice writing pens: a nod/encouragement/gesture that explains, again, how sometimes he just 'gets me'.

Our morning then included Mother's Day morning at church, followed by brunch at a Midwestern style steakhouse with Mr Johnson's brothers, wives, and parents. In a welcome break from the wet and cold weather we've had so far this spring, the day was absolutely lovely .... making moms merry and their aggie husbands anxiously itching to get into the fields that had been too wet, as of then, to get into.

It has interested us to watch how the girls react to various parts of our transition. Restaurants in the US have not received rave reviews from girlies, who have complex palates for their ages. The Three have sampled the wares of street food vendors in China, Malaysia, and Thailand ... they have wiped the fatty grease drips of cumin laced lamb kebabs off their chins, sampled savory fresh curries from roadside stands (well, not EHJ, but she has tried, every style of Asian rice) and garlic naan in ramshackle vegetarian holes-in-the-wall .... But they have also eaten at five star restaurants where gastronomy and decor are superior to many American chain eateries. So, it was no surprise when we pulled into the parking lot of this establishment (one that a review I later read described as 'folksy') that our oldest let out a small sigh. "I didn't know it was going to be this kind of place" she she muttered from the back seat, as we pulled our import into an angled parking space next to a one-ton Detroit made diesel pick-up with modified smoke stacks.

"This kind of place" was a restaurant that, when I called about an earlier reservation time, and inquired if they were yet taking Mother's Day reservations the husky voice on the other end (I kid you not) replied, "Hell, yah."

The food was the good, down home kind. Meat, meat and meat on one side of the buffet with pastries and fruit on the other side. It was a brunch pretty enough for a mom, but hearty enough for the dads who had carved out an hour or so from their day, before heading to the fields to plant seed corn and soybeans in straight, GPS guided rows.

Bei Bei, confident in the buffet line on her own, came back with a plate of an Adkins dieter. "I got meat, because they didn't have any vegetables." (It's not a joke, given the chance, Bei Bei-- who routinely takes avocados, seaweed or oranges for her morning snack at school-- would choose a cucumber over just about anything else.)

And it was then, as so many other times in our days back in the States, that we realize anew how much life has changed for our kiddos. They are gradually (and [mostly] gracefully) transitioning into a new country and culture. And handling themselves in a way that makes us proud.

What better Mother's Day gift could a mom of TCKs want?

Motherhood Should Come with ... {Another five minute Friday}

It's a Six Minute Saturday today, folks. (I totally forgot to check in and see what the Gypsy Momma had for a prompt this week and, it turns out, it's just too good a topic to pass up. Check it out at:http://thegypsymama.com/2011/05/five-minute-friday-motherhood-should-come-with/)

Happy Mother's Day to all the mums out there.

Here's my two cents on the subject ... in six minutes flat.

Start:

Motherhood should come with a disclaimer that reads: it is okay to make it up as you go along. (The disclaimer could also add that what works well for one of your children, may not work for another. And an additional collorary could be added that what works best for your family, may not work well for another family ... and that's okay.)

I don't think that anyone should tell you how exhausted you'll sometimes feel. How you might one day wander around a Target with vomit on your jeans, vomit that belongs to the small person you left at home with your husband, and that you had no idea was there.

No one should tell you that one day when your daughter is in junior high, she will not smile and wave back to you from the stage as she once did when she was little and you sat in the audience. You have to come to these moments on your own. Because they are your own. You own them.

Just like you own every sweet precious moment with a baby snuggled on your shoulder, or in your big bed on a Saturday morning.

Motherhood should could with a little prompt that tells you to follow your instinct and your heart.

Stop

Rhubarb ...

For all the rouge growth in our tangle of a yard in the half decade of our absence, there are one or two bright spots: the lilacs have doubled in size; the boxwoods are {finally} a nice shape and size; and the rhubarb... oh the rhubarb!

Rhubarb is one of Mr Johnson's favorites. (Although he recently confessed that he doesn't like it in crumble or crisp form). Last summer we ate our fill over home leave. And there is a possibility that some sour stalks may have been wrapped in newspaper before we departed Vancouver last summer and slipped into a duffel bag. It is possible that they were not detected by customs or security, and we may or may not have feasted on that impossible import twice .... stretching three chopped cups into two different recipes. That might have happened.

Our oldest turns twelve today. Our oldest who has a mature palate for her age and an interest in a variety of flavour combos. So for her birthday she's not getting a cake, but a clafoutis. She sampled the still bubbling, not-too-sweet goodness after school, and confirmed what I guessed when I perused this first-time-recipe ... she loved it.

So, because it's so yummy, and because you might have your own rhubarb patch out back, I'll include the recipe here (with apologies to all my friends in QD who cannot get rhubarb ... if it makes you feel any better I can't get pomelo or Korean pears here, or reasonably priced or locally grown cherries ).

Spiced Strawberry Rhubarb Clafoutis
from the Interweb on a google search

Fruit
1 lb ripe strawberries, hulled and halved
1 cup rhubarb (about 2 stalks), diced
4 tbsp butter
1/3 cup sugar

Batter
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
3 eggs
3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 whole milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 tsp fresh-ground black pepper

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-inch cake pan or casserole dish.

In a sauté pan, melt the butter. Add the rhubarb and place the strawberries on top, cooking for about five minutes and giving an occasional shake to make sure it’s not sticking. (The goal is the reduce the fruits’ juices to create a bit of a syrup without turning the strawberries to mush.) Sprinkle the 1/3-cup of sugar over the berries, stir and bring the mixture to a boil. Cook for a few minutes, until the mixture thickens slightly. Pour the fruit into you baking dish and let cool while you make the batter.

In a medium-sized bow, whisk the sugar, salt and eggs together until it is light. Slowly add the flour, whisking until combined. Stir in cream, vanilla, cardamom and pepper. Pour the batter over the fruit. Bake for 35-45 minutes, until the cake is puffy and browned on top. Dust with powdered sugar or serve with whip cream or ice cream.

(further apologies to my international friends for the Fahrenheit temperatures and non-metric measurements. You'll have to do the reverse google searches I had to do whilst in China! I can tell you that 350 F is 177 C!)