Happy Thanksgiving From Around the World!!!

Wow. I know it has been awhile, a-long-while actually since the last post. I have no good excuse for not posting sooner, other than to just blame it on life. Life has been good just busy for us all. I will do my best to catch y'all up on what's been going on with all of us. But first, I would like to provide a disclaimer. Michael is funnier than me. I have known that for years. So while his previous two posts were probably more enjoyable than any post of mine, you are stuck with me anyway. Sorry. Now, moving on.

I took a cue from my friend Mandy and will update y'all by going person by person.

MICHAEL: Is working terribly hard. In all of the years I have known him I have never NOT seen him work hard on a job, no matter what kind. But, these past few weeks have been different. Things with the suppliers he is in charge of keep getting worse and worse. Let me explain. He has been sent here on behalf of his company to "manage/assist" the smaller Chinese companies that provide parts to his company. And his company in turn provides parts to another company. So I am sure you all understand that if the little Chinese company is having problems, then Michael's company is having problems, and then the company they supply to is having problems. Basically you end up with a boatload of ticked off people....at every level. The reason I say his job is to "manage/assist" is because while he is not an employee of the Chinese companies, he still tells them what to do to an extent. But it is all done in the spirit of assistance. And currently to two main suppliers of parts for Michael's company are having major problems. The end result, Michael is having major problems. Or rather, dealing with some major problems. And it seems (I will say at least to me anyway) that the higher ups in Michael's company just want the problem fixed, no matter what the cost or how unreasonable they are being. Everyone wants the problem fixed, it just doesn't happen overnight. Unfortunately, it's Michael's job to keep reminding them of that. And sometimes it ain't pretty. I cannot even begin to imagine how stressed out this past month is making him because amazingly....I don’t' see it. He is working some crazy long hours but when he comes home, he's home. He plays "rough" (that's what they call wrestling) with the boys, listens to me gripe about my day (which honestly is nothing compared to his), and somehow manages to be in good spirits with us. I DON'T KNOW HOW HE DOES IT!!!!! I wish I had better words to say but, I am SO VERY blessed that he was willing to spend the rest of his life with me. He is truly a wonderful father, friend, and husband.

ME: My trip back to the States to spend time with my family was good. The flights were almost unbearably long. I have a huge amount of new found respect for Michael who flew those flights several times a month for almost a year. Though spending time with my family made the suffering worthwhile for sure. It was a quick trip, just a week. But to be with my family after the passing of my grandfather was so comforting. In other news, I am currently, as in right now, cooking a turkey for about 20-25 friends for Thanksgiving. Some of you may be surprised to know that this is my first time to roast a bird. In the past I have helped my mom a little but never really contributed much. I guess I am growing up. WAIT, I should be honest. I have called my mom 3 times. Just to make sure I was doing stuff right!! I knew what I was doing....really! Anyway, we will see in about 30 minutes how good, please be good, of a job I did. HAPPY THANKSGIVING Y'ALL!!!!

GABE:Ahh, Gabe is Gabe. Which I suppose is a good thing. Actually I know it is. He is ornery as ever. Yet, he has many wonderful moments. I know all parents think that their children are smart, so I won't act like he is a genius or anything. But, he never ceases to amaze Michael and I with his memory. He has the memory of an elephant! He is always remembering things that happened in months past, even events that happened almost two years ago. (When he was just a little over 1 year old.) Though I do believe that he will one day put this ability to good use, for now it is sometimes frustrating and hilarious. His Chinese vocabulary is growing by the day. I know that children pick up languages better than adults but, I do think his memory serves him well here also. He is by no means bi-lingual, he just knows lots of Chinese words. For example, he can tell a taxi driver, in Chinese, "Please take me to the Shanghai Science and Technology Center subway station." And since he has the route memorized, if he thinks they are veering off course, he will tell them to "go straight, turn right, or turn left" all in Chinese. Also, as he learns new things, his definition of what a grown-up is changes. Sometimes that definition seems very profound (to us proud parents anyway) or times just funny. He told me the other day that he would know he was a grown-up when, "I have black scratchers on my face just like Michael." Can't say that one was profound, just funny to us.

MADDOX:"I do it!" That right there describes Madd-Dog perfectly. That phrase is his trademark these days. He has turned into Mr. Independent. He is no longer content to play in the shadow of his older brother. He wants to make his own. He is a climber, jumper, runner, faller, crasher, an all around tough guy! There are very few things he is afraid to try.....activities or food. He loves the local food, especially rice. And if you give him anything with chopsticks he will eat it for sure. He likes "using" chopsticks. Though much less of a talker than Gabe was/is ( Maddox does not take after the Loudermilk side of the family here for sure ) he still communicates well. He loves telling the locals hello, thank you, bye bye, and a few other words in Chinese. Funny thing though, if you ask him to count 1 to 10, 1-4 are in English and 5-10 are in Chinese. He'll get it eventually!

Well that pretty much covers the finer points. A few weekends ago we went with Michael to a town called Wuxi. Which is actually where his is primary office is located. (He works out of Shanghai some.) It is 2 1/2 hours away by car. We had a driver take us there but we rode the train back. It was the boys first real train ride and they loved it!!! The train ride only lasts about 45 minutes and that was not near long enough for them. They didn't want to get off!! While in Wuxi, they had a great time in the hotel pool, at the zoo, and at a local park. It was a fun weekend away. Here are a few pictures.

At the pool.

Does anything strike you as odd in this picture? Look closely. :-)
Lunch time! This guy had just finished the juice box and was moving on to his banana.

This was a fun slide. It was made out of a giant piece of stone.
The boys played on it for a long time. I went down it myself a couple of times!
This was crazy. At the park in Wuxi there were these animals that kids could ride/drive for 5 minutes for about 70 cents. The boys thought it was awesome!
What's crazy about it was the crowd watching and taking pictures of the little foreign kids. It's like that everywhere we go. Everyone wants pictures of themselves or their kids with the boys. We seem to always draw quite a crowd. Everywhere!
And just because I know that y'all were so anxious to see how it turned out.........There she is, or should I say, he is!?!

Made it!

Yep, this one is all about makin' it. I just put the boys down for the night, came back into the living room here where I set up command central throughout the end of the week to work from and also maximize my ability to monitor the kids, only to find the following on my screen...

So the good news is that Jessica made it back 'home'! As for me, I managed to make it through the week with no major catastrophes past Saturday. There was that little blip with Maddox escaping the perimeter that I had set up here to break into our bathroom and spread the soap around the floor. However, I managed to get that one taken care of and that was pretty much it. The floors are clean, the bathrooms are clean, the sheets are all washed, the clothes are all washed...all thanks to Chen. But hey, I'm the one payin' for it! I only managed to lose two fish out of the boys fish tanks...with no signs of any remains I might add. Plus, I managed to solve a pretty major issue at work that had one of our assembly lines completely stopped, so I pretty much think that the week was a success.

By the way (and though I readily admit that my domestication abilities are somewhat limited), I just wanted to offer up that even in the face of having to deal with an oven that is somewhat complicated and confusing; that if you put good directions on the box that you can get a pretty good meal. For instance, breakfast on Friday...

That is right folks. Notice the nice golden brown color on the tops of those babies. The nice clean and non-burned edges. And just to offer up some proof that the demanding little pain in the neck critics that I had to put up with on Saturday at McDonald's found these completely appealing...

Yep, I'm shameless. I even made them beg me for more. Couldn't help myself really. Don't have a picture of it, but I figured out the chicken nugget things too. That's right, Friday night was me, the boys, and 12 crispy, golden brown dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets, some Chinese BBQ sauce, applesauce and chocolate pudding. Food Network doesn't have anything on me...as long as it comes out of a bag or box that has decent instructions on them.

Anyway, this is all pretty much pointless rambling and nothing more than an attempt for me to kill some time and try and dull out the excitement and anticipation of just waiting for Jessica to get home from the airport; while at the same time try and redeem myself from one of my lower point days as a parent. I guess that I should take some time to thank all of those of you that made it possible. To Bill and Judy, thanks for watching the boys for me on Monday and Tuesday while I was slaving away at work. Chen of course is an invaluable member of our family over here...whether we pay her or not. I got to see first hand this week that she genuinely cares about the boys more than I understand. Jen G. for making fun of me as a parent and inspiring me to do better. Buster and Amy for checkin' in on me throughout the week and inviting us for an afternoon out at one of the bust burger joints in town. And I guess Jessica...though she sets the bar pretty high...

All in all, it was a lot of fun! But man am I lookin' forward to going back to man-to-man defense against the boys!

And folks...that was just Saturday...

I realize that pictures speak thousands of words and all of that, but in all of the excitement this past Saturday, capturing these fun moments on film (or file so to speak) were hardly on my mind at the time.

Saturday was the day that Jessica went back to Alabama to be with her family since her grandfather has passed away. Luckily, the boys woke up in time to say goodbye before James came to pick her up and take her to the airport. The boys and I had some breakfast...basically just picking from the stuff that Jessica made for us. Waffles were the meal of choice. After that, and a little bit of time just playin' around the apartment and all was fine. Pretty much was appearing to be a pretty easy day with the low point being Jessica leaving. Then came the shower...

After doing the normal trip to the bathroom for Gabe and changing Maddox's diaper, I figured then was as good a time as any to dump the boys in a shower. Just after I got them both into the shower, the phone rang so I ran into the bedroom to answer it. Jessica was just calling to let me know that she got checked in and was at the gate. She also needed me to get her some stuff that she forgot to write down before she left. The call couldn't have been any more than five minutes. When we got done, I walked back into the bathroom to check on the boys. As I walked through the door, all that I could hear other than the running water was constant giggling. One thing that the boys like to do is to wait until I wash my hair or rinse off soap and run their cars through the 'bubbles' that make it to the floor. Apparently, they didn't think that I would make it to the shower, so they got the body wash down and managed to get it open. Maddox was standing with one foot on top of the bottle trying to get some of the soap out while Gabe was flinging the soap that had already come out all over the shower floor and walls. Not all that big a deal though really. I mean, we had soap everywhere in the shower, and there were certainly a lot of bubbles, but it was all contained in the shower.

So I hop in the shower, get the boys clean and let them play in the bubbles for a little while longer. Gabe decided that it would be fun to play with the drain cover, which is not secured into place with anything other than gravity. Maddox subsequently assumed that it would be fun to drive one of his toy cars down into the drain pipes. Luckily, I was pretty much done with the shower so I got the boys out, dried them off, and then took them to our bedroom and sat them on the bed. I turned on the Chinese cartoon network as I knew that it would keep them entertained while I went back into the shower with a wire coat hanger to dig the car out of the drain pipe. Thanks to an annoying bend in the pipe, it took longer than expected, but alas I was able to get the car out of the drain...only to hear Maddox whimpering back in our bedroom.

I walk in the bedroom to see Maddox standing there with a shocked look on his face and standing in a puddle of...just imagine having two cups of milk for breakfast, having just gotten out of the shower and still being damp, and standing in a room right under the air conditioning vent with the air conditioner still on. Luckily though, he had at least climbed out of our bed before performing that act. All that I could think of to do to console the poor kid was to hand him the same car that he had dumped down the drain. Then I picked him up, took him back in the bathroom and cleaned him off. Luckily, the rest of the morning was pretty low key. We went over to the fitness complex that we live close to which has a pretty big play area for kids. There was a birthday party going on there for a girl and all of her friends. They were a little bit older than Gabe, but both he and Maddox certainly enjoyed the attention. Anyway, about an hour there, a short trek back to the apartment and 20 or so minutes to cook some chicken nuggets for the boys and we should be good to go.

There is a weird thing about our oven though. Instead of specifying an actual temperature on the knob, it just gives numbers: 1 through 8. Luckily though, Jessica left me a guide on how to correlate the numbers to a temperature. Next problem though, the only instructions on the side of the bag that showed how to cook the chicken were instructions on how to fry them in a wok. A lot of good that did. I figured that it would be easy to figure out though. I will just pick a medium temperature...say 5, and put the chicken in there and see what we get. After about 10 minutes, all that we had were pretty much just soggy pieces of chicken. I figure that I'll just flip them over and bump the temp up to number 6. Still no problem. 10 minutes later and we still have some soggy pieces of chicken sitting there...and no sign of that wonderful golden brown color that we are supposed to get on these little modern marvels. I figure that I will just bump up the temperature even more and give then a few more minutes. After about 30 minutes of sitting in the oven, we still didn't manage to obtain that golden color, and it was about the most rubbery creation I had ever eaten. Luckily, the boys didn't seem to have such picky pallets as I. So now off to take a nap...only almost an hour late.

So then comes the afternoon. Neither one of them really slept all that well. Normally, they wake up around 4:30 or so. By 3:30, I had given up fighting with them. Gabe just shot up out of bed and ran into the living room asking to watch a movie or some TV. After I got him settled, I went back in to get Maddox. Now recently, when coming home in the afternoon, I noticed that Maddox was always wearing a pair of underwear over his diaper. I had just assumed that he wanted to be like Gabe or something and Jessica was just helping the kid out. Yeah, it dawns on me that maybe the move to put the underwear over the diaper was more out of necessity than anything else. As I walked into the room, there was Maddox standing in his bed, bare bottomed, pointing to the floor where he had thrown his diaper that he had taken off. The diaper was as dry as a bone...but not the bed. Perfect...here we go again! As least this time, it didn't appear that Maddox needed to go back to the bath.

So anyway, I strip down the sheets and blankets and head off to the utility room, where we have this really nice eco-friendly washing machine and dryer set. Easy enough I figure as I load all the sheets and blanket into the washing machine and grab the bag of laundry detergent. Next, I open the little drawer thing that you are supposed to put the detergent in for the washing machine and low and behold there are four different compartments in the stinkin' thing. After a minute of looking at the thing, I noticed that there was a little trap door type of thing in the back and a water line that runs into one of the compartments. It almost looks like you just load this one compartment up with soap, that water runs through the one next to it and they mix on the compartment with the trap door to ultimately dump into the washing machine. So, I just load up the middle container and go on my happy way. Next problem...the whole stinkin' setting knob is in Chinese. Just thinking back to how easy things are back home, I remembered that on our washing machine that the simple wash cycle had the least number of characters. Assuming that the logic was the same in China (silly me) I just picked the cycle that had the least number of Chinese characters. When that narrowed it down to three selections, I just picked the least complicated selection from those three. Some lights and numbers started flashing on the thing, so I started to feel much better about myself. Luckily, the On-Off symbol of the interupted circle with a line is an international symbol so we are good to go.

Anyway, can't figure out what else there is to do and the weather was pretty nice so I just dressed the boys and got them ready to head out to the playground in the apartment complex. Stroke of luck happens again and one of the boys that Gabe and Maddox apparently know pretty well is having a birthday party and they are just wrapping up and heading to the playground themselves. That was a piece of cake (no pun intended). The kids practically baby sat themselves. Really, the only bad thing about it was that it was all moms sitting out there, so I looked a little out of place. This is where the person that invented the Sudoku puzzles deserves a big thank you. Yep, I just drag out my Sudoku book that I do on the train and car rides around China and start working a few puzzles.

After about an hour there, we come back inside fully expecting the laundry to be done so that I can throw it in the dryer (which is also a Whirlpool appliance just like the washing machine, but is all in English) before the boys have to go to bed. Not sure where I went wrong on this one, but I either picked the wrong setting, or picked the wrong bin for the soap, but the washing machine was still going strong, one hour later, and all that you could see in the washing machine was a tub full of bubbles with some of them 'escaping' around the door seam on the front of the washing machine.

At this point I was pretty much just ready to give in and give up. I looked at the boys, asked them what they wanted for dinner, and just got two blank stares. So, being the perfectly good dad that I am, I just say "how about a surprise for dinner?" This just seemed to be the trick as looks of shear excitement dawned both of their faces. It was simply enough...all that I did was throw their shoes back on, head down to the street in front of our apartment grab a taxi and proudly proclaim: Ja-Le-Foo, Fang Dian Loo (don't get too caught up in this), it just gets us to a Carrefour (like a Wal-Mart) that is about six our eight blocks away from our apartment. Handy little thing about this Carrefour though is that it has a McDonald's in it. Two kids meals, a Big Mac meal and $6 later, I was well back on track.

It was now well past the boys bed time. But hey, I was a hero. We walked in the door to the apartment, only to hear the washing machine still running (now over three hours in its cycle). Needless to say, Maddox wasn't sleeping on his normal sheets that night. I just pulled the comforter up, grabbed a couple of extra top sheets and he was good to go. And folks...that was just Saturday...

NOTES: You can pretty much accept this as my public affirmation for all that Jessica does for us. Secondly, Maddox didn't stop there with the soap. On Wednesday, my first day back alone with the boys (we had some help on Monday and Tuesday...thanks Bill and Judy!) I noticed that I hadn't heard from Maddox in several minutes. When I called his name, he came running out into the hallway from our bedroom with that just been caught look on his face. I went into the bathroom to find that he had gotten into the shower and grabbed the soap and was spreading it out on the bathroom floor...looking for more bubbles. It has taken me three days to get it clean and I still haven't gotten it all. The sheets, yeah they were in the washing machine for just over four hours. I have no idea what I did there. The the suds kept spewing out of the thing too. Made it down to the floor. Managed to get that one cleaned up right away though and nobody will ever know...except the billions of people that have access to this blog. And finally, after all that I went through on Saturday, and spoiling the boys by taking them to McDonald's, Gabe has the audacity to tell me that McDonald's McNuggets are better than the chicken that I made. What a little punk! Oh well, I still wouldn't trade this experience. I have had a lot of laughs this week!