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| Happy baby... |
China is proving to be a wonderful place to raise children. No matter where you go they are valued and loved like you’ve never experienced before. You know how in the States when you eat at a restaurant a lot of people will try to sit at the table the furthest away from you and your kid? Here, they would join you if invited. In fact, it is not uncommon to have strangers come retrieve Elli just so they can spend some time with her too. Yes, she is a bit of a rare commodity for them – blonde curly hair and blue eyes – but they love their own children in this same way too. Interestingly, it is not a particular demographic that is most obsessed with the kids either. All Chinese people love kids. We are just as likely to have a teenage boy trying to get Elli to take a photo with him as we are a middle-aged woman.
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| At the bike shop in Sanmen |
So other than being the center of everybody’s world wherever we go, there are other reasons Elli loves China too:
- There are kids everywhere. Here on-site there are a ton of (almost exclusively Chinese) children, largely between the ages of 6 months and 4 years old. Whenever we go out she encounters a parent, Ayi (“Auntie” who is not a blood relative), or grandparents out with their kid. And most times this kid is on a monstrosity of a push/riding toy that Elli can successfully convince the adult to give her a ride on. So many moments from our daily routine involve Elli hanging out with a hoard of toddlers outside the apartments while we mingle with their adult caretakers and try to utilize the little bit of Mandarin we’ve acquired
so far.
- People love to feed Elli. I swear I feed my child, but she has a greater affinity for things offered by strangers. It’s really nice Elli doesn’t have any food allergies and that we are flexible parents, because it makes living here a lot less stressful considering how often Elli is given food. For instance, when we were out playing with some other toddlers on site Elli soon was being fed a porridge looking dish with some fruit in it. Every time we visit the bike shop in Sanmen they also feed Elli – usually crackers, fruit, or juice. Older women especially like to give Elli treats – fruit in the marketplace or on the street is a common occurrence.
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| At a toy shop in Sanmen |
And then there are the neighbors next to a local restaurant in the nearby village (we’ve eaten at 4 times) who are obsessed with Elli. They don’t actually eat at the restaurant – they just play with our baby. She is fed yogurt looking drinks, meat on sticks, and ice cream when she hangs out with them. This past Friday night they
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| Playing in the rain |
even took Elli back to their home and shooed us back to eating. When we picked her up about 30 minutes later she was happily sitting on one of those monstrous riding toys being fed a similarporridge. Their ~2 year old granddaughter loves Elli. Mark read Dr. Seuss’ “Hop on Pop” to the 2 year old (in was in Elli’s diaper bag) before we went home and they loved it. Oh, they speak absolutely no English and we cannot understand their Chinese (not sure if it is a different dialect). They sent her home with a yogurt drink. We look forward to visiting with them with a
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Enjoying some crackers
at the bike shop |
translator so we can understand what they are always trying to tell us!
- Elli also loves Mark’s work schedule. He works from 8AM-Noon, comes home from Noon-1PM for lunch, works 1-5PM and come back home. Elli loves having Daddy (Baba) home so much!
- We ride our bicycle more here in China since we have so much more non-scheduled time. Elli LOVES to go for bike rides, even if we wake her up early to get ready. As soon as she sees the bike is moved towards the door
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| Elli's first 115K ride |
she is all smiles and will carry around her helmet so we don’t forget it. In addition to longer rides (Elli did a 115K – that’s 72 miles – bike ride last week) we also make more short trips on the bike, like riding to a nearby town called Liu’ao to buy fresh fruit, vegetables, and meat a couple times a week.
While we know Elli is unlikely to remember any specifics from living in China these next few years, we hope these experiences help to shape the way she thinks and interacts with the world.
