Sickies

I have to say, we've been pretty healthy in the 7.5 months we've been here. I would have expected that being exposed to new germs and bugs, and with Annika in kindergarten bringing home germs that we'd have been sick a lot more. But last Wednesday when I picked Annika up from kindergarten, she whimpered the whole way home that she was cold and as soon as we walked in the door she went and laid down on the couch and spent the rest of the evening lying there under a blanket. I kept her home from school the next day, and Leila was putzing around the whole day annoying Annika who had a fever and wasn't feeling well, when all of a sudden in the late afternoon Leila joined her on the couch with her blanket. Our ear thermometer quit working, and once you've had one of those nifty things you never want to go back, so I bought a new one and it is even better than the last one because it beeps twice if you have a fever and also shows a happy face/sad face depending if you have one or not (in addition to showing the temperature). So while Annika bounced back except for a hacking cough, Leila continued to make the thermometer show a sad face for five days straight. Finally on Monday I decided it was time to see what a trip to the doctor in Hong Kong is like.

There is a hospital right across from CAIS, so Jocelyn showed us where to go and what to do. You pretty much just walk in and ask to see a doctor. You pay up front, but get reimbursed from our health insurance provider once we submit our claim. I was pretty impressed- we didn't have to wait all that long, and the doctor's English was really good. The only thing is that all the nurses and doctors have masks, so that made it a little hard to understand them because their mouths were covered. But he was really thorough, and even recommended a chest x-ray to eliminate the possibility of pneumonia. I just wanted her checked out because she had an ear infection last spring and never once told me that her ears hurt. In the end, he said it was mild bronchitis and sent us home with FOUR bottles of medicine! Isn't that crazy? And so confusing to keep track of all the instructions. One of them is just Dimetapp which is good because our reserves of Canadian medicine have been getting low. So I've just been giving her the antibiotics and the fever/cough/phloem ones as needed. And she's already feeling a lot better.

But I have been feeling the whole time that the girls have been sick that I may be getting a sinus infection. I hoped I could fight it off, but today my teeth started tingling (does anyone else get that with a sinus infection?) and realized that it was my turn to see the doctor.

And look! My own little pharmacy of pills. They give them out like candy! Now Mike came home with a hoarse voice, so he may be next. There have been lots of kids absent in both his and Annika's class, so there is definitely stuff going around. I think the cool damp weather doesn't help.

But I'm sure soon we'll be back to our healthy selves, and now we have a better idea of how the doctor/hospital system works. One good thing is that the girls go to bed SO easily while they've been under the weather. We've pretty much thrown Leila into bed as early as 6:30 some nights, and Annika is quick to follow. And all this talk of bed is making me want to retire early myself... Good night!

evening walk

The other evening after a warm day that felt like spring (but it got cold again), we went on an after supper walk. Mike had discovered this little playground, but the rest of us hadn't been there. You had to walk up these stairs up the edge of a small mountain (hill?).

And at the top... GRASS! What a treat for after all that exercise! Look how it's so grey. We haven't seen the sun in a long time. I keep reminding myself that I'd rather have grey than snow. I really would. ("Rain and grey would be welcome and preferably/melt away my frozen tears/ I'd rather be/ with an umbrella walking down the street.") But good thing the multi-vitamins I give the girls have some Vitamin D in them!

Here's some rickety steps leading up to nowhere. There were signs that we weren't allowed to use them.
And here's the view of where we came from. That big apartment complex is called Celestial Heights, and I wish we could live there. But we can't afford it- the rent is really high, but the flats are also (apparently) huge. It's a new building, and there's a shopping complex at the bottom of it which is where I always go to do my grocery shopping. And it's where the girls have their ballet lessons. There's also a dim sum place that I'd like to try, but (apparently) Mike is not a fan of dim sum. It doesn't fill him up. Well... anyway....

So at the top of this mountain, the girls became fast friends with this little guy, and he became fast friends with Mike. With the exception of his own daughters, I've never seen a baby take to Mike the way this boy did! He was like a puppy who wouldn't leave you alone. He kept toddling up to Mike and want to be picked up. Then the five or so ladies standing around would all cackle and laugh, and the one (I assume was his grandma) would come and take him back.

But it was no use. As soon as his grandma would put him back down, he'd be right back to where Mike was, wanting to be picked up again. Also, it was funny to me that he was wearing a snow suit when it was really quite warm out!

The whole thing got a little awkward because as soon as Mike would appease the little guy and pick him up, his grandma would come take him back, and it just continued like that until we left. And then he howled and was so sad. It made us wonder what kind of male involvement was happening in his life for him to have that kind of reaction. But it was still a nice walk and we continued up more steps and were rewarded with a tennis court at the top. And bathrooms.
Here the girls are modeling their new shirts, hairbands and butterfly toys from Grandma and Grandpa Janzen! They love everything you sent! Thank-you!

Leila's turn

Yesterday Leila had her first lesson, and you know that expression "her face lit up"? I put on her outfit and showed her in the mirror and the look she got on her face was priceless. There's not much that can beat a purple tutu! She had a great time and wished she could go again today. Tu-tu cute!

love

Photo Shoot

Yesterday was Leila's big day- her photoshoot with Nicolas & Bears. It was an interesting experience! All week I was wondering where it would be since the location was TBA when they set the date. I finally found out that it would be at the home of the lady who first approached us in August, and a driver would be sent to pick me and Leila up. Perfect! It was supposed to be at 3:40, which already seemed late but I got a call during the day that our pick-up time was being moved to 4:40 and would take until 8:00. That was during Leila's nap, so I let her sleep and sleep and finally got her up four to get ready to go. I never let her nap long, but it wanted her to have as much stamina as possible. Really, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I hadn't been told very much about it.
The driver was on time to pick us up, and in the van was another mom originally from Poland, her helper, and her one year old baby girl. I could see why they wanted the baby- she was so cute with big blue eyes and a whole head of hair. We drove and drove way out into the New Territories and I had no idea where we even were, and the van pulled up into a gated community that had dwellings as close to North American style that I have seen in Hong Kong. It all looked very fancy, and there were garages, big front doors and back yards. You just don't see that here- just lots and lots of high rises! Inside was huge and fancy- the kitchen alone was easily as big as our flat! To think that my friend's tiny HK flat cost $400,000 USD to purchase would probably make this home of Elaine's worth millions. Anyway, it had all been turned upside down to make it work for a photo shoot and they had had kids coming and going throughout the day. Leila and little baby Emily were the last two of the day.
Leila loved getting her hair and make-up (a bit of lip gloss and blush) done. She was so shy and cooperative. While they did this, a boy and a girl finished up the last of their pictures so once she was done, they were ready to start.

Getting Leila set up in her first of EIGHT outfits. She was really excited at this point, but once they started taking pictures, I think she realized that it was more difficult than she thought. I know how hard it is to take pictures of my kids. I mean I KNOW! It's hard! That CNY photo session is still very fresh in my mind. But I only worry about their face- not their hair, their pose or whether their clothes are looking perfect. (Later I sometimes regret that I didn't fix their hair or wipe their face, but it's hard enough to get the smile!) When the picture is supposed to be about the clothes, that really changes things. Leila would smile, but it would be too forced. We'd get her to laugh, but then her shoulders would go up, or she'd move her arms in front of herself and wiggle and tap her feet. And then her hair would get messed up and have to be fixed. It was all really tricky to have her be able to just stand with her hands at her side and SMILE. So after the first outfit she announced to me that she was done and wanted her regular clothes back on. But unfortunately we had many more wardrobe changes to go.

(Refueling with grapes and goldfish for the next round....)

All the while, Leila and the baby would switch off. I would never want to do something like this with a baby! At least Leila sort of understood what was going on. It was a little hard on little Emily, especially as time went on. But she was a very happy little girl and did really well. I have such a new respect for babies and children that you see in catalogues!

Getting Leila ready for her weekend trip to the country club....oops I mean, for the next pictures. Seriously, this company sells clothes as if these children are off to Martha's Vineyard or for a weekend on a yacht. It's so over the top! Also, all the kids that they advertise with are Caucasian and clearly they are marketing to Chinese people since all their locations are in HK and China. Kind of funny.


Leila had her moments where she wanted to be "all done", but we pushed through, and they got what they wanted. We were finally done at nine. And she fell asleep pretty quickly on the drive home. I was surprised that when she woke up this morning the first thing she told Mike and Annika is that she had fun at Nicolas & Bears. Out of curiosity I asked her if she would want to do it again and she said she wouldn't. It was pretty stressful. I think I'd only want to do something like this again is if there was actually some cold hard cash involved. :) But there were some catalogues from last year lying around, and the pictures were really nice. When it's all said and done, I think it will be fun to see the pictures and it definitely was an experience!

Ba-ack!

Finally, our laptop is fixed and back! It had been fixed and worked for a short while, but then returned to it's old tricks of being really slow and then eventually crashing. It seemed like it's future was bleak, but then our IT friend Matthew thought we could try replacing the hard drive, which only would cost about $75, and then if it still didn't work after that we'd know we'd done what we could and we would have to get a new computer. So far so good... but I think we'll be very distrustful of this little macbook until it proves itself to us that it really is fixed. I don't think we can afford another macbook if they only last 2.5 years! For the price you could just buy a brand-new PC every year. But here's hoping it's fixed!

So what's new? Well... not too much... let's see...

- Annika lost her second tooth, so we got to use the tooth fairy pillow again.

- Leila's going to have her chance at fame. Remember this post about getting "discovered" at Stanley? Well, out of the blue, Nicolas & Bears gave me a call wondering if Leila would be able to model for their spring catalogue. She's already attended a fitting and the photo shoot is next weekend. I'm very curious how this is all going to go down. The clothes are very fancy. She will be getting a gift certificate for the store for about $200, but it won't go very far. The fitting that she had was basically her standing there while they put on about 20 outfits on her. I helped take off a cardigan at one point and noticed it was really soft. I looked at the tag and it was 100% cashmere! Just a little bit fancier than the Old Navy and Joe Fresh that she's used to! :) Leila was far more cooperative to have so many clothes put on her than she would have been for me, so here's hoping the photo shoot will be successful!

- We figured out what to do next year with Leila for school. CAIS had been planning to start a K2 program that she would attend, but it ended up getting postponed for another year, so we were left with nothing lined up for Leila for next year and schools are competitive and costly to get into. It's not like she *has* to attend school at 4 years old, but in Hong Kong that is practically a sin, and the rest of her little friends are going off to school. Also, kindergarten would be a HUGE jump if she hadn't gone to school at all. Already it was pretty big for Annika to go from two mornings of preschool to all day/every day kindergarten in Hong Kong. So... we found a "local" school called Sun Island English school that will take place every morning, and is bilingual English/Cantonese. We'll try it out and see how she does. My personal hope for her is that she'd actually be able to learn Cantonese and could play with the little kids in her class/neighbourhood and speak their language. I guess we'll see!

And... a few photos since it's been so long...

This is yesterday (Saturday) on our outing to Snoopy World. It's kind of a random-themed playground outside of a mall in the New Territories. The girls didn't really even know who Snoopy was the first time we went, but then we showed them some Charlie Brown Christmas clips on YouTube during Christmas, and it made it all that much more exciting. Mostly they really like the empty Snoopy school bus that you can climb inside.


Unfortunately the whole playground part was closed. It has been rainy and misty lately with humidity between 95-100%. It's like living in a cloud! They like to play it safe in Hong Kong and avoid potentially dangerous situations if at all possible, so that meant shutting down the playground for the day, even though it didn't seem that wet to us.

After I took this picture of Leila a whole crowd gathered to get their own shot of her. She stood there like a little model with the forced smile that we've been practicing for next weekend!

Annika wasn't about to be left out and wanted to pose as well with this random stranger.

This is the mall the playground was connected to. Very crowded and busy! Malls in Hong Kong go up, rather than sprawling like WEM. Lots of escalators!

And a couple of Sunday afternoon shots taken in our bedroom.

cute

Remember this photo?

Today Leila was in the same shirt and it made me think of this picture of Annie so we decided to take a new version!

Can I help it if I think my kids are the cutest no matter which one of them is wearing the "put-a-bird-on-it" shirt?

Also, I gave Leila a haircut yesterday. I tried to take her to a local place, but she would have none of it. Even though it was getting long, it wasn't looking very nice, so I did the best I could and I think it's an improvement....