life in transition

A memory to take a snapshot of: 5:30am this morning. Declan's crying wakes me up. He was sleeping beside me on the futon, but he kind of wants to nurse right now. So I lift up my shirt, and, half-asleep with his eyes closed, he instinctively moves to where he needs to be. Nurses. Then, just as I am about to doze off again myself, I hear him giggle. I look down at him, and his eyes are looking at me. He has a huuuuge grin on his face, and he is still giggling as he shakes his head in that way when he's trying to dance.

What a funny kid.

My little family is currently staying at my childhood friend's place in Seattle. Daniel and I have been job and apartment searching during the days (two, so far) and eating dinner with Christy at night. I sent off an application to another job. This time, one that I really, really hope I get.

We'll see what happens.

hitting the road again

...tomorrow.

There's really no more procrastinating on this project called life. We head to the place that has been selected for our next stop in a matter of hours. No job, no place to stay, some friends. And praying hard that God will provide as we job and apartment search.

People who've been expecting us to live in China for the next three years are starting to hear about this new plan, little by little, and we've been receiving various reactions. I'm kind of tired of explaining, mainly because we are so uncertain about the future and I can feel the judgment by certain people who probably think less of us for our decision.

Not that I care enough to change course.

I just hope God will, in fact, provide.

He has, time and time again, and so I shall not worry.

When I do, I'll pray all the more.

baby steps

Well, in light of what I actually got done since then, my last post sure was ambitious. I would feel incredibly accomplished if we get by with most of them by the time we leave Chicago.

So far the things that make me feel like I haven't been wasting my time completely have been:

1. Getting Declan to eat a more varied diet - Food sources being a lot clearer here, I've felt more adventurous in what I'm sharing with him. So far, he's opened up to banana, cheerio, some avocado, bread, hash browns, carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes (it's winter time after all = root veggies as current seasonal staple), a little meat, rice... And he hasn't immediately started getting an upset stomach and diarrhea like had been the case in China. Hooray!

2. Not being so jet lagged anymore - We've been sleeping a lot. This may need adjusting again when we head west some more. For now, this is nice.

3. I got a new mac and a GRE study book - Hopefully tomorrow shall be the beginning of studying and writing for both graduate school and job applications. (Yes, I should break the tasks down according to urgency. Divide and conquer.)

Right now, I'm going to read a frivolous fictional story before bed more or less around midnight. And tomorrow, I shall organize our luggage as the starting point of productivity.

pre-new year jitters

It's half funny, half annoying that tonight/this morning my husband, I think, had a similar panic attack that I went through last night. He eventually got out of bed, left the room, and finished one of his job applications, to submit pending my editing.

I myself got up at 4:40am, a record best this week for the longest I could bear to stay in bed after waking up and unable to fall back asleep. Our son is currently still doing splendidly, going to bed at 8:30pm after going essentially berserk in his fatigue-induced haze and sleeping through the usual jet lag-induced insomnia party that had usually lasted from midnight to 3am these past couple of nights. I am so, so thankful. It makes having to nurse him for basically four hours consecutively worth it.

So now I'm starting to fill out my own job application for a Seattle position while waiting for the rest of the family to wake up. I'm actually really excited about all the things to do today, this very last day of the year 2011. I haven't felt such anticipation in facing the new day since, well, a long long time ago.

We/I must:

1. Grocery shop before Daniel's grandfather returns home from being hospitalized for two days.

2. Re-organize our luggage so we can travel yet lighter in about 10 days.

3. Submit our respective job applications.

4. Start keeping regular "appointments" with God. This has been missing since I got food poisoned and then Declan got sick in Shanghai, and both my husband and I feel the lack.

5. Buy a new laptop (and possibly sweatpants) for moi. So as to complete #3 better. (Right now we're hogging Daniel's mom's computer and it won't be around for long.)

I hope we get all these balls rolling before everything shuts down for the next two days. Happy new year!

too many little birds flying through my head

Current status on jet lag: Forced Declan to wake up with us at 10:30 this morning, then attended a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese and got him to stay awake a bit longer with the help of the flashing lights. I went to bed with him at 8:30pm while Daniel, his sister, and his mom took Daniel's grandfather to the E.R. (We had found him lying on his bedroom floor; undisclosed details for his privacy, but suffice to say, after realizing he came to and remained in this state 20+ hours ago, it was alarming) Then Declan woke up with Daniel's return around midnight. We watched a WWII documentary until Declan started wailing and kicking his feet in fatigue, and I finally got him back to sleep around 2:30am.

Then I lied in bed next to my husband and my son, listening to them breathe and stir for the next 2.5 hours. I quietly talked with God to pass the boredom, wishing I know where I had packed my iPod nano and headphones. I mentioned Daniel's grandfather, who's currently on IV drip in the hospital, awaiting blood test results and a possible CT scan. I mentioned both Daniel's and my upcoming job search in Seattle, and how we've scrapped the original travel itinerary of Boston-> Pittsburgh -> Taiwan next. I'm going to miss visiting my friends in Pittsburgh, and seeing family in Taiwan, but our hope is that something would turn up for us before next semester starts. Oh God, please let there be time and suitable work. I mentioned about just traveling with a baby and the details that could go wrong. I mentioned a lot, a lot, a lot of my worries for my little family's future. And my own future. How I would ever realize my own dreams.

So, yeah, I guess it's natural that with so much chirping running through my mind, it's damn near impossible to get any shuteye.

Oddly enough, there is a measure of peace underlying all of this. God has proven himself to be faithful time and time again; I trust he will take care of us. Onward with *sigh* applications and moving, yet again.

our last day as permanent residents in china

Tomorrow we fly. This past week has been: me in a fetal position, burning hot to the touch, trying to induce vomit, etc to feel just a smidge of relief from the most intense bout of food poisoning I've ever had. Most intense as in I've had longer bouts of food poisoning before, but never one so painful, to the point where I couldn't even lie down and there was no relief. Daniel valiantly stepped up to man childcare duties, as Declan insisted on my holding him even as I was bent over on the porcelain god. It started at 2am in Hangzhou, and then we needed to bring everything we owned in China with us on a three hour van ride to Shanghai at 11am the next day. Daniel joked that the hotel we checked into in Shanghai probably thought we're here for my heroin detox. As soon as we arrived, I collapsed on the bed, roiling in my own personal hell while Daniel had to baby proof the room i.e. tell them to remove all the liquor bottles and glass containers that were at Declan's height.

Two days later, I felt better, but as I was reclining in bed, weak from a diet of water and gatorade for 48 hours, Declan suddenly woke up from his nap with a geyser of vomit. Everything he ate at breakfast came pouring out, and more, as he dry-heaved.

The vomiting went on for two days. Everything I tried to get into him came back up five, 10 minutes later. We were besides ourselves. He had ceased to pee, was starting to look pale and listless, was exhausted. Finally, we took him to a hospital 10 minutes away and added another chapter to our China experience: going through the (emergency) health care system here.

There are a lot of things I am truly thankful for right now. I am thankful that we made the decision to quit the job and leave. Life here with a baby is just too hard for us. The standards really are different. No I.V. drip for a baby with a fever, no pee since more than a day ago, and severe diarrhea? I'm not a doctor, but that sounds a bit screwy. I am thankful that I was still almost exclusively breastfeeding Declan, so that without being able to find Pedialite or make my own ORS (can't find baking soda)--I'm still able to help Declan stay nourished and get hydrated. He's finally stopped throwing up. I don't know if it had anything to do with the enema the hospital told us to give him. I am thankful that his illness happened just as I was rallying from mine; otherwise, there was no way I could have battled the queuing and shoving for our personal spaces at the hospital the way we needed. As it was, I felt faint a few times, started crying at one point, and was graced to skip ahead of a saintly couple of grandparents whose grandson was also in line at the emergency.

So now two days after that, Declan's still pooping awful things, but not vomiting or with fever, and is napping calmly. I am feeling stronger and actually ate two small but solid meals yesterday (shrimp fried rice for lunch; braised beef stew over rice for dinner). And tomorrow we fly.

Hallelujah, merry Christmas!

seattle

It's so strange, how this city keeps coming up again and again. Talking with a high school friend a few weeks ago, she mentioned how she plans to move there to study her MBA in two or three years. Several of other high school friends have also relocated there and bought houses, so it appears they'd be there for at least a while. I emailed a college friend to catch up a few days ago, and she replied that she's moving from Singapore to Seattle the very next day!

With so many of my best of friends there (the only other American city with more friends would be Pittsburgh), I wish that's the next place we can go. Daniel's applied for a faculty position at one of the universities there, but the chance of him actually getting the position in this dismal job market is bleak. I can't help but feel a little resentful by how I'm no longer as mobile or free to make my own decisions about what to do or where to go. Ideally, I would live in either Taiwan or somewhere on the West Coast. But my husband's a more Midwestern or East Coast kind of guy. One of the things I asked him about when he asked me to marry him was whether or not we could one day live in Taiwan, because it's where I feel like I most belong. He said yes. And on that count, I had agreed to marry him. And then it seemed like, once he "got" me, my life has become a series of giving up things that matter a great deal to me...all for the sake of pleasing him.

Of course it makes me sad. Sometimes, marriage feels like one big shackle.