White Cloud Sunday

Ahhhh Sunday, how I love you so! Today it was particularly white outside, and once again I feel like we live in a cloud. I can't see anything from our 17th floor balcony outside, not even the ground. I don't think it's entirely pollution and smog today though. The air feels wet and everything in the house is a bit damp. I picked up a pair of pants this morning crumpled in the corner of our room from yesterday and they felt very damp, then I noticed they'd left behind a white water mark on the wood floors. I promise I didn't pee in them and they were dry when I took them off yesterday! There's also condensation on all of the windows. I can understand why so many buildings in southern china have black mold and mildew growing inside.

It's so nice to relax on the weekends and not stress about running errands. We're within walking distance of several grocery stores and have a slew of delivery menus on hand for everything from pizza to groceries, so as long as we have cash from the atm, there's no fear of starvation. With the cloud in full force this morning, it felt like a veg on the couch kind of day. Dean went down for an early nap so I didn't take him to church; instead I spent the morning curled up on the sofa reading a book.

Around 4:30 I started feeling guilty for letting Dean watch 2 hrs of cartoons, even though they were in Chinese so it's kind of an educational experience. I took him for a walk to the closest import store to buy milk and see if anything special caught my eye. We were in luck - fresh mini marshmallows in easter/spring colors shipped in from usa! A bag was only 15 yuan, or about $2.30, which I consider a real bargain compared to most of the prices in this store. I really wanted to buy a pkg of cheddar cheese, but at 40 yuan for 8 oz (over $6), I managed to restrain myself.

I am finally starting to make friends with fellow moms in our complex, and it's fun to walk outside and run into them, letting the kids have impromptu play sessions. Dean and I had just such an experience on the way home. We ended up playing for over an hour at a playground underneath one of the buildings near us. Thankfully it's not too hot out yet, so our milk didn't spoil.

Dean has a red plastic ride-on car that I let him "drive" to the store to get milk. When it was time to go inside, he hopped on his car for the short commute home. He's gotten really good at Fred Flinstone foot action, so he can really get some speed on the thing. At one point, with his feet in full motion, he started shouting something out loud. I referred to it as cute baby babble to my friend, who laughed out loud. Though not fluent, she has a pretty extensive Chinese vocabulary and she explained that he was shouting "kuai, kuai" which means "fast, fast" in Mandarin. Aha!

A similar aha moment had already happened to me this weekend on Friday evening. I got home from work and Dean was excited to see me. He was rambling a bit but I heard him say "bao bao", which I know as "baby" in Mandarin. I smiled and shook my head asking if he had seen a baby recently on TV or outside. Ayi Ms. Yiao, who keeps Dean during the day and speaks about as much English as I do Mandarin, corrected me. She picked up Dean and handed him to me to show me what he was saying. "Bao bao" with the sounds Dean used meant "hold me". Aha!

I think bao bao is spelled the same in pinyin, the language used to write the sounds of Chinese characters using romanized font, for both "baby" and "to hold". But the tones are different for each word, so the sounds of the words are very different.

Now I'm really wondering how many other Chinese words Dean knows and says to me without me understanding. We had hoped that he would learn to speak Mandarin, but now that it's happening, I feel very disappointed in myself for living here a year but not taking the time and effort to learn the language. Dean's ever expanding vocabulary is inspiring me to tackle this project head on. I'm determined to find a tutor or school for Matt and myself this coming week. The next time a big white cloud outside makes me feel like a couch potato, I hope to crack open a Mandarin book to study instead of a cheesy romance novel.