Time Flies

I just looked at the date for the last post on our blog and realized it has almost been a month. Wow! 

We were fortunate to have two dear friends visit us in August – Diana and Kim. Both came to Hong Kong for work at two different conferences set one week apart, and then stayed with us for a few days afterwards. Matt helped them explore the town, take a scooter ride to visit me in the office, eat good Chinese food (there are a few restaurants around ;), experience “Seaworld” (a local place with restaurants serving food from around the world), and shop ‘til they dropped. We even squeezed in a trip with Kim to Dameisha Beach last weekend – a nice sandy beach about an hour from our house. 

It was wonderful to share the experiences and places we’ve discovered in Shenzhen with friends from Atlanta. We’ve lived here for almost 5 months now, and time just keeps ticking by. Some days seem to take forever, while others fly so fast I wonder why I am crawling into bed so soon after waking up. 

August was an exciting time in Dean’s life, as he learned to walk on his own 1 week after turning 13 months old. I was fortunate to be home the day he stood up and took 5 steps in a row without holding on to anything. Matt and I cheered him on together, and he grinned from ear to ear. It was a great day to be a mom. 

Now he’s getting around pretty well on his own two feet, and even carrying things when he walks. Matt made me laugh the other day when he said “you’re not supposed to be carrying things yet, it’s too soon according to the Parents magazine article.” He swears he just skimmed one page of the magazine I left in the bathroom last week.

Walking opened up a new social world for Dean outside the house. In the complex where we live there is a “circle” of bricks on the ground outside where many Ayis (Aunties) gather with both Chinese and foreigner babies in the evenings. The kids are usually under the age of 3, and they play together with various ride-on toys or balls. If it’s nice outside, I love to grab Dean as soon as I get home in the evening and go outside to socialize. There isn’t always an adult around who speaks English, as most of the women are Chinese, but we find ways to communicate through hand gestures and my limited Mandarin vocabulary. For the kids, language doesn’t matter. It’s all about exploring who has the coolest toy(s). 

Monday evening I took Dean out in his red wagon that we got for his 1st birthday. It always causes quite a scene, as most of the other kids haven’t seen something like this before. One little Chinese boy, much to the dismay of his mother, held onto the side of the wagon and walked with us all the way to the park next door. It sounded like she was scolding him in Mandarin the whole time, but she didn’t make him let go until we were in the park – 10 minutes travel the opposite direction of where she wanted to go. 

Once there, I let Dean get out of the wagon and toddle around on the grass. We never liked the idea of him crawling all over the place, especially since he puts his hands in his mouth so frequently, so this was a new experience for him. We were only in the park a few minutes when I heard someone call my name. I’ve met very few people since we’ve been here, and I was excited to see it was a woman named Jesse and her daughter Tamar, who is 2 months older than Dean. They are from Columbia and have lived in Shenzhen for three years due to her husband’s business. 

Tamar and Dean played with 2 balls we’d brought along. At one point, she took a ball from Dean and turned away. Jesse scolded her in Spanish and she threw the ball down. I’m not sure what was said next, but that sweet little girl toddled over to Dean and kissed him right on the lips! She then turned and ran away. Dean got the biggest grin on his face and started chasing after her. His feet got tangled up and he tumbled to the ground, ending a Kodak moment that made my heart melt. Jesse and I laughed about the innocence and how much we wished we had a camera in hand. 

So life is good for the Langford clan in this part of the world. We are heading into fall and hopefully cooler weather, though I don’t know yet what that means. Will we need winter jackets? Scarves? Or just a switch to jeans and long pants instead of shorts? Only time will tell.