"China Family Arrives Philadelphia"

After 23 hours of travel, the family has arrived in PA. Everything went smoothly - flights, immigration, customs, etc - only problem was Matt's ears locked up during the landing at San Fran and he's only heard 50% since then :(

The Mouse didn't wonderfully, only cried when landing in Philly (probably she saw NJ out the window). She was a super good baby and everyone we met loved her.

To top off all the goodness, they gave us a RAV4 for the rental car. It is one of the cars we're considering buying, so it's nice we get to check it out.

More updates after Nyquil-induced sleep.

下次再见 (see you next time)

The post title says "xia ci zai jian" which is the Chinese equivalent of auf wiedersehen. I'm leaving behind a lot of good friends and happy times in China and I refuse to say "goodbye", so I am saying "see you next time".

This may be my last post from China, the next time you hear from the traveling Osbornes should be from Willow Grove, PA.

The moving company came Wednesday and packed, stacked, and moved everything out. It all fit, except for my nice office chair, but we'll find a good home for it. There is a lot going to GP's family in Nanjing - they come Tuesday with a truck - and the rest will fit in our suitcases. I've taken three big bags of foreigner stuff (mixer, coffee grinder, English books and toiletries/food from US) to my friend at the American bar. Much better than throwing it away and there's no way I'm taking it BACK to the US. I got a free drink for each bag, too ;)

I am getting over my sinus infection, but now it looks like the mouse is getting sick. We'll take her to the Singapore health clinic in a few minutes and hopefully it doesn't get worse.

Flight leaves Pudong Wednesday evening, going to Chicago. Two or three hours there and then on to Philly. Wave as we pass over :)

That mouse of ours (no photos)

Ok, I don't have any new photos to share, though I did take a new one with my phone so to change my background image. She's changed a lot on 5 weeks.

I've got a couple of minor topics, minor in that they ain't too important, but I'm awake and bored at 5am (as per usual), so you get to hear about them.

More cultural difference about children / food. We've found that swaddling the Mouse helps her sleep. This is well known to help most babies and we're glad it works. The cultural difference is, when I wrap her, I refer to her as a little burrito. When GP wraps her, she says Mouse looks like a zong zi. Maybe she's more of a tamale.

The Mouse was fussy yesterday as GP cooked lunch, so I played with her and decided she'd like some music. We don't have any central stereo in the house, so I used my mobile phone. Turns out she likes Vampire Weekend and she was happy to sing and smile.

Sometimes, especially when she is tired, she'll make eye contact with me and I'll get a feeling that she is more than she appears. Perhaps she is Bene Gesserit, born all-knowing like Alia Atreides. If she has the Voice, the terrible twos will be extra awful.

It looks like the trip is set for Nov 28th. Just waiting for management to approve the flights and housing. I guess they are pretty busy laying off a couple of hundred people.

A bunch of photos - Mouse at 1 month

These photos were taken around the house, out for Mouse's one-month celebration and on our trip to Shanghai for the one-month checkup.

Red knit outfit courtesy of family in Nanjing, pink/pink outfit from Baby Gap, Chinese oversuit from eBaby, and brown/yellow knit sweater made by GP.

Hating the internet

It's stressful enough working on your resume, searching Monster for jobs, etc., but especially aggravating when the DAMNED internet connection of five kinds of flaky!! I need an emoticon here for me throwing the window open and cursing to the gods.

So, now you know what I'm doing, job searching and updating everything on Monster. I hope I don't get to start over AGAIN because the connection needs to "refresh" itself every 10-60 minutes.

Today went surprisingly well. We took the Mouse to Shanghai for her one month checkup and decided to try it by taxi-train-subway-taxi instead of rental car. I have to say, even given the packed train (standing room only) and subway stations (rush hour in a city of 20 million), it was still less stressful than sitting in the car. Mouse slept almost all day and the doctor pronounced her healthy and growing well :) She's at 4.6 kg now (1400 pounds - wait, I did something wrong, 10lbs 2oz) and about 21 inches.

I think one of the major points today that led to success was the Baby Bjorn that I bought in the US. It made carrying the baby very easy and, more importantly, getting on/off trains, in/out of taxis, etc. was MUCH easier than having to use both arms. She seems comfortable and sleeps well in it. I hope this bodes well for success in our US move in 3 weeks.

By the way, it's hard to sneak around the house in "don't startle the sleeping baby" mode when you have Rice Krispies ankles.

home again

The return to China was uneventful (thank jeebuz) and I picked up the Mouse's passport and report of birth abroad (aka US accepted birth certificate). We are halfway to getting her to the US - now need the Chinese authorities' paperwork which we plan to get next week. The packing / shipping will happen on the 19th and we'll fly the 26th or so.

The big issues are: what to ship and what to carry, can we get decent housing or is it Candlewood for 30 days.

And those are the easy issues. Still waiting to hear about my first choice job (in Silicon Valley) and the 2nd choice in Ohio. Need to keep searching for tertiary, et al, opportunities as the Bush-induced recession is making the job pool shrink daily :(

I miss my girls

It's been hard being away from my two girls. On top of interviewing and fairly heavy travel, I'm missing being around the Mouse and I feel guilty that GP has so much to do without me (though her mother is an indispensable help to her). Hopefully this is the last time we are apart for awhile. The time apart will be worth it, though, if I can set up a good future for the three of us.

Ok, Steve, too

Happy Birthday to Steve, the gravel biker from Iowa. I shall hoist a cold, interesting beer to you tonight. Or this morning - hey, traveling across time zones makes you realize it's always noon somewhere :)

Do something fun tonight and send me the photos.