Pee Pee Sample

Daddy and Adayla had a bit of Daddy/Daughter time today....in the words of Tim, here it is:

I took Adayla today to get a physical so she can enroll in a Chinese-speaking kindergarten. I called the hospital that the kindergarten required us to use and asked them when they were open for children's school-entry physical exams and they said all day from 8:30 to 4:30 pm. So Adayla and I took the taxi over to this hospital, registered, and arrived at the office at 12:20, only to find that they were closed from 11:30-1:30. So I asked an attendant if there was some place where we could eat (I was planning on eating at 1, after the physical). The attendant took me to the hospital cafeteria. I thought what the heck, does it get any more authentic than this? I went through the line and the first thing they put on my plate was a block of rice. When I say block, seriously it was the size of a regular-sized, rectangular brick. Then in other sections of the tray they put on some sort of vegetable, curry chicken and potatoes, a bowl of soup, and a rib. The total cost was 7 RMB, so a bit less than a buck. The food was actually pretty decent - Adayla and I put most of it away. She's quite a good rice eater. The one thing is though that I can't eat chicken here as it's various parts on the bone with the skin - it's too much work to get any of the meat. I watched others to see how they ate the chicken and the rib – sure enough, they still use their chopsticks so I used mine. I'm still kind of amazed that chopsticks haven't been replaced by the “spork” but that's another topic I guess. Adayla also drank most of my 8-ounce bottle of water – we'll get to that later.

We went back to the exam offices where there was a big Little Tikes playground set up. Adayla had fun playing there. We were the only people there until about 1:15, then people started to come. At 1:35 a hospital worker came and opened one of the offices. I noticed as one couple and their baby “snuck” in before I got to the office. So much for the ticket with a number that I had... whatever. So Adayla gets measured: she weighed in at 28 pounds, and measured exactly 36 inches in height. But when they lifted up her shirt to measure her waist and chest, she began to cry very loud. They got their measurements and we went to the office next door. When I arrived there, the couple that snuck in before me were being seen, so I sat in the seat right outside. While sitting there, a lady with her mom walked their child right past me and into the office and stood there as the other folks were being seen. I thought they'd be asked to leave, but no, that's just the way you do things. So after the first family left, I stood up and went in to wait while this second family-that-cut-me-off was being seen. I'm feeling a bit awkward being in there as the doc is doing the physical exam on this kid, but then another lady comes in with her parents and her child and stand in front of us. I thought “no way,” I'm going to get cut-off for a third time. The grandma put their paperwork on the desk and began talking to the doctor. “Uh, excuse me, can you wait?!” When the second family that cut me off was finished, the grandma took her grandson from the mother and put him on the doctor's desk. Again, whatever. I need to learn how to say, “Hey, I was here first, please wait your frickin' turn” in Chinese. Fortunately the doctor told her to take the child off, that we were next. After the doc was done with her exam, she told me that I needed to take Adayla for a blood test and “xiao bian.” I knew what that was - “pee pee” - and I wasn't happy thinking about how I was going to get my girl to pee in a cup for me.

So we go over to the lab – it's pretty assembly line-like. You walk up to the big glass window, put your arm under and they do whatever they need to (give shots, take blood, give them pee-pee samples, etc). Adayla saw the person in front of us getting a “da zhen” (shot) and she did not want one of those. We were next and the technician read our paper and before we knew it, she had pricked Adayla's finger and was taking blood for a sample. So Adayla starting to cry hysterically now. I had seen a snack shop on the way to the lab and told her she could pick out a treat. While still upset, she at least calmed down a bit. They then gave me the pee-pee cup. It was about a ¼ cup measuring cup – no lid, nothing else, just this cup with a little handle. I asked Adayla if she needed to go pee-pee toilet and she said no. So we went to go pick out her treat. Adayla and I walked up and down four isles and she didn't see anything that she wanted (and she's still a bit upset). Then she saw the bottles of Coke and said she wanted a Coke. This is perhaps a “bad father moment”, but I thought what the heck, she needs fluids to pee, and the caffeine should help her do that as well, and the sugar will guarantee that she'll drink lots of it! So I bought it and we went to a lobby for a drink. We went to the lobby outside of this store to have a drink, but before she could she starts saying “Daddy, I need to barf. I'm sick, I need to barf now.” She had upset herself so much, that now she felt she needed to barf. So after putting her head into the bag that I just got at the store for a minute, she stopped dry-heaving and grunting and she asked for a drink. I then took Adayla back to the waiting area with the playground to help her pass the time as her bladder hopefully continued to fill up. As we walked back, we stopped in the men's room right by the lab and as I feared, the toilet was no “toilet” but rather “footprints with a hole.” The thought of the logistics of getting this pee-pee sample was going to be near-impossible, so I hoped that the bathroom by the playground was better. This other bathroom was interesting – it had a common area for men and women to wash their hands, but then the men's/women's rooms branched off from there. I noticed a traditional toilet in the women's room and hope that I would find the same in the men's room, but no, the men's room only had footprints with a hole. So at least I had a sitter toilet to work with, even though it was in the women's room...

So we sat down by the playground and let Adayla drink as much as she wanted. She drank a bit, then went to play for a little bit. I kept asking her if she needed to go and soon she said she did! So we rushed into the women's room to get our sample. I got her situated, got the cup ready and she went, only it wasn't that much, and I didn't have time to get the cup to where it needed to be. I asked her to go a little bit more, but she couldn't. So she was dry. We went back out to the playground. Now I needed to get some fluids through her. I had a bottle of water, but she didn't want any of that. So I gave her the bottle of Coke and told her to drink as much as she wanted. I wonder if she even thought about what I was saying. Well, in about five minutes, she finished off the half-liter of Coke that she started. There were other parents and grandparents just watching, but I was desperate. It was now 2:30, the place closes at 4:30 and I needed to get fluids through my girl, get the results back, and get them to the doctor to sign off the examination form. I kept asking if she needed to go. At 3:00 she said she needed to go, so we rushed to the women's room, but she got “stage fright” as I positioned the cup in place. After trying to coerce her for five minutes, I gave up and we went back to play. Shortly before 3:30, she said she needed to go. Again we rushed, got her into position and I was as well, and she went! Wow, did she go – my cup was running over and I couldn't get my hand out. So to avoid losing my sample, I waited until she was done and relaxed, then I could get my hand back out.
This leads to the discussion of bathrooms in China. As discussed, the standard is footprints with a hole – standard toilets are seldom found. Also, toilet paper is usually not provided. I though for sure they would in a hospital, but no even there, it's BYOTP. Finally, this bathroom did not have soap, and nothing to dry your hands. While waiting for Adayla to go pee-pee, I kept an eye on that women's bathroom to see when it was clear so we could dash inside or wait for a minute until the ladies were out of it. I saw one of Adayla's doctors go in and out and thought, you know, there isn't any soap in there. So much for the sign that says that all employees must wash their hands with soap before returning to work, never mind doctors in a hospital.

I placed the sample into Adayla's unused barf bag for some protection, we washed as best we could (Adayla now says, “I dried my hands on Daddy's kuzi (pants)), and we made the two-minute walk back to the lab without spilling! I turned in the sample, waited about 10 minutes, and then took the results back to the doc. So we were out of there just before 4 pm.
Knowing that Adayla had a half-liter of Coke in her system, I asked her if she needed to go pee-pee before our taxi ride home (about 20 minute ride). She said no and she made it home. This evening, however, she has gone pee-pee several times! She's been potty-trained for a year now, hopefully she makes it through the night...

Now Adayla is all ready to register at her Kindergarten this week. She'll start classes next month!

Tim writes much better than I! I think I will let him be in charge of this blogging thing.....

Bedroom Buddies

July 17, 2007

Tally and Adayla's big day. Tonight they officially share a room. Tally's crib is up, they both have sheets (refer to bunny story below), and so it is 10 o'clock and they are still awake. It will get better and it will make our travels in the future much easier.

Tomorrow Adayla and Tim head to the doctor. Adayla has to have a physical before she can start school. She will be starting a preschool in the fall. We aren't sure yet how much she is going to go. I know she will love being around other kids, but I am not ready to be away from her. I will miss her. Thankfully, the school is on our complex grounds and just a five minute walk away. I just don't want her to grow up, she is such a sweet little peanut with spunk!

This place is just amazing. It has given me lots of time to contemplate lots of different things, from what is Chinese to the things that are really important to me. I just need to carry a pad around so I can write them down. I don't want to forget some of the feelings that I have had over the last 2 weeks. I will try to better in remembering so I can share them.

Well is time for me to head to bed and hopefully Tally too. We know when it is our bedtime as most buildings in the city turn their lights off at 11pm. Those silly girls are still awake. GO TO SLEEP! I know this is an adjustment for them and it will take a bit for them to get used to it. They are so cute together, families are the best!

Morgan's travels....

Tim the shopper. Have I said before how sweet my husband is, he really is a sweetheart! He is the energizer bunny that goes and goes with me. It is not the shopping that really bothers him, it is usually my way of getting there. For example, last night we went to a place called Hola, which is like a Bed Bath and Beyond. We needed a few things we couldn't find elsewhere and so someone had mentioned to try there. They gave us the address which was all in English and Pinyin (the written form of the Chinese characters, very useful to foreigners, but may make no sense to a taxi driver) and we set off. We took the shuttle bus from our apartment to the subway. It was then I realized that I had grabbed the Pudong map instead of the Puxi map (which is west side of the river and where we were headed). I figured no big deal, we have the address, we can just wing it. We took the subway across town found a stop we thought was close enough to where we were headed. We found the street that we wanted and thought we would soon be there....hah! We walked a few blocks on the street and decided we were way too far and it was getting late. So we waved for a taxi, gave him the address, and off we were. He dropped us off at a big mall and we thought for sure we were close. Nope. We had the right street and I would like someone to tell me on the numbers work on it. We were looking for 88 xian xie lu. We were originally in the 900 block, so thats when we took a cab to the 100 block. We ended up taking a cab back to the 1200 block or so and we finally arrived at the mall. Literally two hours and two grumpy kids later. It was 8:30 at the time, their normal bedtime, but we found it and so I was going to shop for a few things. We found lots that we needed and it was quite worth it, but we didn't get home until 10:30 and 2 extremely grumpy kids later. Because we don't have a car here and rely only on taxi's that don't neccessarily pick up at the front door, we usually have our arms full with stuff that are already tired arms from carrying the girls, and then we need to make our way out to the street to load up. Tim remained so helpful and happy, though I know he was completely frustrated and would have returned immediately after I realized we didn't have the right map. So if you ever make it to Shanghai and stay in our guest room, tell Tim what a nice, cozy bed he helped pick out!

This was after our Saturday excursion. Pretty much the same thing. And before that, I think their was the Ikea excursion. I decide just to take off (usually later in the evening and we have a limited about of time before we get grumpy kids) and once we get somewhat close, I figure we can just ask someone. We have done this three times and it hasn't worked yet, Tim hopes I have learned my lesson. There are many people willing to help, there is just a small communication barrier. We are continuing to learn, Tim has learned, but I am still learning. This is one of the many reasons he is the best husband. I love him!

The love/hate relationship....

My love/hate relationship with Ayi. One day I love her and things are going great and the next day I am ready to kick her out the door. Just when I think she has gotten something I have tried to tell her, she does something, and I know otherwise. This week is off to a good start, we told her we would try her for 1 month and if we like her, she had a job. Last week, she was well on her way out the door, but then we figured we would have to start over with someone else. So over the weekend I made a list of things that had to change and had our tutor go over them with her. Our tutor understands English and therefore could translate it to Chinese for her. I never thought I could get so flustered with someone who was willing to clean my house, but I am learning. She understands most basic cleanliness concepts, but others... We have had to go over how to sort colors in the laundry, more than once and a few "new" shirts later. (They were a different color coming out then going in.) I have quit watching her in the kitchen. Raw meat is just like any other food to them, you don't need to wash your hands after you touch it. So she handles the meat and then touches everything, the refrigerator, spices, and etc. I had our tutor tell her and then I quit watching. Something along you can't teach an old dog new tricks. She just doesn't not understand why this is yucky. I figure, she has always done it this way and isn't sick, so we are good as long as I don't see it. She is also kind of like Shayla being at your house, as soon as you set something down she has put it away and you can't find it! (Right Brigham...:) She recycles everything, which normally I am a big fan of, except that I was recycling it my self by using it somewhere in my house. The next thing I know it is on the way out the door with her. There is a few other things to do with vegetable buying, but we will save that for later. So today, I like her and she can stay....for now.


Tally is getting used to her more everyday. But Adayla has figured out that she doesn't understand Chinese and so when someone talks to her in Chinese, she turns them off. This goes for Ayi as well. Ayi says something and Adayla tells her NO don't say that. It will take a bit more time for Adayla to warm up to her. But soon they will be laughing and giggling in Chinese.

A funny Ayi story....

A funny Ayi story....a small characteristic of the Chinese. They know what it is very pretty and are more than willing to help you pick out something that is "hen piaoliang!"
Like I may have mentioned before, their typical style is not that of a typical Westerner. They like gold, big flowers, with very bright colors. For kids, they like lots of animals on their clothes and in their room decoration. I looked and looked and looked for a nice comforter and sheet set for Adayla's room. They did have a few nice green ones, but I didn't want to do their room in green. I wanted it in girl colors and then bed is a single bed. (Their beds are different sized here, so I have to buy it here in China.) There were some that would have worked, but they only carried in two person beds. Finally, I found a nice cream and red that really wasn't little girly, but very cute for a girl's room. Only the place where I bought it didn't have a sheet to go with it, but only two pillow cases. Since it is mostly cream with bits of red, I decided that a solid dark red sheet would be perfect. I then would get one for Tally's crib and it would be cute! I haven't been able to find one and was discussing this with Ayi in my broken Chinese. She said she had a friend that could sew them, that would perfectly match the bed. She said she would just look for some material and by Friday I would have them. So we took some measurements and I gave her one of Tally's yellow crib sheets to show exactly what I wanted. I also gave her a solid red pillowcase of the one I wanted, she didn't want to take it, but I told her there are many shades of red and wanted it to match perfectly. I was pretty excited, her friend would have some work and I would have exactly what I needed. Today she comes very happy saying that they bought the material and her friend would do it today. Yeah! She then pulls out this paper showing some bright, almost hot pink material, with big bunnies and flowers all over it. She tells me she couldn't find the red that I wanted and so that this was very beautiful and the girls would love it. Are you kidding me??? I told her she may think it is beautiful, but I don't like it. She then shows it to Adayla and asks her if she likes it. Adayla says she does and she says see she likes it. Who cares? It doesn't even remotely match, but they had already bought the material and so tomorrow my hot pink bunny filled sheets will be delivered. Oh well, I will find some red sheets later....I will definitely add pics of this!

Adayla and Tally

July 11th, 2007

At least, I think, it is July 11th. The days all run together these days and I am always asking Tim which day it is. I do always know Sunday, as Adayla wishes everyday was Sunday so she can go to nursery. I am so grateful for our church even more because Adayla's recognizes its familiarity. She can even tell and we know this because of how she behaves when she is there....much better than all other places.

Big day for Tim today, no he didn't karaoke again, but he did enroll in his classes for the fall. It was a big deal this year because instead of it rotating the days, you were either Friday and Saturday or Sunday and Monday. Most students preferred the Friday and Saturday schedule, but only half can attend then. He prepared for his big day by going to the University's computer lab to sign up. Our network at our home is quite slow (only a little faster than dial-up) and quits working quite frequently. So he went up yesterday to check things out and then headed up there early this morning so he could make sure he was ready to hit the button when enrollment started at 10am. He has one hand on refresh and one on the mouse so he was ready to click as soon as he could. The class filled up in less than a minute and thankfully he was able to get it to the class he wanted!! Yeah! This means we can go to church with daddy on Sundays and spend our Sabbath as we normally do.


My little Tally, she loves to eat. Ayi is quite amazed at how much she likes to eat, alot of it ends up on the floor and on her clothes, but she can also put it away! She loves to be a big girl. Now that she is walking she can do it even better. She goes to the stairs and does her best to go up like a big person (and so we do our best at getting her off them to prevent falling on the hard wood stairs). She is very independent and knows what she wants and she lets you know it. She also requires a ton of sleep. She still takes two naps a day and then goes down early and wakes up late. For instance, last night she went to be around 7pm and woke up close to 9am. I then kept her up until 12:30pm so she could nap the same time as Adayla (a bit selfish, I know!) She then slept until 2:30, which is shorter than normal, but then was ready for bed at 6pm. We tried to push her until 7pm and she let you know she was ready to go to bed, NOW! She probably would have slept all night, but I woker her up at 8:30 for about 45 minutes. Hopefully, she'll stay down until after 8am. Tally is also starting to "talk" quite abit other than mama and dada. She will say ball and does her best to imitate other words.

Little Tally also loves Adayla. There is an amazing bond between sisters. Adayla is very concerned about Tally, but can still be quite mean. No matter what, Tally loves her and wants to be around her. Adayla can get her laughing harder than anyone else. I like to watch them interact and I think that is so sweet how they can already have a relationship that noone else besides young siblings can have.

Adayla keeps me going as well. She is smart and I am constantly figuring how to outsmart her. Here are a couple of issues that we have been working on. She loves to wear her shoes all the time, in the house or outside, she just loves to always have shoes on her feet. Well, not that where we have lived before is clean outside, but I would hope it doesn't have as many pee-pees as there are here. (You see taxi drivers all the time just pull over and pee on a wall or in a bush.) And yesterday we were at the park in our apartment compound, which is well gaurded and very expensive, I see this grandma holding her 5-7 month old grandson. How did I know it was here grandson? Because his parts were on display, he was dressed, but it had a big "vent" all around his bum. I thought, that kid is definitely too little to let others know when he is going to pee, but maybe he was trained somehow. Pretty soon there was a big wet spot on the mat covered playground and the grandma was wiping her arms and his legs off with a kleenex. Anyways, my point is that there are no shoes in our house! We have to work on this with Adayla, but she does pretty well to always take her shoes off. Tonight when we were reading a Sesame Street book about Elmo going to school, Adayla notices that the teachers shoes were on and asked if Mrs. Graham was wearing her shoes inside the house? She makes me smile everyday.
She also has the ability to do only what she wants to do and only when she wants to do it. Probably like most 2 year olds, but she is stubborn and has no connection to toys, things, blankets, whatever it is when we try to motivate her. Today she was picking her baby stroller up and just throwing it down. Tim asked her if she wanted him to throw it away since she was not treating it right and she said yeah, throw it in the trash. She happily told it bye and Tim took it out to the garbage (which is in the stairwells of our building and then they come around once or twice a day to empty it). Tim had put it in the other stairwell and then he went and retrieved it to put it away in our house while we were upstairs. A few hours later she goes to Tim's office, picks up the trash bag out of the can, and informs us that we need to take out the trash....hmm...where was she going with this one??

Tim's Big Day

July 7th, 2007

Today Tim had to go to work...he had to leave the house by eight this morning in a suit to go to an orientation for the university. Rough day and he will probably be exhausted when he gets home! It must have been from about 9 to noon and he called for a kitchen pass so he could go to lunch with some of his new classmates. They weren't just going anywhere for lunch, they were going to go karaoke during lunch. The Chinese take this very seriously and it is very popular. I will let Tim tell him of his experience and then maybe I can get an account from a classmate on Tim's singing!

Alright, Tim here. As Morgan said, I had to go to work today. It was quite fun. My MBA program has 130 students, of which I am the only non-Chinese, so as you can imagine, I get quite a bit of attention. Somehow during the orientation today, a couple of classmates called me by name over to their gathering. My name is on the top of all the class rosters in letters, then all the Chinese names in characters follow. They told me that I was in their group and that they I needed to get a hotmail account to join in their chat group. They also invited me to go to lunch with them today after the orientation. I am still wondering how I got into their group, as there are no other groups, but I'm not complaining – it introduced me to 20 great folks in the program.

Ok, back to the task at hand and talking about lunch - this wasn't just lunch, this was an adventure. You see, lunch was at a karaoke place. My only experience with karaoke was back in my flying days when I was on a mission with several jets in Japan. We all went out to dinner, then happened to pass by a karaoke place there in Okinawa. I had thought that karaoke was something people did after they had been drinking quite a bit to have some fun and make fools of themselves (and so I never went to sing karaoke because I don't drink). Well, my group of American aviators almost got kicked out of that karaoke place because the locals were upset at how the Americans were acting. You see, the Japanese take it very seriously and sing their best, and applaud good performances. My group was doing quite the opposite. Well, karaoke is wildly popular here in China and yes, they take it very seriously.

So there I am with my 20 new friends eating great food and listening to the others sing. Nobody had to dare anybody to start, they just did. Our group was evenly divided male/female, and I can't say that one liked it more than the other. I tried to play my “I don't read Chinese very well” card, but alas, the karaoke computer has American songs, too. So after agreeing to look for a song, a friend accompanied me over to the computer to find a song. I searched and searched. But the singers who have sung songs in the last 10 years were all female artists and I didn't want to sign something from Avril Lavigne, Britney Spears, Celine Dion, Shania Twain, the Spice Girls, etc. There are some guys, the Beatles, but unfortunately I'm not a big Beatles fan and the few song I know, they didn't have. I was getting desperate. It was five minutes that seemed like an eternity. What song could I attempt to sing that wouldn't be to tough? Finally I settled on the '80s band Air Supply and their ballad “I'm All Out of Love.” I still can't believe that I sang Air Supply in front of 20 people, but I was desperate. Thanks to listening to my brother's and sister's albums when I was little, I was able to belt out some great choruses! I was laughing, but then I really had to laugh as I got a couple of compliments afterwards for singing very well. If anybody has sit next to me in church, they know that I sound more like a subwoofer that just puts out unrecognizable bass in the hopes that it can tie in with the rest of the music, but by itself is not music at all. So I was relieved for a while that my turn was over, but then it hit me as the group was talking about getting together next month that this wasn't an isolated incident for me in China, but rather a beginning?!

But despite my butchering of Air Supply, it was a great time! I was able to have good conversations with the folks there. I'm really impressed by their backgrounds, where they're currently employed and what they're doing (Intel x3, LSI, UPS, NuSkin to name a few), and I'm especially impressed (and grateful) by how friendly and accepting they are of me. I am so excited for this opportunity – this is truly a chance of a lifetime opportunity!

Enough from me, back to Morgs....

That just makes me smile!

Getting Settled and Finding an Ayi (helper lady)

I have been typing these in word and just haven't posted, so tonight I am going to add quite a few updates.

July 7, 2002
I have so many thoughts to share today, I should do this more often.

Tally is WALKING!!! Well, mostly she is. She will still crawl, but many times will walk across the room by herself. She stills falls quite a bit, but can finally get to a standing position from the sitting position. It won't be long before she is running, but we are happy that hopefully soon we can finally put her down a bit when we are out and about!

Adayla is busy as ever and particular as ever. She wants her clothes on as soon as she wakes up and her hair fixed. Once we moved into our place this week and I unpacked her clothes, she started wanting to change her clothes 4 times a day. This cannot happen for a few reasons, but this one being the most important: I can't keep up with the laundry if she were to do that. Thankfully our apartment does have a washer and dryer, but they are very small. It holds about 2 towels or 2 pairs of pants and 2 shirt. That is not the main problem, the dryer that holds those 2 towels then takes at least 2 ½ hours to get them close to dry. And everything must be dried all the way here because of how humid it is. Sometimes things just feel damp, even in our apartment with the A/C on. Back to Adayla and her changing her clothes all the time, we also don't have dresser with drawers or a closet. We only have an armoire sort of thing with one shelf and mostly hanging space. So I have all their clothes piled on this one shelf. Last night, she had everything in a pile on the floor with one of Tally's dresses on. Everyday we talk about how she can only pick on outfit to wear and that she must wear it the entire day. I think we are progressing.

We also have a playroom in the center of our complex for all the residents to use. It is like a McDonald's playroom with balls, tubes, and slides. The girls enjoy going there and I enjoy taking them there to wear themselves out! Tally gets around and thinks she is on of the big kids. The ball area is poor designed as they didn't enclose it with only 2 foot wall. So balls are all over the room. Yesterday we go in and Adayla starts picking them all up and putting back in the ball pit. It is a big room with lots of balls, but she managed to get them all picked up! There are also about 10 kid-sized thick plastic chairs. These also happen to get spread through out the room. She moved them one by one until they were neatly lined up.

Big accomplishments for the week:
We started our Chinese lessons again.
We found an Ayi (maid) that we like and she started yesterday.

Our tutor we found by looking on the Internet and emailing several of them. Her name is Jane. She is very nice and speaks English pretty well. Most importantly she has given us motivation to get back into our books, especiallyTim. I have asked her a lot of Chinese culture questions and how she perceives things. We will continue to make slow progress, but there have been several times over the past week where I am grateful that I can understand the little bit that I do.

As for the Ayi, we interviewed about 7. Most of them were in their 40's. They were all nice and I am sure they have plenty of experience and would have done a good job. Our main focus was that they had good Chinese and our girls would feel comfortable with her. I don't know much Mandarin, but even I can tell the difference in dialects a bit. We don't need them to watch the kids for us, but it is essential that they spend time with her by themselves so that they learn Chinese. The first one we had was recommended by a consulate family and we would have hired her, but she wanted more money then we were planning on giving her. It kind of took us by surprise and we decided to look around a bit. We looked without much success and so we were just going to hire her. I decided make one more phone call to a place to see if they had any Ayis looking for jobs. I got a few phone numbers and waited for Tim to get home so he could give them a call. He called one and she wasn't interested in being around such little kids. The next one seemed very pleasant and we set up an appointment to meet with her the next morning.

She showed up about a half hour early and surprised us that she was so young. We both really liked her. She doesn't speak any English, perfect. She had worked as an ayi for a few years. Her Chinese is excellent and she is really good at slowing down and repeating things. The young part was to her advantage as I think Adayla will take much more interest in her as she does her aunts back in the states. When Tally woke up, she asked where the bathroom was to wash her hands before she held her, she understands cleanliness, perfect. So we decided we would hire her on the condition for one month and see how it was worked out. Then we started discussing where she lived, she said I live kind of far. She had rode her bike over an hour to get to our house. We asked if this was going to be a problem, she said not at all. We will post pics of her soon with the girls.

Many of the Ayi's are from little villages in China and go specifically to the big cities to work and make more money. Our Ayi's hometown is about a 6 hour bus ride from Shanghai and it costs about $14 to get there (I would assume this is round trip). She is 21 years old and is the youngest of 3 kids. Her brother and sister both live in Shanghai where the wives work as Ayis. She is married to a guy that does some kind of labor work around Shanghai. They have a little girl who is about a month younger than Tally. His parents probably raise their girl and they go home about twice a year to see her. I cannot imagine having a baby and then seeing her only twice a year for a week or so each time. Hopefully we enable to get home more often as we will travel quite a bit and she will get quite a bit of time off.
For those interested in how much an Ayi is paid. From what we could tell in the people that we interviewed, an Enlish speaking Ayi is paid a premium. She makes nearly twice what the others do, we did not want an English speaking Ayi because this forces us to use our Chinese. They make anywhere from 8 to 20 RMB an hour, divide that by 7.6 to come up with an US$ estimate. The average hourly wage is anywhere from $1.00 to $3.00 an hour, very inexpensive for expats and many local Chinese. We pay Ayi (as the girls will call her) 2000 RMB a month for 8 hours five days a week or $265 plus we feed her. This was much better than her last job. Ayi's talk among themselves all the time to see how much they have to work and how much they get paid. I was surprised to find out how often they do this. Our first day we showed her the playroom. Another Ayi was in the room and immediately our Ayi asked her this. Of course, this was in Chinese and the other ayi worked 12 hours a day and was paid 1800 RMB a month. You also give them all the Chinese holidays off along with a week at Chinese New Year plus one month's salary as a bonus. Well we hope she works out, I am sure you will hear a lot more about her as she is now part of our family a good part of the week.