Oh hey 2018. Fancy seeing you here! Happy Chinese New Year or, Chun Jie Kuai Le! We have been almost five months here in Wuxi. Seven months of being a stay at home mom. Nick has had nearly a 1.5 months of vacation time already. Guys, its been a special year… we had snow, in China, in Jiangsu, in Wuxi! What a miracle. It has only snowed twice in the past 10 years here.

As I type away sitting at our kitchen table (command central) Nicholas is reading a book to little E. We are about to enter spring here and you can already smell it in the air. The temperature has risen 10 degrees and its about to start raining. Soon red leaves will push through bare branches and spring will explode with flowers. If there is ever a time to visit China, spring is it! Spring is also my favorite time of the year here because the pollution starts to fade and you come out of hibernation and hiding away to protect your lungs. Like the emergence of caterpillars, or getting out of your sleeping bag… same thing.

Evelyn is highly mobile now without even knowing how to crawl. Our tile floor is so cold though that she stays mostly contained on carpeted surfaces. She is about to crawl, I can already see the curiosity of how to move when she gets those knees under her. She loves her Daddy and cuddles him by laying on his face when he’s laying on the floor. Mommy is the only one who can put E to sleep because she just wants to play with Daddy! She is sleeping from 7ish to 7ish every night. Sometimes waking in the night, for no apparent reason, but I believe it might be those sore gums or gassy tummy. She eats blueberries, sweet potatoes, carrots, apples, pears, peas, green melon, prunes (hates), oatmeal. We are about to introduce avocado and rice and homemade yogurt.  She likes to feed herself large chunks of pears. She always wants her own coffee cup when we drink coffee in the morning.

I’ll write a post soon about what its been like staying at home but for now I’ll share about cutting my finger off. Well, its really just the top of my thumb and a little bit of the nail. I was chopping cabbage to make tacos with and got distracted for a split second… of course… Well a second is all it takes when you’re holding a sharp knife. Straight through. I didn’t even have time to think before I reacted and grabbed my thumb to put pressure on it. I was holding so tight that it was white. The bleeding didn’t start until we went to put the bandage on, as expected. Nick did a fabulous job helping me bandage (really I was pretty bossy because I was so freaked out, sorry about that). Unfortunately we had to change the dressing because I bled through it. That is when we discovered the gauze was stuck into the raw cut. I had to tweeze the fibers off. Soaking the gauze did not help and it just stung like hell. While I tweezed, Nicholas had to help a crying baby. I’m honestly not sure what was worse — childbirth or slicing it off. After some hyperventilating and finally redressing my thumb without help (still helping crying baby) we put the baby to bed and I had time to realize what just happened.

Its been 48 hours. And I took pictures… they’re below. If you are easily grossed out, don’t look. It doesn’t look as bad as I had imagined it would, mostly because it hurt so badly.

Until next time!