What a week! Tom was in China, and both boys decided it would be a good time to start having teeth come in, and get sick AGAIN!!!!
"Are you talkin' to me?"
The week started out fine. We were even able to get outside and enjoy some warmer weather. Sam had his 6 mo. Well Baby check-up, and everything was right on track. Dr. Kessen confirmed that there is a tooth coming, and that Sam will need to have a minor surgery to correct his tongue. (He was born tongue-tied, and we decided to wait to see how he nursed before correcting it. Obviously he doesn't have a problem nursing, but he isn't able to bring his tongue to the roof of his mouth, which could result in some speech issues later.)
Jack has his seasons confused!
The boys both started in with runny noses, which I thought was due to the teething. For a quiet afternoon activity we decided to make Daddy a welcome home sign. Jack was super excited to use his new paints.
Jack wasn't too excited for this photo op. and Sam had no choice but to sit in his Bumbo. I think I was the most excited for Tom to come home, but after hearing about his trip, I'm pretty sure he was the most excited.
Below is a little recap of his trip. (I seriously think he needs to give up engineering and become a writer...if you can get through it without laughing, you'll be doing much better than I did.)
72 Hours in China
The plane out of Chicago to Beijing was packed. Only about 3 empty seats on the whole plane. Pretty fun. Nothing like spending 13 hours in the air in a Boeing 777SD (Sardine Can). Fortunately Oilgear sprung for economy plus class seats that offer an additional 3 inches of leg room. I will forever argue that three inches is worth noting.
I didn’t realize how much of a world news event the “Pig Flu” was making until I was on the plane. Half of the Chinese passengers were wearing masks. I guess the simple fact that viruses pass quite easily through paper masks didn’t make the presses in China either.
It became even more apparent how much world attention the “pig Flu” was getting when we landed in Beijing. Not only did we have fill out a health information card:
1. Where have you been in the past 2 weeks?
2. Have you had any contact with pigs over the last two weeks?
3. Do you suffer from any flu symptoms?
the plane was boarded by about 10 chinese nationals armed with infrared thermometers as soon as we hit the gate and every passenger was checked before we could leave the plane. Picture this – 250 passengers with seriously sour asses wanting nothing more than to get off the damn plane and we are forced to sit for another 10 minutes while some guy points a freaken laser beam at your head to check your temperature.
The two additional health check points before even getting to customs: turn in your health card and a thermo scan just about put me over the edge.
The second flight that day to Xi’an, about two hours from Beijing, went smoothly and nobody asked to take my temperature.
A group from the customer met us at the airport and drove us to our hotel for the night. Nice place. The traditional bed was about 12” off the ground and reminded me of a sheet of plywood with a sheet over the top. Not anticipating much sleep on this bad boy I quickly took them up on the offer to go get a few beers before bed.
We landed in an open air marketplace. Quite exciting. Picture a large permanent tent structure with a bunch of tables with short stools around them surrounded by various vendors selling chicken, pork, or beef meat kabobs, fried vegetable, beer, etc… The 8 of us sat around the table eating, drinking beer, smoking cigarettes, and trading stories. The environment reminded of a tailgate party of sorts and was a very good time.
I did find the rolls of napkins that they put on the table interesting. It was about the size of receipt roll on a cash register and they simply plopped on the table to wipe your fingers and mouth.
After about 4 hours of sleep, I woke early to stamp some more of the drawings that we were to submit that day. I sat down on the toilet and when I was finished recognized the “roll of napkins” that I had used the night before as they looked very similar to the roll of toilet paper that was next to the toilet.
I climbed into the shower to clean up. Made quite a bit of racket when I found out that the square shower pan that I was standing on to shower was not attached to the floor and will flip up and then crash down quite loudly when you stand on the edge of it to reach for the towel.
The meeting started at 9:00 AM the next day and opened with a speech from the customer. He thanked all for coming and anticipated resolution of most open issues and an expedited delivery of outstanding materials.
We broke for lunch at noon. This was quite interesting. Two tables of 10 with the traditional large lazy susan in the center of the table in a smaller room put everybody in pretty close quarters. We started with a toast to the meeting and things quickly went downhill from there as I was introduced the term “gombay”.
Translated literally it means to the bottom. In other words – finish it!!!! This is not a big deal until you also realize that it is tradition for each person to do this with every other person at the table. And that you do this with traditional hard liquor distilled from rice wine. And that you are at lunch. And that you have a meeting to finish that has really only just begun.
After some noodles, soup with unidentifiable ingredients, halibut head (this is quite good as it is really rich), many vegetables, and several shots we finished lunch and broke for a few minutes before returning to the meeting.
Dinner that evening was much less exciting but still involved some “gombay”. I guess everybody else was a little tired by now also.
We headed back to the much larger city of Xi’an that evening and stayed there for Tuesday. We visited a motor supplier and customer that did open die forging of titanium. Finding seeing 4000 KW motors and watching an open die forging press in action from 10 feet away a great way to spend a day in China clearly identifies me as a nerd.
Tuesday night we headed back to Beijing and grabbed a hotel. We had another nice dinner with some Oilgear China employees that included a few beers and hit the streets at 10PM to see the sights. We ended up not finding much but it was good to get some air and do a little walking.
Wednesday was spent in the office of YTT in Beijing and back on the plane in the afternoon after some lunch where I made the mistake of grabbing a bunch of this dish that was literally a plate of fried peppers. I was able to get a few laughs at the table when I mentioned in a half choking, trying to catch my breath voice that this dish is spicy.
Luckily, the flight home was as empty as the plane on the way to China was full. I was able to catch several hours of sleep as I had a few seats to myself and could stretch out. That said, my butt was still sour when we landed.
Even with the boys both sick and crabby, I decided we HAD to get out of the house. We packed up and headed to the zoo. I thought that would be the best choice for attempting to gain some sanity on my part, and not spread the boys' germs around.
I can't believe how big Jack looks in this photo. He looks like a little boy, rather than my baby.
What could be better than McDondald's with the elephants.
Jack was up all night coughing like crazy, and it was confirmed that I needed to take him to the doctor, on Wednesday, when I found him sleeping on his bedroom floor after his morning bath. The doctor said it was just his teeth and a virus. His ears looked good, just a little clear fluid behind one of them. With that news we headed back home.
Things only proceeded to get worse. On Friday I had an appointment with an orthopedic doctor for my wrist. I ended up having tendonitis (sp?) in it. It certainly didn't surprise me, with all the lifting of Sam's infant carrier I have been doing. When I got home we decided to call Dr. Kessen and ask her if we could give Jack anything for his cough. She thought it would be best if we brought him in, so she could listen to it. All four of us packed up and headed to her office. It's a good thing we did, as both boys ended up with double ear infections, yes, I said both boys had double ear infections. I felt like the worst mother in the world. How could I have not known that their ears were bothering them...oh yeah I forgot, neither of my boys show any signs of discomfort with their ears, they just get crabby, so it's not like I can go running off to the doctor every time they get crabby. After diagnosing the ear infections Dr. Kessen turned to Tom and I and jokingly asked if there was anything we needed her to check on either of us. Tom laughed, and showed her his thumb that he had cut the night before working on the plumbing for the bathtub (no the bathroom isn't done yet!). She asked when his last tetanus shot was. He couldn't remember, so you guessed it, Nurse Janet came in with her syringe. Needless to say we had three different people seen under one co-pay. I wonder how long it will take until the insurance company catches this one!
We had hoped that everyone would start feeling better as we had big weekend plans coming up. Papa and Meema were coming down to take care of the boys while Tom and I went to a wedding, and then all six of us were going to go the Brewer game on Monday to celebrate Memorial Day. Needless to say this was only the start of our doctor visits...
