Waiting for Baby...

Wow! It's been a long time - sorry! I suppose I've lot track of time because I've been doing lots of shopping and getting ready for Christmas. It's odd though that I rarely ever think to blog until something exciting happens, food-wise.

With that said, I will share my excitement for the day: I figured out how to making icing sugar, I've tested the Chinese chocolate and it's great for baking, AND I found out where to buy corn syrup! These factors combined mean that I can now MAKE CANDY!!! Yippee!! I've been wanting so badly to try making mint patties, cherry chocolates, gumdrops, caramels, truffles, and so much more...Mmmmm... Too bad I couldn't have made these discoveries before our Christmas party. Which brings me to my next exciting news...

We had a Christmas Party!! It's wasn't a big thing, and we didn't do formal invites (seeing as we weren't sure if we'd be at the hospital) but it was still fantastic! We had all of our decorations up, along with our Christmas tree, I cooked up a storm for two days, and we had a blast!

I'm a little exhausted after getting ready for the party. We put out bowls of candy, nuts, crackers, and all that fun stuff. On top of that, I made two veggie trays (which disappeared in a flash), meatballs, sushi, apple cider, banana bread, cookies, and bacon poppers. The most popular seemed to be the bacon poppers, which were my special dough with garlic and sesame seeds, stuffed with a mixture of bacon, cheese, green onions and tomatoes. Gosh, I love cooking!

We also went to a staff Christmas party last week. Unlike the Thanksgiving fiasco, the food was amazing! We had a spread of turkey, garlic mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, and much, much more. We stayed just long enough to socialize, eat a great meal, and dance once. People seemed quite shocked to see the giant pregnant lady up on the dance floor!

Aside from that, we're still waiting patiently for Baby Lily to arrive, which should be any day now, seeing as I am now officially overdue. My preference would be that she either comes today, so we can make it home for Christmas or Boxing Day, so Daniel gets lots of time off. I'm sure she'll come, however, whenever she feels like it!

I've also been slowly checking things off of my list of things to do while in China! This is what I've been up to lately:

26. Learn my alphabet, and 100 words/phrases in ASL - COMPLETE!

We decided that we would like to attempt to teach the baby sign language so late last week I set forth on my sign language journey! So far, I have the alphabet and numbers, as well as approximately 150 words!!

31. Host a Holiday Party - COMPLETE!

Well, as I said earlier, we did indeed do this. It went so well that we are already planning for next year!

33. Host a potluck - COMPLETE!

It's kind of cheat-y, seeing as it's a two-birds-with-one-stone kind of deal, but our holiday party was actually a potluck!

76. Learn to knit...again

I learned somewhere around five years of age and distinctly remember thinking, "It would take me forever to knit a scarf!" Well, I have tried again! I still have roughly the same feeling - it is quite a laborious process - but I actually find it soothing. So, we're starting with a scarf, but my ultimate goal is a knit teddy bear! We'll see...

100. Go to a Chinese Opera

I may have already written about this, but I can't quite recall...Technically, the Chinese opera came to us, and not the other way around. Early this month, the school hosted a performance of the Beijing Opera, so it was as easy as walking across the street to the auditorium. We both enjoyed the performance very much. I was especially fond of the first two acts, where they had LED panels with the Chinese characters of what the performers were saying. It helped me to understand a little bit more, as I could read much more that I could catch coming from the performers!

Overall, the costumes were beautiful, the performers were great, and the music was fantastic. The one thing that I had a slight problem with was the steel-drummy-type instrument that was roughly just below the pitch that only dogs can hear. This wonderful instrument was played NON-STOP throughout the entire performance, resulting in a three hour headache. Other than that though, it was superb.


So, we've been keeping plenty busy while we wait for the arrival of the new addition to our family. Keep watch, we will be sure to keep you posted on any exciting developments!

Ever Expanding Peas and Useless Doctors

I learned a very important lesson today - dried peas are expandy...VERY expandy. My project for today was pea soup. I bough some bulk mixed peas last week (green, yellow, and black) and set off to work today to make them into a delicious crockpot soup. I poured my peas and such into the crockpot, covered them with water, and away I went. An hour later I returned to the kitchen to check progress only to find the top of the crockpot being pushed off by a pile of ever-expanding peas that seemed to be longing for escape. And now I know. Dried peas require water and lots of it! I solved my dilemma by scooping out half of the mixture into a bowl and cooking the other half while group two waited their turn. Round one of pea soup making was a great success and round two is now in the works.

I had also planned to make seafood chowder today. I really want to get the freezer fully stocked before Lily arrives. There's still hope for my chowder, but I just seem to be in the mood to boycott potato peeling today. We'll see how it goes.

That was certainly not the most exciting part of my week, however! Yesterday, I went for another visit to the Maternity hospital - allegedly the best hospital in which to have a baby - for a check up. Let's just say that by the time I left, I was ready to a) Kick several people and b) Hop a plane back to Canada.

Upon arrival, I decided to pay the extra 2 rmb to see the specialist instead of the "regular doctor". That was, by far, the worst waste of 4o cents I could possibly imagine. The woman was terrible - TERRIBLE! I am about to pop a baby, and she didn't ask me a single question other than, "Why haven't you had more tests?!" (read: Why haven't you given us more money?). Had I been able to communicate with her on my own, without the use of my translator, I would have promptly asked her, "Why don't you tell me...you're the DOCTOR!?" *sigh...* So, she wrote out requisitions for a barrage of tests that would be absolutely useless at this point in my pregnancy, as well as a urine test. Let me tell you a bit about a urine test in China - it may just be the most unsanitary thing I've ever seen. First, you are given a small plastic cup and a small plastic test tube. You are then to pee into the cup and pour it into the test tube. Following that, you bring your test tube to a window where it sits, open to the air, for over and hour (in my case) until they finally decide to get your results going. Ick.

So after wading through a sea of 1000 pregnant ladies do my test and waiting for two hours to get my results, it was off to see the same terrible doctor again. She decided, upon analysis of my results, that I must have a bladder infection (nope, I don't - trust me, I would know). To remedy said imaginary bladder infection, she gave me...a topical cream for my internal " infection. GAH! So, I am now 200 rmb poorer and the proud owner of two boxes of bladder cream that will never get touched.

To top off my wonderful day at the hospital, the staff refused to fill out my pre-authorization forms for the insurance company. REFUSED! Ooooh well. I called the insurance lady, explained the situation, and they will take care of it on their end. Oh, by the way, did I mention that my last visit to this hospital involved one very large unidentified bug scurrying across the floor and many colonies of ominous black mold??

Other than my horrible visit to the way-too-busy maternity hospital, yesterday was actually quite a good and productive day! I managed to get lots of shopping done while I was out, including the purchase of a Christmas tree and a crockpot (which is now cooking my pea soup!). I also picked up the pretty red guitar that Daniel has been drooling over as a surprise - now the guitar lessons can begin! Thanks again, Mom and Dad Stewart, for the early Christmas presents!

Hmmm...what else is new and exciting? Oh! I actually had a baby shower! Some of the girls planned a baby shower and hosted it right next door last week. We got a few of the necessities we were still needing and then went out an shopped for the rest the next day. I think we now officially have everything we need!

Aside from that, the most exciting part of our week here in China was that were were both terribly ill. I was very sick over the weekend, but that ended up being nothing compared with Daniel on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. At one point he had a fever of 104.5 (literally the highest fever I have ever seen) but we managed to get it down with lots of fluids, a little bit of drugs, and me running up and down the stairs for cold compresses every 5 minutes! It was good practice for having children though! Luckily, Daniel is feeling much better now and is at least well enough that he is back to work today.

So, I think that is enough excitement for one day, but I am beginning to enjoy my Random Overviews...so here we go:



For today,Thursday, December 4th

Outside my window...it is very windy and rather chilly! All of the fine folk here from BC seem to think that is is freezing cold outside. Luckily, I'm from NS and I know better! It's not so bad.

I am thankful for...the forethought to cook food ahead of time and put it in the freezer. It has already come in handy more than once when we were too ill to go get groceries, and I am sure that it will come in handy over and over again.

I am also very thankful for good friends. I was blessed enough to have my very kind neighbour come with me on my excursion yesterday so I would be able to go shopping and not worry that I was walking around alone and about to pop a baby. It was also extremely helpful to have someone to carry all of the heavy things!

Really, I am thankful for all of the wonderful people in my life - Today my wonderful husband, in particular, who worries like crazy about me and makes sure I know how much he appreciates everything I do for us.

From the kitchen... Well, last week's pizza was a success! I managed to make 20 pizzas over the weekend! Now, as we all know, is the pea soup and, if I get really ambitious, seafood chowder. Hopefully tomorrow I will make some bread, maybe tea biscuits, and perhaps some homemade "pop tarts". I would be more ambitious than that, but I literally have NO vegetables in the house. After I get some Saturday, it's time for Chili, quiche, and maybe stew and pot pie. We'll see how far we make it before baby comes!

Also, I am very excited about my purchase of candy cups so I can now make homemade candies! Since I am lacking MANY ingredients, I am limited to peanut butter, cherry, coffee, and perhaps vanilla flavors. We shall see...perhaps I'll find a way to be more creative!

I am going... to have baby very soon! Other than that, hopefully next to nowhere, as I am really getting quite tired!

I am reading... Harry Potter aloud with Daniel. It stared only because I was sick and he was searching for a way to make me feel better. It worked!

I am hoping... that baby comes very soon. I am full term now, so it's safe, and we have lots of post delivery paperwork that needs doing!

I am creating... so many recipes for delicious truffles. Unfortunately, I have the ingredients handy to make...well...none. Pooh.

Around the house...I don't even want to look. It's a little...untidy. I am hoping to remedy that tomorrow. However, the Christmas tree upstairs does make me smile! It's not decorated yet, but I think we will be fixing that tonight!

One of my favorite things... is watching Christmas movies with Daniel. We've done quite a bit of that lately. I'm really looking forward to when we can all sit down and watch them as a family as well.

A few plans for the rest of the week...cooking, more cooking, and...ummm...having a baby?

A picture thought I am sharing with you... Just remember when working with dry ingredients - VERY expandy!!