School, Soul searching, and three hour trip to ER

Wow, what a crazy week. Really nothing huge went on except another week of school and some soul searching, and of course a three hour trip to the ER. Ariana twisted her elbow but don't worry everyone, it should all be better by tomorrow.

So going to classes again is a little frustrating. You know, I'm turning 28 soon and I thought that I had a young spirit but I am realizing as my life is catching up to me, that I'm getting a little old for this. Nevertheless, Chinese needs to be learned and this is one of the best ways to motivate me and my learning style. So Ariana has been going to a Chinese Preschool while I go to my class. I think that she secretly likes it, even though she cries like none other every time I drop her off. Separation Anxiety, I get it. So far, the only word that she seems to have learned is, "MINE!" and that's not even in Chinese.

But this might be a good time for her to be around so many Chinese speakers because I can tell that her language explosion is about to go off.

Her favorite and only real word that she says in Chinese more than once is, "Jidan" which means egg (more specifically chicken egg). She LOVES eggs- she ate two for breakfast the other day, along with her cereal, fruit, and yogurt. Hopefully I can get her to say other words in Chinese too but I think that she definently has favorites in each language. She also LOVES shoes and before this week was calling them "Badoo!!." This week she finally learned how to say Shoe and also says that repeately. She refers to socks and "shoe" too. It's actually helpful when we're out and about and her shoe comes off, she'll usually tell me, "Uh-oh!!!. Shoe!!" which has helped save quite a few pairs.

Chinese class is going well. There are a lot of words to memorize each day. I remember when learning 10 new characters took me hours. Now I learn about 50 for each class. THe test actually was disappointing. I've never taken a Chinese test with so much multiple choice. We'll see how I do, but overall, the easiest test that I've ever taken in Chinese.

However, on Thursday, the day before the test I felt like giving up. I don't really feel like this easily. I've ran 3 marathons, multiple half marathons and a couple of triathlons. I ran 2 of those half marathons on a hurt foot and I ran one of the half marathons three months after having a baby. But this is a stress and a guilt that I don't know how to resolve. Because of my class time, Ariana has to stay at the preschool longer than I would want her to. She cries when I drop her off. I was wondering if it was all worth it. Then when I picked her up I wanted to be a good mom and take her to the park before dinner. When we were walking back, holding hands, she either suddenly decided that she didn't want to stand anymore or she decided to do 1, 2, 3 jump- but with only one person holding her hand, that game doesn't work. What happened is that why I was holding her, her arm twisted, and she got something called Nursemaids elbow. It is easily resolvable, although I didn't know at the time. You just have to pronate and then extend so everything goes back in place and only happens to kids because of the size of their muscles. However, she cried for a lot longer than usual and when Reuben got home we decided to take her to the hospital. They fixed it and put it in a splint to make sure that it would stay.

The whole experience was obviously very stressful because it was the first time we've had to go to the hospital with her (which is the second time someone in our family has gone to the ER already since we've moved- I hope that I'm not next!) It also made me feel sad about the whole situation and I almost gave up. I think that I feel better about it now. We'll see how it goes this week!

Pictures

If you've noticed, I haven't been putting as many pictures up as usual. That's because it takes too long and lots of times, it doesn't work the first time I have to upload so it takes even longer. I've decided that facebook is a lot easier to put up pictures so I have a TON of pictures up on my facebook. My name is just my full name (with maiden name) so I'll be easy to find. Look me up and be my friend! Then you'll be able to see a lot more pictures on that site.

Little Bunny rabbit

So I'm riding my bike a lot more lately. I ride my bike to my chinese class because the parking rates at the U of Minnesota are extraordinarily high. I really like riding and it makes me feel good. Plus, I get to use a special road that only bikers and the buses can use that's a total shortcut. I hope to be able to ride for a while longer, but the winters here are brutal and I'm not sure how many months my bike will be sitting in the garage during those subzero crazy snow like days.

Anyway, back to the story. I found a baby bunny on the side of the road (alive still- not road kill). It was so small it didn't have it's eyes open yet. I didn't know what to do. I didn't see the mother bunny around nor any of the little guys brothers and sisters not did I see anything that looked remotely like a little bunny hole or nest. So I called reuben and asked him what to do. Now, he doesn't know anything about animals but he gave me permission to save the bunny. I picked it up to do something for it and thought, "oh no, now there's no chance for the bunny! The mother will eat it or won't accept it if it smells like me!"

Anyway, I took the bunny home and it was pretty darn cute. I got home and looked up everything that I could about bunnies and taking care of them and it didn't take me long to find out that wild rabbits are basically impossible to take care of. Most of them die, even if they are taken care of by a professional. Jack rabbits in particular are impossible, because they are so wild that once they get stronger, if you get anywhere near them to try to feed them, they will hop away at full force and can run themselves into a wall or the side of the box so hard it could kill them.

I read stories and poems and got more and more depressed. I realized that I probably couldn't do anything for the bunny, especially since we were going on vacation in a few days and probably wouldn't be able to get the bunny on my carry on, right? So, one thing I read said that bunnies aren't canabalistic, they won't eat their babies if they smell funny. The mom comes to them only once a day, and only for a few minutes to feed them, usually during the midnight hours. If one is missing they will look for their babies within a 50 yard radius. So I felt utterly stupid and just got in the car and put the bunny right where I found it (well, not on the road this time, on the side of the road.) That's the last time I try to save any bunnies!

Update- I've been riding past that same area where I found the bunny and haven't seen any bunny corpses lying around. I hope that's a good sign!