Time to Climb a Tree!

During the winter Fei Fei asked about climbing a tree, and I told her that when the snow melts she would be able to do that.  The first time she climbed a tree was in May 2006, when she was two. We went to celebrate a friend's birthday, and outside her apartment there were many beautiful trees just beginning to have leaves. So Fei Fei did not hesitate to get on one of them and had a great time trying all positions to get on the tree. 

Throughout the long winter months she has been patiently waiting for the opportunity to do that again. I think that experience was so great in her mind that she couldn't wait to do that again. Last year, everything was just like a blur with the new baby and adjusting to life back in the States after being gone for nearly four and a half months, we didn't have the chance to check out a tree to climb. 

Finally the snow has all disappeared, and last Friday when Mark brought Fei Fei and Jun Jun to Eric Carle Museum for a story time, Fei Fei was able to find a nice tree to climb. She was so excited because this was the moment she had been waiting for! She was on it for only a short while, because they had another show to get to in the Museum, but she was very satisfied and came home to tell me that she had climb a tree that day.

Fei Fei and Jun Jun outside of the Eric Carle Museum

I was such a tree climber once. I remember seeing pictures of myself sitting on a tree branch at my grandmother's house in Guangzhou, China, probably at the age of two or three, making a funny face much like what Jun Jun is making now. 

Sitting on a tree outside of my grandmother's house in Guangzhou, China

In my first elementary school I remember there was a large tree reaching out of the school yard walls, and I used to climb on it for fun. One time I felt down from it and landed on the solid sheet of ice on the ground (It must have hurt for me to remember this detail). I remember getting on a large tree during one visit to Macau with my aunt Kelly, and we both swung our legs. While I was studying in UMass there was a tree that I liked to climb, outside of Crabtree dormitory that overlooks the basketball field for the Northeast Quad. I liked to sit up there and watch people playing ball, or just lie down and stare at the stars at night. 

Maybe one of these days I will climb a tree again with Fei Fei. It would be such a bonding experience for us, and I will tell her all about the trees I used to climb too.

April

Wow, I haven't been updating the blog for a few weeks now! :) April seems to have been so busy, with birthday celebration for Mark's Gramma who turned 103 years old on April 10, another dear friend Marie Stone's birthday that same weekend--she turned 86 years old, the nice weather and the daily outing with the kids (Jun Jun got a little squirting pool for his birthday, so he's been trying it out on the sunny days). It feels so good to be able to go out and play in the sun. Feels like the winter has been so long and Spring finally showed up all of a sudden, and I didn't even miss it!

There's always so much to write about for each single day of our lives here, and sometimes I feel that unless I have a big chunk of time I can't write anything, or unless I have this or that in place I can't write. Hence I don't write at all, and every time when I see the old stories I go, "yikes, got to go update this. I just wish I have the time... "

I think the beauty of a blog is that it doesn't have to be perfect; it's just real time, real place and real me.  That's been stretching for me, to let the perfection go and to be comfortable with what I have that maybe imperfect (but in whose eyes), that it may not be an essay but just plain me talking. So, here I go, being thankful that at the end of a long day I still have the strength to sit here and do something I like, and not too tired yet to scale a mountain of the mind. 

Tomorrow is another day. Maybe I will go running again. Maybe Fei Fei will have more than one play date. Maybe I will get to go to the post office and mail off the package for my cousin's new baby in China. Maybe I will even make the steamed Chinese eggplants for supper again that Mark loves so much. Maybe I will hear more news about Andrew's surgery and be thankful that he and his family are alright. Maybe I will learn more about the 101 ways to stay healthy I just read from the Women's Health magazine, and be motivated to implement a few starting tomorrow. Maybe I will also go out and pat the new baby grass Mark put in that's sprouting out on our lawn (I am heeding his advice to go do something with my hands for the Earth regularly; it's allegedly good for my emotional and mental health :). Maybe, like Fei Fei (aka Carmella Cinderella) says, we will have many adventures...

Life is so full. Embrace it today :)