They're getting to the age where they could play happily together, as long as they can sense that my attention isn't being occupied by something else. It's kind of the reverse of the parent radar-you know when you sense an eerie silence that means your kids must be getting into some kind of trouble? Well I'm sure that my silence looms even larger in my children's minds. The moment I start doing anything remotely absorbing/interesting/necessary, they sense my absence and immediately intervene. I imagine they have conversations later on that go something like this:
Cohen: Ugh. So you'll never believe what Mom did today..
Winnie: Yeah?
Cohen: So even after I was playing Legos with her for like an HOUR, I leave to get something from my room and all the sudden it gets really quiet and I'm like "uh oh" and I don't see her anywhere. Sure enough, I go in her room and she's hitting buttons on the laptop. Said she was BLOGGING. Where they come up with these words, I don't even know.
Winnie: Geez, you leave them alone for a second....but at least they've got an amusing imagination.
Cohen: I know, as soon as it gets really quiet, you know they're up to something
Winnie: Yeah, the other day I was trying to work on my drawing, and before I knew it, Papa had locked himself in the bathroom!
Cohen: I can't wait til they both get to Nursing Home age
Baby Pip: Well you can all quit complaining, since I'm the one who spends all DAY keeping them occupied. And when was the last time either of you woke up with Mom in the middle of the night?
Also, they probably have conversations about how we come in to distract them every time THEY are trying to do something interesting/absorbing/necessary like giving themselves a haircut, feeding the baby, or granting their bunny freedom. I don't know that it makes me feel any better that our frustration with each other appears to be mutual, but at least our affection appears to be mutual as well.
Anyways, thats pretty much been our day to day life with the exception of a weekend excursion to the ancient city of Dali with some friends. It's not all it's cracked up to be. I realized American tourists go somewhere in order to find a spot where no one else is, to have a unique experience, maybe buy/see/eat stuff that you couldn't find anywhere else in the world. Chinese tourists go somewhere to be where everyone else is and to buy/see/eat the same cheap touristy stuff that we could get at our local convenience store. For this, we drove 5 hours through mountain roads with 11 people (7 of them children 5 and under) in a microvan (Yes, I said microvan. This is not a minivan, and way different than your Town and Country with heated bucket seats and personal DVD players. It is literally a miniature version of a van. See footnote for further discussion of Chines vehicular safety and quality standards). In spite of being surrounded by stunning mountains, everybody seemed baffled when we were asking around 
It was worth it though, I could feel myself breathing easier as soon as I started to see green space. That might also have been the lack of smog. We tried to see Erhai lake as well, but of course my idea of a peaceful lakeside retreat was very different than Chinese people's
They call it a "meinbou che" which means "bread loaf car." Aptly put. That's all for today. The kids caught me.
for places to go hiking.
Us: How do we get to Chengshan mountain?
Chinese person: Why would you want to go to the mountain?
Us: To go hiking
Chinese person: Go what?
Us: Like to walk around
Chinese person: But you can walk around the city!
Us: But there are so many people
Chinese person: I know!!! (big smile)
End of the story is that we got to the mountain. Moral of the story is that I will never understand Chinese people.
The kids had fun. I don't know if I can say as much for their friends who ended up pretty drenched.
Or maybe they were more annoyed by us than by the rain. This guy does not seem pleased by Winnie's attention. Hard to say.
It took us a while but we finally found a secluded spot. Of course it was only a matter of time before we became a stop on some Chinese tour and had to leave because we got tired of having our picture taken. Our friend later taught us the phrase "Wu shi kuai ee jiang," which made the rest of our trip substantially more pleasant. It means "50 renminbi for a picture." That generally shuts people up.
*A well known Chinese car company has just designed its first car intended for export. When tested by a German company they said they had never seen anything like it. In a crash where speed of impact was 25 mph, every single person in the car would be dead. I don't like to think about what would have happened to us in this thing.
