Leftovers

I had these lofty plans to take pictures of our Chinese meal as I was preparing it, with Jonah's help, and to make place cards, festify (I have a serious condition which causes me to make up ridiculous words. There is no cure.) the playroom with the paper lanterns I thrifted, find some appropriate Chinese music to enhance the ambiance, get everyone all dressed up..lalala. Almost none of it happened.

I got the place cards made, and made a puzzle out of Jonah's for him. I cut out the letters of his name, gave them to him along with a piece of construction paper, and had him arrange the letters in the correct order. At first, Mister Clever arranged J-O-N and gave me back the A and H, saying. "See, J-O says "jo" and "N" says "nuh". Jonah!". I told him he was sort of right, but that "N" really says "nnn", so he tried and tried again, until he got it. I cut out Elias' name and arranged it for him, and Jonah came in from the other room and pointed at the "E-L-I" I had glued down and exclaimed, "That says Eli!" Okay, it could've been a pretty well-educated guess, since he already knew what I was making, but I like to think he sounded it out in his head. : ) I did a "Mom" and a "Dad", and we were all supposed to decorate our names with crayons. Jonah and Elias colored theirs, and that's all that happened. Mine and Anthony's are still plain.

By the time that was done, it was time to start cooking. I rinsed and soaked long-grain rice, then steamed it and set it aside. Then I chopped and sauteed each of the vegetables, individually, to be included in our chicken chop suey, which took forever. I sauteed onion, mushrooms, zucchini, snap peas, broccoli, carrots, bok choy, and then the chicken, made the sauce, and then added in baby corn and water chestnuts. I fried half of the steamed rice with egg and scallions, threw some frozen potstickers in the skillet, and finally it was time to eat.

By then, the kids were as exhausted as my feet, and we didn't feel like sitting on the floor in the playroom anymore. We sat in front of the tv in the living room and enjoyed our meal. Jonah ate his rice and chicken, but picked at the vegetables. Elias dipped his vegetables in the pot sticker sauce and gobbled them down happily, and then we all went to bed.

No lanterns were lit or hung, no music, no fancy clothes, no fortune cookies (I forgot them in the cupboard! How could I forget the best part?! I was just that tired.) and no photos. Jonah didn't even get to help make dinner. Instead he helped keep Elias busy, which I appreciated but was probably not as fun for him. I need to start cooking quick things with him while Elias is napping. He really enjoys standing on a chair next to Mom and cracking eggs, dumping spices, mixing with the big wooden spoon.

So that's how we sent off Ping Week. A few forgotten leftovers have bled into this week: I lit the lanterns the other night and set them on my desk, and the boys were crazy-thrilled:

And yesterday we went to the park and I brought the bubbles in duck containers that were meant to be given out as prizes for Ping Trivia that never really happened, at least not in any formal way. It was nice and windy so the bubbles blew themselves with no help from us.

I am always going to have lofty plans, and they are only going to get carried out a small percentage of the time, because I am just not that great at this, and maybe I never will be. But I'm trying.

We're still eating leftover chop suey. I think I made enough to feed everyone living on the Yangtze River.