Deja Vu

These pictures are all too familiar. It seems like yesterday that my home was cluttered with boxes and piles of clothes. But it has been a year, and we are moving again. The relocation company came over today and packed up all of our things and whisked them away. As usual, I'm surprised at how much stuff we have. We haven't shopped much in Shanghai --- between concerns about quality issues and significant markups, we've only shopped when we were traveling outside of Shanghai. I am giving most of our tableware, pots, pans, bedding and food to our ayi or friends, and we still ended up with 24 boxes. We should receive our shipment a week after we arrive in Dallas. There is no turning back now.

I was really nervous that Sydney would come home from school today and be upset that almost all of her toys and books are missing. We stayed at school for a while after class so that she could play with her friends on the school's playground. There is an outbreak of hand, foot and mouth disease in China, including Shanghai. The school has done an amazing job of sanitizing the entire campus several times a day and implementing procedures to prevent an outbreak at the school. In addition to frequent hand washings, I've been keeping Sydney out of the playground at our apartment complex because it is not cleaned as often as the one at school. So after a weekend of being couped up in the apartment because of the rain and a paranoid Mom, Sydney was happy to spend time at the playground today.

When we arrived home, she didn't even notice that most of her things were missing. I kept a couple of her favorite books and a couple of toys that drive me crazy (which I'm planning to throw away when we leave next week --- coincidentally, they are most of the toys bought by our ayi), and she was happy to play with them. I don't know how long those couple of things will keep her occupied so I have a couple of Mickey Mouse DVDs as backup.