On our New Ayi

I want to post this so I don't forget - no pics, sorry.

Monday was the first day we got an ayi to watch the girls while I run and make us dinner. She seems pretty nice, is good with the kids, but speaks literally NO English. She also does not read English letters, even Pinyin (the phonetic writing of Chinese words). So needless to say, communication is not so good.

The girls were napping when I left for my run, and Lucia was still asleep when I got back 45 mins later. Magdalena was up with her, which was fine - M's a ham, and loves all attention, and Juanzi (turns out this is a nickname, her real name is Yajuan, and I was freaking out when I had my Chinese language instructor read the characters I asked her to write for her name and she did NOT say Juanzi - I thought I was using the wrong name!) - loves babies. :-)

For dinner on Monday, she made rice (apparently the rice we bought is bu hao, though - not good) - and about 4 stalks of celery with about 2 oz of pork, then half an onion with another 1 oz of pork... not even close to enough for our hungry family! I thought it was because she hadn't shopped and was nervous about using too much of my food (though I tried to tell her to use anything).

So today (Wednesday) she was supposed to shop for us before coming. We, the girls and I, picked her up with our driver at 1:45 - she is supposed to be at the house at 2 pm - and she still had to buy some things. She hadn't gotten any of the things I wrote in Chinese characters for her to buy (courtesy of my new electronic dictionary) - and I was not happy as the girls were tired and hungry by this time. When we got home, I fed the kids and put them down for nap, then left for my run at 2:45. I got back an hour later and both girls were up (not much of a nap - Lu usually sleeps for 2+ hours if she goes down that late!) - and running around. At least they were happy, and I am thankful for that.

Then she started preparing the food - she bought a bunch of things we already had that were NOT food, like a cutting board, a skillet, a colander, a big butcher's knife, and a strainer to pull dumplings out of the water (okay, so we didn't have that). And dumpling flour - though I actually did buy that and showed it to her on Monday. And some oil that is not olive or canola, aka not what we use (I did show her the oil on Monday too). I was again a bit frustrated.

But she made the dumplings, and I had Lucia "help" roll the dough, which she loved. They were very good, but again - not even CLOSE to enough food! I had to eat the lunch I didn't get time to eat to complete the meal after she left, since I was super hungry. And we asked her to take back the cutting board and skillet, since we didn't need them, and tried to give her the oil (I told her that I only liked the olive and canola that we have already) - but she didn't take it. We paid her for the other things, but didn't have exact change, so she now has 40 RMB for next week.

Next week I'm going to go with her - and make sure she is DONE by 1 pm and buys all the things I want. Then I'm going to hover while she cooks and insist that she make a larger quantity. I did ask when we interviewed her (via translator) that she make enough for dinner and leftovers for the next day (this is what Lucia and I eat for lunch). If she thinks she's making enough, she obviously doesn't eat much herself!

Ah well... frustrations out now... at least she really is good with the kids, and I can go for my run without worrying about them. The real test is NEXT Friday when we have her put the girls to bed on her own... this week we're going to stick around until they are in bed to show her how we do it, and after that she'll be on her own every Friday night so we can get some much needed adult date nights out.