Spring/Summer 2014: Ills and Skills

For me (Roland), the spring and summer of 2014 were marked by two episodes of "illness"--hip surgery in early march and an elbow infection in late May.  However, for the other males in our family, the same time period was one of increased skills.  And for mom, well she simply remained stunningly beautiful.  So without further ado, here is a quick run down of what the spring and summer consisted of for the China Franks family.

HIP SURGERY:

On the evening of 05 March, I flew to Hong Kong to undergo Birmingham Hip Replacement (BHR) surgery.  Unlike a total hip replacement, the BHR procedure only replaces the ball and socket.  As the x-ray shows, the replacement is of a comparable size to the original ball and socket, so this means a much lower chance of dislocation.  My doctor told me that beyond the initial three months of recovery I would be more likely to brake my femur than to dislocate my hip.  (I know, not the most comforting thought, but for someone who likes to ride his bike on the trails, this knowledge about my replacement joint makes me much more confident on my bike.)

One of my students, when she saw the x-ray, said, "They put ice cream in your hip?"  She thought that the new metal portion looked like one of the frozen treats one can buy in most convenient stores.

KIA SOCCER:

I was confined to a wheel chair (at least for coaching, otherwise I was on crutches), but my athletes were still very mobile.  And they also did quite well.  In our rather short competition season, we ended with four wins, two losses, and a tie.  In the photo below, Nathan (one of our two senior athletes) maneuvers the ball past an opponent.  Each spring we struggle to find teams to play, often leaving us to play whomever will engage us, and this is too often adult teams.  However, when the boys get to play people their own age, they usually do reasonably well.

AUGUST IS ON THE MOVE:

The wee-man spent most of 2013 sitting around, being carried around, being pushed around, and being drug around (that last one was by big brother).  However, as 2014 moved from winter to spring, the little guy learned that he could take himself places by way of a commando crawl that would morph into a modified jujitsu sparring crawl.  We thought he looked a bit like a gorilla moving around, and we are certain that his left arm ended up being stronger than his right.  However, mostly we realized that, once again, so many things in the house were now too easily accessible for the mobile wee-one.

THREE WHEELS GOOD; TWO WHEELS BETTER

Last year, Oswin received a three-wheeled scooter (two in the front and one in the rear) from his auntie who lives here in Kunming.  While he initially struggled with that vehicle, he was zooming around Hu Pan Zhi Meng Xiao Qu a little after he turned two years old.  Christmas 2013 brought a new riding sensation:  Suli and I got the big man a two-wheeled balance bike.  Once again, the initial reactions were a bit disheartening.  However, with my hip keeping me from actually riding my bike, I lowered the saddle on my mountain bike and assumed the same riding position as Oswin on his bike.  Being able to see how I could ride and balance, Oswin started following me around.  By the time March rolled around, he was riding down all the wheelchair ramps in the area and even attacked this shallow set of paving stones on a grassy knoll near our apartment building.  Now he rides down curbs and does modified "wheelies" on his tiny bike.

SOCCER OR SOCIAL SKILLS

No matter where we take Oswin, he always manages to make friends.  So when I took him to one of the high school soccer games, it only made sense that he would meet new people he was bound to like.  Actually anyone who plays with him is his friend.  These Minority High School students ended up playing with him whether they wanted to or not.  And Oswin loved it.  Naturally, I enjoyed the fact that he was practicing his futbal skills.

SPRING BANQUET:

Each spring the grade-11 students host the annual KIA Spring Banquet (prom), and in 2014 the grade-11 students were my homeroom.  This meant more work for me, but it also tends to make the event that much more enjoyable.  I got to see the students plans for our "Red Carpet/Classic Hollywood" themed event grow from week to week, month to month.  In the end, the attendees got to take their pictures in front of the Hollywood sign; the seniors got to see their names on stars on the "Walk of Fame"; and I got to enjoy the evening with my beautiful Sweetie.

NEW ILLS:

While the two boys were garnering new skills, I spent the end of the school year picking up new ills.  On the second to last day of school, I noticed some tenderness on my left elbow.  By the last day of school, the tenderness had escalated to swelling, redness, and pain to the touch.  In the picture, the swelling and redness would eventually extend beyond the #3 dotted line, so I had to fly to Hong Kong for some good, old-fashioned I.V. antibiotics.  I ended up spending three days in H.K., and spent almost another month taking oral antibiotics.  By July, all traces of the infection were gone.

PHUKET:

To get away from Kunming for a bit, this summer we went to Phuket, Thailand.  By traveling within Southeast Asia, we saved a lot of money on airfare, housing, and food.  These savings will allow us to head back to the States during the summer of 2015.  While in Thailand we mostly relaxed:  wake up late (unless the U.S. had a World Cup match), eat breakfast, go swimming, take showers, head out for lunch, come back for afternoon naps, go swimming, take showers, head out for dinner, go window shopping, head back to the hotel for quiet time and bed.  Eleven days of that was a blessing.  We even got to take an elephant ride.

WALKING SKILLS:

By the end of July, August had given up his monkey crawl and converted entirely to walking.  Naturally, there were a couple weeks of unsteady steps and scared looks out in the middle of the floor, but eventually he started to truly ambulate. That is when the house began to grow increasingly messy.  Anything he could walk to and get his hands on ended up in the mounting pile of stuff in the middle of the living room floor.  He still does not seem to have his brother's balance, but he loves to walk every chance he gets.  He even made his way up to the second floor at school, and none of us even knew where he was.

SWEET BOYS:

Everyone in the xiao qu seems to know Oswin (or XiaoHu, as all the Chinese people know him).  Because of the Chinese tradition of naming children with similar names--Xiang Yan (Suli), and her two sisters, Xiang Lan and Xiang Yun--the people of the neighborhood tend to call August Xiao Xiao Hu (little, little tiger).  In fact, in many ways, the entire Franks/Fu clan is known by relation to Oswin.  In fact, when Suli's older sister comes to visit, she simply says to the guards that she is XiaoHu's auntie, and they let her in the security gate.  At some point, when August starts riding the scooter or Oswin's bike, I am sure that he will gain the same kind of notoriety his brother sports.

NEW PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION:

Spring 2014 marked the grand opening of Kunming's new subway.  (It will be a system someday, but for right now it is a single train, if you don't count the line that only accesses the airport.)  Because Oswin loves trains, we made a point of taking some summer excursions that would allow us to use the new underground railway.  Below, we are preparing to take the di tie to the former North Train Station, which has been changed into a train museum.  That is why he looks so excited.  The little girl is Kayla, the daughter of one of my colleagues.  Of course, the wee-man is August, but I don't think he really registered what was happening.

TRAIN RIDING:

The train museum also offered a 2rmb (approximately 33 cents) train ride on an old passenger car.  However, that day's weather was on-again-off-again rain, and the museum officials did not seem to want to send the train out in the rain.  So we ended up waiting two-hours for our ride.  If there is one thing a person can say for certain about the Chinese it is that they are very long-suffering.  Most of the people who had come for the ride waited the entire time, . . . on the train.  So when the whistle finally blew and the wheels on the tracks started going round and round, there were quite a few cheers.

FAMILY SUMMER PROJECTS:

This summer's project was to organize the front storage room.  Since we moved to our current apartment--about 2.5 years ago, I had been mentioning that I would get some shelving to organize all the extraneous stuff in the storage room.  (Since much of that stuff is directly related to my bicycles, the organization project really should have been mine, because I would benefit the most from it.)  Well, this summer I actually did go out and buy some inexpensive shelves.  With Oswin's help, and Suli and August's management, the shelves went up, and the room received its organization.  I even got a towered bike hanger to store my two bikes, one over the other, to help provide even more space in the room.

The end product, minus the bike rack.  (I'll try to post a picture of that in another blog entry.)

A SUMMER OF FAMILY WALKS:

Summers are made for taking family walks, and although Kunming summers are also rainy season, we always seemed to manage an after-dinner family walk.  On weekends we ventured a bit farther afield, when the weather allowed.  Below, Oswin stands overlooking the northern extension of DianChi lake.  Further in the background are the Western Hills, including the cliffs that look down on DianChi.  In the winter, this is where many Kunming people come to feed the annual migration of seagulls.  However, in the summer, this same area is a bit abandoned.  That's okay.  It made for a very nice, quiet family walk and picnic lunch.

FIRST DAYS:

Well, as all summer's do, our summer vacation came to an end.  In fact, the official end of summer vacation when Oswin rolled off to his first day of school--Pre-Junior-Kindergarten, a half-day class.  He was so excited.  And he was probably one of only two or three students who were not in tears.  Over his 3.5 years, he has spent so much time at Kunming International Academy that when he actually received the opportunity to stay for more than a half hour to visit dad at lunch, he jumped at the chance.  He is more likely to cry when he is told he has to leave.  Hopefully this enthusiasm for school will continue.

Oswin's first day of class was dad's first day as well.  After the briefest of dad-you-are-embarrassing-me hugs, he ran off to join his classmates, and dad climbed the four flights of stairs to his fifth-floor classroom.  Both ended up having a great first week of classes.  Someday, on that first day of school, a much taller Oswin and a much older Roland may actually both make the climb up to dad's classroom.  Until then, it's play time and crafts for the little man and grading papers for dad.  (That leaves mom-and-August time for at least two more years.)