t h e . r i d i c u l o u s . p a n d a

back from the best. vacation. ever.

i didn't once wish that we were home, only the last night in beijing did i start to think about how nice it would be to return to chicago. silas was beyond expectation, a brave traveler, patient toddler and hilarious companion. being a complete family for fifteen days only brought out our strengths. silas looked aged at the end of every day and his laughter reached new peaks of delirium every night.

we found my brother, steve, in an airport in kunming and stuck with him and his family for eleven days of adventure, noodles, mahjongg, forty cent beers, singing, stick gathering and temple wandering.

there was a moment in the back of loaf of bread hired bus for the day that i was squeezed in between my husband, brother with my baby boy on my lap and i realized that i've never felt safer. on a bumpy road in the middle of nowhere southwestern china, in dirty socks, hair smelling like incense and cooking oil, with a belly full of crackers and lucky oranges and i am completely satisfied.

i'm leaving the giant photo post to muxoxo.com. it should be up in a few days time. we came home with upwards of 1,100 pictures. sam will pick the most web worthy ones.

we ate like emperors, met hundreds of inquisitive faces - all wanting to rub our baby's cheeks or wag their fingers at us for "underdressing" him, climbed the great wall, blew off roman candles to celebrate spring festival, survived a deluge of candies, treats and gifted apples and cracked walnut shells under our hiking shoes. and i learned that you truly haven't lived until you attempt to bargain in chinese with your husband - "wait! what amount did you just throw out?! that's a sixty five cent jump!!"

silas only has two pages used up in his passport, i can't wait to see where we end up next.

our images of china on the superhighway. a little bit of the past on the future...

click below to see what we saw.

ps. thanks sam, you make very beautiful things after i go to sleep.

we arrived back stateside just in time to catch my sister and her daughters on a midwestern visit. silas was able to see all of his maternal cousins within one week and celebrate quinn xi's birthday, amazing!

auntie kim and her nephew.

grandma and quinn celebrate a half decade!

priya and silas fueled up on pancakes from the corner diner.

sweet prehistoric hatchlings at the field museum.

the ladies and toddler pose with sue's bones.

thanks to silas's after museum nap, i was able to take have a quick portrait sessions with two of my favorite subjects.

quinn xi

priya xue

ah man, it is so lovely to be home...

georgia risks a gnawing penalty in her "elmo" dress.

saturday afternoon at the monkey house.

silas and gorilla.

ice walking practice at montrose beach

you need to go put on your oscar finest.

all before ten am...

my neighbor amy and i were having our post-breakfast phone call and i realized i hadn't seen silas in a while. there he was being the model only child, having wedged himself into an empty beer box, thoughtfully studying the bird book that he got in the mail yesterday.

when i was cleaning up last night, i asked sam if it was too trashy to leave out this box for our kid to play with in the morning. papa and silas got some ideas in common.

going feet first under the bed to retrieve his ball and to get himself some dustbunny socks.

ah, silas lee. sixteen was the month that you took everything i had previously expected from a raising a baby and totally blew it out of the water.

you are an absolute joy to spend our days with. you took one of our wedding vows and adapted it into a dominating facet of your personality. how ridiculous is that?

and its completely not just us. one of my favorite parts of traveling with you this past month was taking you all over the world to meet people that probably never had a chance to encounter someone like you. and it was if you were so completely psyched to meet all of them too. the screaming teenagers, the trembling boys, the squishy grandmas who tugged your pant legs, the stern soldiers who squatted next to you while you played in the dirt, and the sticky faced toddlers who happily shared their lunches, you were just as intrigued by all of them. so, thank god, that it was the best idea ever to put you on a plane to asia.

thank you for proving us totally wrong when we decided to put no crazy expectations on the trip. everyday was exactly how it should of been. after sixteen months, we should have known that being the three of us for fifteen days uninterrupted would be fantastic.

this month, you really started to dance, you started to speak intelligibly (at least to us), you continued entertaining yourself while walking and looking for sticks to pick up and sidewalk cracks to dig into. and you started to look a hell of a lot more like your papa.

you've got this crazy gait (i think it resembles an overweight drag queen) and when you're walking with purpose you've always got one pointy finger extended as if at the ready to indicate any possible object of interest. when you find something interesting and you know there are people around you really, really want to make sure everyone else has a chance to check it out. at the aquarium, you'll spend half the time with your fingers touching the glass and the rest of your body turned around trying to get the person behind you to look at the crazy specimen.

so, once again, silas lee, it is really just the best thing ever to have you around. i am proud that you are sam's and my contribution to our family lineage. you have to be strong and unique to keep up with my side of the tree and i know you have it in you. all that and damn charming too. that must come from your paternal ancestors.

oh and let's not forget about the five more teeth.

seriously, kid, where do you find all the time to get so much done?