Raising four kids is difficult at times…

Oh, you mean, we didn’t tell you?  Surely you already knew about the other (less-mentioned) members of our family.

Let’s see there’s Anna, Sarah,…

Cokie…

In addition to making a U.S. cross-country road trip with us, Cokie has also been Anna’s constant companion in Singapore, Thailand, China, and even back to America.  You wouldn’t believe the number of situations where we’ve had to run/drive/swim/train/pole vault/commute/tightrope/return to a number of locations to retrieve this oft-"forgotten" friend.   He’s had quite a few surgeries as well to prevent his tiny white-bead guts from spewing out everywhere.

Anna, already the skeptic when it comes to my stories, doesn’t believe me when I tell her about Cokie’s twin brother, Croakie, a mysterious black bear who lives at the North Pole.  But, amazingly enough, we found some other Americans who live in our apartment complex whose son has a stuffed bear that looks identical to Cokie; except he’s white (not faded pink.)

And then, there’s "Kitty"

I know what you’re thinking; it’s a horrifyingly loved creature.  At one time, this kitten was pink (now it’s just a faded gray blackish soot color) and once upon a time it had black button eyes (whereas now you see the stitched remains of eye sockets and the tattered mouth.)  Over the course of its life, this poor creature has caused more trouble for us than Cokie.  This is because of Sarah’s negligence more than the cat’s mischievousness.  At this point, it’s amazing to me that Kitty hasn’t disintegrated, been lost or stolen.

So this is our extended family here in Xining.  I know where my kids get this behavior from.  Both Christa and I had our Linus-to-security-blanket items.  For me it was Joe Monkey and for Christa it was Clarabelle. 

These well loved items still exist somewhere in our scattered storage spaces back home. Probably someday Kitty and Cokie will head to a similar home of retirement box for stuffed animals.