Our Aiee

Our Aiee is great! She cooks, cleans, and watches our kids when we need her to. She doesn't speak any English, so that has been a bit tough at times, but I think it will be good in the long run to help motivate us to learn Chinese. It's probably really comical to her as we're trying to tell her things using a small phrase book. Usually we can communicate decently. It's probably hardest on my kids when they are left alone with her. But, Melanie has one Aiee that speaks very good English so the kids use her a lot to act as translator. And they are getting really good at pointing at things that they want. Luckily, they really like her, so it hasn't been too hard on them.
I really enjoy coming home at lunch to a nice, cooked meal. That way I can enjoy the time I have hanging out with my family instead of rushing home and spending all my time cooking and eating. It's also so nice not to have to clean. I haven't done laundry since we got here. I don't even know how to use the washer (and I don't think that I'm even going to learn :) ) We bought a small dryer when we got here, but our Aiee still hasn't really used it. She just hangs our clothes up. I think she's afraid of the dryer. I don't mind really as long as it's not me that has to hang the clothes up. She's really nice and a hard worker. She's even done some mending of Haley's clothes and the other day she took Haley's flipflop home to fix it. (Haley broke it the second day we were here). Because we can't communicate very well, she just jumps in and does whatever she thinks needs to be done. I'm really impressed with how well she keeps herself busy.
She also buys groceries and other things for us when we want her to. It's really nice especially since I'm still getting used to what everything is.