what will the neighbors do?

We are two months away from moving day.  It's starting to sink in, this huge transition on the horizon, and some days I am more reflective than others.

I wonder about the people living around us.  Together with our neighbors Andy and Erin Ashley, we are the first and only foreigners to ever live in our little suburb.  I like to think we've provided a great deal of entertainment these past three years, and I wonder what the locals will do for fun when they can no longer spend lazy afternoons monitoring the weird behavior of the two foreign families.  

Our neighbors really do like us.  I am convinced of it.  They undoubtedly think we are strange, vocally disagree with many of our customs and occasionally drive me crazy with their intense need to watch every move I make.  [Yesterday morning the kids and I were heading into the city and I sent the girls downstairs ahead of me to meet our driver, who was waiting near our building.  When Isaac and I made it out to the car there were five ladies crowded around like paparazzi, craning their necks just to see the girls seated inside.  Uncle Qi, who frequently drives for us, was obviously proud to have garnered so much attention.  The girls were not so thrilled.]

But the neighbors do like us.  I know they will miss us when we are gone.  

And we have one neighbor who goes way beyond liking our family.  Nai Nai loves us.  Mostly she loves the kids, but I also think she really likes me too :)  

We call her the "queen bee" of the apartment complex.  If anything happens to anybody, Nai Nai knows about it.  I used to think that if you got on google earth and zoomed in on the courtyard of our apartment complex, Nai Nai would be right there, a pivotal part of any satellite image of this small piece of the world.  And then one day I did zoom in on our courtyard and she wasn't there.  It totally ruined my faith in google earth. 

It's a rare day that I do not see her at least once, often multiple times.  She knows if I am running late to get the girls at school, she knows if Matt left the complex walking or on his bike, she knows what time we get home from church.  Yesterday afternoon she brought our daily dairy delivery and her first question was, "where did you go this morning?"

She brings me homemade dumplings, she lures the girls to her home with promises of all kinds of goodies, and her big grin draws Isaac right into her arms.  

Now I wonder if she saw me the first day we came out here to look at potential apartments.  I was hugely pregnant with Lydia and remember being hot and tired and desperate for a place to sit down and rest my feet.  If I only knew then what I know now.  I would have walked up to her first floor window, hollered "Nai Nai" and waited for her to open her door, offer me a drink, and peel pears for then-18-month-old Julianna to snack on.

The neighbors are going to miss us, alright.  I'm going to miss them too.