Fifteen minutes after my little brother Teddy was born, he was in my arms. I was 5, wearing shorts, and sitting on a cushy rocking chair in my parents’ bedroom, and he was brand-new, wrapped in a blanket, warm and red faced and real at last.
In January, I sat on a couch in San Francisco and got to hold Ted’s 7-day-old daughter. She was the youngest baby I’d held since the August afternoon that I met my brother. I hadn’t remembered how heavy a newborn feels! Or how warm – Jaya was a little furnace. She was an absurdly cute little furnace with puckered lips and downy dark hair. I didn’t want to put her down.
In your hands right now is our newborn baby – the first ever issue of tbjkids. Okay, it weighs in at just 2oz, and it’s cool to the touch, but it’s here at last, and we’re proud and excited! If we smoked, we’d definitely light you up a cigar.
Like any new parents, we’ve got a lot of hopes and expectations for tbjkids. We want it to be smart and unique, helpful and reliable, and we’d be happy if it had a good sense of humor. We’d like it to be friendly, and to play well with all kinds of parents and all kinds of kids. And we’ll admit it: we really want it to grow up to be successful and popular.
In this first issue we introduce you to eight international kids and find out what they love, what they hate, and what life is really like for them in Beijing. We explain how Chinese parents name their babies, teach you how to mix up some fun party drinks, show you a cool craft you and your kids can do together, and offer some advice on communicating with your ayi.
You’ll be glad to learn that, thanks to some good genes passed down from its predecessor Kids in Beijing, tbjkids includes a comprehensive directory of the best Beijing has to offer for families – flip to the back to track down the perfect spot for a birthday party, or to find out where your kid can learn to fence, or to choose a dinner spot when there’s nothing left in the fridge.
All right, we’ll stop running our mouths off, and let you actually take a look at the new little bambino you’re holding. But we’re always eager to talk about our baby, and we’d love to hear what you think of this first issue of tbjkids, or any suggestions you might have on how best to bring it up. E-mail us at editor@tbjkids.com.
