HKG213: Full House

q kickin' back...he was pretty low energy and sniffly this morning.

the orange and silvery-white fish with spikes is blossom and the one to her left is cat fish.

today, q woke up feeling a little icky with a small cold, so we kept it pretty low key, staying home and skipping lego class. we mostly just made a mess in the house (with legos) and pal-ed around.

this afternoon, once sissy was home from school, snack was devoured, and some cleanup was accomplished, we headed out for some small adventures. first, we stopped to visit our favorite shop cats and their humans so that we could pet the kitties and leave them some treats. in the mean time, the ladies who work in the shop completely spoiled the kids rotten with umpteen cookies. the kids were workin' that cookie angle pretty hard, too...quinn whipped out his very best "pleases" and "thank yous."

our next stop was to procure one more fishy. livie was at school the other day when q picked a fish, so today it was her turn to pick a fish. she picked a very pretty silver and orange fish that she named "blossom." q has now dubbed his new fish "cat fish." i guess we have moved away from the "friends" theme :-) the tank is now officially full to capacity. well...i might squeeze one more sucker fish in there to help keep up after all the new fishies, but i think we are at capacity with the pretty fish.

HKG212: Typhoon Nesat

livie has learned how to take pics hong kong (or asia) style...throwing up the peace sign any time a camera is pointed at her. i do not understand this trend, but okay...whatev.

kitty got in on our quiet day. i don't think he knew what to do with himself...he's accustomed to afternoon games when livie gets home. we did play mouse for a while, but he mostly lazed around and cat napped.

along with learning to go on the potty, q is learning other self care responsibilities, like washing his hands. being the creative kid he is, he deduced that he could use the step stool in front of the sink to add one more big boy task to his repertoire...turning on the bathroom light. of course, this turned into also turning on/off the water heater, fan, and hall lights. repeatedly.

today we woke to very grey skies and an eerie sound that i chalked off to some sort of construction noise. i can't even describe the sound...it sounded a little like a band saw, i guess. anyway, josh was putzing around on his computer when he suddenly announced that livie did not have school today because a T8 warning had been hoisted. from what we could see out our window, it didn't look too serious (but we have experience with livie's school closing for weather that seemed minor to us), so josh headed out to work. he came back about 15 minutes later saying the buses weren't running.

and so commenced a rather strange day. i always find it difficult to be home with the kids when josh is working from home simply b/c it is nearly impossible to keep them out of his business. normally, if he is working from home and i am not ill, i get the kids out so that there isn't so much conflict, but today that was impossible. we did get down to the playground for some wet, breezy play time, but the rest of the day we were stuck inside in the humidity. we still have not heard back from our landlord about when our a/c will be repaired, and though it is not really hot outside, it is very humid, so the apartment gets stuffy and uncomfortable very quickly.

one other HUGE note about today...for most of the morning, q wore his big boy underpants. he had one small accident, but otherwise did great. at one point in late morning, though, he whipped off his underwear and demanded a diaper. given our experiences with potty training livie (horrid), i will NOT be pushing this issue. we will go at q's pace and just hope he's out of diapers before college ;-p

oh, and that noise...it was caused by 40 mph winds whipping through the construction site next to us. the crews around here use this green netting to catch any debris that falls from the site, and the netting was what was making that strange sound. one of the benefits of living in a high rise building that is surrounded by dozens of other high rise buildings is that we basically have our own climate. the typhoon was really tearing up the tops of exposed buildings (there was debris all over the playground), but we were completely protected by all the buildings around us.

it is still very stormy tonight, and there is a reasonable chance livie will not have school again tomorrow. if there is a T3 or above hoisted, her school closes.

HKG211: Wandering Wedndesday

livie showing off her angry eyebrows...and her cute hair...and dress...and general adorablness.

waffle decided that q was paying far too much attention to thomas videos on youtube and not nearly enough attention to him. his solution was to plop himself on the keyboard and DEMAND attention. q was not impressed.

waffle has gotten in the habit of laying behind my computer while i eat breakfast and catch up on the day's reading online. he lays there and makes this face at me. i am pretty sure it's a blatant plea for MORE attention. you know that i give in to this face and give him plenty of scratches and kisses, right?

this is q's new train...we call her emily james. she looks like james in color, but has some of emily's features and has emily's name on her side. if you are not closely associated with a thomas fan(atic), this will make no sense to you. to recap : knockoff toy...has the wrong name or wrong color on it...possibly both. result : quinn couldn't care less and is happy to call her emily james.

beautiful girl showing off her new hair clips. we're working on pulling livie's bangs back and have to come up with some creative options. no matter how "creative," she still looks adorable.

two cuties

not only did q take a nap today, but he also didn't want to wake up. here, waffle is "helping" me get q up. this cat loves this boy.

today was a fun and pretty easy day. q and i got out for some morning adventures/errands and ended up with a new fish, a new fan, and a new train. the errands were mostly easy except for the herculean effort it took to keep him from making a huge mess in a small store.

q has recently learned to jump quite proficiently, and jumping is now his favorite method of travel. imagine a not-very-small toddler jumping in a small houswares store full of breakables. yes, it was great fun. it didn't matter that i had a death grip on q's hand, there was still HUGE potential for a disaster :-)

this afternoon, josh came home early, which was a nice treat for the kiddos. q actually took a nap today, and then we had some quiet fun at home before it was time for some playground time for q and flamenco class for livie. it was a fun day!

HKG209 & 210: So Many Little Things

while we were at the shake-shake bridge park today, we went on a little excursion to find the dozens of feral cats that live in the park. we found these guys who kinda look anything but feral...they were waiting for their very patient (but camera shy) human to feed them. i have several cans of food waffle won't eat, and i will be taking them with me the next time we go to this park so i can give them to the kind person who was feeding all these cuties.

not a great pic, but they are still super cute :-)

q figured out how to take pictures with my phone and was acting as the diaper-change paparazzi this morning.

again with the diaper-change paparazzi

i absolutely love this shot...it's a total fluke to get a shot this cool from my crappy little cell phone camera, which makes me love it even more. livie has grown so much since we moved here that she can reach this zip line from both platforms (there's one at either end). she is super proud of this new skill.

the past couple of days have been a combination of super low key and busy. here are the highlights:

• q's language explosion now includes the phrase "it too faaaar" when i tell him we are walking somewhere.
• q learned how to get into the camera app and dial pad app on my phone...also learned to swipe the screen lock. no, i did not teach him any of this. yes, i am figuring out how to lock my screen better.
• livie earned star of the day again today...second time to earn this award at school in the past few days. this award signifies that the child worked exceptionally hard and listened well. i love the way livie beams when she wins this award.
• livie and quinn made two new friends at a park yesterday and will have a playdate with these friends on thursday!
• we got a surprise delivery from the hong kong post today...our friends in pville sent us a really cool care package, and we had a ton of fun opening it and enjoying all the goodies.
• i accidentally made someone uncomfortable by snapping pictures of a situation they were in today, and while i felt bad and apologized, a good portion of my brain was thinking something along the lines of "now you know how it feels!" rotten...i know.
• our bermuda triangle of an apartment struck again today...one of our brand new a/c units now spews water down the wall if i run it for more than 10 minutes. i am not eagerly anticipating another construction invasion.
• in keeping with the bermuda triangle situation, q's bedroom door is now permanently locked and i cannot get it to unlock. tomorrow, we will be trying to figure out which hardware kiosk carries door knobs. man, i miss lowes and home depot.

HKG208: Flush Bucket

we had a great day today. we started the day skyping with family, and then we got out for some great adventures. first, we went to a ruby tuesday's in hopes of having an authentic american meal...goal was achieved, though the food wasn't as good as we've had it at RTs in the u.s. after lunch, we went to the science museum and had an absolute ball. the kids were intrigued by everything they saw and really had a lot of fun looking around and playing with the hands-on exhibits. josh and i also enjoyed ourselves, but we found that we had to spend a lot more time running interference than looking at the exhibits. the museum was crowded, and there was a lot of pushing/shoving/line jumping. quinn also was super hard to keep up with as he wanted to run around the museum like a ping pong ball.

this evening has been pretty low key. i got out for a combined jog/grocery trip, and then we had a quiet dinner at home.

the other highlight of the day was having our toilets return to working order. i swear that our flush water has been turned off at least 10 times since we moved in in march. there's been a ton of building construction, road construction, and water works repair in the area we live in, and the flush water gets turned off pretty regularly as part of these ongoing projects. we have become proficient at using flush buckets, and as a side effect, we have the cleanest bathroom trashcans in town since they often have to double as water buckets. the worst was when we got notification that flush and fresh water had to be turned off simultaneously during an emergency. fortunately, we had very rainy/stormy weather for the entire week during which that was supposed to happen, so we didn't actually have to endure that.

we are looking forward to another busy week ahead.

waffle did not want to be left out of all the family skyping this morning, so he worked the adorable-ness as hard as he could.

it was difficult to get good pics at the museum with all the crowds and activity. many of the rooms/exhibits were in very low light, too. this is the best picture i was able to get. the kids are checking out a safety exhibit...there was a whole floor dedicated to the science of safety.

HKG207: Simple Saturday

today started off nice and slow...we got to skype with a friend we haven't talked to in a while, and then we got out to run a couple errands, play, and get some lunch. the kids had a great time at the shake-shake bridge playground before we headed into sheung wan to find a burger joint josh has on his list of places to try. unfortunately, it was closed, so instead we headed to a small italian cafe that livie and i have been to before. after a delicious lunch that included the best tira misu i have ever had, we headed over to gateway to get some much-needed american food staples. that was fun, as always.

while we were out, we stopped at a video store to look for new thomas movies and to find a movie for livie. we found a thomas movie, but it is unwatchable. it is in english with cantonese dubbed over the top of the english...i don't know how anyone could enjoy that whether they spoke only one of the languages or both. livie picked aristocats, which was a nice movie that had lots of language options and the soundtrack was in only one language at a time :-)

this evening was just low-key time at home. a friend from the playground sent up some clothes that her little boy has outgrown, and q had a field day dressing himself. i know i am not supposed to compare the kids, but i kinda can't help it. livie was self sufficient at dressing herself shortly after her second birthday, and was insistent about picking out her own outfits by that time as well. q is just now showing an interest in picking out his clothes and has just in the last couple weeks begun to try to put on his own clothes and shoes. he will be three in about six weeks.

q assembled this outfit. notice that both legs are in one leg of his shorts...it looks like he's wearing a skirt. note, also, that his shoes are on the wrong feet...he did a great job of persevering here, though...he had a tough time getting his shoes on, but he didn't give up until they were on.

bug's been missing out on lots of picture opportunities since she's in school much of the day, so when she saw me taking pictures of q in his outfit, she asked me to take a picture of her, too. of course, she is as beautiful as always!

HKG206: Peking Garden

today was a pretty easy and fun day. q had lego class this morning, which he thoroughly enjoyed. since i dragged him all over causeway bay and wanchai yesterday and wanted to give him the choice on whether to be dragged all over again today, i gave him the choice of running an errand to see kitties after class or going home for lunch. he chose to go home for lunch. we stopped at a favorite bakery to get some yummy treats, and then headed home. i didn't bother putting q down for nap b/c we were having miss sally come in this afternoon to keep the kids while josh and i attended a work dinner. the last time miss sally stayed with the kids in the evening, q REFUSED to go to sleep until very, very late, so i figured keeping him from napping might help with that.

q managed his non-napping day just fine, and the three of us had a fun, quiet afternoon after we collected sissy from the bus. livie asked to play on starfall.com on my computer, and q asked to play with my nook, so i was getting some chores done while they were occupied. i walked by the kitchen table and registered that i heard livie talking, but it wasn't until i was a few steps from the table that i realized she was reading to herself out loud. livie has an amazing memory, and a lot of times when she appears to be reading a book, she is actually reciting it from memory. today, she read a whole book to herself...a book she'd never seen before. she took the time to sound out words she didn't know by sight and read the ones she did know by sight with lots of expression and inflection. i am so excited about this new found skill...i love to read and am enjoying watching my girl develop the same interest.

q and i discovered an interactive feature on one of his favorite read-to-me books on the nook...there are some pages that are interactive. once we figured out that neat trick, q spent quite a bit of time playing with the features on our favorite splat the cat book. eventually, he moved over to the computer to see what sissy was doing, and she set him up with an alphabet game that he really enjoyed.

the work dinner was at peking garden at pacific place mall. the food was OUTSTANDING, and the company was interesting and fun to talk to . i got to participate in a beggar chicken ritual, which was fun and a bit informative.

it was a great day, and we are looking forward to a great weekend.

this is the chicken that was in the clay pot. it was delicious and very tender.

olivia reading a new book to herself

q enjoying the interactive features on a splat the cat book on the nook

HKG205: Fish Additions

this morning, q and i headed over to the central library to check out the toy library. it was an interesting time. the toy library looks like a big toy-filled room, but it turns out that all of the toys are stored and have to be "checked out" to be played with. when we've walked by and seen it full to the brim with toys, it was because it was also full of kids who'd checked out said toys.

i checked out a small train set for q, and he had a great time playing with it for about 20 minutes before he scampered off to check out other stuff. at the risk of sounding like a broken record, q was, once again, the largest child in the room, so i felt like i had to watch him very carefully lest he start knocking toddlers over like they were bowling pins. most of the other kids there were babies...18 months and under. i saw one other girl that looked/sounded like she was probably somewhere between three and four. all in all, it was fun, but i am not sure we will do it again. it is free, which is nice, but it just wasn't very stimulating.

after the toy library, q and i went on a mission to find a party store that we were told carries ben 10 costumes...shopping for halloween. being who i am, we got lost...OF COURSE. along our lost way, we found a kiosk full of pet fish, so of course we got a couple. they are tiny versions of rachael...i think...they are somewhere in the goldfish family, but very tiny. the moors have been chasing them around the tank and bullying them, so they mostly hide right now. they fit in well, though, with the orange and silver theme.

we did finally find the party store only to find it does not have ben 10 costumes. we still found some cool trinkets for the kids before we headed out for some lunch and then home to add the new fishies to the tank.

q actually took a short nap today, and then we collected sissy from the bus and proceeded to have a nice afternoon. we added to both of the kids' walls, played legos, and played games on the computer before we headed down to the playground.

tomorrow's big adventures will be lego class and a quick trip over to the SPCA so that i can try to sign up for a volunteer shift. i contacted the woman who always is in charge when i volunteer on saturdays to ask for a shift, but i never heard back, so i think it's time for some face time. i am sure we also will enjoy looking at kitties and doing a little toy/food shopping for the waffle kitty while we are there.

my handsome starbucks date showing off his party favor ben 10 watch

the little orange and silver/white fishie is either ben 10 or gwen. one of these new fish is pretty brazen/social, and the other keeps hiding behind the filter.

q found a very large dead palm frond and made it a toy this evening. he had a ball with it.

super bug flying on the tire swing. i am lamenting cutting those bangs...see how they are already in her eyes? ugh. now i know why my mom hated for us to wear bangs...too much upkeep or fight to get them out of the kiddo's face!

HKG204: Artistic Expression

i am not really a crafty person on my own, but i do love doing crafts with and for the kids. today was just such a day. livie's been building on some art she and josh started a couple weeks ago, and the art is displayed on one of our living room walls. i decided that q should have his own section of the wall, too, and since he and i have been working on him learning shapes, colors, letters, and numbers, i figured his side of the wall should have a preschool-y theme. today, he and i made several "vehicles" using various shapes. q seems to be enjoying his wall and keeps asking me to add trucks to the train i made, but i do keep having to run interference to keep him from ripping them off the wall. waffle has been attacking them, too...the car already had an accident, got totaled, and had to be repaired with tape :-) i see, now, why many preschool materials are laminated ;-p

this afternoon, livie and i began beefing up her wall, too...turning it into a full-blown garden. she has big plans to add flowers, a tree, birds, and woodland creatures and bugs to her garden...i predict that in a few weeks, we won't see any more bare wall on her side!

q boycotted his nap again today...i think the end of naps is very, very near. the last three times he's skipped a nap, he has not been tired or cranky in the late afternoon...i think his body might be outgrowing the need for that mid-day rest. he's also been sleeping a little bit later in the morning at times...seeming to get all he needs from his nighttime rest. we shall see how this progresses.

this afternoon, livie had flamenco class. q and i just wandered around central/soho, got some fruits, and went to his favorite playground. he had a good time playing there and seemed to become enamored of a big girl...followed her all over with this dopey grin on his face. after she went home, he plunked himself down on a bench and began raiding the collection of fruit i just bought. while he was doing that, a group of six older teens/young twenties men came to the playground and climbed onto the carousel...they spent the next 10 minutes goofing off and being rather ridiculous (but funny). q seemed to be offended...asked me what they were doing while giving me angry eyebrows :-)

tomorrow's big adventure is the TOY LIBRARY...i can't wait to check this thing out!

taking a break from play time for a waffle kiss

looking ridiculously cute...he had just finished pulling his shirt up over his head/wearing it like a headband. i tried to get a picture of that, but he yanked it back down and i got this pic instead...still cute :-)

a couple weeks ago, we got waffle another brown mouse thinking he might give up on his burnt/hairless mouse. nope. no dice. here, i have put both next to him to snuggle him...note the difference in size/wear & tear. waffle REALLY loves his brown mousey!

livie's growing garden. the red shape at the top is a sign that announces this is olivia's garden...will have to go back over the letters with a sharpie since they don't show up in crayon very well.

q's wall in progress. i need to get another pic...the train has two more trucks on it, and it is now also carrying the alphabet. tomorrow, we will make a number train and a semi truck. if i can figure out how to make a tractor, we will do that, too...oh, and a helicopter...and a motorcycle :-)

HKG203: Bad Hair Day

today we changed things up with josh working from home and managing q and me going up to livie's school for a brief/informal group parent-teacher conference. the conference was all about the curriculum livie's teacher is using and about the class' progress so far. it was very interesting, and it also provided an opportunity to chat with some other moms.

i had decided to walk to the school since the weather was pretty nice, it's a beautiful walk, and school isn't too far away (2.5 km). it drizzled a bit on the way, and it was very humid as it always is, but i didn't think anything of it. i attended the conference, chatted, and went home. this evening, livie says to me "mommy, why was your hair so crazy at the coffee playdate today?" oops. i guess the drizzle and humidity rendered my hair a little crazy. i have long professed that it will be only a short time before olivia is scolding me about my choice of outfit and/or hair style. she is very, very girlie, and i am not girlie at all :-) i guess today was a sneak peak at life with my fashion consultant!

after the conference, q, josh, and i had lunch before it was time for josh to head into the office and q to head off for a nap attempt. the nap attempt was unsuccessful, so q and i spent time working with his jigos blocks set creating vehicles...we spent most of the day doing that. after we collected sissy in the afternoon, we also spent some time working on a fun art project before heading down to the playground for some outdoor time. the sunflower and dragon fly we created last week are now accompanied by a bumble bee. tomorrow, we will make some grass and flowers to "plant" in our growing wall garden. thank god for blue tack...it allows us to decorate the walls willy nilly without causing damage!

it was a great day...bad hair and all :-)

q working on his jigos masterpiece. i have been instructed not to take it apart...demolition is reserved for the quinnado.

no, we don't have enough pics of the waffle kitty sitting in the train set...we need more. given that waffle plunks himself down somewhere in/on/around the train set many times a day, we have tons of material to work with. i love this shot b/c waffle looks like he just got caught doing something he wasn't supposed to be doing.

livie decided to dance flamenco with the throw as a prop.

HKG202: Monday Madness

today was a super busy and fun day. q had gymnastics this morning and did great for 3/4 of the class. at the end of class, he refused to participate in the circuit they had going and threw enough of a fit that he had to go into a timeout...that was the beginning of a cry fest that lasted until we were about a quarter of the way home. this turned out to be very embarrassing b/c while we were still in class, the fit seemed to draw more attention than i would have expected.

q's gymnastics class has gotten much larger and is now attended by more parents than helpers, but i haven't found it to be super social yet. i am probably over thinking and over analyzing this, but i seem to get a lot of looks and comments about q...questions about why he's still in a diaper and head shakes at his antics/tantrums. i feel like i need to put him and me in matching t-shirts that say something to the effect of I AM TWO/HE'S TWO to explain that he's perfectly within his "rights" to act like a two-year-old. he is easily a head taller than 3/4 of his gymnastics class and is head and shoulders taller than the rest of the class, and as such, i guess it probably looks like he does not belong in this particular class. it also is very likely that he is the oldest kid in the class (it's a class for kids 24 to 36 months), but i still think he's WELL within the range to be in the class despite his size.

livie also had a great time in her class with far less drama. while she was in gymnastics, q was busy playing with some other kids that were either waiting for older siblings in livie's class or waiting to start a soccer class. q was befriended by a little boy who is almost five, and listening to the conversation between the two was hilarious. the older boy was patient, but also a little frustrated that he couldn't get q to play with him as he directed. at one point, i heard him say to quinn "quinn, are you really listening?" as q totally squealed over the top of what the boy was saying to him and ran off to do his own thing. q is definitely becoming much more interested in interacting with other children, but he most definitely is not at the level of an almost-five-year-old.

after livie's gymnastics class, we ran to the grocery store and then to a small park. the park is really too small for the kids to really enjoy themselves...this is the old park with old equipment, but it's right next to the grocery store and is a good place to let them let off some steam after enduring the grocery store. today, the park doubled as a pet store. we met three super friendly dogs...a golden, a yellow lab, and a corgi. the corgi was the sweetest. she bounded over to the kids as fast as her little legs would allow, stood still for about two seconds worth of ear scratches, and then promptly flopped over for belly scratches. she was ADORABLE. q kept telling us she was a baby sookie. good lord do we miss living with dogs...we love our waffle kitty very, very much, and we really appreciate his cog qualities, but we still miss our dogs.

the kids had a blast going up the slide and pretending they needed to be rescued or were falling.

blurry pic of q having fun on one of the spring-y things. it turns out that a moving piece of equipment plus a crappy cell phone camera = lousy picture of a cute boy :-)

blurry pic of a silly sissy. she's all about the goofy faces for pics now...well, it's either goofy faces or a painfully cheesey fake smile.

HKG200 & 201: Weekend Roundup

we had a great weekend. josh returned to hong kong on saturday morning feeling a little bit rested. to try to get back on hong kong time, he stayed up for the day, and we got out to do a few things. we went to victoria's park and then to lunch and to do a little toy shopping. everything was cool until it was time to leave the toy store...without a coveted train. let's just say that that particular toy shop is now in time out...or we in time out from it. in the afternoon, i got my hair cut and ran a few errands before dinner while josh got the kids down to our building playground.

sunday started out nice and slow. just before lunch, josh took the kids to see the new 3-D smurfs movie and then to get lunch....they had a blast. livie reports that smurfette is her favorite. quinn was unable to tell me who his favorite smurf was, but he did report liking the movie. while josh and the kids were out, i finished a book i was reading, ate a leisurely lunch, and then headed out to try to get a workout at the YWCA. strangely enough, the gym is open only to hotel guests on sunday (the garden view YWCA is attached to the nitty gritty YWCA where we take classes and stuff). instead of a gym workout, i just walked around central for a couple hours and did a couple of errands before heading home.

this coming week will be our usual level of busy and fun with a couple of extra things to do. on tuesday, i have an informal parent-teacher conference at livie's school, and on thursday, q and i will FINALLY visit the much coveted toy room at the central library. it turns out you have to book this place at least 24 hours in advance, but it works best to book 4 or 5 days in advance if you want a morning session. i am hoping that it's as good as i think it is. i am sure q will think it's awesome simply to play with someone else's toys.

livie has really begun to zoom across the monkey bars, now. she is enjoying her YWCA gymnastics class, but i am eager to get her back into a more rigorous and challenging gymnastics program; i know she would enjoy learning more on the uneven parallel bars, horse, and parallel bars...she definitely has the upper-body strength to apply to those apparatuses.

all that monkey prowess resulted in a rather nasty blister-y issue on livie's palm. OUCH!

HKG199: Fun Friday

we had a great friday...it was a fun and drama-free day.

quinn thoroughly enjoyed his lego class and seemed to especially enjoy that there was another child in the class today. livie had a great day at school. we had a fun afternoon working on art projects, building with legos, and helping q match up shapes before having an early pizza dinner and then going out for a frozen yogurt treat. it was a great day!

waffle and livie take a break from creating (livie) and interrupting creation (waffle)

livie made this sign and asked me to put it up where josh can see it as soon as he gets home tomorrow.

livie's trying to work on her sign, but waffle wants to make sure that he is not being ignored. he not only laid in the middle of livie's art project, but he also laid right in the middle of a pile of uncomfortable legos to make sure we were not ignoring him. this cat cracks me up!

after creating a lego monster and then destroying it, livie is tuckered out.

q boycotted his nap again today and as a result was once again playing liquid baby by late afternoon. i am wondering if this is the end of naps...?

waffle making sure that livie cannot continue coloring without first petting him.

q is very single minded...he loves, loves, loves trains...and only wants to build trains with his legos.

HKG198: Mouse Power

today was a super low key, but fun day.

i have gotten into the habit of putting a list of thomas videos on youtube on my computer for quinn to occupy him while i tackle chores or take a shower. the system has been only semi working since he always wants to see a video that is showing in the sidebar instead of the video that is playing or is queued to play.

since he wants to see a different video every minute or so, we have been trying to teach q how to use the computer mouse, and today it clicked. he had a ball picking all of his own train videos. q's new found mouse prowess was great except that it was tough to lure him off of the computer. i ended up disconnecting the wireless modem and pretending the computer was broken...weak, yes, but i didn't want to have to tackle him/sit on him to get his shoes on.

i am not sure what my strategy will be here on out...i probably will use the same status update/timer i use when we are at the playground to end computer sessions...i just give the kids a verbal update on how much longer we have to do whatever we are doing, set a timer on my cell phone, and then when the alarm goes off, it's time to change gears. it works well with q about 70% of the time. tomorrow, we have the added distraction (and bonus) of lego class, so it shouldn't be too hard to lure him out of the house.

other than helping my 2yo turn into a computer geek, the day was pretty quiet. we had a minor bus issue with afternoon dropoff today, and i hope to have it ironed out by morning. i tell ya, my heart cannot withstand anymore of these crazy surprises with my kids.

q and i were downstairs early today...about five minutes before the earliest time we've seen livie dropped off so far, which means we were downstairs 10 minutes before the dropoff time we were given the first week of school. we stood around for just about five minutes and were positioned so that we were looking down the hill that livie's bus would be coming up. all of a sudden, i hear livie's little voice shouting MOMMY from behind me. i whirl around to see livie and her bus mother walking down our street...i stuttered and sputtered and finally squeaked out "where's the bus?!!?". it was all the way up the hill...i don't know how long it had been there...over five minutes as i had not seen it drive by. that means that the bus got livie to our building almost 15 minutes earlier than the dropoff time i was told by the bus company the first week of school. arrgh...i hope to have this ironed out tomorrow.

here, q is nice and clear while the rest of the scene is blurry. we hope to get a "real" camera soon.

it's hard to get good action shots with a crappy cell phone camera, but i like this clear pic of livie's little face.

livie and i worked on this dragon fly...tomorrow, we will put him up on the wall to keep the sunflower company.

q boycotted his nap today, and as a result, he was pretty sleepy right before dinner.

HKG197: Food Faux Pas

today, i almost accidentally exposed a child with a severe peanut allergy to peanuts. fortunately, i learned of the child's allergy just in time and got my kids away from this child. that is the first and last time i give my kids a peanut-related food item outside our home...that was scary and could have ended so badly.

other than this major food faux pas, our day was pretty low key. q and i kept it quiet at home and at the playground before nap, and then the kids just had some quiet play at home after sissy came home and before it was time to go to flamenco class.

q's lego class has changed days, so i am not sure what he and i will do tomorrow, but i hope to get us out for some fun and a change of scenery.

boys playing with trains. q's language skills are getting better all the time...i overheard him telling waffle to go get the mouse before i snapped this pic. q had thrown waffle's mouse in an attempt to lure him out of the train tracks.

q is really into legos these days and dumped out his entire collection this morning. our living room was a minefield for a while, but at the end of our play time, quinn enthusiastically helped clean up.