Friday, November 25, 2011

HKG270: The Mook & A Belated Birthday

my family has created a new definition for the term "mook." instead of it meaning an incompetent person, in our house, it refers to the barnes and noble e-reader/tablet, the nook color. quinn is the one that dubbed the nook "the mook." it cracks me up every time i hear him say it, and now it's stuck in my head.

my nook color is not really mine anymore. it's community property. i have found so many games and apps for the kids as well as interactive books, there's just no way i can keep it to myself. we are looking around for another tablet or refurbished nook to add to our collection simply because our upcoming 14-hour flight will be brutal if we have to add in arguments over whose turn it is with the nook :-)

the nook is on my mind today because it was a great tool this morning. today, i had a parent-teacher conference at livie's school, and livie had a school holiday, so that left josh with the task of wrangling both kids while trying to work. add in the nook, and presto whamo, the kiddos are managed. if we put one on my computer with some games/clips and the other on the nook, they are quietly entertained AND learning something. the conference went great; i learned all sorts of things about livie's progress at school. afterward, we all took q to his lego class and then stopped for lunch at a new restaurant, which turned out to serve DELICIOUS food!

q's teacher very patiently switched up the day's program to let q build this train station and track instead of moving forward with the day's plan...due to quinn being super cranky and uncooperative at the start of class. for whatever reason, q was fighting his lego class REALLY hard this morning, and while josh and another teacher were trying to calm him down, i was chatting with another teacher who revealed to me that this behavior happens very week. q cops an attitude, refusing to build according to the class theme, hollers for me, and then tries to get out of the classroom. this pains me. my inner child is still SUPER scarred from the insane issues we had with him in preschool during the fall of 2010 (after repeated issues and being asked to remove him from class for being a challenge/disruptive, we ended up pulling him out entirely only two months after he started). because he does not cry when i take him to lego class (usually), i assumed he was doing better with handling a class without me. i was wrong. i worry that this will be an ongoing issue, and i am rethinking my plan to keep him out of any kind of preschool until fall of 2012...am thinking about trying to get him into a program in january instead. i can't see how another eight months without learning how to cope in a class setting will help him....now to find the right program for him. while he's a sweetie and ridiculously funny, q could never be accused of being an easy kid, and finding the right program for him will be a challenge.

this afternoon, we worked on packing/purging, listened to some christmas music, and had leftovers and fresh-baked cookies for dinner. tomorrow marks the start of one of our last two full weekends in hong kong, so we are working hard on our todo list for what we want to do. though we've been a few times, we will probably head out to stanley to do a little clothes shopping for the kids and their friends. there is a style of kids' blue jeans we have found here and never seen anywhere else...they are regular jeans but with jogging pants material at the waist...super comfy AND great for people who are potty training. they also come with all sorts of popular characters on them. since we know the kids like these and we can't find them at home, we are going to stock up on them now. FUN FUN!

random catchup : while we were on our cruise last week, we missed our waffle kitty's birthday. he turned one year old on 18 november. our kitten is now a cat, and it shows. he now sleeps when we sleep instead of doing the la fu 500 over and under and around our bed while we try to sleep. he's also GROWN by leaps and bounds. he's probably grown several inches in length and height, and he has certainly put on some kitty pounds. i love a chubby kitty, and while he's nowhere near chubby yet, he is getting more plush :-) josh tells me i should limit waffle's stinky fish treats, but i am a sucker for waffle's cute little begging face and meows.

here, livie's showing us how she can hold waffle "correctly." she constantly wants to pick him up, and i have been trying to teach her to pick him up under his arms and butt and to hold him close...she's not really getting it. poor waffle. looking at him in livie's arms REALLY brings home how much he's grown. he's HUGE in her arms!

1 comment:

  1. Holy Catnip, Batman!!! That cat has grown! I can't wait to rub his wittle (or not so little) ears when you get HOME!!!

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