Singing

Gemma was making us smile so much today when she was singing her heart out in the car to Adele and Hillsong. She was also being funny in her sleep last night, one minute yelling and being mad and the next minute singing the end of Down by the Station.

I'll hold you

My kids have been saying the funniest things lately, man oh man. Like right now, Gemma and Guinness are having a bath and I just overheard Gemma tell him, "You go under the water, and I'll hold you." Ha ha ha, tempting offer, but NOT!!!!!

Squiggly ???

Squiggly is not doing so well.

(Squiggly being the beta fish Gemma got as a present about a year ago and spent his first 6 weeks in a cut off plastic bottle; would have lived there longer without thoughtful friends who gave Gemma a fish bowl for Christmas. Anyway.)

It looks like he has swallowed a marble. His gut is very round and swollen, and sort of turning white-ish. His side fins are all stringy and falling apart. His overall colour is poor; very dark and cloudy. I have no idea what to do!!! I mean, he is obviously suffering. We are terrible pet owners. Haven't cleaned his bowl in like 6 weeks. We feed him sporadically. But do I have it in me to kill a fish?? And my friends say that just flushing him down the pipe is not a good idea: they can live down in the pipes!!! Well, I don't want him to suffer down there, either! So do I let him alone, to die in his own way??? Yuck yuck yuck.


One of the many reasons we are NOT pet people.

School 180

Gemma is at the point where she says several times a week, "I love my school!" Pheww, I am so thankful. AND her teachers wrote in her communication book on Tuesday that "Gemma speak much Chinese today." Wow, another miracle.

Halloween!

We don't really celebrate Halloween, I guess, but the girl wanted to do something so we had a mini Halloween party at our house for us and a neighbour. Making decorations consumed the afternoon (yay!) and then we had our spooky supper. Rented a Scooby Doo movie but I had to turn it off. It was called 'Scooby Doo and the witch of ______', but I assumed it would be in typical Scooby style where the monsters are never real and there is no connection to evil forces, etc. Not the case in this one. With phrases like, "We're not witches, we're super cool Wiccans who love nature and use healing herbs', a witch like girl band called 'The Hex Girls', a spell book that could control the evil forces of darkness.... Yah, just not ready for my kids add the word 'Wiccan' to their vocabulary, or to think that being an Eco-Goth witch is in any way cool. We played 'pin the eyes and mouth on the jackolantern' and attempted limbo (our guest had a broken foot so that was not so easy of a game). To replace the failed Scooby Doo, Chris found Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin and rented it. Then we trick and treated at Gemma's friend's house as we took her home. Pretty fun!

As we were riding home from dropping Friend off, I told Gemma we had to stop at our across the hall neighbour to trick or treat, and Gemma said, "I have to trick or treat at two houses!!! I'm so tired, mom. Trick or treating is really hard work!" TWO HOUSES! Our girl needs some exposure to more American culture, eh?

Of course I love Saturdays, the kids and I have been having a blast lately. Play play play!!

Art Sale

I'm going to write about the art sale we had here... but I'm too tired. More later.

Really?

Am I really packing away my daughter's 4T clothing? Are there really 4T items in her closet that don't fit anymore? How did this happen? How can it have been 5 years since we watched her kick my belly from the inside, and put all those newborn clothes in the shelves? (carefully washed in newborn soap, of course).

Ok, have to stop before I cry :( sniff sniff.

Thoughtful...

We were watching regular TV (which we don't often do because we don't know the timing of the programming and don't often catch a show I think is worthy of watching)) and Gemma saw a PSP commercial. (a handgeld video game device). She asked if she could have one, and I said, "Well, you already have an iPhone and can use mommy's iPad. I don't think so." She replied, "Well, if Guinness had an iPhone and an iPad, he would be SUPER happy, and I really want him to be super happy, so you could get me the PSP."

Yah right! Along the lines of a book we just read called, "I wanna Iguana", where the boy and mom write notes back and forth reasoning about wether he should get this pet or not.

I HAVE to start putting pictures up here. Might have to take over the family photographer role.

Finally decided...

Gemma was working hard on a Dora coloring book last night. She looked up and announced, "I FINALLY decided what I want to be when I grow up! An Artist! That's why I have to work so hard on my pictures, and practice a lot!"

Sweetie!

So many funny stories, but I can never remember. Ballet classes have started, that's fun for her. School is going GREAT! She loves it and is doing fine, learning Chinese actually and finally speaking it a bit more

Starting to get excited about the big birthday party :)

Jealous!

So, anyone else get jealous of their kid's homework? Gemma does some really neat tracing and coloring. And last week she was learning about shapes so we went on a shape hunt with the camera in the yard and took pictures of the shapes so we could make a book. I was pysched about the whole project, she was moderately interested. And then I had a great idea for the cover which she totally dismissed! And then she didn't even want to put in the cool sticker labels I made!!

I can totally see us each handing in our own assignments to her teachers. "Sorry I have two dioramas, Mr. K. My mom was so excited she made one, too."

Ha ha! Maybe I need a more grownup creative outlet.

Saturday Sleepover

If you know anything about Gemma you will know that she has always been a terrible sleeper. A lot of it is our fault, but throw in pretty regular confusional arousals and you have a kid (and parents) who haven't slept through the night that much in the last 4 1/2 years. This summer was the final kicker, literally... it just got to be too much of sharing a bed with her because she kicks and turns and yells and gets mad, and spreads out. She'd go to sleep in her bed, move to our bed, so I'd move to her bed, so then she'd come down there... like musical chairs all night long. So the biggest parenting goal of fall 2011 has been sleep training Gemma. Started with a mat on our floor and the new rule: No More Sleeping in Mom and Dad's Bed. Period. Well, that didn't work at all because she would just 5 seconds for me to fall asleep and come to the mat. Perfect for her because she was right close to us where she wanted to be. Plan B, sigh... so I slept on the floor of her room on the mat for 2 weeks. Why? Well, I've done a lot of reading and research on sleep, and one of the big things about sleep is that everyone wakes up periodically throughout the night. Our body does this to keep us safe; maybe you wake up and smell smoke and then you can rouse yourself out of sleep to get out, or hear a sound, or whatever. But most of the time, when things are fine, your body wakes up, does a quick check that everything is fine, and goes back to sleep. As adults we don't even really notice this. This might be when you stretch out, or readjust your pillow. But children need to be trained to put themselves back to sleep. No you can do this training when they are infants by letting them cry a bit or letting them fall asleep on their own without holding, rocking, nursing, etc, not rushing to them when they wake up.... (and our problems with Gemma go back this far people) and Gemma is is such a habit of WakeUp, My Mom is Not Here! GO GET HER! And so I figured that if I can get her in the habit of sleeping all night in her own bed, that would be HUGE. And it was. Every night for 2 weeks, with no cheating or skipping out, or sneaking back to my own bed at 3am, when Gemma woke up and checked for me, there I was. I could assure her with my voice, and convince her to go back to sleep. The no-cheating part is important because she has to trust that going to sleep in her bed is OK; when you go to sleep worried about something of course you are restless and wake up checking for that exact thing. Knowing I would be there allowed her to relax and sleep better. And so after the 2 weeks, I moved. We've been dialoguing about how she was learning to sleep in her own bed a lot, and she just accepted it. And we've had success! She still wakes up sometimes, but we just remind her that she can't sleep in our bed, and she should just go back to sleep, AND SHE DOES!


Sigh. Of. Relief.


So what is Saturday sleepover? Well, it is the new Saturday thing in the McKenzie house, as a reward for sleeping by herself all week, to meet the need she has for special playtime with Mommy, for the hard work she does by being an 8 hour a day student, for playing nicely by herself on Friday nights when it is grown up friend night. Saturday night is sleepover night! Any theme, any activity, treats, tents, decorations, whatever. Almost anything goes. We rent movies, we make cakes, we have a spa, we do a circus. And we sleep together all night long. Which is ok in this situation because it is on my terms. Yesterday was awesome, because Gemma was so prepared. The first thing she did Saturday morning was pack our backpacks for the sleepover. (We don't usually do backpacks because we're just staying home, but she wanted us to each have a back pack of stuff we would need. Mine had a book, stickers, and a cape. Hers had her jammies, and a book, and some toys.) We made decorations in the morning and hung them up so we'd be ready. It is all too cute, and once Guinness goes to bed it is game on for us. So much fun!!!

A phone call...

So I get a phone call at school this week. From my mother in law. Of course I was worried; why would she be calling me at school??? And she tells me that she just got off the phone with Gemma at our house. And that Gemma was all alone. "WHAT???" I yelp! And MIL eleborates; 'Well, her daddy is sleeping and she is afraid to wake him up because then he'll make her go to school.' Oh dear! The babysitter had come early and whisked Guinness away, and so Gemma was just hanging out watching shows as quietly as she could to avoid going to school. What a turkey!!!

We've had a successful few weeks of sleep training. But it will take me too long to write about it now, so I'll save it for later.

Some of OUR favorite books

I've been working in the library at school this year a bit, and so have taken home all my favorite kids books. Thought we'd share!



This was one o the first books I got from the library for Gemma and she loved it, so I brought it home for Guinness and he loves it too. Nice art.




Haha! Super super funny!!! (If you don't know about Mo Willems, you need to get on board. Knuffle Bunny is another favorite of mine)






Fancy Nancy ; Ooh La La! Its Beauty Day!!!

Ok, I was laughing my head off! And if you do not laugh your head off when you get to the second last page then call me crazy, but it is one of the funniest things I've seen in a book. Fancy Nancy teaches some great new words, and she is very thoughtful and kind to others. She has good ways to solve problems, too. We also liked 'The Show Must Go On'. Awesome story!

In an amazing turn of events...

We all know that Gemma looks just like Chris, but her 'brain' is a lot more like mine. Scatterbrained, forgetful, can't find things like an inch on front of her nose, ditzy. But she is showing signs of having hand eye coordination, something which I am lacking and her father has in spades. We were playing tennis today and she hit about 7 in a row, really nailing them. She hits the ball a lot of the time. Could it be possible that my children have a hope at athletics???

Play Therapy?

How can you tell that our daughter has two tired working parents?

When her brother asks her to play, she says, "Not now, I'm tired. I need to have a short rest."

Funny, and sad.

Thankfully her desire to play won out over her desire to express her frustration with her parents, and now Guinness is busy scuttling back and forth getting the things she needs for her rest. "Go get my blanket." "Go get me something to cuddle with." And Guinness is happy to oblige.

Megaphone

Today Gemma was using a slinky held up to her mouth as a megaphone. This was her message to the world:

"Parents should not punish their children anymore. Instead they should just whack them and then let them play" (This was just after I left Guinness to howl and cry in his high chair for 5 minutes because he walked away from the table without his hands being washed and then he wouldn't listen or come with me and made me spill a cup of water)

"Parents should also not ever boss the children around, or make them do things for them like get a diaper. This is the command of the LORD!!"

She's also been trying some new phrases lately, like 'Let's shake it up'. And once we have 'shaken it up', maybe by letting Guinness sit in the back of the sit and stand while she rides in the front, she'll announce to everyone we see how we 'shook it up' on the way here. So proud of her new phrases! She had one other one today but I forget. Give it a whirl, maybe?

Singing Class

So this is how I can tell that Gemma has had more formal music class at Chinese school than anywhere else: when she is performing a made up a song for me, it is filled with the syllables do re mi fa so bo po mo fo la ti do ge ke he le...

(this is a mix of singing syllables of course, and bo po mo fo, the Chinese phonetic alphabet.)

Gemma's Joke

What did the pig and the cow say to the police man?

Waaahhhh!!!!! (slight pause) Sausage pants!


??????????????????? Oh dear when does the comedy section of their brain develop??

Gemma's friend

I am so thankful that Gemma's good friend Halle is still here! They have played together everyday since we've been home, and it is so nice.

Today I played with them a lot, I was the pet shop owner and the veterinarian and sold and cared for a variety of exotic pets. We made a craft, played with water up on the roof... but I seriously can't keep up with the demands of 3 children.

You come watch my monkey show.
Hold the hose
Blow some bubbles
He pushed me
Let's have a snack
Lets do something
You be the teacher and you say this and then I'll raise my hand and answer the question, ok?
Can we do this?
Can you do this?
Can you say this?
Come watch this!


Not to mention the parental responsibilities I am trying to manage at the same time; water bottle, sunscreen, safety, cleanliness, behavior, time keeper. My head was spinning at the end of the day.

I'm so romantic...

"I'm so romantic I should marry myself!" Thats what she said. I think she heard this on a movie though, but I can't think of which one.

I have some fantastic fun things for us to do on the plane tomorrow if Guinness isn't being a major stinker. She is at such a neat age for she can sit and concentrate on a coloring book or drawing for more than 3 seconds, which is great. So I think she'll have her best flight ever. I hope!

Commercial Day

I prayed a lot today, I was so nervous about what to expect. Especially when on Tuesday I got a text saying it would be 10 hours. I called the agent immediately and said, "You do know she is only FOUR years old, right?" and she said of course, it wouldn't take that long, and that was the maximum number but it definitely wouldn't be that long, etc etc. So ok, here we go.

Annabelle took her to the north end of the city to meet the agent, who then drove them to a location. I guess it was a pretty big deal shoot. Lots of models, locations, etc, and for a pretty big name company (in Taiwan, anyway :) So Annabelle and Gemma waited for a while, then it was her turn. She told me, "There were these machines that lifted the people up and then they dropped the petals on me! I just had to catch them and play with them. It was really fun!!" I mean, what little girl wouldn't love to have millions of flower petals tossed down all around them ??? There were other kids there to play with, too, which made it fun. After that scene, they waited. And waited. And waited. The agent said they wanted to do one more scene yet, but then after about 3 hours of waiting, they said Gemma could go. So her day started at 11am, and she was done by 5. And over half that time was playing with other kids and visiting with Annabelle, which is so precious since our time with her is almost gone. The pay? 6000NT - about 200 bucks. Which of course we have to pay Annabelle out of, etc, but not bad for standing around at Danshui all day.

So we'll see if we do it again. The risk of having my kid out working for hours and hours and hours is not cool, so I will definitely ask about that before agreeing to the job. For us, we need to have someone who can take her to the jobs, since Chris and I work. But to me, if she likes it and is having fun then its not a big deal. The lady asked Annabelle if she trained Gemma to act like that, because she was so professional, and I laughed and laughed. Nope, lady. That is just how Gemma acts :)

I have no idea when we'll get to see the commercial, if ever. We don't watch a lot of TV here (that's not downloaded). But who knows? I hope to see it sometime.

The diva continues...

Gemma will be shooting her first commercial next week.

Very interested in the process. Very interested in how long it takes, and if she'll behave for that long. Very interested in how much it will pay, ha ha!! She is thrilled about 'acting surprised' as flower petals fall down all around her; this was part of the audition and a part of the commercial storyboard.

Will let you know...

Doing things her way

It is so funny that we had this argument again so close to mother's day; what she wants to wear. She has SO MANY cute clothes. I want to try them all, match carefully, see all the different outfits on her. She picks her favorite skirt and then we argue about which shirt matches it. I prefer pants or shorts, she likes skirts every day. She likes her long and down straight. I like it up and off her ears. The reason this is funny is I have very vivid memories of fighting with my mom about clothes, too. It takes all of my strength to bite my tongue and let her pick because I want to pick so badly. But our relationship being intact is more important than her wearing the outfit I like, and so I will do my best to keep it to myself!

Also doing things her way, she's been a bit constipated the last few weeks. Tonight she was super uncomfortable, I could tell by how she was walking and complaining and after her customary 10 second potty run and crying about how she can't do it (actually, her exact words were, "There's no use Mom, I can't push it out!!" ) I made her sit down and try for a longer time. We put the stool under her feet, got a story book and sat. And she's bouncing up and down on the toilet seat, saying this helped. I got her some water, and she would swish it around her mouth and then swallow, because that 'helped' too. Water swishing would be followed by more bouncing. "If I just do this 20 times, then it will come out" I was DYING trying to stop myself from laughing, it was absolutley hysterical. After about 10 minutes and no action she decided some PE was neccessary. so we went to the living room where she lead me through a series of stretches and exercises, and sure enough after that we went back to the potty and ta da!

When does it stop being ok to tell poop stories? It was just so so funny.

She does lots of funny things. I just can't remember them. Need to start keeping a list as they happen.

Meat

I know I facebooked this but I have to blog it, too, because it is so funny.

While talking with Gemma about the farm tour, the truth about where meat comes from came out. She totally doesn't believe it of course (that meat comes from cows) and has trying to process this new information. She asked me again on Saturday, "Are you SURE meat comes from cows?" Cuz I milked a cow at the farm and I was watching and no meat came out!"

Love it.

Field Trip

Gemma went on her first field trip today, to a farm. She got to
-milk a cow
-feed the cow
-feed the bunny
-roll a haybale

She saw a lizard climb up a tree, and saw a goat. How awesome for schools to take kids on trips. Seriously, what an enriching experience.

I know Taipei is very urban, but I would say I am satisfied with the amount of wildlife and nature we enjoy. We see lizards, frogs, giant snails, fish, ducks, birds of all kinds, and turtles all the time. We go to the park almost everyday, where there are lots of trees and bushes and leaves falling and ponds and equipment. I think of parks as backyards, and we just own a lot of them and other people maintain them and keep them beautiful ;) True, no grass (well, no grass we really play on) True, the air is not fresh. But I'm grateful for what we have and think it is sufficient.

Gemma's Holiday

What does Gemma like at holidays?

-Playing in the pool.
-Using floaty tubes and toys in the pool. In the purple tube. And then out. Then in the floaty car. Then out... and on and on.
-She loved the Aquarium. She liked to see all the animals, get 'scared' in the dark ancient ocean display, and pretty much just enjoyed all the aspects of the ambience created there. Both the kids were SO patient, as it too over an hour to get out there; including 50 minutes of waiting at a bus stop on the side of the highway. Long story short: bus drivers kept telling me 'no' they didn't go there so I finally went back to the front desk girl who told me to wait there and she sent someone from the hotel out to help us... ANYWAY, we made it. (Chris was meeting a friend in the opposite direction, which is why he didn't drive us.)
-Eating icecream with marshmallows dipped in the chocolate fountain
-missing school ;)

Drop off

I dropped Gemma off at school on Friday. Break your heart! She acts tough, fights back the tears and says, "I'll miss you so much mommy" and with her chin up marches in. What on earth am I doing to her with this full day torture???? She of course has a lovely time and is happy when I pick her up, but Chris says that mornings are still tough. I'm happy I'm the 'pick up' person usually and not the 'drop off' person. (Sorry, honey :)

Anyone have good reading about teaching your kids foriegn languages? I'm not sure that simply 'immersing' her is working. Need to make some sort of plan, as well as decide how to maintain/develop her English skills as well... So much to think about and 'try'; I so wish I didn't have to experiment on my child; what if I make a terrible mistake and damage her for life?

I'm sorry first born dear, I love you and tried my best!!!

If I wear make up...

I pray for wisdom on nights when I hear this:

Gemma is putting on makeup in the bathroom. She is smiling. I ask her, "What are you doing?" She says, "There's a boy at school who likes me. If I put on makeup, then he will like me even more!!!"

I will also point out that this is at night, before bed. Because he daddy won't let her wear makeup to school, so she was trying to do it at night before.


We've been talking (I've been trying to talk) a lot about being beautiful on the inside, how Esther was beautiful but used her beauty for good, a wife of noble character.... ANYTHING I can think of to de-rail that train!

Random info...

Gemma is doing great! So many little stories, can't ever remember them at night time, though.

We are done with another 10 weeks of gymnastics, and although I would like to keep going I think its time for a break. She loves it too, and I think the studio is great, but its just too much for the schedule. I teach till 4 on Wednesdays, rush home to get Guinness, rush to Gemma's school to get her, rush her to gymnastics (which starts at 4:30), and chase Guinness the whole time. He likes the place too, and gets to jump and play before class but during class he wants to be on the trampoline, on the bars, and generally in the way. Which means I have to man-handle him the entire hour. Which is tiring! Gem learned a lot there and I hope we go back in the future, but I guess we should break for a bit.

We finished the Secret Garden today. She got a bouquet of flowers to celebrate.

The scholar?

We were working on Gemma's homework (yes she has a bit of homework every week, which I didn't know about ooops, so we are actually working on last week's homework) and she is bored.

I am pretty tired at the end of the day. I know I should make this so fun and exciting and foster learning and build that passion... but I'm tired. We'll see if I can get the creative juices flowing.

It really isn't anything at all; color a picture about something they learned that week. Last week it was God made the Sky. Practice writing 2 bo po mo fo characters. She has to write each one three times. Big deal, I think; I am personally PUMPED to be learning bo po mo fo as I feel it holds and important missing piece to my study of Chinese. She is bored. Sigh.... No pressure. I do want her to love school so we'll just do it quickly and happily and put it away. And I'll try to trick her into learning it another way....

What is bo po mo fa? Chinese phonics; a way to break down characters to sound them out. Only kids use it, then they just memorize all the characters.

Check this out:

Or this one. This one shows the sentence. You can see the small bo po mo fo symbols beside the character; so you use this to sound out the character but eventually you have to just memorize them.

Living Vicariously?

Gemma's room is ALWAYS clean before she goes to bed. (99% of the time). We always clean it after Guinness goes to sleep before we can have our special mommy-Gemma playtime.

My room is never clean. Maybe once a month or every 6 weeks I'll finally get so disgusted I'll hang up all the clothes (mine and Chris'..mostly mine), pick up the floor, sweep, etc.

Gemma's clothes are laid out for the next morning. I scramble to find something to wear.
Gemma's lunch bowl and water bottle are washed and packed for the next morning. I try to quickly make a PBJ sandwich for breakfast and remember to grab leftovers for lunch. Or at least my wallet to buy some instant noodles.

Gemma's hair gets combed and done before we leave the house. I wear the same ponytail all day sometimes.


I wish I were organized and prepared, but if I can't be at least she is!!

Great Day at school

She complained all morning about it.

I don't want to go.
Make sure you come pick me up in 2 minutes!
I don't like it!
Don't be late.


But her eyes were bright and round as lightbulbs as we got to the door. Shoes off, coat off. Proudly showing where the coats go, "I ALWAYS use the purple hanger for my coat." She was excited to go, happy to be there. Hardly said goodbye. Couldn't wait to see her teachers and her friends.

And she had an awesome day, the head teacher said her best day yet. She was cheerfully working on an art project when I got there at 4:10 (Wednesdays is art, I guess. And the workbook they have is SO COOL!!) So much excitement she was hopping around getting her stuff to go home.

Sigh. Of. Relief.

Our own secret garden adventure

So I am home for 3 days this week 'cause Chris is in LA for a conference. I like to do extra special things with the kids because I know as a working mom I am often tired and busy and often we have stuff we HAVE to do instead of play (but really, I know that ALL parents and families have responsibilities and no one can play all the time, right?) So this morning we went off on a garden tour of small gardens set up along our main road. It's part of a 'green' project put on by the city and the floral expo to make some of Taipei's ugly spaces, well, less ugly. They tear down old abandoned buildings and then plant grass and flowers, etc, in the empty lot. (Ooo, like Wonderpets save the tree!) We have three of these right by our house and they are cute and beautiful and interesting. As we were walking to the second one (the one with the shopping carts at the Guting elementary school pedestrian overpass) we noticed that the lot beside it was all walled up! We liked this lot because it had a stone path, and one time we found pieces of a 'p-edallion' there. Gemma says 'p-edallion' sometimes but she means 'medallion', as in a kind of fancy treasure. One time we found a few pieces of broken blue and white tile. So we collected them and brought them home and tried to assemble it but we couldn't and even though I threw those pieces out every time we go there she wants to look for more medallion pieces, "And Mommy, DON"T throw it out this time, even if I don't play with it for a long time, OK??????" But anyway, the lot had a wall! Just like the secret garden. And after we looked by the edge of the wall and found more medallion pieces and played with caterpillars, and walked along the garden wall and climbed the overpass to look at cars go by and check out the new church, we were ready to go get food and go for a picnic. Because why not spontaneously decide to go for a picnic when you're on holidays? One the way past 'the wall' we saw the door. And it was LOCKED!!! (Because it is condemned and unsafe for people, I am assuming, or else why a wall?) But I want to play along and I remind Gemma that interestingly enough a few days ago we found a key so I ask her if it would fit? Gemma looks at the key hole, and says, No Mommy, we need a screwdriver!!! I didn't actually look but I play along and say Ok, lets go home and get it and come back and then go on our picnic. Because that is the kind of things you can do when you are on holidays: walk 10 minutes home to make a picnic, get a screwdriver and walk back to an empty lot to try a key to a magical door, then walk BACK past your house again to get to the picnic spot. (TaiDa).

Smart girl; when we got our picnic in order and screwdrivers and made it back I actually looked at the lock. And it was a cross shaped hole; thats why she knew she needed a screwdriver and not her key, because she knew her key was one flat line, not two crossing ones. But sadly, it didn't fit (good thing, people would wonder why a foreigner lady and her two kids were breaking into city property!)

Ahh, no time limits and schedule to muck up our day :) Its fun to just go with it.

Sadly, not the case for the next two days! But I'll try to schedule some spontaneity, haha!

Phewww

Way better day today. I was in a near panic this morning about what to do, but she made it to school no problem, had a great day, and even went to bed at 9:30, in her own bed. I hope this becomes the new norm and she is 'adjusted'. It is only 3 more months, so I think we'll stick it out. A note on culture: There was a lot more sympathy for Gemma from the Canadian side of things. Friends here were more on the side of tough it out.

Of course if it got really bad we'd pull her, we are not out to damage her for life but I think its normal to have some adjustment issues with a new situation, and since we're at 7 good days of 8 think she's doing OK. Knock on wood, we'll see how tomorrow goes.

Drop out?

It is not getting easier to take her to school. It is getting harder.

She cries. And doesn't want to stay.

She's napping at school, which is good for them but bad for us. It is 10:45 and she is wide awake, reading books in here with me. She hates the nap time, she says. And I am so exhausted staying up with her.

I have no idea what to do. We have to pay the tuition tomorrow, and its like a thousand bucks CDN. So don't really want to shell that out if its not going to work. Tonight she begged me, Please don't take me to that school.

Or do we push through; its only 15 more weeks.

Pray for us!

Secret Garden

We're halfway through Secret Garden! She keeps asking for it, so thats good, she seems to be getting most of it. We're at the part where she meets Colin, and we are learning how demanding and spoiled he is (Rajah Craven!). I love this book!!!! Tonight she fell asleep while I was reading, so precious. I know I am biased, but she is so beautiful.

Pictures of school

A friend whose son is enrolled at the school emailed me these pics and a little report. (She must have dropped her son off after I left) Here's what she said:

"Hi Nevada,
I thought you might like these pics of Gemma that I took for you this morning when I was there from 9:00 - 9:30am. Just wanted to let you know that she was happily engaged in play with the other girls when we showed up during the early free play time. During the worship songs, she paid close attention to the teachers and tried to do the actions with the songs. Of course, getting to play in the big cars was quite a thrill for her and all of the kids! She seemed to be really enjoying herself overall."



Pheww, sigh of relief. It will be the hardest thing for me I think to not know what she is doing all the time.

1st day!

A successful first day, I think!

We were at school a bit early, so it was very quiet. Gemma was looking very interestedly at all the toys. We found out where to put her bowl and spoon, water bottle, sleeping bag, coat, shoes... And then she was ready to play. We played with some blocks for a bit while we waited for other kids to come. One of the teachers was putting costumes on a few kids and Gemma got a flower costume, then she was a part of the welcome team which welcomed people to school. Except she didn't want to stay there and be a flower, she was ready to go and check out the new stuff. Once the kids started coming and she was more interested in her surroundings I said goodbye and left. First time I left my daughter for a whole day at a new place like that! But I knew she'd have fun, and she did.

We'll find out more on Friday when her communication book comes home about what she learned, etc. I asked her what they had for lunch and she said, "I don't know what it was called" Ha ha, Taiwanese lunches can be a little odd to say the least. But she said it was yummy, so OK. She did have a nap at nap time, "I was tired!" she said, which explains why now tonight she didn't fall asleep till 10. Hopefully that works itself out over time. I think this is the honeymoon phase of school, where everything is new and exciting and fun, but I imagine we'll have some hard days when we have to wake her up to get ready, and when she realizes her days of TV watching and hanging around the house are done :)

Pictures.... I took pictures. A friend emailed me some pictures... Let's see if I can get a few up here before I fall asleep on my keyboard.

Chapter Book

We are reading our first chapter book, and I love it! I was telling her one day about the story of The Secret Garden, and she was very interested, and the more I thought about the story the more I thought it was right up her alley; secret keys, grumpy Mary, mean uncle, and the surprise of Colin (and, of course, the secret garden!!) I brought it home from school and we've read a chapter or two a night for the last three nights. Amazing! (Knock on wood) I hope she stays interested. Tonight Mary met Ben Weatherstaff, and found the garden with no door. The next chapter is the 'wailing in the corrider' and Mary will discover Colin; I think Gemma will love the mystery of it.

I hate sleep training

I am so tired of waking up in the middle of the night.

Now Gemma is coming to our bed. Which is fine because then we actually SLEEP instead of me walking over to her room 3 or 4 times a night. But since I would like to sleep with Chris instead of Gemma (although she is cuddlier and has better breath) last night we insisted she go to her own bed. And so I was up because she woke up three times crying. And if we want to sleep train her we will have to go through this for days and days until she starts to sleep n her own in her own room. All night. And I can not cave in and fall asleep in her bed. Or let her come to my bed. Which means I will not sleep much. Not that I do already. Ugg, I am already in a bad mood thinking about it. Lack of sleep makes you crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!

Earlier bedtime = success

We've been doing an 8:30 bedtime for a week or so, and its worked! And in fact, on Thursday night I kept her up just because I was being selfish and I wanted to go to the rest of Chinese Corner because it was being hosted in our building so after I paid the babysitter ad made sure Guinness was asleep I just took her upstairs. This bumped bedtime to 9:45. And that night was terrible!!

A friend suggested this sleeping incentive. Every night she sleeps in her own bed, and doesn't sleep in our bed, she gets to put a sticker on a chart. The stickers say S L E E P I N G and when she gets them all she gets a prize. 2 nights of success, yay!

Did that just happen??

The things I see in this country never cease to amaze me.

Tonight I was watching one of Gemma's educational Chinese language VCDs. Its a great set starring ChaoHu, the tiger, ChiChi his rabbit friend and a host of other animals and puppets. Lots of cute songs and repetition, and we've learned a lot from it.

So tonight we're watching a new one I haven't seen yet. And they are doing a farm tour. We see the cows in the field, eating, and they're talking about how hungry they are, etc. Then they go back to the barn because they are full. Once there, they have their udders washed and we see a milk machine demonstration. Ok, thats cool. Then we see the milk go to a processing plant, etc, and put into bottles. So far so good, right? Well, this ties right into a 'where do cows come from' segment. It shows a cartoon cow with an egg. Noooo, cows don't come from eggs. A large X appears on the egg laying cow, and the next clip is a LIVE COW GIVING BIRTH. Yes, you see a real live cow giving birth on the TV. Can I just say that I would NOT expect that appear on a children's DVD at home, ever in a million years???? But like I said earlier, the things that I see in this country are just not what you'd expect sometimes.

Gemma's School

Gemma will be starting preschool after Chinese New Year break, February 14. Annabelle is leaving us; getting married to a Taiwanese American and moving to the US and we needed a new plan for the kids. We've been thinking about school for a while but they don;t do it here like they do at home; twice a week for a few hours or whatever. Here it is everyday, half days or full days. Except half days are almost as expensive as full days and because Chris does most of his meetings/work over the middle of the day so we are going for the full day program. Gulp. Is my daughter ready for full days out of the house? Drop between 8-9, pick up between 4-4:30.

Of course, it is an excellent school. It is at a nearby church, and they have a huge facility, lots of materials and things, across from a huge park. High teacher student ratio. Designed for 3-4 year olds. Very Christian in teaching; lots of prayer and worship time, music time. Nap time after lunch. PE, music, art, science, math, history, geography, Chinese and English. (Although the instruction and day to day will be in Chinese) I always get a kick out of things like geography for 3 year olds but whatever, its cute and they need to learn stuff so thats cool. There will be 4 other wei-guo-ren children there (foriegner) so she'll have some companions, at least for half day as those children have mothers who stay home.

I think she is ready for the challenge of school, and although this is a big step I think she'll do great. I can't wait to see what she'll learn.

Night Terrors/Confusional Arousals

They're back.

My girl had these confusional arousals for a long time. I could count the number of times she slept through the night on one hand until she was three years old. Then, finally, blissfully, she slept. 10-12 hours UNINTERRUPTED! You can imagine how amazing this made my world!

Until now. Recently (the last 6 weeks) she has been up 5-7 nights a week, several times a night. Calling out, crying, yelling, getting mad at people (me, Annabelle, Guinness...) thrashing, yelling louder. These sessions last for 10-30 minutes. She is not awake. She has no idea I am in the room. I can not say or do anything to calm her down. I almost never get her to wake up. (And experts say NOT to wake them up, they will pass sooner if you just leave them alone.)

I call them confusional arousals as opposed to night terrors because that's what some experts call them. Terrors are more screaming afraid type behavior, whereas confusional arousals are more agitated, anger, upset behavior. Terrors aren't generally as long as arousals. In both behaviors the kids have no recollection of what happens. And, the most maddening thing about all the reading I've done and research is THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO.

Ugg, great. So basically don't sleep through the night ever again. Ok, they are supposed to outgrow it. But when?

One thing the books do say is that being overtired can make them worse. So bedtime is officially bumped up. Guinnes: 7:45. Gemma, lights out by 8:30. She is very active in the day, not napping anymore, so that could be part of the problem. I am thinking that school will help (when she starts attending full time in February, more to follow) because she will behave naps there (and I suspect she'll sleep) and be more tired at home after a full day of activity.

Anyway, you know what my prayer request is now...SLEEP!