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!