Gemma: Made In Taiwan

Chris!!!

2012-01-29T05:57:00.000-08:00

Chris and I were planning on enjoying some Subway on our own, but after a great sale at the NorthFace shop we got home later than we planned, and at the same time as the kids. So I whipped the kids up a sandwich from stuff we had at home, but of course they wanted in on the yum yum goodness that is Subway. I was explaining to Guinness again and again that 'No, mommy's has jalapeños on it, you won't like it," when Chris finally did cut him off a slice. Gemma looked down her nose at him, admonishing eyes, and said in a perfect hushed tone, "CHRIS!!" It was so funny, I laughed for 5 minutes. Such a bossy mother hen!

We did some puzzle with Daddy yesterday, and had so much fun. Laughter is a great medicine (not better than coffee, but I think important to have every day) so I am hoping that 'laughing together as a family every day' is a realistic goal for 2012.

Yes, I can make goals for 2012 now because the Chinese New Year has just begun.

5 going on 15

2012-01-25T08:41:00.000-08:00

Growing up.... by her attitude sometimes you would think that the birthday that follows five is fifteen. Isn;t this a good disgusted teenager look?

Age Gap

2012-01-25T08:00:00.000-08:00

The kids got along pretty good for a long time. She likes to play computer games, he is happy to sit and watch. She likes to boss around, he likes to be bossed. Gemma did a good job of handling the baby business, and has been a pretty patient big sister till now, but the terrible twos are causing some frustration.

When Gemma was two and three, she loved to play the same games over and over; you be the mother I'll be the daughter, over and over again. Guinness is very into super heros, and we've been playing Spiderman for about three months. And Gemma is tired of it. She doesn't want to play superhero ANYMORE!

Gemma likes setting up her little villages and houses and stuff. Guinness physically can not resist the urge to plough it down. He draws on her art, he makes messes that take away mommy's time, he pushes buttons on the iPad when she's playing, he playfights too hard sometimes... the whole little brother thing is getting too frustrating.

It's been just amazing how much she's changed this fall. Really growing up.

She has one more week of holidays, then a final semester of Chinese school. We are pretty sure she'll join me at my school next year for kindergarten.

Tastes like...

2012-01-01T07:45:00.000-08:00

Kids brains' are so weird! Today I made pancakes and bacon, and the kids love bacon. Gemma was dipping hers in her syrup, telling me, "Mom, you HAVE to try this." so it did, and she said, "It's so good, it tastes like chocolate ". Does the word 'chocolate' mean 'tastes good'?

And then, a minute or two later, Guinness was munching his bacon and he said, "this is is so yummy, it tastes like CUPCAKES!".

Like I said, weird!

Singing

2011-12-28T08:14:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-11T04:08:00.000-08:00

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 ???

2011-11-13T08:27:00.001-08:00

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

2011-11-02T15:24:00.000-07:00

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!

2011-10-30T09:30:00.001-07:00

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

2011-10-23T07:11:00.001-07:00

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

Really?

2011-10-10T00:59:00.000-07:00

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...

2011-10-09T16:21:00.001-07:00

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...

2011-10-06T14:47:00.000-07:00

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!

2011-09-13T05:00:00.000-07:00

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

2011-09-04T00:34:00.000-07:00

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...

2011-09-01T04:39:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-19T16:55:00.000-07:00

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...

2011-08-11T04:54:00.000-07:00

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?

2011-08-09T03:39:00.001-07:00

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

2011-08-07T08:17:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-02T23:50:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-27T15:36:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-24T05:59:00.001-07:00

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...

2011-06-03T06:12:00.000-07:00

"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

2011-05-26T09:34:00.000-07:00

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...

2011-05-19T09:31:00.001-07:00

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

2011-05-15T07:09:00.000-07:00

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

2011-05-02T07:40:00.001-07:00

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

2011-04-28T10:36:00.000-07:00

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

2011-04-22T06:02:00.000-07:00

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

2011-04-16T09:22:00.000-07:00

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...

2011-04-11T01:43:00.000-07:00

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...

2011-03-21T07:48:00.000-07:00

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?

2011-03-14T08:33:00.001-07:00

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?

2011-03-10T07:21:00.000-08:00

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

2011-03-02T06:19:00.000-08:00

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

2011-03-01T06:23:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-23T07:08:00.000-08:00

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?

2011-02-22T06:41:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-20T05:30:00.001-08:00

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

2011-02-14T06:16:00.000-08:00

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!

2011-02-14T06:06:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-10T05:33:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-29T19:53:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-15T16:01:00.001-08:00

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??

2011-01-13T05:30:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-11T05:28:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-04T05:40:00.000-08:00

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!

Biker!

2010-12-27T05:39:00.001-08:00

Gemma loves her new bike, and is for some reason obsessed with TaiDa and going biking there. On Christmas day we did an almost 2 hour bike trip. Boxing day we did an hour and a half. Today she was so excited to go (even after walking the zoo for 6 hours) that we were all dressed and in the porch at 5:45, even though we had a 6:40 date with Auntie. So what did we do? Walked to Auntie's house to help with garbage, then to TaiDa for biking. We didn't get home till about 7:15. I have to job to keep up with her sometimes, she can really cruise, and so I think the bike is going to be an awesome present for all of us. Hours outside everyday, yay!!

Except I have to keep Guinness in the stroller, because he won't cooperate and walk in the same direction as us. I try to please both but the battle of choosing one kid over the other continues.

I really like doing these things with her.

Gemma and Time

2010-12-20T06:36:00.001-08:00

Still working on time words...

SETTING: Gemma is in the office playing computer games. I come in.

N: How long have you been playing computer games?
G: About 1 hour.
N: We better stop then. An hour is a long time.
G: Hmm, maybe 2 hours. Is that shorter than 1 hour? (imploring expression)
N: Uh, no Gemma. That's even longer.
G: I know, 5 minutes. That's how long I've been playing.

Uh huh, Gemma. Whatever you say.

Birthday

2010-11-29T06:18:00.000-08:00

A successful Totally Spies rescues the Princess party! Fun rescue mission, cake was good, thoughtful presents, and of course friends. It was a pretty exciting, long awaited day.

Squiggly

2010-11-21T07:56:00.000-08:00

Still lots of love for the amazing Squiggly.

How do you explain to an almost 4 year old that NO, there is absolutely NO WAY we are bringing the fish to church? And that NO she can't touch him. She was trying to scoop him into a paper cup so we could change his water, and after multiple swoops around the bowl I intervened, saying 'you're scaring him!' To which she retorted, "He's not scared: I"M his mommy!!"

Birthday a coming...

2010-11-13T20:49:00.000-08:00

Getting ready for the party of the year!

Gem is so excited, she wants to decorate and do everything now. I think I have blogged this before but we are having a Totally Spies rescue the Princess birthday. No games, just an elaborate rescue mission that will involve princesses, gadgets, monsters, and clues. Oh heaven, please give me energy!

Party is November 27 at 1pm.

Good for my ego...

2010-11-01T03:56:00.000-07:00

I was telling Gemma we needed a new container for our magnets because the old lid doesn't stay on well and Guinness can dump them out at will, so I found a tupperware we can use and as I was showing Gemma the lid she said, "Brilliant idea, mommy!!!!"

Brilliant :)

Ah ha moment...

2010-10-19T08:56:00.000-07:00

We let our kids watch TV. Not too much, but probably more than we should. And I discovered where this may become a problem: REALITY!

Like when we were at a waterfall in JiaoXi, and Gemma said, "I am going to skip over those rocks. I can!"

Umm, actually, you can't. I'll help you. My help is always met with resistence.

And then this week, she was telling me how great she was at something, and I was gently trying to bring her down a notch (or 5) and she trumped me with this; "Well, I can see invisible things."

Oh boy. I tried to explain that she couldn't actually see invisible things to no avail.

Soccer...

2010-09-28T07:14:00.001-07:00

went pretty well, I think. Gemma had fun and obeyed the teacher, which was my number 1 concern. The park was mental busy; I don't think there is any way to explain to a Canadian just how busy a Taipei park can be on a good weather Sunday. Well, first imagine the sidewalk leading up to your local park. Now put people on it shoulder to shoulder, lined up in a steady stream. That is the traffic in and out of the park. Think Future Shop on Boxing Day, says Chris. Now imagine a play structure 5 or 6 times bigger than the ones in Saskatoon. The average play structure we saw at home had a few slides, a bridge or two, fire pole and two or three monkey bar systems coming up to it, and maybe a kitchen or fort or whatever underneath it. So we'll say 10 points of interest. Well, the new play structure at this park (Daan Park) has at least 30 ups and downs and ins and outs, and the line of children on it is steady. Every bridge and slide has a line, every staircase has children on it. So anyway, all to say the place was a zoo, so a bit hard to concentrate. (No we didn't have soccer on the play structure, but the whole park was busy; the grassy areas were busy, everywhere.) Also, it was the first class and the kids had no idea what to expect. But the drills were good and interesting and I think it was ok. Major problem was that they planned it to be 2 hours long. Well, my 3 year old is not going to do anything for 2 hours, so I don't that will work for us. And the time goes over when church starts so double no. I may check out different days and times, and see.

Going to check out a gymnastics place tomorrow at 4:30; The Perky Tiger its called. We'll see how that goes.

Songs and Soccer

2010-09-25T08:08:00.000-07:00

Gemma is very into making up songs. They are usually about God or Jesus, and usually go something like this:

"God, we love you, you are so good and we love you in our hearts. And our hearts love you because you are nice, you are nice and good and big."

Today she did one I'll call "God is the biggest". It went a little like;

"God is so big, He is the biggest, the biggest, and the most... (thoughtful pause) power-est, He is bigger than the daddies, than the daddies, than the daddies."

Also in Gemma news; she will be attending her first soccer practice tomorrow. Some friends have found a preschool team and so we're checking it out tomorrow; we'll see how it goes. We talked a bit about it today, and I guess our sports education has not been so good.

"Gemma, are you excited to try soccer tomorrow?"

"Yes. But I don't have a ball."

"Well, that's ok. If you like it, maybe we can get one."

"Ok. But I'll need to practice before my game."

"Well, we can use another ball to practice."

"I will pick it up and throw it in the net"

"Uh, well, you see Gemma, what's interesting about soccer is that you can't use your hands. You just use your feet and kick the ball around."

"But how do I pick it up?"

"Well, you don't. You use your feet and kick it."

and then I started to get worried about tomorrow...

She asked what the net would look like and I explained it was rectangle and on the ground, and someone will stand there and block her shot, to which she said she would kick it over their head. This is part of her inability to grasp reality thing; she really thinks that she will be able to score goals very easily, and kick the ball where she wants it, etc. It is so hard to watch her try these things because she is truly so disappointed that she can't do it. She doesn't understand it at all. Then she gets frustrated and mad.

Tear Jerker Moment

2010-09-18T01:51:00.001-07:00

FINALLY made it out to the water park today, my first time although the kids have gone already. It was sunny and hot; perfect for building water park anticipation! As the sprayers and fountains came into view, I said excitedly, "I'm so EXCITED to be here!" And Gemma replied, "I'm so excited to be here with YOU!!"

Aww!

Reality?

2010-09-16T06:44:00.000-07:00

"Mommy, what would happen if a monster came in my room?"

"Well, Gemma, then I would think you were on a TV show or a movie because monsters aren't real."

"No, but Mommy, what if?"

"Hmm, well, I guess I would hope you had some of your super spy gadgets to help you."

"I don't. What would I do?" (her look is totally serious still)

"I think you should try and trick him. Like tell him 'Hey monster look over there,' and then run away."

(a moment of silence as she processes this... then she laughs.) "Yah!! Good idea."

So we start on a trail of 'good ideas'.

Mommy: "Or you could hide, Gemma."

Gemma: "Yah. Or I could turn invisible."

Mommy: "Um, yah, I guess. Or you could poke him in the eyes."

Gemma: "Or I could poke him with a porcupine. In the tummy! Or poke him in the tummy with a long sword"

Because even though 'gadgets' aren't real or possible, she may have a sword or a porcupine ready. :)

There was an old woman who tried to teach a three year old about jokes

2010-09-12T07:01:00.001-07:00

So we've been saying some nursery rhymes because I got a bunch with some old flannelgraph at school. And one of my favorites, of course, is There was an old woman. In case you forget, it goes like this:

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe,
She had so many children, she didn't know what to do
She gave them some broth without any bread
And spanked them all soundly and sent them to bed!

So Gemma gave her rendition the other day:

"There was an old woman who lived in a shoe,
He house was so STINKY she didn't know what to do!"

(because its a shoe, get it?)

We may have also entered the 'joke' era. On the bus to Green Bay yesterday, a kindergarten student was sitting with me and my Gemma at the front and she says,"Want to tell jokes?" Well, Gemma was totally into that idea, and she said "YAH!!!" and went forth with a monologue that went something like this:

"Banana pants! Banana pants on your head. Bananas pants head! Got some bananas on your head? Funny pants head banana man." etc... for about a minute or so, laughing the whole time like she was making the best jokes in the world. The 5 year old just stared at her. After a minute or so she either ran out of material or noticed the stunned silence on her playmate's and Gemma said, "Ok, you can talk now!"

Scropped

2010-08-23T05:50:00.001-07:00

So Gemma and Nate were roughousing in the pool this weekend, and after Gemma showed me her arm and said, "This is where Nate scropped me." And I just said, Hmm, yah, where Nate scratched you. And she insisted, 'No mommy, where he SCROPPED me.' And I said, 'Oh, that's where he scraped you.' And she still persisted; "No mommy. SCROPPED."

What is to scrop? I don't know.

Other funny words;

"Mom, give me a hunt. (meaning a hint)

Handcuffing Chris' wrist with her hand, she pronounces, "Ha ha! Now we're engagement!!"

Tired of tantrums

2010-08-20T18:32:00.000-07:00

Someone please tell me that just because my daughter is prone to tantrums now she will still grow up to be a wonderful person.

'I can speak...'

2010-08-17T07:34:00.000-07:00

I know you wish I was going to finish this sentence with 'Chinese' but, sadly it is not so. I will try and repeat the conversation Gemma and I had on the way to the park tonight:

(biking past a small dog)

Me: "Gemma, look at the puppy!"

G: "Oh, its so cute! It's following us! It has no one to take care of it."

M: "No, I think it has someone to take care of it."

G "WE could take care of it. It could come on my bed and snuggle me."

M "Uh humm..."

G I could speak to it on dog language. I can speak dog language, mommy, do you want to hear me? ruff ruff (sort of higher pitched small dog sounds.) This is how I speak to little dogs. And this is how I speak to big dogs. Woof woof. WOOF."

(Gemma barks loudly at the dog now back in the distance. Then she barks at the next lady who walks by. A moment of silence and then Guinness is the front seat starts up; woof woof!)

Product review; Crayola Color Bath Dropz

2010-08-11T06:09:00.000-07:00

So cool! Gemma got these from Annabelle, and these tablets (that look like Easter egg tablets but slightly bigger) fizz and make the water a funky bright color! One tablet was enough for a bath. Guinness thought it was so amazing, and Gemma loved looking at what her body parts looked like through the colored water.

5 stars.

Where is Grandpa?

2010-06-16T18:34:00.000-07:00

Poor girl waited very patiently through 4 airports and 30 hours of flying. When we were in Saskatoon, that last customs line was when she finally started asking intensely; Where is Grandpa? Where is Baba? There were a few tantrums on the plane, but she slept ok on the last two flights and behaved well in the airports and lines. She;s waking up early but still getting about 8 hours at night so that's good, and she has a pretty heavy afternoon nap that we can hardly wake her up from but more sleep is better than not enough.

When tantrums and angry glares are so common now, this morning so blessed my heart. She presented herself to me at 6:20am beside my bed, all dressed. She said, Mommy I dressed myself!! It was very cute. And I was thrilled it was after 6. And I was thrilled because she slept all night upstairs by herself in her own room, and instead of laying in bed crying for me to come and get her when she woke up, she woke up and took care of herself and came downstairs to get me. We played very nicely all morning till Kaitlyn and Ian came over and then they all played nicely.

She's finding it quiet, too, and not sure where all her friends are. But we'll have a great summer, I'm sure!!!

Librarian

2010-06-03T13:40:00.000-07:00

We got a lovely stack of books from a student of mine, and Gemma loves to unpack them and pack them and unpack them and pack them. She is playing librarian. She gets this from her favorite episode of Backyardigans; the Masked Retriever, who is really the librarian in disguise to get back that overdue book at all costs.

She loves packing things. She will pick up a plastic grocery bag and walk around her room filling it up with a little of this and a little of that. Then she'll switch it to her suitcase. Then she'll put some things in her treasure boxes. And take them out. And put new things in. Today we went on vacation to Mexico, and we both needed to pack a bag.

Tantrum

2010-05-31T07:54:00.000-07:00

Gemma is sleeping right now...

sleeping on the floor outside her bedroom.

sleeping on the floor outside her bedroom because she locked it to prevent me from going in there during a HUGE tantrum right before bed about not being able to watch two episodes of Backyardigans. Well, that's what started it but I'm not sure really what she was so in a tizzy about. It got very escalated and crazy, and although one spanking was issued it didn't do much and I sort of just watched the storm unleash its fury.

I got to say I love you to her before she fell asleep. Not sure what set her off. Not sure what to do. Hmm...

Time to reflect

2010-05-27T08:07:00.001-07:00

Gemma often wakes up in the morning with her reflections or commentary on the events the day before. Must just take her some time to process. On Wednesday I was home with the kids, so she unloaded on me her thoughts about Tuesday's music class:

"Mommy, that girl ______ was so mean, she kept trying to hit me with her jingle bell!!" (You'll have to imagine the indignation in her tone and on her face). "And so and so hit me on my brain with his Easter egg!!!" (meaning the egg shaker). But he hit her 'brain'; maybe to much time spent with Auntie Adrienne the science teacher's human body models.

Other funny quotes:

After be chastised for squeezing Guinness around the neck for the upteenth time today, she stomped off but turned back to retort; "Hmmph! But I just love him." stomp stomp stomp...

G: Can I rent a movie today?
M: No, Gemma
G: But mommy, don't say no. You think about it!!

(last night at my birthday dinner, singing...) There's a banana on my head, on my head! There's a banana on my head on my head! Hey, look at me guys!! Everyone, look at me!! There's a banana on my head, on my head..."

Play play play

2010-05-25T06:40:00.000-07:00

Not so much blogging because it is so hard to keep up with Gem and all her fun ideas.

We've been watching Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses. (Yes, they look a bit weird, but they are very nice to eachother and sing beautifully, and I like the dancing. And that they use some real music; Mendelssohn. Still trying to figure out how old Genevieve is since she gets married at the end but whatever) I made 12 flower pictures and taped them in a circle in her room to be the 12 stones, and so we've been playing princesses a lot, trying out there different names and characters, saving poppa and going off to the magic land.

Silly sense of humor, too. Does a unicorn go on my nose? Does a unicorn go on a butterfly? Ha ha ha, laugh giggle giggle. All kinds of silly things like that.

The funniest was when she came out of her room, and climbed into my arms and said, "Now you carry me like this till the morning." I wish :)

"When I grow up..

2010-04-25T06:21:00.000-07:00

.. I will be a big tall DADDY!"

So says Gemma today as we are brushing teeth. Teacher was her second option.

Juicy

2010-04-22T06:36:00.000-07:00

Maybe she's watching too many princess movies, but when we got married today I got a VERY long and juicy kiss. Sorry, Gemma, no romantic kisses until you are much much older.

She knows some numbers. 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10. She doesn't know 6, 9, 8, and 2. I didn't realize she knew them. we have a preschool readiness workbook so we've been doing school a bit. She doesn't want to work in order, which of course kills me but I want her to have fun and learn so I go with it. She loves cutting out the little matching cards and when we play games with them.

OH, and she has started to earn her own money. I give her about 5 minutes to pick up as many toys as she can from around the living room and put them on a spread out blanket. Then we count them, and for every two she gets 1 NT (1NT = 3cents). She is earning roughly 10NT a day; about 30 cents, which I think is high but I want her to be excited about it and I wasn't sure how many toys she's be able to pick up and how much she'd be earning in a day. I think after the summer we will change the ratio from 2:1 to 3:1; 3 toys for 1NT.

What do you pay your children and how?

When Guinness grows up...

2010-04-19T06:57:00.000-07:00

Gem and Guin were bathing together, and Gemma was admiring his 7 teeth. "Wow, he has teeth now! He's getting so big!" She then went on to talk about how big Guinness was going to be. She pointed to herself and said "He will be this big one day." And I started listing things he will be able to do then that she can do: get dressed, go to the potty, eat by himself, and she interjected, "Wear makeup!!!" Uh, hopefully not. Although with Gemma as a sister it is likely. The boy is already in love with Dora :)

We then pretended Guinness had a baby in his tummy. Hmmm..

Trickery

2010-04-12T07:59:00.000-07:00

Gemma is refusing to take her medicine. *(Is this my punishment for staying up late to read the My Sister's Keeper???)

I told her to take it quickly and get it over with.

I told her she would be sick forever.

I told her we would never play with her friends because you can't play with friends when you are sick and she will be sick until she takes her medicine.

I told her fine, you don't have to drink your medicine but you have to have this glass of cherry juice. (with medicine in it; ha ha!!)

So how far should the trickery go? What is the most outlandish trick/lie you've ever told to your children?

Sick, too

2010-04-08T06:59:00.001-07:00

Gemma is not throwing up, thankfully, but is having some interesting moments on the potty. Yesterday I was talking to Chris and she went to the bathroom and farted so long and loud that I just burst out laughing; it was so funny because it sounded like a 50 year old man or something. I guess she heard me and our sudden silence because then she called out; "Mommy? Are you laughing at my poop sounds?" Busted.

She's having a hard time because poor Guin doesn't want to be put down ever, which limits play time with her. And I want to clean when Guinness is finally down, so I am trying to resist that urge and focus energy on her.

Mommy, let's tell stories!

2010-03-10T08:08:00.000-08:00

We tell stories a lot. They usually begin with Once upon a time, and have babies in them or witches. Or both :)

My favorite are stories that begin, "When I was a little girl" or "When I was younger..." She really acts so old and grown up and like her youth was so long ago!!!

Something funny that I am remembering this week is how super alert she is when she first wakes up. She opens her eyes wide and calls. I go to her room (stumble to her room) and say, What Gemma? And her first sentence is a completely clear and coherent thought. "Mommy, we need to get up and get dressed because today Annabelle is coming to take me out and we have to be ready on time!" Sometimes I can convince her to come lay down with me in our bed and she'll drift off again. But other times we just begin our day and ride that energy wave.

Today

2010-03-02T05:29:00.000-08:00

Gemma announced that she doesn't like music class because she 'doesn't want mommy to teach all the other kids. Just her.' Kindermusik is going OK. Yah, I'll leave it at that.

Tonight in Gemma's world she had 'kohlorabi' to eat (she meant lasagne), and gave Dora an hour long bath in the sink, using her and Guinness' toothbrush and almost all the soap in the process. There was lots of singing during this bath time. We ripped Ariel's head off trying to play paper dolls, ooops, so then we went to Katrina's because we were out of tape.

The latest bedtime trap? Asking for a drink of water, then spilling it n herself so she can change pyjamas, buying herself more mommy time. She is sleeping in her underwear tonight because I didn't want to change her, and besides, all her other jammies are in the wash.

Moose

2010-02-21T07:50:00.000-08:00

"I will roar. Like a cow!" I look at her with a puzzled expression. "Ah, honey? Cows don't really roar." She nods knowingly, accepting my answer. "Like a MOOSE." Um, ok. So I take this. "Maybe we'll see a moose this summer when we are in Canada," I tell her. "OK," she says. " I will ride it!" I raise my eyebrows. "Uh, well, you can't really ride on moose," I try to gently explain.

"Are they mean?"

"Well, no, but they are shy."

"Oh. Well, that's ok. I'll just go up to it and tell it my name. We'll be friends."

Pretend

2010-02-18T07:06:00.000-08:00

By far Gemma's favorite game of late is Daughter. "You be the daughter and I'm your mommy" she says. So I comply. Variations include, "We are Dora's parents" (she has a toy Dora), or Dora is her sister. The one thing that never changes is Guinness. He is always the baby named "Yocho" Hmm, don't know how to spell it but they are both long o sounds. She loves having pretend names; Coreela, Cassandra, Katrina, etc. Or different princess names. Like the pretzel princess or the french fry princess, whatever is going on.

Today she was playing with her toy cell phone and got a few emails she had to read to me. One was from Lorranda, our cousin, and Gemma very excitedly told me that it said "Lorranda is going to have a BABY!" ha ha, did you get that Lo? We were also invited to a few weddings in some other emails. Ha ha.

My body says...

2010-02-07T05:34:00.000-08:00

Gemma had a few accidents this week; waiting too long to go to the potty I suspect. So I was being more diligent in reminding her and I told her she should go. "You haven't gone for a long time, " I said. "Isn't your body saying, 'I have to go'" To which she replied, "Noooo.... My body is saying... squeak squeak" Ha ha!

2010-01-31T07:12:00.001-08:00

Gemma Gemma! I love this girl tonnes. She has been dressing herself lately, which means stripping down to nothing and walking around the house, announcing that she is going to get dressed 'all by myself'. About 10 seconds later comes the 'Mommy, can you help me?' But she is trying really hard and can do a lot of it on her own.

She hasn't been eating much lately and having runny poops, too, that are the weirdest colour. Sort of wheat colour. And really stinky, and lots of stinky farts. YUCK! She seems better today and ate more, so thats good.

She was typing message on her keyboard tonight and she said 'this is how to type Gemma:' and she punched the G, and then the N two times (which is close, right? They look similar and are side by side) and the A. Not bad.

Sleepover Success

2010-01-11T07:10:00.000-08:00

Well, the babysitters and the child were happy today so I count it as a success. She didn't go to sleep till 2:00am and INSISTED on coming home before going to work, but other than that PIng said "She was perfect" and Victor said, "We're waiting a few more years before we have kids." Seriously, though, they were so awesome and so great to her. They really showed her a great time. She made her first professional voice recordings (Victor is a musician) so that was cute. Chris and I got this email about 11pm; a sound clip of Gemma singing and Victor playing. She had a bath, she played chasing and Barbie, and after her quick trip home went to work for 2 and half hours and was super great again. They did some more visiting after that and didn't make it home till 3:40! We are so blessed by friends who love our kids so so much, as much as we do.

Sleepover

2010-01-10T05:51:00.000-08:00

Gemma is at a sleepover with Ping and Victor (whom she calls her 'phony daddy') Ha ha. Hope they have a great night. I'm sure they will. She hardly said good bye to me, she was waiting impatiently for the end of church and was out the door of the nursery before Chris finished announcements, ready to go. It is 9:52, and I am hopefully going to get a good night's sleep. Of course I don't get my hopes up. 'A Aood Night's Sleep' has been teasing me too much over the last three years and I don't trust it at all.

ChinChing Farm

2009-12-30T07:34:00.000-08:00

Gemma had a great vacation at ChinChing farm. She loved the animals, calling the sheep her friends and naming them all. She loved following them around and patting them, and trying to boss them around: "Come HERE sheep-y!" COME HERE!" She was quite the little shepherd and spent about 20 minutes unafraid and on her own following the sheep and feeding them, etc. Of course the show interested her little, even the horse show with these huge horses zooming around a rind and girls doing flips and standing on their heads on the horse's back. She was waiting for the kids merry-go-round and train that was set up at the entrance/exit. We had fun walking around, looking at rocks, climbing rocks, smashing rocks. I remember having lots of fun doing that, too, when my dad used to fly model airplanes and would take us out to the gravel pits to play as he flew his toys. Gemma loved the little playground/yard at our hotel, calling it her barn. There were some of those animals with seats on giant springs for riding and she called them her animals: goats, sheep, a seal, and her motorcycle. The gap in the hedge was her door, which she carefully locked each time she exited to protect her animals from robbers. Her attitude toward the constant attention from strangers throughout the trip was apparent as she toured me though the barn: "my animals do NOT like Chinese people." Sigh. Of course she doesn't really get what she is saying; when you ask her 'but what about Uncle Andy?' she will say that he is not Chinese, same with Auntie Audrey. To her Chinese is a language thing, not a racial thing. And it is annoying rude strangers she doesn't like, not Chinese people. We're working on it :)

2009-12-24T05:24:00.000-08:00

Oh Gemma. She has been whiny since I've been on break which is so hard to take, and I even lost my temper with her twice today. On Christmas Eve, too, sigh... Lord, I need more patience and mercy as a mother.

It has been a fun Christmas eve day though, I hope for her too. Looking forward to our trip to Taichung tomorrow to see Andy and Audrey and Elias and then the mountains. I will make it a point to remember something cute she says or does rather than how frustrated I was with her.

Paper Storage

2009-12-14T06:19:00.000-08:00

Any good ideas on how to store paper? Gemma got that huge Costco pack of construction paper for her birthday, but how and where do you keep it? Leave it on its end and it bends. Leave it on its side and to hard to grab out one sheet.

Accident

2009-12-13T10:37:00.000-08:00

We had a cookie party this morning with a dozen people, and Gemma missed her nap. She had an ENORMOUS benny before church (a benny is a tantrum, my UK word of the day) making us late for church and anyway..she walked up to Auntie Adrienne at the beginning of the music and said, "I'm grouchy. I didn't take a nap." So Auntie asks if she wants to sit with her, so Gemma crawls on her lap and falls asleep fairly promptly. I was in the back with Guinness. In the middle of the service Adrienne all of a sudden jumps up, and rushes to the back. Gemma was so passed out tired that her bladder had let go and she peed all over Adrienne's lap. Adrienne ran to the back, Gemma bouncing on her shoulder; she was still completely out, and so they laid her down in the kid's room, and Auntie tried to clean herself up the best she could.

Oh, auntie! We're sorry! Thank you for all you do for us!!

And Gemma, so cute, when she woke up at church she said, "I'm all wet!" Hahaha.

3 years old

2009-12-02T05:33:00.000-08:00

If I had any energy I would look through our external hard drives of pictures and get a good one of Gemma when she was born... They are all on the flicker if you want to see (check the our links section). Just look at Guinness' blog and you'll remember what she looks like!

The party was a huge success! Thankfully we got everything done in time, people came, and everyone had a blast. (Almost wasn't done in time; the party was to start at 3:30 and at 3:40 Chris leaned his head out the balcony to call out to me running around the yard setting stuff up, "Are you done? There are a dozen people here and I don't know what to do!" Bless his heart, he did a tonne to get ready but being the social director for a room full of toddlers is not up his alley.

If you look online you will find the plans for hundreds of Dora birthdays. I though I was being pretty original choosing Dora over the Princess Tea Party theme, but I guess not. :) Here is our Dora party outline:

Decor; we had an old Dora book that was ripped so we cut the good pictures out of it and hung them from long ribbons in the middle of the room, and put some pictures on the windows. Hung up multi coloured streamers and balloons. Taped Dora tissue paper on the table as a table cloth.

When the kids got there we had snacks (because it was right after school) and put on Dora tattoos. As the kids came Chris put the presents into a big box. After snacks we went open the presents, but OH NO! They had mysteriously vanished! There was a picture of Swiper there, and a note. So off we went to find the swiped presents. Map was there to help us. Our adventure took us to the parking garage looking for the purple planet, over seashell bridge (paper seashells taped to the sidewalk), to the singing gate (paper eyes, mouth, and eyebrows taped to the big gate at the front of our yard), through crocodile swamp (water bottles with paper crocodile heads taped on). The kids had lots of fun. We found the presents after jumping over the corcodiles, went upstairs and opened them, cut the cake (wahh!) and ate it up. Audrey, Adrienne, and I make Dora backpacks out of purple felt for treat bags, and everyone went home around 5ish.

Present highlights:a hello kitty coffee pot that sings and actually pours water!! It is so awesome. You add the water in the back, just like a real coffee machine, put the pot on the burner and push the button...TA DA! Out comes a single serving of 'coffee'. It is really adorable. Gemma also got a doll house, tea set, watch, Dora playdough set, arts and crafts stuff. We got her that huge pack of construction paper from Costco, the Wizard of OZ book, and a Dora doll with tonnes of clothes. (I found that on Kijiji this summer when home for 20$)

Gemma used her yellow playdough on a 'project' yesterday, mixing it up with glitter glue and sticking it to a piece of paper, and Chris and I scolded her. I told her, You won't have any playdough left if you do that with it, and she said, "that's ok. I'll get some for my birthday!" Ha ha, not for a while now Gems!

New Passports

2009-11-24T07:39:00.000-08:00

Going for new passports this week, the kids and I. I thought the newborn photo was hard, well the 3 year old photo was not much better.

Sit up. Not so up. Put your head down. Lift your chin up. Look at me. Look at me. Don't look over there. Don't turn your head. Move your hair off your ears. Don't turn your head. Sit up. Don't smile. Don't show your teeth. No, you can't do that either. Almost done, Gemma. Almost done. Look at me...

Guinness was equally brutal. Pray they get accepted!

Survivor, anyone?

2009-11-17T06:38:00.000-08:00

Usually we watch Dora before bed. So you can imagine my surprise when Gemma said,"Can we watch Survivor?" Adrienne was here and said, who do you want to watch on survivor? And Gemma replies, "Shambo!" (I guess you need to be following survivor to get it...)

She got some awesome new winter hand me downs, including some beautiful shoes. She insists they fit, even though they are 3 sizes too big. "Look," she says, "My feet are this big and they are this big! So they fit!". She was traispsing around ins some lovely pink dress shoes with pointy open toes and a small heel. Other treasures? A pair of white cowboy boots! She showed Chris and he said, No way. I don't like them. So she told Adrienne later that, "Daddy don't like them!" with her very serious face.

Gemma's baby

2009-11-15T06:30:00.000-08:00

The imagination of toddlers...

Something Gemma loves to play with in the bathtub is hand towels and face clothes. She needs like 6 of them and then drapes them over the tap making a tower, or whatever. The last few months she's been pretending they are a baby.

She balls them all up and then cuddles it. And announces it is her baby. And she wants to bring her baby out. One time I got her a pan to put her baby in (you know those times you think it will be only one time and turns out to be the beginning of a very long tradition?) So now she always asks for a pan for her baby. (Usually it is a loaf pan, but sometimes it is an 8inch circle pan). She gently places her soaking, saggy, dripping baby into the pan, and refuses to let you dump it out. Weird, right? (I am reminded of Kaitlyn and her sleeping with the spatula days...)

turning the corner?

2009-11-13T08:54:00.000-08:00

She slept completely through the night the last two nights. My toes are crossed, my fingers are crossed and every piece of wood in this house has been knocked on. Could it be we are rounding this corner?

Birthday

2009-11-13T08:46:00.000-08:00

We are starting to get ready for the birthday party. Decisions to made on:
date
time
snacks? supper?
cake? There are about a million Dora cakes to choose from
decorations
guest list

Have some stuff organized, but not much. This weekend I'll get to it.

What does Gemma want? Hmmm, pretty much anything. She loves to say when we go out shopping, Can I get this for my birthday? It could be a pen, a drink, a book... On the real gift list is sand for her mini sandbox, construction paper, new paints, a dora doll with clothes I bought from Kijiji this summer, and some barrettes and hair things. A late birthday is good because any extra presents she gets can be saved until Christmas. She loves princesses, she needs some new coloring books.

We'll keep you in the loop.

Let's have a meeting

2009-11-04T05:43:00.000-08:00

You can tell that Chris and I do a lot of church work; Gemma is all about meetings. She sits down with either one of us and says, "Let's have a meeting." So we pick a topic and ask eachother questions about it. We've had lots of meetings about Gemma's upcoming birthday, we talk about what we are going to do that day, or about Gemma's bedroom. Whatever. Today at Starbucks Chris and Gemma had a meeting about coffee. Chris asks her, What kind of coffee do you like? She says, "Strawberry." They go through some dialogue about cream or sugar, room for milk, ice or hot. Then Gemma takes on the role of interviewer and asks Chris what kind of coffee he likes. Black is his reply. Well, the little wheels in her brain start turning... She thinks about this for a moment and then retorts, "'I like pink coffee" (get it? Because she liked strawberry coffee but learned you should use a color when describing coffee, so she thought back to her answer and what color it was.)

papier mache

2009-11-02T06:23:00.000-08:00

Had a great night of fun with Gemma. Took a nice walk, did some window shopping, then came home to finish up a papier mach project the nursery is working on for our church's 5th anniversary party this weekend. (Cinco de Pearlo). Gemma and I had to o the second layer because our friends are coming to help paint/decorate on Wednesday.

Her medicine makes her groggy and go to sleep really fast. Is it wrong of me to love that ;)

And today's lesson is...

2009-11-01T03:30:00.001-08:00

Don't put sticks in your mouth. Especially if you found them outside. And used them to make nature stew with every rock, leaf, berry, flower, etc, you found while playing outside.

This is what happened at our house today. Gemma came in from outside, with her stick. I caught her with the end in her mouth and said, Gemma, that is so gross! Take that out of your mouth. Well 5 minutes later she starts bawling her head off that her mouth is hurting and burning. I look at it and it is all red around her lips and chin, and on her palm where she was holding the stick. Of course I assume the stick has been in poison or something and I run Guinness to the neighbour and we head to the doctor.

No official diagnosis (sigh, Taiwan) but got some medicine and a recommendation from the dr. not to eat sticks anymore. Thanks, buddy. The red is gone, but then at church she started crying because she said her hands hurt, but that seems to be ok now.

Such is life.

That's what she said...

2009-10-14T07:35:00.001-07:00

Gemma was explaining to me how she wanted to do her America puzzle, and Chris and I were trying to tell her that, No, she couldn't do it because she needs help, Guinness was going to get it, etc... And so she said to Chris, "Ok, here's the deal..." and started explaining her situation. Heehee.

Also said today, "I love you so much so much so much so much..in the whole wide world." Adding in the whole wide world to anything makes it very very big in her mind.

We went out for a long walk after school today (oh wait, I stayed home from school because Guin was sick, I had a sore throat, and Chris wrecked his ankle playing ball) so anyway, this afternoon we went out for a walk and looked at the Sanrio store (makers of Hello Kitty, a pet store, and a few other places. It was a lovely afternoon walk with my kids.

Hurray!

2009-10-06T08:50:00.000-07:00

She's potty trained!!!

I'm being played!!!

2009-09-27T08:02:00.000-07:00

Wow! And unreal conversation took place tonight as Gemma was falling asleep...

Gemma was awake in bed, I was working in my bedroom, and Chris had just gotten home so he was in saying goodnight to her. She said, "Mommy's working, so Daddy, you lay down with me," And then Chris said, "No, I think you can go to bed by yourself," and she said, "Then I will just go like this: 'Mommy?'" Unaware of the conversation taking place in her bed, I replied (as I always do,) "Yes Gemma?", and she turned to Chris and said, "See?" with a look of mischief on her face, knowing that she is the puppet master of bedtime.

I am a sucker!!!!

Staff Retreat

2009-09-20T06:53:00.000-07:00

It was our annual staff retreat at Green Bay this weekend (thursday friday) and it was awesome!!

Got to the hotel at about 4, jumped into our swim gear and hit the beach. Gemma LOVES the waves and the sand, and it was so perfect weather wise. She jumped the waves and slid down the sand hills, getting completely covered. Friday we spent the whole day at the pool (the ocean was a bit rough, and the sand super hot). Good thing we had one of those wetsuit style bathing suits, because Gemma got a super tan on her lower legs and forearms. Such a wonderful time.

It finally happened...

2009-09-10T08:17:00.000-07:00

The conversation that was made famous by the movie Kindergarten Cop:

"Mommy, Guinness has a pokey thing and I have (pause) bumps."

And I say Hmm, 'uh huh...' and then a little dog walked by and Gemma added, "And dogs have...THAT!"

Yep, it was funny.