LoLo's new train set 1

Good Times

Mr. Lo has been known to comment countless times, "I'm a funny guy. I make people laugh."

Yes, yes you do, sweet child. And we love how you make YOURSELF laugh. :)

Little Gymnast

Normally our child seems to fall into the top percentile ranking of toddler energy. He loves to push his body to its physical limits, has a daring attitude, and seems overall a bit gifted in the athletics department (ahem, slightly biased mother speaking, I'll admit). Anyway, it was a huge concern for me when he sat quietly in my lap during the entire library storytime yesterday morning. Atypical to say the least. Sure enough, he came home from the library and crashed for an early nap, which he woke from just a little over an hour in, vomiting all over himself. His hair and neck, pillows, sheets, special blankie, etc. were covered in lovely stomach juices mixed with morning oatmeal breakfast. I put him in the bathtub (yes, he was wailing about it, just wanted cuddled)while I tried to clean up the bed mess. Once I had the tub nicely filled with soothing water and he'd calmed down a bit, he vomited again. I rinsed him off and dried him, dressed him, put him on the couch watching a DVD, and attempted to keep laundering the bedding. But of course he vomited again. So I changed his clothes again, gave him some water to sip, and this time set him on a towel on the couch watching the DVD while I laundered the other couch cushion that was saturated in vomit. Yes, we are renting this furniture. Well, the cycle of cleaning, vomiting, cleaning, vomiting, etc. continued all day long even after Jerry came home from work. Of course, we are healthy eaters who had nothing like saltine crackers, carbonated beverages, or even fruit juice or apple sauce on hand. So poor sickie Mr. Lo got to ride in the stroller as I walked to the store to purchase some stomach-soothing groceries. (Jerry had taken the car to work that day of course).

But what does all this have to do with gymnastics, you may be asking. Well, this morning Lo woke up as his usual bouncy self, so I opted to go ahead and let him attend the Little Gym class we'd scheduled. I think he had food poisoning instead of a stomach bug anyway (the night before he threw up, he insisted he wanted the piece of pizza that sat out in the car for over an hour and I'd let him eat it), so I rationalized it wasn't likely he'd pass on sickness to the other kids. He once again seemed to have more energy than just about any kid in the gymnastics class, so it reassured me he was feeling back to normal. And I felt so pleased at the way he figured out how to use the equipment. Observing his sheer joy at tumbling around on the mats, swinging on the bars, etc. brought me true parental pride. The photo above is just him doing a forward roll at a random fast food playplace, by the way--didn't bring my camera to the gym, but you get the idea.

Flashback to Hong Kong More than a Decade Ago...

So behind on blogging, I am tempted to commit to one of those "blog daily for a month" challenges just to make sure I get all the backlogged info posted. But we are moving this month. Sort of moving twice, in fact. So we'll see how much blogging gets done. Anyway, a few days ago we had the unexpected joy of having Jerry's missionary and his family stop by our home on their drive through town. This is the missionary that taught Jerry when he got baptized those many years ago in Hong Kong. Small world that they both find themselves now living in Texas!

Ben & Jerry. Yes, those are really their names, how awesome is that. We should have had some Ben & Jerry ice cream, but instead just ate generic brand ice cream...lol. We had Ben get video-recorded saying his memories of what it was like teaching Jerry. Such a special time to reminisce. I also enjoyed some great conversation with Ben's wife, Helen. After the visit ended, I commented to Jerry how energized I felt having such good socializing. Thanks for stopping by, Ben & fam!

Asian-mix kids are so darling! Clearly my favorite variety of child. These boys all have 2-syllable names that start with "L" so I kept accidentally calling the wrong child the wrong name all morning. :)

Mr. Lo had such a ball playing with these two boys.

Especially with Logan, the older boy. Lo kept saying, "Logan is a nice boy. He plays nice." These days Lo is very aware of "playing nice," and often coaches himself through rules of sharing and caring (though still has plenty of moments where his 2-year-old emotions get the better of him).