3.5

This week our Mr. Lo turned three and a half years old. I have not been very consistent doing age reports for awhile but figured I might as well give him a little spotlight. He seems like such a grown up kid most of the time, but then has moments when I remember he has only been on this earth a short little while. Things he does: Shares (willingly and happily much of the time but sometimes needs reminding to wait until other kids are done before he tries to take a turn); Bikes (he got a balance bike last summer and rides it almost every day. Our longest route is 4 miles round trip and he gets tired but is a trooper!); Sings (his favorite part of church is singing time in Primary and I hear his sweet melodies around the house as he rehearses either songs he has just learned in school/church or songs he makes up on the spot); Potties (deserves a post of its own, but the short story is that he insisted on potty training himself last year right after we moved back from Texas--ditched diapers cold-turkey daytime/nighttime included and it went pretty well overall); Pretends (he makes up stories, likes to role play, hide and jump out at me as if he is a monster, etc.; Eats (only consumes about one good meal every 2-3 days but isn't picky overall) Still nurses each evening as part of his bedtime routine; Sleeps -for about a year now has slept in his own room all night long, even getting up to potty at night without needing help most of the time.  He goes to bed between 7-7:30 and wakes around 6:30-7am.  About a month ago, I weaned him off of napping entirely because he was only napping a few days per week anyway and it bothered me to have inconsistency.  And it messed with his bedtime when he sometimes napped/sometimes didn't.  So anyway, I'm relieved he's done napping.  It makes scheduling our days simpler.   "Reads;" okay, not really, but he does the pre-reading pretending sort of reading, like telling me, "I'll read it," and turns the pages, telling the story as he has memorized it or making it up based on the illustrations, etc. He also LOVES to be read to still and will sit still for whole stacks of books. He seems to like any genre and a whole host of subjects. One of his recent favorite topics to read about is bats. He often says, "I can read this book because it is a Chinese book, but you can't read it Mommy because you aren't Chinese." And then he'll pretend to read to me in Chinese. I love it. Helps (he enjoys mopping up his own spills, like when he overflows/floods the bathroom every night during his bath or pours his own milk from the jug. He also enjoys entertaining his younger sister and frequently requests, "Mom please can I hold my sister?" Cooks/Bakes (with a lot of assistance of course he commonly makes pancakes, play dough, pizza, cookies, bread, and without assistance is able to get himself simple snacks). Usually I ask him, "What should we have for dinner?" and he gives me great ideas. He likes measuring and stirring dry ingredients most and sometimes protests when I say it is time to add the wet ingredients. He doesn't like getting messing. I need to rearrange the kitchen to put more items within his reach but then am not sure how to simultaneously baby-proof it soon for Baby Ro). I wish I had time to write more about him because he is such a complex, amazingly developed little person and I am sure I've missed important categories. But I'm running out of time and need to get to bed so that's it for now...

Walmart & Me: the story of my fickle heart

I remember feeling neutral about Walmart as I was growing up.  Then, in a college writing class one day I recall vividly a classmate saying, "There is something evil about Walmart.  I feel shivery when I see that yellow smiley face."  Soon enough I agreed with her--learning the "true cost behind everyday low prices."  When my husband sought out supply chain internships partway through our time at BYU, I talked him out of applying for one with Walmart--even though the company is a supply chain guru.  Fast forward a few years and we'd moved a dozen times.  I found myself feeling oddly comforted by the consistency of Walmart stores no matter where we went.  Utah, Massachusetts, Ohio, Texas, Idaho, California...Walmart is everywhere and 99% the same everywhere.  I have loved not having to re-learn which aisles hold my groceries every time we move.  Since moving to California, we have shopped at Walmart a lot because we have a supercenter just a 5 min. walk away from our apartment.  It was a big reason why we chose this apartment. And lately I have been singing songs of adoration to Walmart.  Why?  Somebody at Walmart is a GENIUS I tell you: the store now delivers groceries.  For free (with a small minimum purchase amount which the average household would have no trouble reaching) groceries can be bought online and show up in a matter of hours at the doorstep.  Three nights ago, Jerry and I enjoyed ourselves browsing online and got our grocery shopping done in a fraction of the time it would have taken to walk all around the store with two kids in tow.  At 9:55pm, we signed off our computer and went to bed.  Then, magically in the morning right before Jerry headed off to work, a delivery man brought to our apartment all the goods we'd bought the night before.  We had cold milk, frozen veggies, batteries,  dental floss, etc. SO WONDERFUL.  Don't you all wish you lived where we live.  Does Walmart deliver in your area? 

St. Patrick's Day Miracle

I feel a little silly posting it a month after the fact, but we had a memorable St. Patrick's Day this year. We invited some friends to dinner; however at the last minute they were unable to show up. Jerry and I stared blankly around at our lavish feast (Corned Beef of course) and wondered how to break the news to our little boy. He'd anticipated having friends over and would feel beyond disappointed that they were not coming.

Jerry blew bubbles for the kids.  Lots of laughter! And check out their festive green outfits.  :)

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Right at the time we realized our other guests were not coming, we heard a knock on the door. Our neighbors were there delivering "Leprechaun cookies." Cute tradition, btw. Green sugar cookies rolled in rainbow sprinkles. We told them of our plight--a holiday meal with nobody to share it with--and they obliged our request for their company. Mr. Lo had a blast playing with their 4-year-old girl and we enjoyed getting to know our neighbors better. Jerry and I regarded it as a blessing from God. A tender mercy that Lo was given a friend that night. I have no doubt God's hand touches our lives for good every day--"God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs” (Spencer W. Kimball)

Preschool

One of my FAVORITE parts of living here in the Bay Area is having more Chinese resources than we know what to do with. For example, a few months ago when we started the hunt for a Perfect Preschool we ended up finding several that were Chinese and it has been tough narrowing it down to where we want to send our precious Mr. Lo. The first preschool we toured shall be termed "Classic Chinese." It was a bit heavy-handed in their academic expectations for 3 yr olds IMHO. The next preschool we toured was Christian-Chinese and I adore the head teacher/director because she is skillful, experienced, and radiates love for everybody. A great combo. Her preschool had no openings, but we managed to squeeze ourselves into two sessions of their summer camp after being on a wait-list. Yes did I mention preschool is competitive here. And expensive. Relatively. Anyway, the preschool we ended up going with after touring a total of 4 and looking into countless others is *drumroll* a Mandarin Chinese immersion play-based.  

Walking out the door on his first day of school!  As his mother, I can completely see the nervous/excited mixture of emotions in his face and body language.  Oh my precious little guy, looking at this photo I just want to give him a big hug!

Since we moved here after the semester had started, we didn't get into this preschool right away. But an opening came up and we were offered a spot. The tricky part is, Lo's classmates had been in the Chinese environment since last September, so we wondered how well he could keep up in class. We've spoken very little Mandarin to him at home, and the class is 90% Mandarin immersion. A few days ago I asked Ma Laoshi how our son is adjusting. She laughed as she told me, "Even if he does not know what is going on, he still is always opening his mouth!" Which these teachers see as a positive trait. :) "The kids we have trouble with are the quiet ones," she explained. "We need them to be participating, talking, and actively involved so we know what they are understanding and how to guide their language learning." Lo has always been a loud and enthusiastic learner so his learning style fits how this classroom is set up. Also, the teacher praised, "he has a good personality. If he is feeling bad about something, it is gone quickly and his big smile comes right back." 

Ma Laoshi is the head teacher.  She is fantastic, full of energy (note the athletic shoes) and so cute how she interacts with the kids.  Last night as Mr. Lo was talking himself to sleep, I overheard on the monitor him saying "Ma Laoshi..."

Resilience is Mr. Lo's hallmark trait. I am so proud of my sweet little boy! He is eager to interact with others and generally a delight to be around. When he came home from school after his first day, we were having lunch and talking about his school papers. "Let me show you how, Mom," he admonished. "You don't know how, but I know how." He showed me how he had learned to count in Chinese.  He is so pleased with himself for speaking a language his mother does not know. I'm thrilled to see the positive effect preschool has had on him. I know from personal experience how painful it can be trying to learn Chinese as an adult.  There's a reason the missionary training center gives twice as much time to Chinese learners as compared to Spanish-learners.  So our family has made it a big priority to raise our kids multilingual.  It is also worth mentioning that this school is strictly drop-off style to encourage teacher/student interaction. I feared this aspect of preschool a bit because Mr. Lo never went to church nursery alone (cried if we tried to leave), and I still attend the current church class Sunbeams with him, we rarely leave him with any type of babysitter and if we do it is usually a close friend or family member he knows well, etc. However, on that first day of school, though I could tell he was nervous, he had no trouble saying goodbye to me. Oh the power of a well-prepped environment and skillful teacher. Also, I think it helped that we read a handful of books from the library on the subject of starting school. I censored the books even, knowing from my hypnosis training how much better it is to give 100% positive material to kids than even a little bit of negative that gets resolved (the brain tends to hang onto the negative and give it more weight). One more idea I had that probably helped was that I emailed all the other parents of students in this preschool and let them know Lo was starting the following week.  I requested a playdate to help Lo make friends before his first day of class, and got many friendly responses.  We ended up having four other classmates of Lo meet us at a park a few days before he started school.  It really helped him get to know the other students and feel more comfortable on his first day.

It feels momentous for our son to start this chapter of his life.  I see it as the beginning of him accepting significant influence from people outside our close inner social circle.   We have taken the leap, embarked on the path, and look forward to all the joys, challenges and progression of the future.  Education is a wonderful gift.

Note: living next-door to a homeless encampment has changed my prayers.  I now sincerely thank God every day that I have a roof over my head, a bed to sleep in, food to eat and family to love.  I also recently discovered I live next door in our apartment complex to a mother who cannot read or write in any language because she never had an opportunity for education in the country where she grew up.  And so my prayers have grown more tender still, thanking God that I can raise my children in this land of opportunity.  I am so glad to send my son to preschool!  Chinese preschool!  It is wonderful. 

Oh what do you do with a bald baby

Put purple things on her head of course. Jerry calls the first hat "purple pineapple."

She's in a chewy phase.  Her favorite foods are: clothing, paper, plastic bags (there's a reason they have warnings printed on them to keep out of reach of children), and hands (hers and any other person's that get in her reach).  But in a pinch, the side of a bathtub will do for a snack. 

She's not a rabbit afterall

We had General Conference this weekend.  I'd  feel obligated to post on it, except that I have three backlogged posts already that are all just half done.  So I want to start working on getting things posted.  Here's one down, two to go...

Superheros

Mr. Lo has been using an old laptop to watch DVDs since we don't have a television. Today we couldn't get a DVD to play--the laptop kept making odd clicking noises--so I figured the computer was finally on its last leg. After trying for a few minutes, then leaving to take care of the baby, then coming back awhile later, I found Mr. Lo there fiddling with the disc drive portion of the laptop. "I think the reason it won't play is because of this bread I put in there." He poked around in the disc drive inner portion and sure enough, I saw a huge crusty crumb. A second later with tweezers in hand, I had the crumb removed and the DVD (Barney) playing. "We are superheros actually," my son hollered gleefully. "We saved the computer and we saved Baby Ro!" Not sure where he got the "saved the baby" part, except that I'd gone to help her halfway through the computer project, but yes. I feel like a superhero most days even just doing the basics: dishes washed, dinner made, toys picked up, family happy. Saving the world. Speaking of which, the reason I started that DVD is so I could finish making dinner. So off I go.

Lincoln Logs

$2.99 at Goodwill. Lo's new favorite toy.

update: I threw the Lincoln Log set in the trash about a day after blogging this post because the pieces were driving me bonkers getting left all over the house.  Later after Lo went to bed I fished it out of the trash and hid it in my closet.  And then a week later (today) I tentatively brought it back out again only to yet again find myself picking up a billion pieces of miniature logs and stepping on sharp log house roofs and so forth.  So back into the closet it goes.  Not sure why this particular toy is so hard to get cleaned up--Mega Bloks don't give us any trouble. 

Baby Blessing

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we do not baptize or christen babies but men who have the priesthood can give what is known as a blessing. Jerry blessed our sweet little girl about a month ago and even though we waited to do the blessing after our move to California, we were able to have lots of family members present. It was an exciting day!

My cousin Jeff, his wife Gena, and two of their girls (Gwen and Mimi...Emma was home sick).  Not pictured is my cousin Lillie and her family who also came. 

 

My Aunt Gaylene gave our baby this cap.  She wore it during the blessing, and looked a perfect angel with her bright black eyes gazing up at her daddy as he spoke the words of the blessing.  She was awake for the blessing, but quietly alert (yes she is a perfect baby). 

Here she is examining the lace texture.  She is absolutely in the "explore with her hands" phase of babyhood, even grabbing toys and bringing them to her mouth these days. 

I had a coupon for a free print at Sears portraits so we took her there for some more formal shots in her blessing attire.  And for these ones we used a bow on her head instead of the cap.  Her dress was a comfy spandex type of material with lace overlay--we borrowed the dress from my sister.  Thanks Boo! 

Clothing

Have we mentioned that Mr. Lo could dress himself entirely over the past summer (shortly before he turned three years old) but then seemed to lose that skill around the time his baby sister came along. He's recently regained his desire to dress himself. Hallelujah. Here he is wearing a backwards tee because he put it on himself. We thought it was cute. :)

Sorry, not sure why that iphone pic won't stay rotated the correct direction. We had to photograph Mr. Lo wearing sweatpants a few nights ago because he has not willingly put on a pair of pants for nearly a whole year now. Last Spring in Boise, Lo accidentally ran into a patch of cheat grass (sp?) and his pant legs got covered in "poky stickers." Ever since then, he is claims that wearing pants pricks his legs, so he prefers shorts. Plus also, "shorts make people run faster." So anyway, Yes. Momentous occasion for him to don those green sweatpants.  He took them off a few minutes later.   I noticed that dressing Baby Ro in Valentine's apparel last month was easy--girl clothes are all about hearts, pink, loves this and loves that, etc. So this is our girl the night we went to our ward Valentine's party.  I thought she looked sweet, but take note of her patchy hair and realize why I gave in to the temptation to shave it all off.  (sorry still have not uploaded photos of the new baldy).