the Honk Shoe

The Honk Shoe sounds a bit like the name of a country-western bar, doesn't it?

It isn't.

Honk Shoe is part of the well-scripted nighttime routine here at our house.

The last few minutes before bed can get a bit silly, and Matt handles the rowdiness much better than I do. When he is out for the evening and I'm running bedtime on my own, it's a pretty serious business. But Matt has more capacity for silliness, and the girls tend to know what they can get away with on which nights.

I like to have fun and join in the silly business when Matt is around. A few weeks ago while the girls were making their final trips to the potty I hid in the covers of Julianna's bed. They had quite the time "finding" me and laughed so hard at the idea of Mommy sleeping in their beds. I don't really fit in their short little beds, which just added to the hilarity.

Another frequent request that I hear practically every night is "do the pretty special". The girls talented grandmothers handmade blankets for them when they were born. So Julianna and Lydia both have two blankets that they sleep under every night. (Isaac has his blankets too, but he doesn't sleep under them yet!)

So the "pretty special" is when the girls lay super still on their beds and I cover them with the blankets - spreading them perfectly and carefully so that all the corners and edges are perfectly straight. The first time I did it Julianna said "that's pretty special" and the name stuck.

But my current favorite is when they ask me to "sleep with them". They LOVE LOVE LOVE it if I lay down on their beds and pretend to fall fast asleep. I like to flop down beside them, lay my head on their pillow, close my eyes and pretend to snore.

Apparently, when I pretend to snore, it sounds like I am repeating "honk shoe, honk shoe, honk shoe". Because now when I lay down beside Lydia she dictates: "Mommy put your head on my pillow and say honk shoe honk shoe." Which just makes me laugh. And is also proof that I don't snore in real life, since I can't even do a good job at pretend snoring.

Of course since there are two of them I have to flop on one bed, find the pillow, close my eyes, say 'honk shoe honk shoe' for a few moments, and then launch right up and repeat the entire scene on bed #2.

Oh how those little girls make me laugh!

sibling photos

I love to watch our children play together.

The girls are practically inseparable when we are at home. There is plenty of fighting, but lots of fun too.

I don't usually take pictures of the fighting. But this post has me thinking that maybe I'll try to snap a few photos to document selfishness and the sour attitudes that it breeds. Ha. The girls sure would be surprised if I pulled out my camera the next time a big duel erupts, don't you think?



Julianna can be really patient with her sister and Lydia is sometimes willing to accept help from Julianna when she won't accept help from me.


In the past few weeks they have started to really enjoy including Isaac in the play times too. He seems a bit sturdier these days, and though I try to keep a close eye on everyone, I am more and more willing to let the three of them play together on their own.


Here they are all lined up for the beginning of a webcam session. Julianna is sitting half on one chair & half on the other to make room for Isaac (who is slumping over onto his big sister's shoulder)!


So fun!

the king of the world problem

I had some fun photos from the past few days to upload, but our archaic internet connection is not cooperating. Actually, archaic probably isn't the right word, since I'm not sure "archaic" and "internet" belong in the same sentence. But my point stands: sometimes our internet crawls and I long for the days when we used a 56k modem to connect to the world wide web. [It's not really as slow as a 56k modem, but some days it seems like it.]

Anyways. Enough complaining about the internet.

Did you know that one of our neighbors bought a drum set?

There's nothing like apartment living to drive home the truth that I am not the king of the world. But some days I still like to dream that I am. And let me assure you, if I was the king of the world, I would certainly outlaw drum sets in our apartment complex.

So the drum set got me thinking. If I had to vote for one of my children as "king of the world", who would I choose?

If Julianna was king of the world she would color every day, with a never ending fresh supply of markers and crayons and paints. She'd have a band of admirers gathered round, ready to join in the coloring fun, provide expert advice in response to questions like, "do you think I should make the bird's wings green?" and tape all her creations to any nearby available wall surface.

It would be fun for a while, but in the end, Julianna would probably get tired of all the attention and abdicate the throne.

Her little sister would gladly step up. And thrive.

Lydia loves to be served. To be coddled. To be held. It's a tricky personality to read, at least for a mother. There are times when she is crushed by my suggestion that I could help her put on her socks. Tears well up in her eyes and her face crumples as she tells me that she "will do it by myself". And she does.

There are other times she chooses to wait, refuses to do something that she can do perfectly well on her own, and insists that I do it for her. This does not go over well with mommy, who will not be manipulated by a 2 year old who wishes she was king of the world.

If she was king, I think she'd tend towards tyranny. Everyone would live in fear of the sock problem - do I suggest that I could help? Or watch the king proudly accomplish all her independent feats on her own?

Oh gracious me, she'd be quite the king.

And Isaac. If I had to choose between the three of them, right now I would definitely vote Isaac for king of the world. I've got him wrapped around my little finger!

In some ways he's super outgoing. He loves people. He is (usually) happy in anybody's arms. And he's got a killer smile that can make anyone feel like he loves them best of all.

But the truth of it is, after 6 months of loving and cuddling and feeding, Isaac loves his mommy best of all. Being his favorite is a role I'm happy to have for a while. There's nothing quite like being the mommy of a 6 month old.

And so, in anticipation of my role as "mommy of the 6 month old king", I'd definitely vote for Isaac as king of the world.

His first royal decree would outlaw drum sets in apartment complexes.

the chaos factor: up one notch

A week has passed since I started feeding Isaac some solid foods. And I must admit, Isaac at the table has definitely increased the chaos factor a bit. I feel a little bit like an over-worked waitress with three very demanding customers.

Julianna's demands are on the verbal spectrum. She talks the entire meal, and expects me to listen and respond to every single comment or question or thought she generates. It's a tall order, and one that I can not live up to.

Lydia needs constant visual surveillance. "Put your plate on the table." "Use your fork, not your fingers." "No sharing food with your sister." "Can I help you cut your chicken?" Repeat. For the entire meal.

Isaac, well his demands are physical. Scoop up some food. Spoon into mouth. Gather up the excess that somehow missed his mouth. Re-feed the salvaged food. Scoop up some more food. Spoon it into his mouth. Gather up the stuff that is dripping off his chin. Re-feed the chin drippage. And over and over again.

By the end of the meal my brain (Julianna), my eyes (Lydia) and my hands (Isaac) are exhausted.

Isaac is doing great though, and it's fun to see him enjoy a whole new world of food. I think this must be such a fascinating time in the life of an infant. For the first 6 months of his life he ate one food. In the past week he's added rice cereal, apples, pumpkin, eggplant, pears and potato. He's taste buds must be exploding :)

So I think it's worth the chaos to watch him enjoy his new world of foods. I'm trying to convince myself that it is.

homework? seriously?

When Julianna graduated to the middle class a few weeks ago the school headmaster told us that it was more "academic". She encouraged us to send Julianna 3 mornings a week, instead of just 2, so she could keep up with her classmates.

All her classmates attend 5 days a week, full days. The afternoon is mostly rest time and some play, so we choose to pick her up at mid-day. And I wasn't ready to send her 5 days a week, so last year we opted for 2 days. It worked fine.

But since the middle class was more "academic" we agreed to the 3 mornings a week plan. In the back of my head I still thought that the headmaster's "academic" comment was just fluff. After all, how "academic" can preschool really be? [I always thought preschool was usually a bit of a euphemism for daycare anyways.]

So I gave no more thought to the "academic" comment until last week when Julianna got her first homework assignment. Yes. Homework. In the 4 year old class (Julianna won't be 4 til December, but she kind of jumped through a loophole to get in this class - everyone else is 4 already.)

So, I guess the headmaster's "middle class is more academic" comment was meant to prepare me for the homework.

School here is intensely competitive at an early age. Last fall there was a bulletin board on the wall outside one classroom that read in huge print "come and look, who's is the best?" Under that heading was a display of student's work.

Nothing like having your work displayed under the "who's is the best?" heading to inspire a little competition among the 4 year old class, huh?

Reality is, Julianna's will never be the best. She's operating in her second language. But in my book, she's the best almost-4-year-old I know!

eating Isaac

So I did it. Mixed up a bit of rice cereal and spooned it towards this adorable little face.....

And he ate it. And smeared it. And spit it. And slobbered it. And had a wonderful time.


The girls were thrilled. Lydia literally pulled the tray off his high chair trying to get a better look. I wonder when the "wonder" of this little guy will wear off? They are enchanted with him.

starting solids?

Today is Isaac's 6 month birthday. He is such a delightful little guy, full of smiles and so easy to cuddle. I love it!

He's growing fast and loves to eat. Loves. To. Eat. I was hoping to put off solids a little longer, but I am starting to feel the effects of his incessant demand for more, so I might go ahead and whip up some rice cereal for the little guy.

Xiao Li (who is a baby food making professional!) is making pumpkin today and apples tomorrow.... so we're all set, I just have to get out the baby spoons.

Lucky me, the girls have already been doing lots of "training runs" with Isaac. They love to cook in their little kitchen, and are always eager for someone to 'taste' their creations. Lydia runs up to me with a plastic bowl and spoon, stirring furiously and asking "do you want to taste my pumpkin soup" or "can I make you some coffee? You want it hot or warm?" Julianna tends to specialize in pie. Her current favorite is something she calls "chocolate zero pie" and she loves to bring me a bite.

Now, I don't mind sitting on the floor with them and playing 'kitchen'. We set the table, make all kinds of specialties in their little oven, and have a grand 'ole time. But I don't have the patience for all-day taste-testing, especially when I'm in the middle of switching laundry, or changing Isaac's diaper, or sweeping the floor .... "taste it Mommy, taste it. No, it's hot, blow on it first. Blow a lot or it will burn your mouth. Do you like it? Want some more?"

Enter Isaac.


The perfect taster. After all, he puts everything in his mouth.

It's a match made in heaven. They cook. They bring their creation to Isaac. He grabs the bowl, spoon, plastic purple eggplant, whatever they bring and puts it straight in his mouth. The girls love it. "He likes it. He's eating it. He likes my chocolate zero pie!" The girls have never cooked for such a willing taste-tester.

Hopefully all this practice will have him ready for the real thing.

my own Sprite

Matt had a lot of errands to do in the city today so he took Julianna along on the back of his bike. It's an hour ride just to get downtown, but Julianna has an amazing endurance for bike riding so she was the perfect companion.

In the middle of all their stops, they went on a 'date' for lunch. The highlight for Julianna was - without question - getting to drink her own Sprite. She was all grins telling me about it! They talked about all kinds of important topics. Matt and Julianna both have a little brother and a little sister, so that's a fun thing for them to share.



Lydia and Isaac and I did not drink Sprite, but we did have a good day here at home. Lydia loves to take toys to Isaac and take toys from Isaac. It's a fragile, but growing, friendship :)

feeling two years

I remembered yesterday that this week marks two years since our last trip to the United States. I cannot recall the exact date we left America, but I know it was before Lydia was a month old, so it was sometime right before September 15, 2007.

In some ways, I can't believe it's been two years already. And other times it feels like that last trip was so long ago.

Time is like that. At least it is for me. Time is so connected to emotion, so that the way I feel about time determines a lot. So some days I feel like it has been ages since our last trip, and I really miss some things and people and experiences in America. Other days I feel like time is passing so quickly, and it feels like just yesterday that Lydia was a teeny tiny baby boarding a big airplane headed across the Pacific.

The (relative) stability has been really good for our family. We've done some significant travel in the past two years, but only in SE Asia. Our longest times away from home were the 5 weeks up north in March 2009 when Isaac was born, and a 4 week trip to Thailand the summer of 2008.

In our lifestyle, that doesn't qualify as a lot of travel and transition :)

Our current (tentative) plans are to spend 6 months in America during the fall of 2010. I am excited. Excited to be with friends and family. Excited to see our children experience some of America. Excited to enjoy the 'niceties' of life in America... like minivans and dishwashers and backyards and big washing machines.

But I am also excited to be here. This is home. This is where we live. Now America feels like a place to visit. Home is a place to live.

So I'll be ready to get on that airplane next summer. But I'm not counting the days.

I will probably cry the day we take off, so sad to leave. And probably cry the next day when we finally land, so happy to arrive! [And probably cry during the trip when the tasks and turmoil of toting a family of 5 plus six months of belongings overwhelms me and I burst into tears in the Chicago airport. But that's a whole different topic.]

zero o'clock am

Yesterday I took a quick trip to a city north of us, just for the day.

It was a role reversal for Matt and me. He does the 'quick one or two day trip' a few times each semester while I hold down the fort back at home. This time it was my turn to fly, and his turn to chase kids!

All went smoothly and I enjoyed my time there a lot. It was a very different day from what I am used to -

The not so fun part was discovering that my flight home was delayed about two hours and I didn't land here until "zero o'clock am". That's midnight, for those of you with little experience deciphering poor English translations.

All the announcements on domestic flights are translated into English, but it is usually nearly impossible to understand. The late hour, the poor pronunciation and the 'zero o'clock am' had me baffled for a moment.... I looked at my watch. "oh, midnight, she means that it is midnight".

I probably would have thought it was funny. But I am not easily amused when sitting on a runway at midnight.

Oh, and for those of you curious as to whether or not I've discovered any additional examples of "simplification" or "complexification".... the short answer is: we had no running water for a significant chunk of our day.

What do you think? Is cutting off the water for an apartment complex an attempt at simplification or complexification?

You know my vote.

complexify

I know that new words get added to the English language all the time. After more than a few years here, I'm pretty sure I've got a new word I'd like to add. COMPLEXIFY. As in "the opposite of simplify".

I just looked up "simplify" and this is what I found in an online dictionary -
"To make simple or simpler, as:
a. To reduce in complexity or extent.

b. To make easier to understand."

So, my definition of COMPLEXIFY would be -
"To make complex, as:
a. To increase in complexity or extent.
b. To make more difficult to understand."

Maybe I'm experiencing a bit of cultural stress,but it seems to me that this particular country is perfecting the art of complexification.

Sure, some things here are much simpler than in the States. Purchasing airplane tickets for example. You can buy tickets at the airport for same day of travel. Changing to a different flight or a different day or even a different destination is MUCH easier than in the States.

But I think I've gotten used to all those things and take them for granted now :) Which makes the complexification thing even more frustrating.

A few recent examples -

There are three gates into the neighborhood outdoor market (where we buy all our fruit, veggies, meat, etc.) For some unknown reason the powers-that-be have closed and locked one of the gates with a cheap chain and padlock. Guess which gate they locked? You got it, the one closest to me. I cannot think of one single reason why you would need to lock a perfectly good entrance into a very busy and crowded market. Well, I can think of one reason: practicing the art of complexification.

Example two: This past week one of the things on my ambitious "freezer week to do list" was to buy a few things online. Sounds simple enough. But factor in the art of complexification and you'd be surprised how difficult it can be!

The local version of ebay is a great site. The best thing is a 'live chat with the seller' option that means you really know exactly what you are getting, can bargain on price, and get accurate quotes for shipping based on your location. In the past I have very successfully used a prepaid credit option - go to the local post office, buy some prepaid credit, add it to your online account and shop away. Not this time. It took 5 trips to the post office before I managed to buy any prepaid money. Just thinking about writing all the details of the 4 failed trips makes me frustrated, so I'll skip the story. But trust me, the local post office really knows how to COMPLEXIFY!

Want another example? Last night I went shopping at a big supermarket type store- kind of like Target, but unfortunately not really like Target. I filled my cart and headed to the parking lot. Except, oops.... that's right, no carts allowed in the parking lot. Seems the store managers were keen to see some real complexification in action, so they restricted shopping carts to the sidewalk directly in front of the entrance. And they restricted car traffic from getting anywhere near the entrance. Which works great if you buy three things and can carry them in your pockets. It works not so great if your cart is so full you can barely push it and you need to get all your goods into the trunk of a car so you can go home.

If you doubt this complexification theory, you could test it out by accompanying Matt as he pays our bills. I assure you that you cannot fathom the number of banks and lines and paper slips and rubber stamps and "come back tomorrows" involved in bill paying. One thing is for sure, the guy who came up with the bill paying system had a graduate level degree is complexification.

So, in the interest of (trying to) maintain a good attitude about all the complexity, I will stop here. And maybe I'll spend the day thinking of all the things that really are simple here. If I'm successful, I'll put them in tomorrow's post. Don't hold your breath :)

the quest for the perfect sandwich bread

There is a reason the local population eats rice with every meal.

The commercially available bread tastes terrible.

Ha ha. Of course, that isn't the real reason. But it is a major deterrent for anyone who might consider making the switch from rice to bread.

An entire grocery store aisle devoted just to bread - sandwich loaves, hamburger buns, English muffins, dinner rolls - is unfathomable here.

Instead there are little bakeries, and some of the stuff they sell looks tantalizing. But it isn't. Trust me. I'm pretty sure I have not met a single westerner who likes the bread from those shops.

When we lived in the city I frequently bought sandwich bread from a western-run bakery. I liked it okay. But the baked loaves were either too large or too small, and it was sliced too thick. Plus there was something a little funky about the texture.

After moving out to the suburbs, getting bread from the bakery was more and more difficult. So I started making more of our own bread. Yeast rolls, batter bread, beer bread, cinnamon rolls, oatmeal bread.... I made it all. Just a few weeks ago I finally got a recipe for bread bowls that I really like. I served them filled with spicy chicken chili. It was just like being at Panera. Except I did all the work :)

So a few months ago I decided to work on a good, basic bread that would be perfect for toast and sandwiches. Loaves perfectly sized for our toaster. Just the right texture. Easily sliced thin. And a fairly simple recipe.



And after a few fits and starts, adjustments and alterations, I've landed on a winner!
I made three more loaves yesterday.


It is SO GOOD! And our house smells so wonderful when it is baking. Doesn't it make you want to make up a sandwich and head out for a picnic?

the artist in her

This post is for the grandparents, I'm not sure anyone else is remotely interested :)

But, my sweet Julianna is becoming quite the little artist. A few weeks ago she drew this for Lydia on her birthday....


It's abstract :)

The larger purple circle is a road, and the little bumps on it are the cars and trucks. The lines at the bottom (that resemble a bar code) are mountains. And the lollipop-looking things are trees. [Yes, some of the trees are orange. It's abstract art, remember?]

She also loves to color in coloring books. This week we've been talking about horses and she colored the picture below. (She also cut it out all by herself, can you tell?)


She loves to sit at the kitchen table and color. And I love to watch her enjoy her growing ability to really 'do' art.

She's still a craft-lover too. One thing on my to-do list is to beef up our collection of craft supplies. Unfortunately, it's not going to make it to the top of the list this week. But hopefully sometime this fall I will get over to the wholesale market and figure out where I can buy craft felt and googly eyes and pipe cleaners and other craft-y type things!

freezer week

I've decided that this week is freezer week. As in, this week we are eating every meal from the freezer. (Well, except breakfast. And except for Friday night when some college guys are coming to dinner.)

My deep freezer is really filling up. And my list of "projects to accomplish" is really getting long. So I'm hoping that the union of 'full freezer' and 'long projects list' will result in a lot of accomplished projects :)

On Monday I started a new list called "freezer week projects" and dove right in. Some of them are simple (clean out the craft basket) and others more complex (start thinking through the Christmas gifts list). But all of them need to get done. And all of them manage to get pushed to the side in the midst of the many every day tasks that fill my hours.

But this week, thanks to my full freezer, I am spending much less time in meal prep. And I hope that translates to spending more time on my "freezer week projects". Of course I still have some kitchen work - toss a salad, make mashed potatoes, boil corn on the cob. But the biggies, the main courses, the start-from-scratch pasta sauces and meat marinades and whatnot, that's all coming from the freezer!

My freezer week project list is pretty ambitious, but I am hopeful! I'll keep you posted on how it all turns out. And if you want to help me sort through the girls clothing or catch up on some long overdue correspondence, come on over!