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Holidays

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween
The kids were so fired up for Halloween. Katherine lay awake until 10PM last night telling me, “I’m so excited. I can’t sleep! (yawn)” Anyway, she headed off to school today dressed as a Chinese girl for Cultural Halloween. After Kindermusik, she come home to join me, Allison and my mom. Steve’s parents also stopped by for pictures of the kids dressed as Minnie Mousse.

A couple of funny stories:

Steve’s Mom: “Allison, what are you going to say when the door opens?”
Allison: “Helwo”
Katherine also took it upon herself to hand out candy after about 30 minutes of cold trick or treating with Allison and Steve. Here’s what would happen:
1) Doorbell rings
2) Katherine swings open door, profers candy, “Take any two pieces”
3) Allison scoots or skids to the front door to take her place next to her sister.
4) Allison exclaims, “I have gwowsticks!”
5) Kids says thanks. Katherine shuts the door, carries her bowl to the stairs and waits for the next kids.

Both girls were exhausted tonight.

Steve’s Birthday
This was perhaps the biggest blowout in family history:

1) Thursday – we constructed a new basketball hoop in our garage starting at 6:30PM and ending at 11PM. Lesson: it takes at least 3.5 hours to put one together, backwards!
2) Friday – we had a huge family party at our house. Steve, his cousin, uncle and Katherine manage to fix the basketball hoop.
3) Saturday – we go car and couch shopping. Steve and I go to dinner with friends.
4) Sunday – I finish car shopping. we go to the Trilogy Halloween party.

Funny enough, we’re not done yet with birthdays since Katherine’s birthday is right around the corner. Between this, various nasty colds, volunteer work, a trip to NYC, a broken dishwasher, and everything else, it’s been one of the craziest months ever.
Kid Conversations
We try so hard not to laugh at their conversations these days. One priceless story occurred while Allison had a cold and my mom took care of her. Apparently they went to QFC for a donut (why, i’m not sure). Allison peered into the donut case to select a chocolate donut. She carried it to the counter for my mom to pay. On the way out of the store, Allison tried to eat it and dropped it. Out of the sky, a crow flew to grab the donut. A week later, they’re back at QFC and my mom buys a donut for each kid.

On the way home:

Allison: “Kafrine”
Katherine: “What?”
Allison: “Kafrine, Pau-pau and I went to QFC. We bought you a chocolate donut!” Allison is also quite the comedian or jokester. I had noticed for a couple days an odiferous smell in the minivan. Rhetorically, I asked her as we were buckling up to pickup her sister from school, “Allison, what is that smell??” She replied, “Kafrine!” (Note: it was her car seat. I hosed it down a couple days later.)

For Halloween, Steve had decided to dress up as Professor Plum, completing a Clue team at work. He worked hard to dye a cheap blue suit that he bought at Value Village. I watched as he wrung it out and then put it through the wash, and then as he pulled out a….blue suit! Anyway, the next day he wore it as reading parent at school and then to work. The kids got the biggest kick out of it. Katherine called Dad, “Professor Plum.” Allison declared at the party, “Happy Birthday Professor Plum…Ha Ha Ha Ha” in gales of laughter. She got such a reaction from family members that she repeated it over and over for good measure with lots of laughing.

 

Your Shoulders are Crooked

Your Shoulders are Crooked

It was inevitable that Steve would have an incident on his bike. It just so happened this past weekend with STP (Seattle to Portland) bike race, in which an overloaded bike bag fell into his spokes and caused him to catapult over his handlebars and break his collarbone. The family has reacted in interesting ways. Katherine has tried to be very helpful, fetching Steve’s ice pack from the fridge and trying to “help.” Allison doesn’t really understand why Dad can’t give baths or big hugs, so she gets kind of whiny at times. Bisco wants to be around Steve whenever possible, even trying to mooch his way onto the bed last night. All in all, we’ll be happy when the next several weeks pass, and all returns to normal.

Derby Days (aka Free Parade + Candy)

For the second year now, we’ve marched in the Redmond Derby Days kids parade. This is the largest, or one of the largest, kids parade in the country. We arrived probably 30 minutes earlier than we needed to, so the kids were squirrelly by the time we started. Nonetheless, Katherine pedaled for half the parade, and Allison shared her Red Flyer wagon. The best part for them was the adult parade. Before the parade, we had put down in a nice shady spot a towel which a neighboring couple watched for us as we marched. After the kids parade, we settled on and near the towel with friends, and the kids were on the lookout for … candy! We probably have half a pound of candy that the “floats,” marchers and such threw or gave to the kids. Katherine and Allison ate quite a few pieces, at which point I confiscated the rest which is on top of the fridge probably until Halloween. ๐Ÿ™‚

After long naps, we headed back downtown for a quick dinner, the adult bike races (fast!) and the carnival. What we didn’t realize was that Allison was much too short for any of the rides. So, Katherine rode several rides by herself, and even a few with Dad. She loved the rollercoaster; Steve and she rode the first time. The second time she requested the last seat in their coaster and screamed all the way around!

Fourth of July

Aunt Sharon and Uncle Jamey visited for Fourth of July this year. We didn’t pick berries this year, since we still have frozen strawberries and raspberries from last year. But, we did make pie. Bisco went for long walks every night. We took the kids the park, to the Kirkland waterfront, to the aquarium. It was a generally relaxing long weekend.

 

Allison is now TWO years old!

Allison is now TWO years old!

After this past week, Allison has a much better grasp of her birthday. We hosted a party for her at our place last Sunday: 11 kids + 11 adults made for quite a busy house. Our theme this year was gardening. We went and bought little annuals, pots, potting soil and various plastic tools for the kids. They decorated their terra cotta pots with foam letters and stickers, selected and then “potted” their plants. This activity went reasonably well, despite a rather large age difference. The little ones who were Allison’s age really enjoyed just playing with the dirt, shovels, and pails. The big ones got into the spirit of things, by and large trying to do the activity end to end.

Memorable Moments:

– My mom held Allison while she blew out the 2 candles on her purple cupcake. No assistance required – those candles went out in a flash.
– Allison loved her gifts. One of her favorites was a new Corelle stroller, which she described as “my stroller” and rolled around the house for hours.
– Katherine really struggled to help in a meaningful way with gift opening. She ended up “starting” the unwrapping and watching Allison slowly peel paper off her gifts.

As the week progressed, Allison got a karaoke machine from Patty, books from the Bushes, clothes from Grandma Chang, a framed Allison print from Sharon/Jamey and….a toyhouse with little animals and furniture from Steve and I. By Wednesday, she exclaimed in a loud and forceful two-year old way, “I want MORE PRE-SENTS!” We explained that all presents had been opened. She declared, “more presents upstairs” and marched up to the TV room closet to see if any other gifts were hidden away.& It’s a good thing that birthdays only happen once a year. ๐Ÿ™‚

What are they learning?

We spend a lot of our time in the car listening to Dan Zanes, and in particular his latest album “Catch That Train.” It’s got some catchy tunes like “Loch Lomond” and “I don’t want your millions mister” which the kids love to try to sing to. We heard the latter& (a union protest song) at his latest concert in Seattle, which was very raucous but fun.& The former I& found& out last week is an Irish drinking song. So, you have to wonder what are these kids learning?!

Development Milestones

So I can remember this stuff later (Does Anyone Actually Read This Blog Besides Sharon?), here’s what the kids are up to.

Allison:

– She has started to preface just about everything with “my.” She is getting possessive of toys, but expects Katherine to “share.”
– She intersperses Chinese in her conversations with Mom and me, and Spanish with Patty.
– She wants to be included in and “see” everything. If Katherine and I work on a project in the kitchen, she pushes a stool so she can try and sit with us.
– She has started to talk about being afraid. For instance, if something scares her, she will cover her eyes with her hands (but still peek out) and say “I’m scared!”
– No is a very common word. She refused to take a walk with Bisco this afternoon (we eventually did), didn’t want to stay in her car seat (“I undo buckle”).
– Despite her terrible twoness, she is very polite and regularly says “Thank you mama!”
– She knows all upper case letters and almost all lower case, for instance mixing up “b” and “p.”
– She can count up to two items, telling me “two lauwn-mowauers” when seeing the neighbor’s gardeners outside, but count up to twenty (and sometimes thirty) easily.

Katherine:

– She displays a sense of order from school, ex. lining up her shoes neatly next to the wall, arranging place settings on her play table.
– She wants to do big person tasks. In one sitting, she learned how to use the manual pencil sharpener and sharpened almost a dozen pencils. She also told me that she has learned the bleaching work at school and can now help me spray and wipe down the counters!
– We call her a fashion-ista. She has a definite sense of what looks good vs. not and often provides input on my clothes telling me what she likes and what doesn’t match.
– She is pushing and trying to learn social boundaries with her classmates at school. For instance, we’re coaching her on how to talk about food, name calling and other interesting interactions.
– Despite some rather& scary& handwriting, her reading is progressing. She points at signs trying to read them out loud and reads common three letters words that she’s seen before fairly quickly. Today she said out of the blue, “TOP!” when she saw a sign for Top Food and Drugs.
– She can read the “o-clocks” on a regular, non-digital clock. For instance tonight, I pointed to a drawn clock in a book and she said “7 o’clock!” We would probably make more progress in this area if we actually had a& non-digital clock in the house (note to self: buy clock!).

Pre-Easter Festivities

Pre-Easter Festivities

Today was an extraordinarily busy day for the kids. We started with a pancake breakfast at Trilogy to benefit a foster child home in Seattle. Then, Katherine and I went to our weekly Chinese school, then to lunch and back home to meet Steve – who took Katherine to a birthday party at KidsQuest in the afternoon (whew!) Allison went to my mom’s house for a nap and then a visit to a nearby friend’s house. We then went to a friends house for pizza dinner. We’re just about all done in.

Perhaps the most endearing moment of the day occurred when the kids spotted the rather tall Easter Bunny at the breakfast. For only $2.50, we had a picture taken of the kids on our laps next to the bunny. Neither wanted any part of sitting on his/her? lap, especially the bunny must have topped 7 feet tall with the long ears. As we ate, they continued to peek at the bunny, which decided to mosey on over for a visit.

Poor Allison cowered in her chair. She first leaned away from it and gave a half-hearted wave and “bye Easter Bunny. ” As it came closer, she leaned her head onto the table, covering her eyes with her hand to hide. I reached over and held her – she bravely peeked over my shoulder and repeated several times, “Bye Easter Bunny.”

The girls fell asleep as soon as we put them down tonight – in anticipation of some serious egg hunting tomorrow, a brunch with friends and then a dinner with Steve’s extended family.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Today was a very special day for Katherine. She and her classmates at Eton had a big party – including a valentine swap, lots of snacks, face painting, games, crafts…She and Audrey climbed in the car at pickup today regaling me with the contents of their bags. Little did I know that a valentine swap including swapping candy and treats! Katherine’s bag was a hodge podge of valentines, candy, chocolate, pencils and such. We spent quite a bit of time in the car, with Audrey and I trying to convince Katherine that she should share some of her treats with Allison. Audrey’s reasoning…”Katherine, it’s greedy not to share.” Katherine finally came around and decided to share her non-chokable candy with Allison. Allison received one M&M and one Smarty – and of course wanted more. “Please …. Katherine, Share…Please…” I then settled matters by bringing out dessert, a little box of candy with four pieces of chocolate. All discussion of M&Ms and the M&Ms went away. Katherine took the cake for slow chocolate eating, finally finishing her little caramel after 10 minutes. Allison ate her coconut candy in about 5 minutes. She finally stuffed half of the chocolate in her mouth and went off to play.

Allison celebrated as well at Toby School yesterday. The little ones swapped valentines, brought in snacks to share and spent much time eating. According to Patty, Allison had a very proud moment where Ms. Ginny sings a song and then throws a stuffed snake. Having seen this myself in previous years, I can attest that this can take the kids and parents aback. But, Allison rallied, ran and brought the snack back to her teacher.

J…All Gone…Meola

Allison has been working with a little wooden alphabet puzzle for a couple months now. At first, she learned which pieces went where, often trying to put the H in the N and vice-versa. Then, she learned to put the puzzle together more and more quickly – now finishing the puzzle in a couple minutes very steadily in one sitting.

Little did I know that this puzzle was so attractive to the dog. A couple weeks ago, Katherine shrieked, “Mom…Bisco is eating the puzzle!” I ran into the family room to see Bisco chomping on a puzzle piece. I extracted the letter J from his mouth and threw it out. Allison quickly learned what happened. For the next couple days she would work on the puzzle, point at the J area and say, “J … All Gone” or “J…Meola.”  I finally found a replacement puzzle that doesn’t make sounds, have lower case, or any other fancy features. The old puzzle is now serving as spare parts (Bisco ate F the other day) and Allison can complete her puzzle at home. Interestingly enough, she has also started to learn her letters. She can recognize “A, B, H, J, K, M, Q, S, W, Y” and is trying to enuciate the letter sounds as well. She’s well on her way to learning her letters!

Do It Again! Read Again!

It’s becoming quite clear that Allison’s strengths are her spatial, verbal and musical skills. She often speaks in three word phrases and is picking up slang. For instance, Steve was roughhousing with the kids when we heard her pipe up and say, “That Cool!!” Or, she’ll run around and say, “Superman! Garbage Can!” (long story) or when playing with Katherine, “Share” or “My Turn” or “Allison Turn” or “Do it Again!” For instance, the other day Katherine originated a new game. It involves attaching a Slinky to the top of Allison’s little marble run with balls. One adult holds the run, another holds the other end of the Slinky allowing the kids to stuff balls down the Slinky and into the ball run. Allison was beside herself. She squealed; she danced in place with her little feet going up and down; she talked incessantly “Do it Again! Do it Again!” Speaking of spatial skills, other favorite games are building blocks, new Wedgits and Little People Amusement Park. Allison will call out “build house” and then run to her building blocks – looking for her cylindrical, colored wooden blocks. We try to see who can stack these blocks end on end and when they fall, Allison squeals “KABoom.”

Musically speaking, Allison’s repertoire of songs is long and growing. She sings many of her favorite baby songs and others from Toby School (Fish Swimming in the Water), songs that she’s picked up from my Mom (like Row, Row, Row Your Boat or a little Chinese song about Tigers), and songs that she’s picked up from Patty. Allison learns useful songs from Katherine like the Days of the Week song – starting out strong with Sunday and then petering a bit out with Thursday, Friday and Saturday before she belts out “These are the days of the week!”

Allison’s new favorite books: Any Dora book she can find, There’s a Wocket in my Pocket (She calls it “Pocket”), Twinkle Twinkle (lights up and plays music), Chugga Chugga Choo Choo (an old favorite from Katherine) and Where’s Coco (otherwise known as “Coco”).

We’ve also reached a milestone. After virtually everything being yellow, Allison is learning her colors. We’re starting with primary colors for now, and her batting average is increasing.

Get Down PLEASE

I must say this at least 20 times a day. In the late afternoon, I let the kids play in the family room while I cook in the kitchen. This works out pretty well because I can see just about everything that goes on – like when Allison climbs over the sofa to reach the window ledge and back again. Or, Katherine will lay out a blanket on the floor and practice jumping off the couch with her sister. Their new trick is having one of them sit on the little blue chair and then the other pull the back of the chair down. Needless to say, I’m not as efficient as I’d like to be because I have to intervene at times.  I’m hoping that common sense will kick in soon before someone truly gets hurt.

Snows Days…

7 Days of School

It’s a wonder I have any hair left on my head at all. I think I might have pulled it all out the last several weeks. Why? We’ve had only SEVEN days of school since December 14th. Between holidays and at least 5 snow days, our school routine is almost non-existent. This has resulted in very squirrely behavior of late, which I seriously hope dissipates as we get back into our school routine. Today was Katherine’s first day back at school in a week, and she had a hard time getting back into the swing of things.

Katherine Bush

Allison loves to say her sister’s name. A few weeks ago, Katherine told us that she wanted to nap in the minivan on the way to the Museum of Flight. No sooner did we leave the driveway did Allison start in…”Kathrine…Kafrine…Kathrine…” On and on this went. Finally, Katherine complained, “I can’t sleep because Allison keeps saying my name.” Now this has progressed. Allison runs around saying “Katherine Bush!!!” She’s so proud that she can say her sister’s first and last name.

Holiday Pictures

I’m not sure if we’ve uploaded all the Christmas pictures yet, but this is a sampling. My favorite picture of the kids is the one in front of the Molbak’s Poinsettia tree. They had just mowed down a scone and milk and were in good spirits. My other favorite is of Allison stacking crayons, because this gives you a good idea of how she plays. She’s very deliberate and concentrated in her efforts. She’s since moved on to stacking wooden blocks – counting as she stacks her cylindrical blocks higher and higher until they fall!

More Changes

Steve is back at work. After 6 years away, he’s back at Microsoft…but this time in Research. It’s only been 2 years and 2 months since I left, but it seems the company sure has changed a lot. Of course, if we think back to when we started years ago, the change is even more marked. But, all that said, I’m looking forward to the routine. Katherine is going thru the adjustment of not spending as much time with Steve, but I think she’ll be fine in a couple weeks (fingers crossed, knock on wood).