Archie's "predicament" and other funnies!

One of the things that keeps me sane while caring for and loving both a toddler and infant with all the craziness involved is the hilarious things that they say and do.

Funny 1:

Conversation on Day One of Potty Training.

Daddy: Archie, do you need to pee pee? (While working to keep Archie on the toilet)

Archie: (While trying to get off the toilet) I'm...PREDICAMENT.

Something is just too funny about hearing a toddler use that word.

Funny2:

Archie knows how to make a deal. The other day he decided he wanted the toy monkey Grace was currently playing with so he snatched it just like that. Then, without a word from anyone disappeared into his room to give her not one but TWO of his favorite little cars. Two for one. Grace made out like a bandit, huh?

Funny 3:

While I think that Archie's pretty much all boy and Grace is pretty much all girl, they seemed to get the traditional gender rolls reversed a bit today

Grace with her car:

Archie being a good daddy to his doll. This weird looking creature is the favorite dolly in our house, and I'm glad I've finally convinced Archie to call it WaWa (doll) instead of Grace.

Archie's actually doing really well with potty training. Today marks Day 5. In the past three days, we've only had 1.5 pee pee accidents. Way to go! Archie is a bit scared of his poo poo so we're still working on that but he always tells me as he's in the process of going and we rush to the bathroom. Archie earned his big boy underwear on Day 2. (Day 1 was bare bottomed.) And, he is now wearing pants as well. I have discovered he does not pee pee much. He only goes every three hours or so. I tried giving him lots to drink at the first, but he's just not a big drinker and even stopped drinking juice (his favorite) after awhile. He is quite proud of himself with each success. I wish I had a dollar for every time I told him he'd get a sticker and candy (gummy bear) for every time he goes pee pee in the potty. I would be rich :) This is probably the longest he's ever been without going out of the house. I am planning to take our first outing on Sunday to see how he does while out and about.

Dumpling fun!

Oh, before I forget. Yesterday was my 300th post. I feel like I should celebrate or something.

Anyway, the promised scoop on a dumpling. If you're thinking chicken and dumplings made with Crisco (or Bisquick Light depending on preferred calorie intake) think again. This post is on dumplings Asian style. Traditionally, folks eat these at midnight on the lunar New Year (which we did). Practically, we eat them a lot. With every meal you eat a "main thing" which where we live is usually rice, sometimes steamed bread, sometimes dumplings (jiaozi) and could be noodles or something else.

Jiaozi are labor intensive little creatures. First, you make the skin/wrappers from a big lump of dough. You have to pinch off and roll out all the little discs.



Then, you make the filling by chopping up lots of meat and vegetables really tiny and adding oil, salt, MSG, etc.



Next, it's time for the stuffing. Your jiaozi are supposed to stand up but mine flop over.



Tada! No, I didn't make all these jiaozi. I think I only made one or two. My kids gave me the perfect excuse to watch TV and text message all night while everyone else worked.



If my American friends are now craving jiaozi, you can buy frozen dumplings in the store or fresh ones in Chinese restaurants in America for insane prices. You can also make them yourself. Homemade are best. It's great fun to have a dumpling making party with conversation and friendship, but I like taking advantage of the little store across the street that sells them insanely cheap for my daily use consumption. (Come visit if you want to do that.)

FYI: Jiaozi are one of Archie's favorite foods. They were also one of his first table foods.

My exciting day spent in one room of the house!

Which room? The BATHROOM! Why? Thankfully, no one has a stomach bug. The draw to this room is because today was Archie's first day of potty training. We are using one of those crazy methods that's supposed to get your kid toilet trained in three days. (Honestly, I know folks it's worked for and one family that successfully trained their sixteen MONTH old using it.)

Basic principle: If the kid doesn't know what it feels like to need to go potty, no problem. You teach them by frequently putting them on the potty and catching "accidents" in the potty. You make a huge deal out of success and they figure it out pretty quick. Oh, and no pants or underwear so I'm thankful for no carpet. (This is only possible because they have FINALLY fixed our heat and we're not freezing all day.)

Here's what I've learned.

Modify the version for you.

Extremes of this method having you setting a timer and taking your kid to the potty every 8-10 minutes. I just can't take it. We have concluded Archie goes pee-pee every 1.5-2.5 hours so taking him to the potty before that is pretty much a waste. We started taking him for huge blocks of time around the 1.5-2.5 hour block and think that'll work much better.

This method must have been designed for younger kids who pee-pee more frequently. We only had a total of five bladder releasing sessions today (one during nap, two on our floor, one on our chair, and one in the potty). So, catching the accidents will take longer than if the bladder releases every thirty minutes. No poo poo today. I'm eager to see how that works tomorrow.

Even though there was only one session with pee-pee in the toilet, I think Archie might be catching on. Right before his success story (which was his last pee pee of the day) he told me he needed to go and went immediately afterward. WAY TO GO!

I feel a little sorry for him. He asked to wear pants several times today and even brought me a pair from his dresser drawer once. What kind of mother doesn't grant a reasonable request like that? Tonight, I drew him the chart below. I told him he gets a smiley face sticker for each success in the toilet and I will start letting him wear his brand new big boy underwear after three smilies. (After that, I'll probably make a few more boxes so he can earn the right to wear pants, too.)

A favorite recent pensive pic of my boy:

No, I haven't started this method with Grace yet, but when I changed her clothes I had to put her on the floor for a few minutes while I tended to Archie half way through, and she just looked so cute...

Potty training advice, stories, suggestions welcome. Leave a comment with your wisdom or encouragement :) I want to get this done soon because I can't really leave the house for the next few days (which is why I picked this week because this is my last slow week until sometime in August!)

It's the most wonderful time of the year (in Asia)

Nope. Not Christmas. Here's the scoop on the Lunar New Year and how our family celebrated. (Maybe I should say "is celebrating" as the festival will continue for another week or so.)

Here's the appetizer to our walk through the New Year: My preciouses in their traditional New Year garb:

On New Year's Eve day, we packed up and headed over to our friend's grandmother's house. We ate a late but bountiful lunch with lots of relatives.

After lunch, there was a trip to the nearby park for Archie and visiting for the adults. However, firecrackers exploding constantly on the ground all around brought the excursion to a rather quick end as I feared for our safety and hearing.

The afternoon was spent playing cards, watching the New Year gala on TV, text messaging every friend you ever had, and making dumplings to eat at midnight (blog post coming soon on the art of dumpling making).

At 11 p.m., it was time to go set off our own fireworks. Can you believe they sell things this monstrous to the general public without a license?

Some pretty heavy duty fallout, wouldn't you say?

This lady made my life wonderful. She is my friend's aunt, and she loved taking care of the kids. As you can imagine, kids kept up until the midnight meal get a little grumpy, but she helped keep them happy. I enjoyed the conversation she kept having with Archie while attempting in vain to get him to take a nap during constantly exploding fireworks (these things never stopped).

Aunt: The airplane is going. (Archie loves talking about airplanes.) The rabbit is going, too. The tiger is also going. When the airplane comes back, the rabbit will come and say Hai Tao, Hai Tao (his name) wake up, wake up. Archie's eyes nearly close then jerk back awake. Deep, huh?

On Day 3 of the New Year, we went to a different friend's uncle's house for lunch. It was a crowd that was lots of fun, and the uncle is a professional chef so the meal was FABULOUS!

There were also lots of uncles and aunts for the kids to play with there and even some little cousins! Here's Grace with an aunt (to me) and Grandmother (to her).

Goodbye for now. I hope you'll come again next year. All doors are made festive with these couplet verses wishing good fortune and money over the next year!

Happy New (Tiger) Year!

Happy Tiger Year! Today is the Lunar New Year, which is the biggest holiday of the year where we live. In a few minutes, we're packing up the kids and heading over to our friend's grandma's house to ring in the new year. (Every year has an animal attached, and we will watch the cow year fade away while the tiger year draws nigh.)

Actually, this will be my first time celebrating a traditional New Year festival because I've been in Thailand the past two years. I'm pretty excited. I'm expecting a huge meal at 2 p.m., lots of TV all day long and fireworks and dumplings at midnight. Actually, fireworks will be pretty non-stop as they were going pretty strong by 8 a.m. or so.

More coming soon on this great holiday!

Wordless Wednesday

The Hong Kong harbor at night

Hong Kong at night is really beautiful, and I just couldn't resist making a few pics.

This panorama is Victoria Harbor. Archie loved riding the ferry across and taking the tram up to the peak. It's really famous. A lot of movie stars have homes there, but we didn't see anyone famous.

The decorations are because the Chinese New Year (their biggest holiday) is rapidly approaching.

We felt compelled to get some three generations shots, but they turned out pretty cute.

Like I said, Archie was mesmerized by the boats. He kept saying, "It's so beautiful!"

All about Archie: 28.5 months

I guess nothing's particularly special about 28.5 months, but I feel like it's time Archie had his own special post. I'm really enjoying this stage of his development because he's learning so quickly and he's so verbal now. I especially love hearing him sing. He knows the words to a lot of songs and he picks new ones up so quickly. We've started doing Script*re memory songs. So far he can do Proverbs 4:13 "Take hold of instruction, do not let it go. Guard her for she is your life" and Deuteronomy 31:6 "Be strong and of a good courage. Fear not, nor be afraid of them..." We're working on the Cheerful Giver verse (Hahahahaha - as the song goes).

Despite his cuteness, nap time remains one of my favorite times of the day. Unfortunately, it's really cold in our house right now. I think last night was the first time he has ever slept all night in bed with Hunter and me. He woke up crying and saying "cold, cold" so we felt like horrible parents and brought him to the living room where we were sleeping on the floor cause our bedroom is fifty farenheit or below and the living room is a little warmer.

Bedtime in Hong Kong was a special treat. Memaw brought him this special "Time for Bed" book that's really cute. Our bedtime routine includes toothbrushing, a story, song and pr-yers.

Archie loves coloring with markers, balls, cars (specifically turning toy steering wheels), and all other forms of transportation but especially the bus. Oh, and he's finally discovered Thomas the Train even way over here in Asia. I like this pic cause I think he looks really grown up. This was a fun indoor playground in HK.

We loved being able to play outdoors in the park at Hong Kong.

Archie is a good eater and I am really impressed by the way he plays with other children. He usually just kind of stares when someone takes something from him and goes on to do something else. I take him on play dates with a neighbor girl several times a week. We're working on first time obedience, but I think we'll be doing that for awhile. He listens relatively well for his age I guess...maybe?

Oh, my favorite of his recent accomplishments. He can say the first three verses of Psalm 23 with a little prompting. (He leaves out a few key words so the first line sounds something like this: "The L*rd my shepherd. I shall...want!")

We love Archie!

Hong Kong fun with Memaw and Papa

Here you have it, folks! The first ever family portrait with two grandkids and the Grandparents Startups. I think everyone cleaned up good even if I did forget to pack Hunt's jeans and we had to sub in some khakis. (Contrast is nice, right?) Totally random passerby took the pic. Nice job, huh?

My parents enjoyed bedtimes. I think they could watch their little princess in dreamland forever. (We appreciated them letting their little prince sleeping on a pallet on their floor so the kids didn't wake each other up.)

"Ewww. I've been kissed by a girl!" Archie was more interested in the water fountain than Memaw's kiss. (But he does like cuddling up with her for a good book.)

Grace's favorite place to be was on Papa's shoulder (or snuggled against his chest). Funny, she liked sleeping on Brenda's chest, too, back when she was a newborn but she doesn't want to sleep on mine. (The milk smell must drive her crazy.)

Happy Half Year, Grace!

I can hardly believe my precious princess is now half a year old! She's already so different than when she was born, and I can hardly believe the changes I know will be in for us over the next few months as she becomes (gulp) mobile.

Hong Kong was great for Grace. She was finally able to find her feet since they weren't hidden under 1 million layers. She loved them! (And she still does on the brief occasions I uncover them for her.) I met this one little six month old baby once who always sat in his stroller sucking his toes. It was just so cute I've always dreamed of having a kid do the same thing. Archie didn't ever care about his feet and Grace's haven't made it in her mouth so far so...I'll be more than content with the cuteness I have.

What else is up with Grace?

Weight: just shy of 15.5 pounds. She's gained almost a pound this month

Diet: approx 6 breast feeds/day, rice cereal with soy formula twice/day, and veggies once a day. Favorites are pumpkin, carrots, and eggplants. She's also tried sweet potatoes, squash, green beans, peas, and applesauce. I'm thinking of introducing bananas soon

Teeth: none (but the doc assured us they are in her gums and will break through sometime,helpful info HAHA)

Movement: rolls over back to tummy and tummy to back but is still not too mobile. Thank you, Baby. She is pretty content to just roll once and roll back

Sitting up alone: not yet and not too much use for the infant seat either

Toys: She loves them. (I don't remember Archie really liking them at this age except for his play mat, which Grace doesn't like a bit.)

Nicknames: Gracer. Archie dubbed her this a long time ago and it kind of stuck

Cute: Yes