January 30, 2012

  • Too Much China, Not Enough Vietnam

    All the China, China, China around here has caused poor Chance to comment, "Vietnam isn't cool like China." 

    It started when we had been looking at the photos from China and there were some photos of these circus performers.  He wanted to be assured that Vietnam had circuses too.  We took out the photos from our adoption trip to Vietnam and I pointed out the water puppet show.  Water puppets don't rank against people doing handstands on chairs.  Luckily we had lots and lots of photos of the motorcycles in Vietnam and the country was able to redeem itself a bit.

    Over the weekend we went to the mall where they were having a big Chinese New Year's celebration.  He asks, "Is this Vietnam?"  Hahaha.  No. 

    So last night we got Vietnamese food in celebration of Tet (Vietnam's Lunar New Year celebration).  But of course Chance mostly lives on air so when we asked if he liked it, no one was surprised when he said, "no."  Shaeleigh ate three plates of rice and a lemon slice (declared it delicious).  Chance got mad that Shaeleigh got the Vietnamese lemon.  And YiLin, of course, enjoyed it all, including the spicy chicken which he ate with one hand waving in front of his mouth and twelve glasses of water but he kept on eating it anyway.  "Hao chi.  Hao chi"  (good food, good food). 

     

    mall 

    Lion Dance at the mall.

     

    CNY 

    Chance the fashion model.

     

    mall2 

    boys 

    The boys watching the show.  They enjoyed it.  Watched the different dance acts for over an hour. 

    Sadly, church is not nearly as entertaining for them.  I would like to recommend a few dance numbers during mass to keep the kids' behavior in check but suspect I'll have trouble selling that to some folks.  Last Sunday we had our first complete church disaster ("put your coats on, we're leaving").  I thought my head was going to explode.  But what can you do?  We left half way through.  I brought them back home.  Everyone took an hour to collect themselves and then I brought them all back for the 10:30 mass and everyone did much better.  I'd like to say they learned something but why fool myself.

    But on to better moments....  

    shrinky 

    The cousins gave Shaeleigh a Shrinky Dink oven for her birthday. And so we've been Shrinking a lot of Dinks.

    shrinky 1 

    We had to supplement the official Shrinky Dink oven with the toaster oven due to the abundance of master pieces. The boys loved to watch them curl up and shrink. They don't give quite as much love and care to the coloring and creating part but when it's time to curl and shrink there's not an empty stool in the house.

     

    power rangers 

    Someone at work gave the boys these most excellent Power Ranger outfits. Hahaha. 

    And finally, if you are free on Sunday or Wednesday, you may be interested in joining in Shaeleigh's new "Merstery Club."

     

    times 

    If nothing else, you should come to the "scils lab" (skills lab)

     

    activities 

    I look forward to learning about #6 myself.  Fun times indeed.

     

    rules 

    But Dictator Shaeleigh is not without her rules.

    We all attended her first meeting on Sunday and we did a pretty good job of following her rules. She had us go on a treasure hunt in the backyard. She had hidden five scrolls (tied up with red ribbon) and follow the clues from scroll to scroll. We did well until the final scroll as once we found it, she disappeared. We figured we shouldn't open it without her there so we waited a bit and then went inside to find her. Unfortunately, once we did open it, we discovered it said, "Wait outside until I get the surprise ready."  Oops. Guess we didn't, "wait wail I explen the rules of what I am doing." 

    But, luckily she was also finished getting ready with the surprise - a dance party in the family room - and a good time was had by all.

    So I'm out of pictures but I'll add some news. 

    YiLin is still enjoying going to school everyday.  We were invited to attend an assessment session with about 6 different teachers and specialists. They mostly reported that he is a happy kid, who loves to be "helpful" and enjoys following the other kids. He is now taking ELL (early language learners) 2 hours a day.  He is definitely understanding more English (get dressed, your shoes are on the wrong feet, etc) but still only says a handful of words. He has added, "ice cream" which proved that he is indeed a Smith.  The school is keeping him in 1st grade and we are scheduled to all meet again in March sometime.

    I've returned back to work and have successfully mastered the triple drop-off (three kids, three schools).  Kenn is managing the triple pick-up.  We've only completely messed up one day.  We had a small bit of ice and were wondering why Shaeleigh had a 2 hour delay but the public school didn't have a closure listed.  So I go to drop YiLin off at the usual time only to discover that they had a teacher work day.  The school calendar had listed it something like, "optional floating student holiday," so I guess that didn't register as, "day off."  What if I don't want to take the option?  As much as we complain about the 30 phone calls, letters and emails we get from Shaeleigh's school about every little thing, I have come to appreciate the communication.  

    Cheers!