I’ve been home for over two months and blogging less than ever, not that there’s nothing to blog about but because blogging was in part stress relief for me, and right now even with all the work-related projects I’m trying to finish over the summer I have little to be stressed about. Plus I’ve been doing a lot of introspection, which by its very nature is more intimate dinner conversation and less “Hello Internet!”

Maybe that’s why I don’t get Twitter right now. On the other hand, I’ve been trying to get Twitter ever since Evan Williams announced his new venture and opened it up to beta testers. I immediately grasped the conversational aspect of the party badge, which displays tweets from you and all your friends – and which I used to document conversations between me and the kids for public amusement – and I loved the update-via-IM feature. But both the party badge and IM updates have been broken for a long time now, and I have no desire to share my cell phone number with Twitter in order to update via SMS. I have updated a couple of times via the Pageflakes Twitter plug-in, but those tweets were never conversational. They were more like mini blog entries in that they linked to whatever I found amusing on the Internet at that moment.

One thing I do know is that the 21st century man of mystery does NOT use Twitter. Imagine James Bond broadcasting his martini preferences to the world… hahaha, so not happening. Even more damning is the fact that everybody I know in real life who uses Twitter has locked up their account. Nobody needs that much transparency.

With all three kids home with me for the summer, simple things like feeding and grooming can easily take up much of the day. I consider myself having gone beyond the call of duty if I manage to get the lunch dishes into the dishwasher before Kevin gets home in the evening. On top of that I’ve been giving Alex and Ana Chinese homework everyday. So far they’ve learned numbers (一, 二, 三 … 十, etc.) and family members (爸爸, 妈妈, 哥哥, 姐姐, etc.) as well as have/don’t have and do you have (有没有弟弟? 没有! 有没有妹妹? 有!).

Kevin has been busy too. When he isn’t at work, he’s going to the store for groceries or doing chores around the house. On weekends he takes Alex to karate and both Alex and Ana to swim at Grandma’s house. He’s also in charge of taking Alex to percussion lessons. It’s just for the summer, a break from piano and possibly early preparation for 4th grade band.

In between all that I’ve found time to make the most of our Netflix subscription:

Categories: chinese, kids and parenting, memes, movies
Comments Off

Angelina is growing fast. We’re running out of size 2 diapers, and instead of buying more we’re just going to move on to size 3 diapers.

Yesterday we started bottle training kind of half-heartedly. Kevin attempted to give her a bottle. She made faces as the formula dripped into her mouth. Then she started wailing. We haven’t tried again since.

Her babbling has gotten awfully advanced. At this point I think she’s closer to saying dada than mama.

She still loves baths, almost more than how much I love bathing her.

She seems to be a morning person, whereas I am most definitely not, but seeing her cheerful smiling face first thing every morning has made it a lot less painful to wake up.

Categories: angie
1 Comment »

This video inspired me and made me smile.

More about it here.

Categories: travel
1 Comment »

This week the rest of the family finally started getting some of the baby loving. As long as she’s full, Angelina is willing to be held by Daddy and be entertained by Alex and Ana. Unfortunately her appetite has also increased, which means she’s lying in my lap nursing more than ever. It doesn’t stop at night either. Lil mouse eats every couple of hours no matter what time of day, so I haven’t been sleeping all that well.

Categories: angie
1 Comment »

School let out for the summer about 2 weeks ago. Alex and Ana have been staying home with me. Every morning they get up astoundingly early, earlier than they would on school days. By the time I get up they’ve usually been awake for 2 or 3 hours. At first they waited for me to get up to ask for breakfast, but lately Ana has started scavenging for food herself. She rummages through the cabinets that she can reach to find cereal, then eats it dry out of the box. Alex doesn’t seem to have much appetite in the mornings, so he still waits until I’m up before eating.

Earlier this week I finally got over the summer cold that Angie recovered from over a week ago and Ana recovered from over 2 weeks ago. It wasn’t much, just some sinus congestion. At one point I even forgot that I was sick. But when it started turning into sinusitis I felt totally listless. In the end I successfully fought it off without antibiotics, so I guess all that time spent feeling mentally useless was worthwhile.

Last week, this made me laugh…

Ana: (with a blanket draped over her head) Look Alex! Oooooh! I’m a zombie!

Today, this made me stammer…

Alex: Mom, is it really you and Dad that put the presents under the tree at Christmas?

Categories: kids and parenting
3 Comments »