Words of the Week: Guhwrinka and Doo-bicy

Guhwrinka (verb): to take water or another substance into the mouth and swallow it

Doo-bicy (adjective): containing, to an extensive extent, spice that causing pain in your mouth

When in China, lots of the food is doo-bicy so you might need a guhwrinka wah-der, but make sure you don't get it from the tap. 

Maggie Cam: Lama Temple

On an unusually fussy day for Magnolia, while we were attending to the labyrinthine bureaucracy that is expat life in China, a new colleague offered her digital camera to Magnolia to amuse her. Maggie loved it almost as much as we did. The strategy has continued to be a valuable parenting tool. An unexpected bonus is the unique perspective her shots give on our adventure. Sure, there are many out of focus but in the midst of the dozens of shots of her legs, there are some real gems. So it is with great pleasure that we announce our newest regular feature: Maggie Cam.

Our first edition is our trip to the Lama Temple. 

My New Favorite Tradition:

Saturday morning breakfast with my girls. 

Word of the Week: Penne-tayo

Penne-tayo (noun): an arrangement of the hair in a long lock drawn tightly against the back of the head and cinched so as to hang loosely.

"I want to have a penne-tayo!" - Kaleia

Nĭ Hăo!

Sometime a few weeks ago.S: Brian, do you realize we haven’t had a blog post since April 27th?!
B: I know. Life has been a little crazy.
Screams heard from the other room.
M: Moooommmm, Kaleia is pulling my hair...

Later.
S: Okay where were we?
B: Blog. Do you want to write a post tonight?
S: Sure, but where do we start? At the beginning with what started all this craziness? Or with the current insanity?
B: Maybe a little of both, tell the now while it’s fresh and fill in a few holes while we’re at it. Let’s just brainstorm for now.
S: ...
B: Shan? Are you asleep?

Another night.
B: We're in China!
S: Yeah, there is so much I want to write about!
B: I know.  I feel like people don’t even really know Kaleia. We have this little character to unleash on the world!
S: Maybe we should kick off our grand re-opening with this video:

B: Perfect. Now, to figure out how to get a VPN so we can post it...

Lion Gets a Haircut

I walk into the girls' room and find this scene:

Poor Lion! Is he a victim of the girls' inability to express their feelings during this time of chaos? Or a result of our distracted crazed minds? Maybe a bit of both. I wonder if Lion has lost his strength and who did a better haircut: Magnolia or Delilah?

Animal Pile Up Re-Creation - 2 Years Later

Our friend Josh took some pictures of Magnolia just after her first birthday. One of those pictures -- you can see it in the May section of this post -- hangs on our living room wall, amongst others, and always grabs the girls' attention. 

Today, they wanted to recreate the picture. I don't have Josh's skill or equipment, but we still had fun piling up all the animals. 

Word of the Week: Pancake

Pancake (noun):  1) a thin, flat cake of batter fried on both sides on a griddle 2) a pack, or knapsack, often of canvas or nylon, to be carried on one's back

"Can we have pancakes for breakfast?" - Magnolia

"Eat. Pancake." - Kaleia

 "Wanna pancake. Pancake!" - Kaleia, reaching for her black "school" bag

 

First Days of "School"

For show-and-tell Maggie chose four ducklings and carefully placed them in her backpack. Now, while she puts her things into her not yet labeled cubby and surveys her still unfamiliar classroom, on this her second day of pre-school, I pull the teacher aside to tell him about the ducklings Magnolia was so adamant to share. You see, they're imaginary.

The teachers are great though, and are learning quickly. When asked what they should call her on the first day, "Magnolia or Maggie?," she informed them, "Actually, call me duckling." I never heard whether they complied or not but I was impressed at how well they described my daughters after the first day:

At the end of day 1, Maggie didn't want to leave and wasn't even sure if she wanted to talk to me but eventually agreed to show me around the classroom -- which toys she played with, which ones she helped clean up, the things that another kid messed up. She enthusiastically told me about the soft frog blanket that she used for her snooze. I finally got her to leave willingly by saying we needed to go see Kaleia's classroom.

Unlike her sister, Kaleia was ready to go home.  When we peeked in, she was happily playing but, as soon as she saw us, ran over and said, "Car. Bag."

Both girls slept amazingly--ahh, the secondary benefits of preschool!--and on morning 2 were just as excited as they got ready. Drop off, including the requisite imaginary duckling warning, was smooth again.

At the end of the day, Maggie had to finish what she was building before she would even consider coming home. Kaleia was playing outside when we came to pick her up and the two sisters ran and embraced. Then they went back to play in Kaleia's class.

I was always hesitant about daycare and felt very blessed that our girls have been home with family until now. We've always thought they would go to preschool, but we've wanted to homeschool them for elementary school (more about that in a future blog post, hopefully). Brian and I still see ourselves as their primary caregivers and teachers, but I am appreciating this experience and all that they are already gaining from it.

Here is a video of Maggie's response when I told her she was going to start going to "school":

Head Bibs