Final Thoughts

Never again - But that's what I said last time.

It is now December 11, 2008 and already the unpleasant memories grow dim and I find myself sometimes wishing that I was back in Taiwan. Michael has asked to go back almost daily. He misses all the action and attention. Home is very dull by comparison, let alone having a younger brother around all the time again.

Robert says we enjoy Taiwan so much because we were always around rich/successful people. We wouldn't have had such a great time if we weren't always being spoiled by everyone. Another big plus is that I never needed to cook, and there was very little cleaning to do as we were never home. That was probably my favourite part about Taipei. Great food and no mess. I must also admit that I liked having the chance to improve my old school. In almost every job I've had, my specialty has been coming up with ways of making things better and more efficient. It's what I enjoy doing.

Michael changed A LOT during the few months we were away. Basically, he really did become a big boy. He is now talking fluently, he never has "accidents," and he is much more independent. However, he did get used to sleeping in Mommy's bed and is very reluctant to give that up. Sharing a room with Jeremy just isn't the same.

By the time I got home, Jeremy was a pro at saying "Daddy" and he would say, "Moh" for the word "more," but he will not say anything for Mommy. He has adjusted well to having everyone home again, but he always was very easy-going. It was nice for him to have a few months where he had Daddy's undivided attention. Robert says he gets cuter everyday - and it's true.

This blog was probably the best thing that came out of the whole trip as I have never been good at keeping a journal. It's nice to know that even though Michael will have forgotten the whole thing in a few years, he will have something to show him what he was like and what he did during these few months of his childhood.

Will I start another blog? I doubt it. But, I doubted that I would ever go back to Taiwan as well. You never know.

Not Jetlagged?

When Trina and Michael arrived home, they seemed to have no trouble sleeping. The first day back was pretty quiet, because they felt tired, but Trina did notice all the hard work Jeremy and I had done getting the house ready for them. It was tidy in a way that it can never be with two toddlers living in it. I was glad that Trina was so pleased about my little surprise.

The other little surprise was a family dinner I arranged at our house, on Sunday. I made lasagnes and invited both sets of Michael's grandparents over. Trina wasn't too keen, because she wasn't in peak form yet, but everyone was understanding. After all, they were really excited to see Trina and Michael again.

I know that Trina was still affected by jetlag, because the next time we made lasagne, I said something offhand about the last time we had lasagne, and the fact that I made it. She said, "no you never," and I found out that Trina doesn't even remember that family dinner. Jetlag makes a pretty good excuse.

Trip Home

The trip home was a lot more uneventful that then trip to Taipei. For one thing, I didn't have to worry about Michael wetting his pants anymore. That was a big bonus.

The plane was completely full this time around, so although we were in the very last row, we still didn't get an empty seat beside us. But, we weren't squished in the middle either. I sat on the aisle. Literally, as Michael took both of our seats while he slept, leaving me a tiny little corner on which to sit. And that was with his head being on my lap. Needless to say, I didn't sleep much. Michael only slept for six hours which surprised me considering that he hadn't napped on the way to the airport. Maybe it's because he couldn't sprawl out as much as usual. Luckily, the flight home is a lot shorter than the flight to Taiwan, so he was awake for the same amount of time as before.

And then we were back in Canada! Here's Michael in the Vancouver airport with our plane in the background.


The Vancouver layover was probably the worst part as nothing was open and it was a long, long walk from the international wing to our connecting flight to Calgary. The airport was actually pretty nice with large fountains and comfy places to sit, but Michael was too tired to explore. It was probably so hard because we were so close to home, and yet so far away. By this time, we just wanted to go home!

And then we arrived in Calgary. We raced off the plane and I told Michael that Daddy would be waiting for us on the other side of the doors. Alas, our flight was a few minutes early and Daddy was a few minutes late. We had collected all our luggage and everyone else from our flight had gone and I was just starting to rummage through my purse looking for something to use to make a phone call when I spotted him down the hallway. Michael ran down the hallway to his Daddy and everything was good in the universe once more.

We didn't have nearly as much of a problem adjusting to the time difference this time around. Probably because we had slept so little in the past 24 hours that we had no problems going to sleep as soon as we arrived home at 2am, getting right back on track.

And thus ended our little adventure.

Last Day

Since I took extended lunch hours for the past two days, and since I still had so much work to do, I worked through lunch and after school had a teacher's meeting to present everything and to give them a page long list of things I didn't have time for, but that really should get done. Hopefully, someone will take initiative.

It was May's last day as well, so in the morning, Teresa gave us each a parting gift, except she mistakenly handed me the larger one and May the smaller one. They were both glass sculptures by a Taipei artist that Teresa really likes. Many of the other assistants noticed and were upset on May's behalf that she had gotten something so small after eight years loyalty. Teresa apologized to May privately later and told her that she would get her a larger one. May told her not to worry about it as she was sure that I would switch with her as soon as I found out, but Teresa was horrified at the thought of asking for a gift to be exchanged for a smaller one and refused. As soon as May told me, I immediately told her that I wouldn't mind in the slightest (especially as I knew my suitcases were already quite full), but it was too late.

May also worked through lunch and was busy all day running around making sure that all her responsibilities to the school were taken care of. We were both tired by the end of the day. As it was raining heavily (of course) and we were both leaving at the same time, I suggested taking a taxi, which Michael was very happy about. Halfway home, I realized that I hadn't returned my school key but, it turns out, May had forgotten as well (and she had even more keys that I did), so she made arrangements to drop them off tomorrow so that we wouldn't have to turn around. Good thing, because I still had a lot of packing to do, and May wanted to take us out to dinner before heading to the airport.

In the middle of packing, Annie rings the bell and asks if we can leave now as the restaurant was all booked up for the night, but that we would get a table if we arrived within a half hour. She assured me that we would come back afterwards so that I could finish packing up. So, off we went.

It was the best meal that I have ever had. It was a small Szechuan restaurant and the food was amazing. I knew that Robert would be so jealous as he loves real Szechuan cuisine, so I took a picture for him. There was just the right mix of spicy and non-spicy food, and for anyone who doesn't like tofu - you have never tried the tofu here. It tasted like pudding and was so yummy that Michael ate almost the entire plate by himself. He was a very happy boy. I love the restaurants here because the food arrives piping hot within minutes of being ordered, so Michael never gets bored waiting. Maybe I will miss Taipei a little bit after all...



Well, back to the apartment. May took Michael so that I could pack without distractions. I managed to get all the packing done, except for some dirty clothes which I would pack after my shower. However, during my shower, Joseph came and took away all the suitcases to the car, so I had to shove them in my purse. Good thing for big purses.

I apologized to May for not cleaning the apartment thoroughly before leaving, as I knew that now she would have to do it. I tried to give her money so that she could just pay someone else to do it, but of course, she wouldn't hear of it.

I was surprised that Michael didn't fall asleep on the way to the airport as it was 9pm when we left. I guess he was too excited to be going on an airplane again. In fact he stayed awake all the way until boarding time at 11:30pm, although he was asleep before takeoff. The people at the airport were so nice and helpful. As soon as they see a white kid, they bend over backwards to help you. One guy actually hopped over a counter to lift our suitcases onto the conveyor belt for us.

My Treat, Finally

I finally convinced May to let me take her out to eat, and I insisted that it be somewhere nice. We went to Sonoma for lunch, a kind of japanese steakhouse (yes, they have japanese everything here). It was very nice and very good and we got the last table! I was glad to finally pay for something. May and her family have been so kind and generous throughout our stay and she always refuses any form of compensation.

We went home right after school today. I was supposed to finish packing up as we are leaving tomorrow. Yeah right... I'm a huge procrastinator when it comes to packing.

Chinese Haircuts

Five years ago, I got a hair cut in Taiwan. Robert had to translate what I wanted. Not that it would have mattered what he said, because everyone always comes out with the same Chinese haircut. The style only depends on the length of your hair. I hated it.

I specifically got my hair cut before leaving this time. I always go to cheap salons now because I never like how I come out, whether I pay $14 or $80, so why pay more? This time, I actually had to do it twice because the first one was so very awful. But, it was definitely better than the Taiwan cut.

Maybe I had become desensitized by all the Chinese haircuts around me, but I decided to get my haircut on my lunch hour today because it really needed it. The service was great. Head massage, a shampoo before the cut and one in the middle, and the hair dresser even looked in great detail at the picture I brought in. The whole thing took one and a half hours and cost me $20Cdn, and the outcome was (predictably) terrible. No picture will be given.

I wanted to do some clothes shopping without Michael, so I asked May if she could take him after school today and I would pick him up from her place at bedtime. She had to do things at the school until 4:30, so I took Michael to IKEA and Toys 'R Us for the last time. Still no Thomas plates.

After dropping Michael back off at school, I went to the university area where there are usually good deals to be found. And there were a lot of good deals. Just not in anything my size, my style or my colour. However, it was still very nice to have a few hours on the streets of Taipei to myself.

When I went to pick up Michael, May told me that she had taken him to the Children's Museum and he had a blast playing with Annie. Oh, and that he had chocolate cake for supper. He's going to have a hard time adjusting to life back in Canada...

Principal for a Week

Only five more days of school... And about four years worth of work to catch up on...

Needless to say, I wasn't planning on spending much time in the classroom this week. I wrote the school's teacher training manual before I left four years ago. It hasn't been updated since despite the many changes that have occurred in the school, so the teachers weren't even looking at it anymore. The owner asked me to update it before I left, as well as changing the parent communication book, teacher curriculum planning books, report cards and the teacher's resources CD. Basically, do everything that the principal should have been doing over the past few years. I decided to let Michael stay in his class until 3pm everyday to give me a few extra hours in front of the computer.

I also had to make sure that the teachers would use whatever I developed, as otherwise, it would all be wasted as I wouldn't be here to defend it and make sure that everyone used it. So, as soon as I finished anything, I would have to take it around to all the teachers to get their feedback, and then change anything one of them didn't like.

If I hadn't been pregnant with Michael and had decided to stay in Taiwan four years ago, they would have made me principal. I'm so glad I left. One week is plenty!

Our Last Sunday

When I dropped off Michael in primary, I noticed that the pianist (Abby's mother) wasn't there yet, so I decided to fill in. It was nice because Michael ended up being the "spotlight" child. They have all the children stand up and then they describe someone and if the description doesn't fit you, you sit down. I had filled out a little questionaire a couple of months ago for this very purpose. Of course, Michael's favourite foods of spaghetti and ice cream were quite popular. His favourite primary song "Popcorn Popping" also didn't narrow down the field very much. The dark hair and blue eyes combo eliminated quite a few, but I think they had to say that it was a Sunbeam before everyone else was sitting. However, Michael was also sitting as he had no idea what was going on and just sat down when one of his classmates did.

The beginning of June is when all foreigners leave Taiwan, so there were lots of goodbyes at church today. We were just one of the many names read off of people leaving. I managed to drag Michael around to say a few thank yous and goodbyes before he insisted on leaving.

We met Linda at Giordano Ladies in 101. It's the upscale Giordano's store, but it's not fancy enough to be anywhere except the basement of Taipei 101. She made me try on a few things, but I told her they didn't look very good on me, or else I knew that she would insist on buying them for me. We then went to her house and waited with Harris while she went to pick up Sara.

When she got back, Linda asked Michael what his favourite food was, and he said "Spaghetti!" At least he's consistent. So, she took us out to eat at Bellini's, a japanese pasta restaurant that's surprisingly good, at another upscale shopping mall. As there were two adults and three kids, she ordered the meal for four adults, but it came with so many appetizers and drinks that none of us were very hungry by the time the pasta arrived (we wanted to save room for dessert, too!), so she gave it to us to take home. Yes, Michael and I are spoiled rotten here...

Family Fun Day

At the end of the year, the school always has a family fun day, where activities are set up in each room and parents and siblings are invited. It's always lots of fun. Michael and I had our portraits sketched in under three minutes (it looks nothing like us) and then Michael was free to run around anywhere he wanted. I was in charge of the bubbles station. I made different types of blowers, aided by the assistants of course, out of coat hangers, chopsticks and netting (those were pretty neat - and mostly my own idea!), straws and string, and the good old standby, pipe cleaners. I had a big bucket of water to wash off sticky hands, and no one spilled it, so I think it was a huge success!


Michael's favourite activity was the bouncing castle. The teacher in charge of it told me later that Michael spent almost the entire time jumping in and out of it. And, he didn't crack heads with anyone else. Another success!

After all the kids had left, I took a peek inside my old class to see if the new teacher had finished setting it up for the kids to arrive on Monday. Nope. No toys, no decorations, no change in furniture layout. Nothing. Then she started saying goodbye to everyone, so I took her aside and, as gently as I could, asked if she was all ready for Monday. She went back to the class, took a look around, and left fifteen minutes later without doing anything. I felt sorry for my little class, but I can only do so much.

Getting Curriculum Back on Track

I do not have a degree in Early Childhood Education, nor do I have any formal training in correct ECE practices. However, I do have compulsive reading disorder (I made up the term myself) and a little streak of perfectionism. (Unfortunately, although this streak applies to parenting - which has caused me no end of grief and anxiety - it does not apply to household management as the state of my house can attest to). So, when I was hired to be a preschool teacher, I read everything I could (the National Association for the Education of Young Children has a great magazine) and learned a lot from my principals and co-teacher (who were ECE trained). To give you a glimpse of how little I knew, my New Zealand co-teacher (who is the best preschool teacher I have ever met) asked me during my first week if I knew "The Wiggles." I had no idea what she was talking about. I'm surprised that she didn't recommend my dismissal right then and there. Luckily, she put up with my ineptitude and actually told me at the end of the year that I was the best co-teacher she had ever had.

I, too, discovered that the best teaching assistants are the ones with no formal training or experience with other preschools. They are the hardest workers and the most willing to learn because they appreciate the fact that you gave them a chance despite their lack of education. I was the same way. I worked at school everyday from 8-6, with a half hour break to eat lunch with my husband, then went home and often worked until 10pm. By my second year, I knew a lot more, and only rarely had to take work home.

As a mother, I have kept up with current ECE practices and so it wasn't too difficult to get back into teaching this past semester. I had heard that many things had changed at the school before coming, and I knew that without a principal, curriculum would be dictated by the parents (ie. memorize as much English vocabulary as possible and learn to read by age four). And that is exactly what was happening. As I knew that I would only be at the school for a few months, I consciously decided not to get involved with what was going on in the other classes. I would do the best I could for my little ones and educate their parents about what was really important for children to learn at this age (ie. social skills, independence, creativity, problem solving skills) and that would be it.

My resolve started weakening after that terrible PD day. I started giving more and more little impromptu lessons to any teachers and staff that seemed interested. Again, it was those with the least formal training who were the most receptive. I finally sat down with the owner and talked about my concerns about the school. She wondered why it had taken me so long. Then, she started going through all the excuses about how parents were more demanding now and there was so much more competition than four years ago. Personally, I think the parents are exactly the same, but we've just started giving into them more because there wasn't a strong principal in place to defend our practices. And yes, there is more competition now, but in such an environment, you find a way to differentiate yourself, and from my point of view, the school was heading in the opposite direction. They were becoming more and more like all the other preschools, but still charging double the amount. No wonder enrollment had fallen. Of course, I couldn't really say those things, so I offered to do what I could in the little time I had left.

The first thing was to prepare a workshop on the value of quality, free, unstructured play. Even in North America this is something that is being pushed out of preschools in favour of more "educational" curriculums (with emphasis on reading and math skills), despite all the research that shows that this is unnecessary and even harmful. All parents want to give their child a head start, and teaching children reading and math skills does give them an advantage when they start school. However, this advantage disappears sometime between grades three and six. Why? Because the older children get, the more mature they get, and they develop skills that help them learn these academic subjects faster. Thus, while it may take hundreds if not thousands of hours to teach a three or four year old to read, a seven year old will take a fraction of that time, and by the time they're both ten, they'll probably be reading at exactly the same level. It's a mistaken belief held by many parents that if their kids start out behind, that they'll always be behind.

Just as I learned in university that research has shown that the best age to learn a second language is at age 13 (unless of course, you're brought up in a bilingual home). The only advantage to learning a language while young is that your pronunciation will be better. Thinking about it, it makes sense. Little kids have little vocabularies. They use the same few hundred words over and over and it takes a lot of exposure (or a high level of interest) for them to learn new ones. The kids in Kindergarten spoke like natives (well, two of them were...), but they probably only knew a couple of hundred English words. Most of them had been in the school for three if not four years for a minimum of six hours a day. Now, if a 13 year old spent the same number of hours learning a second language, he would be able to read, write and converse using thousands of words, because he has much better concentration and study skills.

But, if we're not teaching them reading and math, why should parents pay for them to go to preschool? Simple. For them to learn all the other life skills that were (once upon a time) learned from siblings and other neighbourhood kids while playing. Research has shown that the quality of children's play has decreased dramatically in the past few decades. This can be attributed to TV, fancy toys, smaller families and less free time (not necessarily in that order). And by quality play, I mean imaginative and creative play involving many different skill sets.

Okay. Enough of the ramble. It is now December 2008 and I have still not finished this blog, mostly because I've been too caught up on my high horse with this post. So, to actually get back to what I did in Taiwan...

I prepared my workshop and had about three hours worth of material that I tried to fit into one. After a little over an hour, I asked if they wanted to continue, and everyone agreed. By the end, they were all thoroughly convinced that the children needed to play more and that we needed to do more to promote a higher quality of play at every age level. Too bad I know that everything I taught will have been forgotten within the month, and I won't be there to keep things on track. You can only do so much when you're an ocean apart...

Last Day of School

My first year in Taiwan, I must admit, I got a little teary eyed when I lined up my preschool class to go home for the last time. It had been a hard, but rewarding, year and I had put a lot of effort into making my class the best that it could be. I loved each and every one of those kids. One of my favourite memories was when I was telling my 21 kids that I soon would no longer be their teacher. My most difficult student, an aggressive four year boy who had joined us halfway through the year, immediately piped up, "But I love you Ms. Hurdman!" (in English I might add!).

This year's last day felt like any other day. Part of the reason was because I knew I was still going to see them next week, even if it wasn't as their teacher, and the other part was because I had not invested as much of myself into them. They were a good little class and had progressed very quickly in the short time I had with them, but I never connected emotionally with them as I had with other classes. This is probably due to the fact that only one of them spoke any English. In any case, the last day proceeded without fanfare.

I did, however, forget to send home their progress reports. Oops. The school secretary even asked me if they were in the kid's bags as we were lining them up to go and I said yes because I thought that I had seen my TA pack them. It wasn't a big deal, because, as I said, they're all coming back next week anyways, but it was still a little embarassing.

Michael's class was doing a fantasy unit this past month, and had a dress-up party with all the parents for the last day. May dug through some boxes and found a prince's costume that she had designed and had made for her son over ten years ago. Since Michael had said that he wanted to be a king for the party, it worked out well.


Michael and I made the crown ourselves (obviously). He chose the colour. I cut it out and he decorated it with a package of dragon stickers that his grandma had sent him from Canada.

When I got to his classroom after saying goodbye to my class, the party had already been going on for over a half hour. There was tonnes of food brought in by the parents, and the kids were all going crazy while the parents chatted with each other or took pictures. It was also a furnace in there. I lasted about ten minutes, then just grabbed a plate of food and Michael and headed back to my classroom. Michael was glad to get out of the heat, and he always likes skipping out on nap time, so he was happy to join me in cleaning up my classroom.

All in all, a pretty uneventful last day...

The 2x4 That Broke the Camel's Back

I can deal with the crazy bus drivers who always start moving before the doors are closed, and couldn't drive smoothly to save their lives. I can deal with cab drivers who don't make the slightest effort to understand my Chinese. I can deal with the cold and rainy weather in winter, and the thunderstorms in spring. I can deal with buildings with gaping holes in windows and doorways that let out heat in the winter, and cool air in the summer. I can deal with all the ugly buildings and lack of green or even open spaces. I can deal with the pollution and less than appealing smells. I can deal with the pushy crowds and crazy traffic (pedestrians do NOT have the right of way). I can deal with not being able to understand anything that anyone is saying. I can deal with sleeping on a bed that feels like a brick wall. I can deal with having to wait three hours for my clothes to dry in the dryer because it's so humid. I can deal with no shower curtain in the bathroom and having to bend over because the showerhead is so low. I can even deal with geckos in my apartment. However, a few weeks ago, something that tested my adaptability started to pop up with increasing frequency.

Cockroaches.

At first they were few and far between, therefore somewhat tolerable. Robert even caught one for me to take to the Kindergarten class during their bug unit. It also helped that most of them were dead. Someone must have been putting poison out because dead, or near dead cockroaches started appearing with increasing frequency after that. I even found one swimming around the toilet bowl the other morning.

Michael found a huge (live) one in the cupboard under the stove when he went to get a juice box. He came running to me, "There's a big one!". I didn't even have to ask about what he was referring. He was right. It was one of the huge ones that I normally only see squished on the streets and sidewalks. YUCK. That's when I began counting down the days until it was time to go home.

Tonight however was the last straw. I was very tired and looking forward to getting to bed early when the infestation started. It had been thunderstorming for the past few hours, which might explain why they decided to appear en masse, in my bedroom at 9pm at night. Luckily, they weren't cockroaches, or I might have just checked into a hotel for the remainder of our stay in Taiwan. I don't know what they were. They seemed like skinny long earwigs, and they were everywhere.

I killed a few using Kleenex before I realized the extent of the situation. That's when I decided to bring out the big guns, in this case, my vacuum, and I started vacuuming them up. They seemed to be coming in from all the cracks around the air conditioner in the window, so I stuffed some more cloths around it and kept on vacuuming. Everytime I thought they were all gone, Michael would point out another one. We spent an hour combing through our room making sure that we had gotten them all before Michael fell asleep.

I, however, was afraid that as soon as I lay down, I would feel one crawling on me, so I went and played on the computer for another hour until I was tired enough that I felt I could fall asleep fairly quickly. I sheltered Michael's face and turned on the light to do one last visual sweep of the room before turning off the light and going to sleep.

Approximately two minutes later, I felt something crawling up my leg. EWWWWWW!!!

I jumped out of bed, turned the light back on and found two more in the bed that I had so carefully inspected just a few minutes ago. After taking care of them, I do another thorough sweep of the room and again turn off the light.

Luckily, those were the last two. At least I never found any more during the rest of my stay in Taiwan. I even unpacked and repacked an entire suitcase that I had in my room to make sure that none were hiding inside.

Dead cockroaches kept appearing around the apartment until the day I left and joined the cemetary of insects inside my vacuum bag. But after that night, I told myself that I was never living in Taiwan again. And although I said that last time, this time I mean it!

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Only two more weeks before I leave and there are so many things I wanted to do for the last time. I can't belive I've only had a mango ice once the entire time I've been here! I also want to go to Jiufen, because I've never been. I want to take Michael on bumper cars again. I want to go back to my 10NT store and have traditional ice in that night market again. I want to take Michael to the cool new waterpark they built here.

However, it doesn't look like I will be able to do any of those things as there is rain in the forecast for forever more... Now, all I want to do is go back to Canada. What's the point of staying in a rainy country far from home with an active three year old?

So, back to IKEA and Toys 'R Us, to search for Thomas the Tank Engine plates once more. Robert informed me that two had broken on his trip back, so we needed replacements. Still no plates, but we did find a Thomas Snakes and Ladders game. Not much of a substitute for bumper cars, but it will have to do. It turned from rain to torrential downpour while we were there, so we waited it out in Starbucks with a super large hot chocolate. Can you believe I'm drinking hot chocolate at the end of May in a sub-tropical country!?!

I taught Michael how to play snakes and ladders after we got home. He caught on pretty quick and loves playing it. He got upset the first time I won, but I explained how we needed to take turns winning, and although he wasn't happy about it, he conceded that that was only fair.

I must admit that I did cheat a little to let him win a little more often, but that's just what moms do.

Celebrating Mediocrity

Anyone who has watched "The Incredibles" will understand the title of this blog post. Anyone who hasn't - stop reading now and go watch it.

Kindergarten graduation at a rich school takes place at an exclusive club in Taipei called ACC to those in the know. The American Club in China is just like the Yuanshan club, except this one is even better because it's full of rich ex-pats, instead of just rich Taiwanese. The school's Christmas concerts and Kindergarten graduations have always taken place at ACC, so I was already familiar with the grandiose ballroom where the ceremony was to take place. I should mention right now, that our Kindergarten class is comprised of ten students, one of which never attends large functions due to shyness.

As I have been helping out twice a week with the Kindergarten class, Michael and I were invited to attend. I had been helping the class prepare their performance songs (A Whole New World and a personalized version of Leaving on a Jet Plane) for the past two weeks. May's son, James, was to be the accompanist, but I had to be by his side to point out which lines he should play, especially when it came to our rather creative endings. Next time we'll know to get piano music first instead of teaching the kids how to sing like Celine Dion and Chantal Kreviazuk...

We arrived at ACC an hour and a half before the show was to start in order to help set-up. Michael enjoyed running all over the stage, putting on his own one-man shows, and of course, jumping crazily off to shouts of "Watch out!". I was glad when two of his little girlfriends, Lauren and Audrey (of Mother's Day fame), from his Nursery class showed up so they could all run around together.

I needed to sit close to the piano so that I could jump up when needed, so I vetoed sitting by Audrey's parents and grandparents, so we ended up with Lauren's parents. They were very nice and willingly played musical chairs throughout the ceremony as the kids (Audrey came over later) kept on changing their minds about which seat they wanted.

Before the show started, I asked Michael if he was hungry as he hadn't eaten much before leaving. He said yes, so I gave him a granola bar. As Lauren was watching with great interest, I gave her one, too. She then stands on her chair and yells across the ballroom to Audrey, "Look what Michael's mommy gave me!". As I didn't have any more granola bars, I gave Audrey a Squiggle (dried fruit) when she came running over. She then ran back to her parents, but reappeared a few minutes later and announced to me, "I'm still hungry". You've got to love the subtlety of three year olds... I explained that there would be food after the ceremony and that she would have to wait. She didn't quite think that was fair as she could see one more Squiggle in my open purse, and was a little put out that I wouldn't give it to her. Life's tough, isn't it?

I had brought Michael's video MP3 player to occupy him during the show as I knew he would not sit still. Unfortunately, that only kept him busy for about five minutes. Luckily, this being a graduation ceremony, there were two cameras for every person in the room. Michael just had to put on his charming smile and flash those blue eyes of his, and strangers were giving him their expensive cameras and tripods to play with. It was insane. Michael completely pulled apart the tripod behind us as the owners looked on in enjoyment. They found him more entertaining than the ceremony I'm sure, but I was afraid he was going to lose all the little pieces. When I got back from helping James with the piano, Michael had a lady's camera and was taking dozens of pictures of the floor, his knees and the back of people's heads. I was so afraid that he was going to drop it, that I got out my camera and let him have it (with the wrist strap on!), just so he would give the other one back.

Due to the small number of graduates, the ceremony did not last long and then the food began. This being ACC, it was all very fancy and all very good. I loved the grilled eggplant and zucchini sandwiches, while Michael loved all the fresh fruit platters. When he had had his fill, I took him down to the supervised playroom (that they had just finished renovating the week before) and signed him in. They had a huge play structure in there with lots of different toys and activities to do. Then I had to fulfill my teaching responsibilities by taking pictures with all of the kids, the parents, their grandparents, their third cousins, etc...

Traditionally, the owner then takes all the staff to lunch at one of the fancy restaurants there, but we were all so full already, that we didn't order much. They had the nicest kids menu that I had ever seen. Basically, everything that a regular adult menu would have, except in kids portions. Michael, being a little boy, wouldn't hear of having anything but a hamburger. But, oh what a hamburger. I have never tasted a nicer one and was actually happy to eat Michael's leftovers.

Somehow, I don't think that Michael's Kindergarten graduation is going to be quite so fancy...

Michael's New Favourite Place

I took Michael to the Children's Museum today because I knew that it would be raining all afternoon. They built it after Robert and I had left, on the fifth floor of Taipei's largest bookstore (unfortunately also built after we left), so I had never been there before. We found it fairly easily and there weren't many other children there. I was especially glad about the lack of school groups. Our receipt says that we entered at 1:53pm and the cashier told us that we could go in and out as often as we wished until it closed at 9:30pm that evening. Well, I had no intention of staying there anywhere near that long. In fact, after thirty minutes, I wondered if we would even stay an hour and a half. Michael seemed to wander around, trying everything out for a minute or two and then move on. I couldn't get him involved in anything. After an hour or so, we went out for afternoon tea. They had a pretty good food court in the basement.

As soon as we got back, Michael really started to focus and concentrate. I guess he needed that first hour just to get oriented and discover all the options before settling down. In the end, I had to drag him away at 8pm. We did have a thirty minute break for dinner, and one other potty break, but the rest of the time, he played happily. I had originally thought that the 500NT price tag for both of us was a little steep, but for almost six hours of keeping Michael engaged, it was a deal.

The whole place is just like a massive preschool classroom, except they have way cooler equipment (Annie's adjectives are starting to rub off on me). There are 15 different centers for the kids to explore. Below are some of Michael's favourites.

Here he is in the Cotton Kid's Fashion Shop where he's basically sticking bits of different types of cloth and yarn onto the outline of a paper doll. His favourite part was cutting the yarn.


This is Michael in the Kid's Stage area. They had a tonne of dress up clothes in a massive walk in closet, but Michael wasn't too interested in dressing up.


However, he was interested in putting on little "shows." His favourite part was opening and closing the curtains.


In the construction area, I liked how they had the great view of 101 out the window. Of course, Michael liked it, too. It was great inspiration for the little builders!


In the raceway area they had all these open tubes with light rubber balls. The tubes are magnetically stuck to the wall, so Michael could move them around to create his own different raceways. Michael had a lot of fun moving all the pieces around and dropping balls in at the top. It was nice that they even provided stools, so that he could start higher.


The TV studio was cute, but it didn't hold Michael's interest for long.


So, I asked him to sing a song. Here he is doing the Itsy Bitsy Spider on TV.


Here's my little Mikey the Builder. He was pretty sad that there were other kids on this when we first arrived, but he soon got his turn.


He was really happy about getting to put on the vest, goggles and helmet as well.


But this was Michael's favourite activity of all. They had a mini supermarket set up with a real scanner and cash register. They even had their own play money. Michael would take turns with me being the shopper and the cashier. He loved scanning in the items and popping open the cash register.


He took it very seriously.


Especially since money was involved.


When he was the shopper, after he finished paying, he would run over to the next center which contained an Austin Mini, climbed in, put his shopping basket in the back seat, and drove home.


Brrooom, brrooom...


Sometimes the car broke down and he'd have to use a motorbike, or a motorscooter as he calls them.


Notice the basket of food carefully placed behind him.


There were other places as well, but those were Michael's favourites. He spent hours playing in that supermarket and in that Mini with me.

We were both really glad that we went. It wasn't even raining anymore by the time we left.

My Little Snow White

Michael's teacher showed me these pictures that she took of Michael this morning. Doesn't he make a cute princess?



In fact, Michael has declared that he IS a princess. His class is doing a fairy tale unit and he's really enjoying all the princess stories and costumes. Today he made a crown and as we were walking down the hallway after school, he told me that it wasn't a prince's crown or a king's crown. It was a princess crown. End of discussion.

I took him to his favourite toy store for the last time. I think they recognize me now because they didn't have someone follow me around demonstrating anything that I glanced at. I bought a "fast train" for Michael. They have a set of five different Taiwan engines that go on wooden train sets, which included Taiwan's high speed train. Michael loves talking about when he went on the high speed train, and I couldn't deny him his own little toy one.

Then we went to Sun-Yat Sen Memorial Hall. Sometimes it's hard to remember to take pictures of the things you see everyday. Robert and I used to live two blocks away from here. We walked through it almost every week, but I don't think we have any pictures of us there. So, I took Michael to get a few shots.


No, it's not my camera. The water really is that shade of green. Gross, I know.


Michael points out 101 whenever he can see it, so here he is with his favourite building.


Here's a statue of Sun-Yat Sen and some big stone tablets behind. I have no idea what they say on them. Of course, Michael didn't even notice the statue. He was too busy chasing pigeons. After awhile, he came up to me and said, "Chasing birds is hard work!" Very true.



We headed home after that. I remembered Annie this week, but maybe she almost forgot, because she was twenty minutes late. Neither of us said anything about the time...

Birthday Party No-Nos

Michael's teacher was sick today, so the school asked me to be Michael's teacher this morning, while the girl that I've been training as my replacement took over my class. I agreed, got the schedule and wasn't too worried until I found out about the birthday party at 10:30am. They arrive at school at 9, have group time at 9:15, recess from 9:30-10 and then they're supposed to be free to explore the learning centers for a little over an hour before getting ready for lunch at 11:20. But, today was Audrey's birthday, and Mom felt that 10am was too early for cake, and Michael's teacher felt that 11am was too close to lunch for cake, so they compromised on 10:30, which is possibly the worst possible time to have cake. You see, after recess they all have to go to the bathroom and have a drink of water. By the time we get back to the class, it's 10:05. Then we have to clean up all the toys and rearrange furniture for the birthday party at 10:20 so we're ready in case mom shows up a few minutes early. In this case, mom did not, but she showed up with a whole bunch of shiny helium filled balloons which the kids promptly started fighting over. All the girls wanted one of the three Disney Princess balloons and all the boys wanted the single train balloon.

I finally got the kids calmed down and seated for the "party." Audrey had requested a strawberry cake, so mom had brought the strawberriest cake she could find. The entire top was covered in whole strawberries, which makes cutting small slices very difficult. The bakery had suggested taking off all the strawberries first, cutting the cake, and then putting the strawberries back on. When 18 kids are clamouring for cake, the last thing you want to be doing is removing and replacing strawberries, but that's what we did.

Then as soon as they finished the cake, they all started fighting over the balloons again, so I had them all sit down and sang a few songs while I quickly tried to think up a way of distributing them that would not result in tears and tantrums. The assistants suggested just holding the bunch of them and letting each child choose a string, and whatever they got, they got. I decided against this as yes, it would be fair, but very few would be happy. The boys would probably end up with the princesses, and then their parents would complain.

So, I quickly grabbed the least popular balloons and asked the birthday girl to hand them out. The children who didn't care what they got, or who had the least amount of patience put up their hands quickly for the balloons. I chose the next bunch, saving the most popular for the end, for the kids who REALLY wanted them. In the end, it almost worked out. The only problem was the poor birthday girl got left with the Hello Kitty balloon that nobody wanted, and who was on the verge of tears until mom distracted her with the promise of lots of presents to come.

By the time the cake and balloon fiasco were done it was after eleven, too late to let them have centers time before we would have to clean up for lunch, so we had another group time. So, basically, I spent the entire morning doing group time. I had no idea what songs they already knew, so we were doing all the basics. And I mean ALL of them. My voice was almost gone by the end of that morning.

So, to anyone who may be reading this: When planning a birthday party at school, never plan it for the middle of the children's centers time. Never bring a hard to cut cake. And never, ever bring gifts or goodies that aren't all exactly the same.

I had told the school that I couldn't sub in the afternoon as I had promised Michael that I would take him swimming. However, I agreed to be back by 4:30 to sub for the Grade 3s. As time was of the essence, it was rainly heavily, and I was getting paid overtime for subbing, I decided to take a cab to the pool. I had the name of the sports complex in Chinese, but not the address. I hoped it would be enough. It wasn't. So, he had to pull over, pull out his glasses and peer at where I was pointing on my bilingual map. He finally nodded, although he still looked pretty uncertain, and away we went. About half way there, a lightbulb came on over his head and he started pretending to lift weights while smiling and nodding his head. I said the Chinese word for "yes" and then he was much happier. So was I, as I had only ever been there by MRT and had no clue how to drive there either.

I bought our tickets and we went down to the pool. One of the pool attendants showed us where to leave our shoes and then directed us past the ladies change room to the "family changing room" which was a corner beside the snack bar that you could pull a curtain around. No shelves, hooks or bench to put your bags or clothes on. Whatever. We quickly changed and put on our attractive bathing caps (which are mandatory at every public pool and hot spring here) even though neither of us had any intention of getting our heads wet.

We took our belongings over to the lockers and I let Michael choose which one we should use. They required a 10NT coin, so I got out two (because I always have bad luck with those types of lockers) and tried to lock our belongings in. Two coins later, no luck getting the key out. Another attendant came over and tried to help. After a few minutes, she went over to the snack bar, got out another 10NT coin and had us move everything to another locker, which worked.

Michael had a lot of fun in the little kids pool. We were the only ones in it. The water was warm and came up to my waist, so Michael was able to walk around just fine by himself. He wouldn't go down the slide without holding my hand as he couldn't get his feet under himself fast enough and would go under unless I was holding him. He played with his "rowboat" most of the time. It's basically an inflatable flutter board that I got him at the cheap store. We stayed for a little over an hour, and Michael only tried to break the rule of no kids in the hot tubs once. I thought it went pretty well.

I wasn't about to change in the "family changing room" now that we were all wet and there was nowhere to shower or put our dry or wet things, so we went to the ladies changing room. I immediately realized why they had taken us to the snack bar curtained corner instead - no changing stalls or curtained showers, and many women showering and changing. But, there were benches and shelves, so we just changed as quickly as possible. However, I was a little embarassed at Michael staring at all the strange women. I am never taking Michael swimming by myself again...

It was pouring when we left, so we caught a cab back to the school and I helped the grade 3s with the board games they were making. One group was having a hard time without realizing it. They were convinced they were done, but when I was reading over their rules, they kept on talking about owning weapons and using money to buy weapons. However, on their board game, there was only mention of killing bad guys, and nothing about weapons or how to acquire them. Of course, they could see the logic in everything, but I was completely baffled at their lack of common sense. I finally got them to see a little bit of reason by the end of class, but I'm not sure it will make any difference.

After school, I was too tired to find someplace to eat, so we went to the cafe that used to be my old classroom four years ago for dinner. Michael really wanted the spaghetti, and I ordered the Japanese mushroom stew. Michael barely ate anything (he said it was too spicy), so I ended up eating almost all of both of our meals. I have gained a lot of weight here, and meals like this one are one of the biggest reasons why.

By the time we were done, May was also done upstairs, so she came down and offered us a ride home, which was really nice as I was exhausted.

The Truth About Santa Claus

Due to a scheduling conflict, our English ward was sent up to the third floor chapel today, where we had watched general conference a few weeks ago. The first speaker was a new missionary to the ward. He started off as all missionaries do, "I'm excited to be here, la dee da dee dum..." I must admit that I was trying to keep Michael occupied rather than listening closely until he started talking about Santa Claus. I'm always try to get Michael to listen to the speakers if there's anything that he can relate to, so I quickly told Michael, "Listen. He's talking about Santa Claus." Michael's head popped up and he said, "Santa Claus?" Michael had really just caught onto the idea of Santa Claus this year, but he definitely still remembered.

The missionary had just been talking about how Santa Claus is so good and everybody loves Santa and then he dropped the bombshell - "But Santa Claus is not real." I had been looking at Michael, but I immediately whipped my head around and started glaring at this oblivious nineteen year old, mentally ordering him to backtrack or say something like, "He's not real to some people who don't believe in him." But, nope. I'm frantically thinking of what to say to Michael as the missionary repeats at least three times how Santa isn't real, but the gospel is real or something along those lines. I'm also kicking myself for telling Michael to listen. It seemed like most of the other kids were completely ignoring the speaker as usual and didn't catch on, whereas Michael kept on saying, "He said Santa isn't real." I caught pitying smiles from all around as I tried to convincingly tell Michael, "Yes, he's real. That man made a mistake." And Michael would reply, "No, he said he's not real." We went back and forth a few times until I gave up and let the subject drop, hoping that by the end of church, he will have forgotten all about it, and that by December, he will not have any memory of some guy in a suit telling lies at the pulpit.

The ever wise bishopric set the record straight, and announced before the intermediate hymn that Santa was definitely real, and he knew how to get to Taipei and into houses that didn't have chimneys (as no one has fireplaces here). Finally! The truth! Unfortunately, Michael didn't hear a word of it, and I had already learned my lesson about asking Michael to listen. And I don't want to hear another word about Santa until December.

I still didn't get a belated Mother's Day Toblerone. And Michael ran off and got lost leaving me to wander the third floor calling out to him. On the plus side, after I found him, we found the umbrella that he had lost a few weeks ago, so he was happy.

As we were walking to our bus stop, Michael pointed to the huge Taipei Post administration building and said, "When I grow up, I'm going to live here all by myself." He's only three and he's already thinking about moving out!

Taipei 101 with Pictures

Our last completely free weekend in Taipei. Next Saturday is Kindergarten Graduation and the following Saturday is Family Fun Day and the Saturday after that, we'll be back in Canada! Wow, the time sure has gone by quickly.

I decided to go down the stairs to our breakfast stand for the last time. Michael always insists on ordering a "burger" there even though he never eats more than two bites. He also always gets a chocolate milk from the 7-11 first.


Here's the fresh pork stall right beside the breakfast stand. I thought I would take a picture as it is so typical in Taiwan. This is how people buy their pork. And no, there is no ice or refridgeration at all. However, they do usually have strings attached to a slow moving fan to keep flies away.


Since it was another beautiful day, and I had never been up to the Taipei 101 observatory, and Robert had forgotten the camera when he took the boys up last time, I decided to take a look. Ever since going with Robert, Michael has been obsessed with 101, so he was very excited to be able to go again.


The bottom few floors are upscale shops, such as Dior, Versace, Dolce & Gabbana, Prada, Tiffany & Co., etc... Most of the jewelry shops don't even have open doors. You have to be buzzed in by an attendant.

We found our way past all the designer shops to the fifth floor where the world's fastest elevator was. We bought my ticket (Michael was free)and went straight up more than eighty floors in 37 seconds. We got out and started walking around the indoor observation area. I have never seen more white people (other than at church) all in one place in Taipei before. Yet, Michael was still a magnet for any locals that happened to be up there. I know it's a terrible picture, but I had to get at least one shot of people taking pictures of Michael. This woman had to bribe Michael with candy before she could pry him off of my leg for a picture. I'm sure her picture didn't turn out much better. Who takes pictures of people right in front of a bright window?


I took a couple of pictures of the view. This is a view of the part of Taipei that we have spent the most time in.


This is the part of Taipei where we live.


Since we were being "tourists," we went all the way and bought a postcard from the gift shop, just so that we could mail it from the "highest post office box in the world."


Then we walked up to the outdoor observatory, passing by a little piece of home on the way (the CN tower).


They had these binoculars everywhere, but I never gave Michael money for them despite his pleadings, as he wouldn't know what to do with them. The bars behind Michael are the ones that Robert referred to earlier when he said that Jeremy could fit between them.


We walked all the way around and then went to see the five minute video presentation that shows the building of Taipei 101 and a bit of the fireworks from this past New Year's celebration. I had heard that it was a great show, but that you couldn't breathe because there were so many people on every street with a view of 101. I was glad that I could just watch it on video. A much better view, and much more comfortable. Michael watched the video twice, just so that he could see the fireworks part again.

Then we went to the floor below the observatory where they have the world's largest wind damper (don't ask me what it does - I don't know). It just looks like a huge gold ball suspended on wires to me. To get there, you walk through two darkened hallways with lit floors. The first hallway had a cosmos floor with comets shooting by and galaxies swirling around. The second looked like a cloudy sky, but as you stepped on it, the clouds would part to reveal the city of Taipei below. I thought the floors were a lot more interesting than the damper...




Then Michael wanted to go up two floors to the outdoor observatory to watch the video presentation again. There were more people there this time, but Michael just ran in, plopped himself down on the front row and started jabbering away to the white man beside him. There was no room for me, so I saw a few rows behind. The man was a little surprised, but I don't think he spoke English anyways, so he just ignored Michael. Of course, all the Chinese there thought he was much more interesting than the video and watched him talking away the whole time.

We ended up staying there a lot longer than I expected. Of course, we had to have the Movenpick ice cream (you got a coupon for it with your lift ticket) as well. Very yummy. We are definitely very spoiled in Taiwan.

Never Mix Chocolate Ice Cream and Prada

Since Robert left, the weather has been absolutely gorgeous. Sunny and not too hot. It has been quite windy though. I found out later that a typhoon was passing by the island which explained the cloudless skies and wind. So, after school, I asked Michael if he wanted to go to the park or the zoo. He chose the zoo, so away we went.

Michael's goal was to see the lions this time. So, we took train up and walked over to the African Animals area. We stopped at the elephants along the way. Michael seemed interested, so I tried to sit him on the barrier, so that I wouldn't have to hold him up. He freaked out because he thought that the elephants would be able to touch him there. I explained that they couldn't come anywhere near us because there was a huge ditch all the way around that they couldn't cross. He felt better after that and sat there watching the elephants for another fifteen minutes.


I think he watched the lions for about fifteen seconds...

Then we wandered around a bit more before getting back on the train to go back to the entrance. I decided to let Michael get a chocolate ice cream because I am a totally indulgent mother, and we sat on the bench waiting for our train. After we got off the train, I noticed the ice cream was starting to drip a little, so I asked Michael if I could help him with it. As he handed it to me, it dripped heavily on my Prada purse which my aunt had given me the last time we visited her in Hong Kong. Having no tissues on me, and Michael having used up all the wipes on Mother's Day, we rushed to the bathroom where I had to buy toilet paper to clean my purse. Luckily, my purse is brown anyways, but why are stains always attracted to the most expensive thing that you have on or with you?

Then it started to rain. The only day it rained all week. We ran into the gift shop where Michael had fun trying on all the hats.


After the rain let up a little, we hurried over to the MRT and went home.

Forgetting Annie - Again

My progress reports are due tomorrow, so I had Michael stay with his class until three o'clock today while I finished them up. Then we went to IKEA as Michael had been asking to go for the past few days. He played, we got take-out, the usual. It wasn't until we were waiting for our last connecting bus home that I remembered Annie and glanced at my watch. Oops. Annie was supposed to be coming over in five minutes. So, I quickly gave her a call and told her we would be fifteen minutes late.

I'm trying to get Annie to use more descriptive language, so we flipped through the Hammacher Schlemmer catalogue and read a few descriptions. Funny, not one of them mentioned the word "cool" (other than when describing temperature) and yet that seems to be the only word that Annie had to describe something she liked. But, is that so different from North American teenagers? Can they usually tell you exactly why they like something? Probably not. So, I didn't press the issue too hard.

Easy Substitute Teaching

Mr. Yoshida, the Grades One and Two teacher was in Japan, so the school asked me to sub for him. It was the easiest substitute teaching I have EVER done. The Grade One's were working on their fictional solar system books and worked so diligently and quietly that halfway through I had to insist they get up and take a break. The first set of Grade Ones decided to play "Simon Says." I haven't played Simon Says for at least fifteen years and was the first one out. Actually the only one out. The rest of them were experts, but I didn't mind as they were getting quite the workout, while I just sat on the sidelines and watched. The second group of Grade One's refused to take a break. They just wanted to keep on working. Why didn't I have Grade One's like that during my two years here before?

I only had the Grade Two's for an hour. Mr. Yoshida had told me of some of the social problems they were having in the class, so I had them choose the name of a classmate and by the end of class, they had to come up with three nice things to say about that person. So, they were all on their best behaviour so that the secret person who had their name would write good things about them.

If only substituting the Grade Five's had been so easy!

A Mother's Day Doomed to Failure

It was one of those days...

Michael decided to clean the bathroom floor by peeing on it then mopping it up with a whole package of tissues.

Michael pulled out all of his wet wipes and put them in his bath water.

The Bishopric didn't buy enough Toblerones for the mothers at church, so I didn't get one.

All we had to eat for dinner was pasta with canned tomatoes and shredded cheese.

Michael got into the chocolate bunny that Robert had brought me for Easter and got chocolate EVERYWHERE.

I didn't get a single e-mail or phone call or card all day wishing me a Happy Mother's Day.

Michael said he only loved me a "little bit."

Oh well. Such is the life of a mother!

Michael's Informal Photo Shoot

I continued cleaning up the apartment today. I did laundry, laundry and more laundry. Michael got bored and decided to nap, so afterwards, I decided to take him to Yu Kids Island for the last time. We stopped off at our favourite "cheap store that sells everything" to get Michael a case for his new "Ipod." It's actually a Creative Zen that Robert bought him the day before he left, but to Michael, it's an "ipod" just like Daddy's. I didn't buy him an ipod case either. I'm not sure what it was, maybe a cell phone case or an extremely small purse. Anyways, I wanted the one with a dragon on it, but Michael decided on the one with a monkey. Since he was born in the year of the monkey (and it's his case after all) I let him get it.

Michael had a great time at Yu Kids, except for the time when he was in the jumping castle and decided to wrestle down another boy, bumping his head in the process. He screamed very loudly but didn't get much sympathy from me. Later on, he found a little girl, who was probably a year younger than him and was leading her around by the hand and playing nicely with her. Why isn't he such a good big brother to Jeremy? It must have been because she was a girl. How come I don't have a girl?

At the TAS spring fair a few weeks ago, we had been approached by modelling agents who really wanted to sign up our boys, especially Michael. I had thought about having Michael do a little modelling while here, as it's super easy for white kids to find work here, but decided later we didn't have the time. One of the agents was pretty disappointed with our refusal and kept on showing Michael magazine covers and asking him if he wanted his picture on them. Michael had no idea what she was talking about. However, today Michael decided that he wanted to be a model after all and insisted on my taking dozens of shots of him while on the climber. Here are a few.




He is pretty cute, I must admit. However, I soon tired of, "Mommy! Take my picture!"

Afterwards we went to Geant where I finally found the toilet scrubbing pads that I was looking for. I also found Michael a T-shirt that he loves, because it looks like the ones that Robert likes. And it was only $3 Cdn. Now, those are the kinds of clothes that my boys need. I should have bought two...

Mother's Day Two Days Early

Today was our Mother's Day presentation at school. The mothers are all invited to come and hear three songs that the kids have learned, to eat a few treats that the kids have made, and to get their Mother's Day card and present. Each class is done separately, and I asked to do mine in my room because I knew not a single one would sing if we were in the big recess room. It was supposed to start at 10:45am, so they could just leave with their moms afterwards. The invitation was addressed specifically to the moms, but of course about half the fathers showed up and a fair number of grandmothers. Only one baby sister, who started crying half way through our show.

At 10:40, we cleaned up and I had the kids all ready and prepared so that at 10:45 when the hordes came throught he doors, the children would be calm and ready. As double the amount of people that I was expecting came through the door, I did have a hard time keeping the kids from running to their parents, but luckily only one escaped and he came back willingly after his hug. I had the children sing a few fingerplay songs to get their attention and to give the parents time to jockey into best photo taking position. Then we started.

It went pretty well. One of my boys lay down flat on his back and covered his eyes the entire time, while his twin sister sang loud enough for both of them. My best singer suddenly stopped in the middle of the second song when she realized her own mother was nowhere to be seen in the crowd. I didn't realize this until after the show when they all ran to their parents and she was alone. Mom came in a few minutes later. I only sent home three reminders with the time they should be at school underlined... Another mother came to me a little later and asked when the presentation was going to start. I guess she missed it too, but came in just as everyone was getting up to go to their parents. As every other parent was holding a videocamera, I suggested she get a copy from another parent.

At 11 o'clock I excused myself for a few minutes to see Michael's performance. The children didn't mind at all. They had their parents and chocolate covered pretzels that they had made the day before. I don't think the moms got any of the treats as the kids devoured them very quickly. We had also made fruit kebabs, so in the end everyone got something.

Here's Michael waving to me as he came in for his presentation. I was very glad that he refrained from running over to me.


Here's the second song that Michael sang "M-O-M-M-Y." He always pulls up and shows his tummy when he's a little embarassed. However, he soon forgot his shyness and became hyper instead.



Here's the third song that Michael sang. Everyone thought it was so cute that he tried to hug Audrey, except for Audrey. My Dad called it, "His first rejection by a girl!"



Fridays are long days for me, but when May asked if we would go out with her and Annie after school, I said yes because I know how crazy her schedule is. She's wanted to take Michael shopping for a long time, but I made her promise to only buy one outfit each for Michael and Jeremy. She was also on the hunt for Mother's Day gifts for her mother and mother-in-law, whos' appreciation for gifts is in direct proportion to the amount of money spent on them. Thus, May always does her gift shopping in upscale Japanese department stores.

So, needless to say, Michael was totally bored, but luckily there was an "educational" toys display that Michael could play with while May kept on running over with different clothes. I asked that she refrain from buying mostly white clothes as my boys are very much boys. In the end I think she ended up buying more than my imposed limit, and the price tags were outrageous. Who would pay more than $50 for a short sleeved polo type shirt for a three year old? Well, obviously some people do. But now, I'm afraid to let him wear it in case he ruins it. I'm afraid to wash it in case the colours run. What am I supposed to do with it, let alone all the other similarly priced clothes she bought?

I was soon bored as well because I don't even bother to look around at clothes when the price tags are so high. Again, my dad's training kicking in. By 9pm, I told her we had to leave so that Michael (and I!) could get to bed, and left her and Annie to continue shopping alone while we took a cab home. It was pouring rain out, but I didn't even have to get out my umbrella as the doorman ushered us into the cab using his patio table sized umbrella to keep us dry.

We were glad to get home, although I had to be careful not to let the boys' new clothes get wet as we ran into our apartment. Expensive clothes are way too much hassle...

A Day of Rest

Michael decided that he didn't want to see Daddy off at the airport after all, so we said our goodbyes at 9:30 last night at the apartment amidst Jeremy's screams. He thought Robert was leaving without him. Robert was just taking the luggage to the elevator... Try explaining that to a 20 month old.

As Michael didn't fall asleep until after 10:30, we were both a little tired and very glad that it was a half day of work. I wanted to pick up a few things from the supermarket on the way home and discovered that it was closed for renovations! As it's the only supermarket that's on my daily route, I was a little disappointed as I am in sore need of toilet srubbing pads and mosquito repellant wall plug-ins. I guess it will just have to wait.

Michael and I both had a nap. Having Robert and Jeremy here was wonderful, but very tiring, and very messy. After my nap, I started tidying up the apartment so that it was liveable again. A more thorough cleaning will have to wait until I get to a supermarket!