You may have noticed a lack (or at least reduction) of entries recently. That is because it is summer - that time of year when I lose any ability to get A SINGLE THING done because the kids are out of school. So this is me sneaking 5 minutes to post some random pictures while Koren naps and Kaelin is otherwise occupied.
I never get tired of bath pictures.
Burp Cloths: better than pacifiers.
Just 'cause.
So yeah, Singapore… Told you I’d get around to it. At least, this will be a start…
We had the remarkable opportunity (thanks to the mass accumulation of frequent flier miles) to travel business class to Singapore. Since the in-air time exceeded 20 hours, I’m pretty sure that the ability to lay down during the longest stretch (14 hours) saved my ever-loving sanity. I am not a good flier.
As it was, we arrived in Singapore tired and disoriented, but not wailing and moaning for our own deaths.
Also, we had the privilege of waiting for our various layovers in the First Class Lounges, which were quite nice and relaxing, unlike the traditional hustle and bustle of airport gates. The San Fran Cathay lounge was my favorite.
Jens always gives me that look when I’m taking pictures of him. You’d think he’d be used to it by now.
While making our way through the Hong Kong airport, it quickly became obvious that we weren’t in Kansas anymore, Toto. Aside from the fact that everyone was, well, Asian, they were all wearing surgical masks. Apparently the swine flu was a great concern in Hong Kong. After a while, we started to feel really out of place, and began contemplating what would happen if we went up and sneezed on someone, laughed maniacally, and ran away.
Remembering that we were in an airport, where they tend to lack a sense of humor about such antics, we decided against that course of action and instead went to the lounge to dine on some various Asian soups. Yum.
“DIE, YOU LITTLE SUCKERS!”
Kaelin issues the battle cry, while I commence rolling over the little demons with the sticky lint brush.
It’s true - we are under attack. The ants have taken over our kitchen and no amount of Terminix visits seems to bring their population under control. Apparently the insides of our walls are teeming with them, and being thwarted only makes them more determined to find new ways to breach the wall into our kitchen. We have baited the light switch outlet and the electrical outlets, and treated the yard and border of the house. This morning Jens had to caulk a pore-sized hole near the window that they were using as the Mont Blanc Tunnel.
Up to this point, the unrelenting ants have been a moderate nuisance. But today I have run out of patience. As of today, this is WAR and I will not be defeated.
One day I’ll get around to posting about Singapore. But in the meantime, my kid is funny:
Kaelin: Koren, back away from the exercise machine. KOREN. BACK. UP.
Mama: He doesn’t understand what ‘back up’ means, babe.
Kaelin: (to Koren) It means GO AWAY. MOVE.
Mama: He doesn’t understand what that means either.
Kaelin: (to Koren, disgusted) Then ask your mother.
For Koren’s birthday party, two of my oldest friends came to visit and brought their children. It was a weekend of much chaos and tons of fun!
The kids all hit it off immediately, especially Kaelin and Madelyn, who might have been mistaken for long lost sisters. They were inseparable the entire time, and when Madelyn left, Kaelin told me that she loves Madelyn and wants her to come back (sniff, sniff, pout ... no really, she actually sniffled as though she was going to cry about it). They even bunked together in the same room and (after a little, ahem, coaxing) actually managed to get a small amount of sleep that night 
The kids played and played and played, while we grownups got a little bit of catch-up time (emphasis on “little bit” - there was a lot going on with 5 kids running amok)! The bonus though, was that none of us had to actually entertain our children the entire time - they took care of that themselves!
Koren had a very busy day and was exhausted after the party. Oddly, he was not a fan of his birthday cake, and set a record for the least-messy consumption of chocolate cake in the history of toddlerdom. We stripped him down to his diaper in preparation for the destruction, and I think he ended up dirtying one finger. The child will jump at the opportunity to eat dog food, but resists chocolate cake. This does not say much for my baking skills…
Leigh and Steph, thanks for making the drive up to see us! I loved meeting your kids and watching them all interact! This was definitely a birthday to remember!
Dear Mr. Busy,
While there are a lot of things I could say to sum up the little man you have become during your first year, I think your Papa put it best during your recent visit to Seattle: “Your son is perfect, and relentless, and hungry.”
It’s true. You wake up in the morning happy and ready to destroy (after putting away a breakfast that could feed a team of construction workers, of course). You are so BUSY.
You still have no interest in talking whatsoever and we have yet to get you to voice anything besides the ever-constant “Dada Dada” ... but fortunately you have eased up on the nazgul shrieking somewhat.
You are now quite good at walking. I think you had an epiphany this last week in which you realized that walking really IS faster than crawling, and you have refused to go back to crawling ever since. You zoom around the house chasing Kaelin, or Kitty or anything you see out of the corner of your eye that might fit in your mouth.
Unfortunately, you also have a penchant for running away and/or finding things you should not be messing with. My day is a continual cycle of retrieving you from the dog food, the toilets, the dishwasher, the stairs, and any open doorway that serves as an exit. You are relentless and the number of times you have been thwarted never prevents you from trying again 2 seconds later.
When we went for your photo session, I put you down long enough to sign my name on the credit slip. By the time I caught up with you, you were already out the door and down the hallway in the mall. Today at church, I put you down and you immediately honed in on the exit doors, 100 feet away. By the time I caught you, you were 10 feet from running outside. Today at Grandmommy and Grandpa’s house, I must have pulled you off the stairs 50 times.
You are fearless, and succeed in giving me at least 3 heart attacks every day. You have no qualms about jumping head-first off the bed, climbing up anything perilous, running toward an open oven, walking right off the edge of the pool, or any other maneuver that spells certain death. If you live to see age 3, it will be a wonder. If I live to see you turn 3, it will be a friggin’ miracle.
We’re trying an experiment, which you have taken to surprisingly well. We’ve taken you off of dairy to see if it has any effect on your chronic cough and tear duct issues. So far, we haven’t seen much improvement, but we’re giving it some more time. Fortunately, you take goat milk in a bottle like a champ, and as long as we don’t eat string cheese in front of you, you seem to do fine without the dairy. If the experiment isn’t effective, we have an appointment lined up in a couple of weeks for you to have your tear duct probed, which sounds horrific and I’m really not looking forward to it, particularly since I don’t think it will actually solve the problem if your tear duct is under-sized.
You’re a somewhat solemn kid, but you smile and giggle the most when doing something dangerous or naughty. Your favorite game is when Dada throws you up in the air. You smirk and run away when I catch you holding something you should not be getting into. And chasing/wrestling with your sister sometimes brings on a total giggle fit.
Dear one, you are exhausting. In a wonderful, fascinating and entertaining way.
Just between you and me though, it’d be nice if JUST ONCE, I could unload the dishwasher without having to pull you out of it six times.
Love,
Mama
Thanks, Amy T.
So, I know I didn’t mention it here (because I’m just sneaky and paranoid like that) but many of you are aware that we just returned from a trip to Singapore. We were able to visit our longtime friends, Rich and Tricia and their family, and had a wonderful time touring the city.
Details and pictures from the trip are coming soon, but for now we are readjusting to the time zone and preparing for company and Koren’s 1st birthday celebration. The latter tasks are going much better than the first.
Our systems are apparently still on Singapore time, as we find ourselves waking up at 2am every morning, unable to go back to sleep for the rest of the night. The kids, whether for better or worse, are not having any time zone difficulties and remain more or less on their normal schedule...which means that by 3 or 4pm every day, Jens and I are WIPED. OUT.
There’s something nice about having the solitary quiet time in the middle of the night for reading etc, but it’s totally not worth it the next day. Today especially was a challenge, and by 4pm I was seriously considering shipping the kids to Dubai. At some point today, they both lost the ability to go for more than FIVE MINUTES without incurring a head injury.
While I was comforting Koren, Kaelin would run into a door knob. While I was seeing to Kaelin, Koren would end up flat on his back on the tile floor, bawling. This went on for half an hour until I put them both in the bath tub for their own safety. It didn’t work, because they got into a tug-of-war over a toy that ended up smacking Kaelin in the face when Koren let go and fell backward. More hysterical crying ensued.
So I pulled Koren out of the tub and he immediately took off running across the tile floor while I was trying to wrap a towel around him. You can guess the outcome of that scenario. And that’s about the time I committed myself to a mental institution.
On the bright side, thanks to my new mid-night hours, I’m getting caught up on my feed reader. I’m now down to less than 80 entries to read (from several hundred). Perhaps I’ll get some pictures and updates posted tonight, er, tomorrow morning.
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