Tae Kwon Do

A-chan has started taking Tae Kwon Do! This is her first ever actual class and we weren't sure how it would go over. She kept talking about doing martial arts (it has nothing to do with all the anime and martial arts films we watch, I swear!) and when I happened to find a studio right next to my dance class, it seemed like fate.

She absolutely loves the class. And I'm impressed not only by the instructor but the amount of stuff they learn in class! I am also getting a lot more excersize as she has me practice with her here at home which is tons of fun.

This picture has absolutely nothing to do with Tae Kwon Do, but I liked it so here it is :) A-chan at the Georgia Aquarium.

Allowance for a pool

It's a southern tradition. The invasion of the kiddie pool has arrived. Two of A-chan's friends have recently had pools available for playing in and A-chan decided she needed one as well. A pool is not something that I was interested in getting for her at all - we tend to avoid sunshine like the plague and we've got drought issues at the moment. But she wanted one sooooo much. And we're suckers.

But at least we made her work for it! Kind of, anyway. We offered to let her do some 'work' around the house to earn an allowance and then she could use the allowance to buy the pool. She was delighted and did the three things that we asked, mainly three different variations on 'see that pile of blocks/toys/dolls/clothing of yours over there? can you put them away, please?' She then earned $5 and we went the next afternoon to purchase the pool. It didn't cost $5, but it was the idea that was important and not the actually money.

And I still am not sure if the whole allowance thing was more for her (learning about work, money and such) or for me (not feeling guilty about buying her a wantonly luxurious item that I hadn't intended to buy in the first place). A-chan seems to really like the allowance idea now that she has seen it come to fruition twice. It will be interesting to see what she does with it in the future.

Curiosity Killed the Nap

"Mata, I'm curious about something."

"What is it, sweetie?"

"I'm curious about staying up and playing before it gets dark."

the above is an actual conversation that was begun as we sat down to lunch, luncheon being the traditional precursor to naptime in our household. It got to be a ritual in the last month or so where naptime negotiations would begin before a single bite would be taken. So we finally just gave in and have stopped the napping.

The first week without naps was rather taxing and I think we were all pretty darn cranky by the end of the day. The second week is definately going better. There are pros and cons of the non-napping. It's been noticed that I get a lot more done during the day when I don't have to stop for a two hour quiet session. It's also been noted that I no longer get naps either. But A-chan eats lunch a LOT better these days. She also sleeps easier and deeper at night. All in all I think it's working for us after that first period of adjustment. We'll see how it works long term.

The Fairy House

If you've ever seen the Haba furniture with the fairy flower tent, etc. then you've seen my dream image of a playset for my girl. Except that it's really expensive and I keep telling myself that I can make one myself. I kept telling myself that for a while but A-chan saw a drawn plan for one and insisted on having one right away. No time like the present! It's not very fancy and it's pretty much still held together with safety pins ( I wanted to make sure she really liked it before spending a whole lot of sewing time on it) but it's made.

She loves it, the cats love it, I love it. We're actually pretty amazed that the cats don't attack it as it moves in the breeze from the ceiling fans. But they seem to get a kick out of sitting in the middle and looking out through the shifting fabric. The only thing that is disappointing about it to A-chan is the fact that it's kid sized and I can't fit into it to play in there with her. I think she will feel differently once she has a chance to play with some friends in it.

Ice cream is...

Much better when homemade.
Perfect when covered in freshly picked blueberries.
Addictive to three year old girls.
Kind of fun to make.
A bit more messy to eat with ones fingers instead of a spoon.
Going to be the bane of my diet.
The most exciting thing to make on a Wednesday evening.

Yep. I finally gave in a bought an ice cream maker. It's electric and easy and fun and really, really exciting to watch according to A-chan. Ice cream is her current favorite dessert (mochi still trumps but ice cream is better in 90 degree weather) and to A-chan the advent of the ice cream maker is just about like winning the lottery would be for most adults. She really did stand there and watch for the entire 25 minutes until it was finished. I don't think she stopped giggling the whole time. We ate the first batch this evening after dinner with our friend, S. A-chan distributed the fresh blueberries among the bowls of vanilla ice cream herself. I think that I have created a monster.

First Ever Allowance and the Yellow

I had never intended to give A-chan an allowance at so young an age, it was entirely out of the blue. It happened like this:
As she and I were driving downtown to have lunch with my mother, she wanted to know why her Dada wasn't comin along. I tried explaining the concept of work and work hours, bosses and paychecks in as simple terms as I could come up with. It was a rather good conversation, I thought and she seemed to be understanding it until I got to the end of the explanation and she repeated her question.

Hmmm, went I, none of that sank in. What to do? That afternoon the opportunity presented itself for an arrangement that might provide a tidbit of reference for her. As I cleaned the house in preparation for guests in the evening, I noticed a whole lot of toys scattered about and requested that she help put them away. As she complied I talked about work and the meaning of work and the fact that if she did her 'work' of picking up her toys that afternoon she would be rewarded with money.

Surprisingly she got very excited and hurried to clean her toys and did a fantastic bang-up job of it, impressing us to no end. Since we didn't have the $5 cash on hand for her allowance I made up an IOU and put it next to the door to redeem the next time we went out. She enjoyed making the IOU and signing it very much. Even better, she really seems to get the concept of work and such a little.

I really thought that she would spend her allowance at the Renaissance Festival, but she ended up keeping it until our trip to Austin, TX and an outing to Terra Toys. If you ever get the chance, definately go there. It's an awesome toy store! What's interesting is that A-chan seemed to have a color theme for her allowance spending. The three things that she purchased were all the same color of yellow. A smiley face ball, a pair of training chop sticks with elephant on top, and a yellow magnifyin glass. Neither of the other two have been played with much, but the magnifying glass has been a huge hit.

Shocking Princess Disappearance

The disappearance of Sleeping Beauty and subsequent shock from same caused quite a stir in the household and environs today. Distress included loss of bladder control and swamping of certain sections of house. Red pants, currently in vogue among the ruling classes, were required to replace the red pants that were rendered 'soaking wet' during the incident. All in all a stunning look at how such catastrophes can affect so many. The princess is still missing despite a large scale search and rescue effort that was called off in mid-afternoon due to impending lunch and nap time.

A-chan has been wearing panties for about 1.5 weeks now, except at nap time. And as long as she's wearing them she's incredibly good about going to the potty. Today was the first ever accident. I'm not sure if she was truly surprised at having found her Sleeping Beauty missing or if we took too long searching for her.

I win the game!

A-chan's gotten two kids games lately that we've been playing this past month. One, Wheels on the Bus, was a birthday present which she loved from the start. The other, Hungry Hungry Hippos, came from Santa and was absolutely adored from the first time that she played it with M, F & E. Any chance to play either game is met with great excitement and some whooping and hollaring.



We've really been enjoying this new way of interacting too. I wasn't expecting to find games for 3 year olds to be fun, but they are. Especially because they make her so happy. But at the same time, I worry about the competition aspect. This afternoon A-chan went around the house going, "I win the game!" for no apparent reason at all. Was she just expressing her happiness over playing the Bus game last night, I wondered? Or is she starting to get too hyped up about actually winning? And is this even something that I should worry about right now?


I would prefer that she be focused more on the fun of playing the game and not concentrate on who wins. But that is pretty much my own philosophy of game-play, to enjoy the actual playing and the companionship of friends without being concerned over winning. Is it wrong for me to try and instill my own value of gaming in my daughter? Or is that being an overbearing parent? I'm sure that one day as she grows up and become interested in doing something competetive even more questions will arise. But I think for now I will try, somehow, to keep her interested more in the game itself than in being a 'winner'.


The picture above was taken on the Big Red Bus Tour of Dubai. A-chan does love buses!

Bribery

Tonight was the monumental setting of a Bad Precedent. Indeed, we willingly and knowingly bribed our daughter to eat at a restaurant with the promise of cake. *sigh* We are such bad parents. But...it was late. And I was tired and didn't want to cook. And we'd already driven way out there. And, and, and...

I have to admit that I really got a kick out of being a vegetarian parent as we sat at the restaurant tonight. Even after having bribed A-chan with cake. Cause parents across the aisle were trying every trick in the book to get their children to eat some veggies. But my little girl had zucchini and squash and black beans and was happy about it! I will, in fact, be very smug (imagine the smug parent grin on my face...) because my little girl likes broccoli. Not only likes it, but asks for it on her own. Ahh, what a lovely feeling. She is still suspicious of spinach and asparagus, though.

You got it wrong!

One of A-chan's newest and favorite things to say! She's really started relishing whenever she can catch us doing something wrong. It's so cute!!! I'm sure that about a month from now it'll start to be more annoying than cute, but right now it's really cute.

Her Grandma got her these neat Brain Quest flash cards for x-mas that we weren't so sure she'd like. Apparently they are the greatest thing ever, though. She loves to play the 'flashcard' game with me. I've been very surprised at how many she can answer correctly. One thing that I love about them is how they have given me ideas on where I need to focus for her education. Things like money - we've not even tried to tell her that coins have values, etc. And we've not been doing much about rhyming words yet either. So I'm very excited about the new flashcards too!

We are sooo spoiled.

It's too cold! Way, way too cold! Problem is, I remember when I was a youngin' and we'd get snow and ice and really cold weather. But we haven't had any in such a long time and we've gotten complacent and spoiled rotten with our nice warm 70 degree winters.

Our heater doesn't work very well when the temp goes below 32F, so we're all bundled up all the time and it's actually a relief to find somewhere else to go so we can get warm! Luckily tomorrow we're supposed to get a return of the 60 degree days and 40 degree nights.

A-chan has it the best, though - she gets to sleep in a fuzzy fleece footie suit. Why don't they make those for adults???

Nice, warm, yellow sleepysuit

Nice, warm, yellow sleepysuit

I want a yellow sleepysuit

So I can be warm too!

(We did get an electric blanket from my mother during the holidays and that's been making things so much better. Our bedroom is the absolute coldest place in the house. A-chan's room is usually the warmest though.)

New Year's Cleaning Spree

Our end of the year preparations included a Mata-daughter shopping trip up to Super H Mart in Gwinnett because the local market that carries Mochi was closed until Jan. 3rd. We picked up a ton of yummy asian groceries while we were there and had a very nice drive. A-chan had a lot of trouble sleeping the night before and so we had a very late start, not enough time to do more than drive, shop and then drive home. But it was worth it. We had a lovely Melon bread snack with A-chan's favorite drink - apple juice. And we procured lots and lots of lovely Mochi for the evening party!

We munched on even more delights from Japan for breakfast this morning and then tried cooking Japanese Curry Rice for the first time at lunch today. It was so absolutely yum!!!!! Dinner was a scottish flat pie, so we rounded out the day with potatoes, onions and more potatoes and onions, lol. But more mochi for dessert, of course.

A-chan's toys got some organization to them today after a few months of being scattered to and fro across the house. It feels really good to get her train table usable again and set up her castle set all in one place so that she can have more use of it all. Best of all we used some of our old Playmobile landscapes to fill up her train table so that maybe the cats won't use it as a bed anymore.