Jevin's School Show

So it seems every kindergarten has a show here in Taiwan. Jevin got his as well. He was a bee as you can see... Complete with a stinger....

Oh, and we took him to the hair salon to spike up his hair.

Solar Eclipse in Taiwan

My student came to class with these 3D glasses... But wait, they were not red and blue... They were black. I asked him why and he said it was for the sun. I had forgotten that we would have an eclipse. My students had told me months ago.
So I wrote something about it on my facebook status, and Jason saw and also remembered. He took his camera outside and put a filter on it and put his sunglasses on as well. These are all the pictures he took.

Very cool and very rare.

Even Josie got to see it. She said that her and her class got to look through black glasses at the sun. She said, "The sun ate the moon!" It was cute.

Night Market

Jason suggested we go to the night market last Friday. It is the first time we have gone as a family. We thought the kids would like to go fishing, so we we got our rods with magnets on the end and fished for the fishies with screws in their heads.
Jevin fished for a bit... but then Dad took over and taught Jevin the catch and release method. Jevin really liked that. He even got into Josie's bucket and released a bunch of her toy-screw head fishies. Then he figured out how to splash in the water... OH THAT WAS FUN...
Josie, a pro already, caught buckets and buckets of turtles, dolphins, killer whales, crocodiles, penguins, etc... She could do that all day if we let her.

Copycat!

So a day or two after the terrible day I described below, Josie was using the livingroom blanket to make her supergirl. She was whizzing around the room. I told her to stop, but she continued... As a modern mother, I use timeouts... OFTEN! So I gave her a time out. Well, she gets scared if I put her in a room by herself, so as a compassionate mother, I let her stay in the livingroom but closer to the door where the action isn't happening. But she will play... So as a bitchy mother, I will make her stand with her hands up for the duration of her time out.

Apparently Jevin felt it was a fun game. He wanted in on the action, too.

Jevin Experiments with the Big Bang Theory!

I didn't take any pictures of Jevin's little visit to the hospital, but I do have the story.

I always give the kids a bath before we go to bed. We had gone through the bath toy clean up and it was time to get out. Josie accepted it, but Jevin was reluctant. He loves his bath or "Ba" as he calls it.
I took him out and wrapped him in his towel. Then i laid him on our bed. Where I needed to dry him off and put a diaper on him. He fought the diaper. He was doing those crocodile death spins. It took me almost 5 minutes to put the freakin' diaper on. When I was done, I put my hands in the air and said, "Fine! Crawl around!" This usually goes on with no incident. Only this time he was so agitated and annoyed at me, that he crawled to the end of the bed and turned around. At that point he decided to sit up, only he was on the far end of the bed. It all happened in slow motion as he fell backwards on to the floor. The sound of his head making contact with the tile floor is going to haunt me for a while.
Needless to say, I ran to him and picked him up. He was SUPER calm. I laid him on the bed again. He didn't move. I grabbed the closest onsie I could find and told Josie to stop putting her PJ's on but rather change back into her clothes. Jevin was just so quiet.
I drove both the kids and me to the hospital. All I took was the bottle that he would have had after his bath.
I decided on the biggest hospital. We went to the registration desk and i asked Josie to speak to the receptionist in Chinese. I asked her to ask whether we should go up to the OPD (out patient dept.) or the down to the Pediatric Emergency. The lady said to go up. The doctor they sent us to had the same first and last name as one that I had a bad experience with at another hospital when Josie was a baby, so I was cursing my choice of hospitals. Thank goodness for small miracles, the middle character must have been different. It was not 'that' doctor. He looked at Jevin and seemed to think he was okay... until he looked at the back of his head. There was a nice big goose egg! He was like, "X-ray, blah, blah, blah, blah... Pediatric Observation Unit (POU), blah, blah, blah... 24 hours observation, blah, blah, blah..."
Now at this point it hit me that I ONLY had a bottle. No diapers, no wipes (and someone was farting!), no shoes (for the one who wanted to walk), no change of clothes... And Josie in tow.
So the nurse took me to the x-ray dept and pointed to the POU so I thought that I knew what to do. Usually I can catch a few Chinese words and figure it out, but perhaps she was using different words or perhaps I was just too flustered to comprehend anything, cuz I screwed up. My instinct said to wait after the x-ray to see if it was okay or if we needed to do it again. But this lady outside basically pushed me into the POU. So I handed the rest of the papers to the nurse there. Then the doctor came in and asked if I had gone back to see the OPD doctor. I was like, "Oh man..." So rather, he just looked at the x-ray and saved me the trip back up. Then they said I needed to buy an ice pack, oh but we needed to put an IV in Jevin. I asked if we could go buy the ice pack first before any lines were attached... Definitely made mobility easier.
Naturally, Jevin thought the ice pack was a toy and would not allow it on his head. He really wanted to figure out how to open it...
And then the nurse came... and gave him an IV... and he ROARED... and little Josie, knowing that she was safe - LAUGHED! The nurse told her to tell Jevin that it was okay and then Josie became the good sister again.
Then I set both of them up in the crib after Jevin finally drank his milk. By this time it was 10:30. He had fallen at 7:30. Ugh.
Jason arrived with supplies and took our reluctant Josie home. Lord only knows why she would want to stay at the hospital.
So I tried to curl up on two chairs... VERY uncomfortable. So I gave in to sleeping on the floor. Later when the nurse came in, I asked if the metal crib would support my weight. she said yes, so I crawled in with Jevin. It is amazing how such a small baby can take up so much space. I moved him over as far as possible. His body was up against the rails, but his head swung back towards the other side. He is a freakin' crib hog. Then the baby next to us was in a lot of pain. She kept crying. Poor baby. Poor mommy. Jevin slept through it all. And through all the lights going ON and OFF and the teenagers next to us giggling and text messaging... and through the nurses coming in to check on him. I wasn't so fortunate. At 3 am, Mr Jev decided it was time for a bottle. So I gave it to him... Ohhh but the noises were so interesting and the lights were everywhere... So he decided to wake up. He was so noisy. Happy noisy.. until he realized I wasn't going to let him run around. Then he was angry noisy. The baby next to us had fallen asleep so I decided to take Jevin out to the hall. We walked for a bit. All the chairs were being slept on so we sat by the elevator. This man got out and stopped and stared for like 5 minutes... I kid you not! I mean, its uncomfortable to have someone stop and stare for 10 seconds and then walk away, but this guy just stood there ... staring... staring... staring.... UGH! (And you know how much I love to be a circus attraction!)
So we walked again... This time to the main area of the Pediatric ER. They had chairs but no one was sleeping on them. So I chose the farthest one away. Jev allowed it for a few minutes. But then wanted to move again. At that time, I guess the doctor must have seen us walk by. He came out from the ER to the lobby. After some small chat, it was decided that in fact I could take Jevin home. THANK GOD!
As soon as he was in his crib in our dark room, he fell asleep and slept really late too.

And that was our exciting night!

Jevin = Larger Than Life!

So Jason was driving around Homei... when all of a sudden he saw this. A new baby store was being built and of course they will sell Kuku products. Well, on one wall outside, our 12 foot son is displayed. Wow... Talk about parental pride!

Kending - Day 1

So we made it to Kending. We went for a walk and found a little shopping center. This was outside the center by an ice cream shop. We took the picture for the dairy lovers in Saskatchewan. You know who you are...
And we are suckers for the night markets. We just love them. Right near our hotel there was a lady who made name paintings. As she painted she would explain the image. So the top of the J is an eagle... The S is a bird... etc..


Josie loved the games. Above she was loading balls in the air gun thing and shooting cartoon characters off the shelf. And below Jason and Josie were hitting frogs into a pond. Josie just hit them on the floor. Jason came near the lily pads once or twice.

Kending - Day 2

Day two was our beach day and our tour day. We spent the morning avoiding the sun under an umbrella at the beach. It was Jevin's first experience with sand. At least he didn't try to eat it like Josie did her first time in the sand at the same age. He seemed to like it but kept going out in the sun. Both Josie and Jason got sunburns. We missed a spot on Josie's back when I covered her in sunblock... And well, Jason just assumed that he would be protected under the umbrella.
No worries though. I had gotten a sunburn driving to and from Changhua the day before we left, so I had some cream that the pharmacist recommended. Everyone was set.

Digging, digging, digging.

Jevin was not too sure about those waves. Some were powerful enough to knock Josie over.

We decided to take a drive. They have a number of scenic rest spots along the road.

Josie climbed up on the rock and then Daddy took the picture.
"Okay, come down."
"I can't. I'm stuck!"
Daddy had to rescue her.

Seriously a crab crossing sign... And on the way back we heard on the radio that people should be careful in PingDong and Kending as the crabs would be on the roads moving towards the ocean.
You can read the same story from the newspaper HERE.

"Daddy, it's my turn to drive!"

NOT!

Trip to Kending - Day 3

On our third day we made or way through the Aquarium in Kending. I'm not to fond of fish but Josie sure was interested. And, having more than enough time to go through it this time, we discovered a whole other building with new wonders for her to indulge in.

And a couple of stories before you browse through the pictures... The ride home was long. Going there and coming home we played a game that my Auntie Cathy introduced to me when I was young. When we went over bridges we would lift our feet so they wouldn't get wet... and when we went through tunnels we would duck. There were many tunnels on our Kending trip and every time we would tell Josie to duck. So finally in the last tunnel on our ride home Josie announced, "I don't want to say duck anymore. I want to say turtle!"

Now, as Daddy was driving late at night on the empty freeway, his foot got a little heavy. He might have been traveling a little fast... And then it happened... The highway patrol flagged us down. So Jason pulled over. He rolled down his window and we waited. The cop knocked on my window, which sort of scared us a bit, but that makes sense not to stand on the traffic side of the road. Well, without looking in he started his ramble in Chinese and showed me the radar gun. It was then that he saw we were "Foreigners". I was like, "Ohhh, yes you were speeding, honey." The cop then asked how long we had been in Taiwan - in Chinese. In English I answered, "Oh, quite a while but we don;t speak that much Chinese." At that point, the ever helpful little Josie piped up. "I SPEAK CHINESE."
Jason, "Be quiet Josie."
Josie, "But I do. I speak Chinese."
Jason, "Be quiet Josie!"
Josie, "But Daddy I can speak Chinese."
Thank goodness the cop was too flustered with us being foreigners that he didn't hear the helpful one. He just waved us on and Daddy didn't get a ticket. Phewf!

Yo, man. Jevin in da house!

"Hello, Dolphin? Are you there?"
She asked me if I wanted to talk to the dolphin. I thought it was just some information on dolphins. I said no because I didn't speak Chinese so I wouldn't understand. I saw another parent giggle as I said that. Apparently it was just the sound of a dolphin. Oops. :P

Jason's shark pictures... I really like the top one.

Bad girl, Josie!

So this foreigner was selling ice cream at the aquarium. Perhaps he was Russian. I found it so funny when he asked if Josie could speak Chinese because his English was too poor. Haha.
And then he gave her a cone and through in two more, all for the price of one. Nice guy.



Okay... so we said, "Josie you can play in the water if you don;t get your clothes wet." Of course she agreed. And of course, she conveniently fell so she was soaked which opened up the entire pool to her. Sneaky girl.

The Twins

Josie is old enough that she gets dressed on her own. We just tell her to get dressed and she does it all by herself. Her sense of style is coming out. Sometimes she uses the most unusual combination - but it's her style. Her most recent favorite color is purple. In second place we have pink.
For some reason today she chose white... and found a jean skirt...
I put out a white shirt and jeans for Jevin and went downstairs to pack his school bag... Jason called out for me to bring the camera upstairs... and when I did... I saw this! You'd think we planned it... but we didn't. It was all JOSIE!

Father's Day

Jevin's first experience with crayons... Nearly ate them. I've heard enough stories about rainbow poo to be very watchful when he was "coloring".

We opted for a Saturday Father's Day dinner. Chili's was the place. We all had a great dinner... And surprisingly, the waitress remembered us from when we had gone there with Ron and Terry. She even remembered the ribs we ordered that time. Hahaha.

Night Market

This was Jevin's first experience on a night market ride. He thought it was great! And Josie was so excited to share her train with her brother.