Kaitlyn is Learning

Wow, two posts in the same day! It must be snowing someplace really hot!

This is a picture I took after Kaitlyn figured out how to get water out of the fridge. This was quickly followed by me relearning how to engage the child locks on the fridge. :-)

Kaitlyn is at that stage where she is learning new things almost hourly. She is picking up on a lot of words. Like more, uh-oh, oh no, ouch, up, down, etc. This is definitely a lot better than her old method of communication (a lot of squeaking an pointing).

Kaitlyn has learned that jumping in the crib can be a bad thing. On Sunday, I put the girls down for their nap. I closed their door and stopped by Patrick's room to talk with him. In about 15 seconds I heard someone rattling the Duplo's Bin. I figured it was Emily. I went back to their room only to find Emily sitting up in bad with a look of surprise on her face and Kaitlyn laying face down on the floor.

Apparently after I left, Kaitlyn started jumping in bad and actually flipped over the rail. This is quite impressive, since the rail goes up to her chin.

Persistence is a virtue?

Emily is a very persistent child. She can stick with a task until it is completed. This will be very helpful when she is older, as long as she picks the correct tasks. Last night it was an adamant refusal to put her clothes back on.

Emily is turning into a girlie girl. She loves to dress up. Pretends to put on make up. Also, she is constantly changing clothes, which tends to lead to a lot of laundry. Last night, she was changing outfits when Kirsten stopped her and asked her to put her original clothes back on.

Emily refused. Kirsten gave her a choice, clothes on or confinement in her room. 25 minutes (of various fit throwing) later she finally puts her clothes on leaves the room.

Of course, this probably just stubborn behavior on Emily's part, but I am trying to put a good spin on it. :-)

Sad Day

Yesterday was a very sad day in our household. We had to put down one of our pet cats, Thackery. The children seem to handle it really well, but Kirsten and I our very sad. Thackery was the first pet we ever got. We had him for almost 16 years and he was always our favorite.

Thackery was always a very playfull cat. Even into his old age he would chase a string or a ball. To me, he seemed to play more than the other cats.

In his younger days, he was quite the explorer. More than once we found him roaming around 1/4 mile or more from home. There were several times where he wouldn't come home until the next day. Once about 6 or 7 years ago we lost him for more than three days.

However, I will always remember his more sedate side. Thackery was a snuggler. Even in the heat of midsummer, Thackery would want to sit in your lap. It didn't matter whose lap either. He would try and climb into anyone's lap. He particularly liked to sleep with Kirsten. Sometimes in her arms and sometimes curled up in the crook of her legs.

How to get a treat

Yesterday, Patrick missed the bus home from school. He needed to try and get some information from one of his teachers after school and it took longer than he thought it would.

So he went to the school office to call me, only to discover that it was closed. At that point he panicked a little. He thought about just staying there and waiting until we noticed that he wasn't home ( an extremely bad choice ). He also thought about trying to walk home ( an even worse choice ).

Finally, he found a teacher that got him into the office and called for him. At this point he was on the very edge of tears. I told him to calm down, everything was fine and that someone would be by to pick him up soon.

Then I called my parents. They happened to be downtown and on their way home, so the easily swung by to pick him up. Then, to cheer him up, they swung by the ice cream shop and bought him a treat.

I explained to him that you don't generally get treats for making mistakes, but that I was very pleased that he had made the correct decision to solve the problem.

Back from our getaway

Well, we have made it back from out getaway. We had a great time in Seattle. We got to go to TWO (count 'em, one - two) Mariners games. I probably enjoyed it a little more than Kirsten, but not much. We got to see two Grand Slams. Unfortunately, one of them was by the opposing team.

We toured all over downtown and ate at several nice places. We also came back 3 1/2 pounds heavier than when we left. That is almost a pound a day. It's a good thing we didn't go for a month!!

Actually three or four days is all that we can really stand to be away from our kids. It was very nice to get back and see them. My parents spoiled them somewhat, of course. That is their job after all. They try not to, I know, but it can't really be helped.

Anyway, we are now trying to get the kids back into a normal routine again. It generally takes about one day.

A trip sans kids

Nothing much has been happening around our household recently. Just the same old daily grind with a 'Theatrical Threes' moment thrown in periodically by Emily. And people say the 'Terrible Twos' are bad!

Well, Kirsten and I will be gone for a couple of days next week. My parents will be here in town with the kids. We are really looking forward to it and so are my parents. I wonder who will have the best time?

I will write more when we get back.

Busy Weekend

ALERT - Boring post - ALERT

Those of you that follow this blog know how busy our lives have been recently. Mostly because of Patrick's play. Well, the play is now over. Last Saturday was the final performance. It was a very good thing for Patrick, but we are glad that it is over. Patrick isn't, he will miss it.

Of course, we had to go big time busy this last weekend. First, because it was closing night, the cast and crew had to clean up the entire backstage area getting ready for the next show. Then Kirsten and Patrick went the closing night party. They finally made it home around 1:15 AM.

Also, this is the same day that I took a Chinese cooking class with my mother-in-law (Monica). So we hired a baby sitter from 2:00 until 10:00. The cooking class was great. I learned a lot about various Chinese dishes and the conversation was excellent. There were seven people taking the class. Besides Monica and myself, there were two other couples that are in the process of adopting from China and one of their Mom's. They had a lot of questions about our two adoptions and I got to brag about my kids. We all enjoyed it. :-)

Finally, on Sunday, we tried to make up for all of the yardwork that we haven't been doing because of various things. It is the type of thing that makes you feel good at the end of the day and it was good to hand around the house all day. We are looking forward to a lot more of that.

Sharing Information

Those of you who visit regularly have been seeing several changes to the header section over the past couple of weeks. I am a programmer and I have been playing with a few things. I apologize for the some of the mess.

Now I pretty much have things the way I want them. You will notice a new link in this section that will share more information about my family. If you click it, you will first have to give me some information about yourself. All I really want is you first name (or initials) and where you live. This is just for my own curiosity.

Also, if you have your own blog, I would like to know that too. You can also enter your email address, but I doubt that I will ever use it to contact you.

Anyway, if you do this, a couple of links will be available that share the stories of our adoption trips to China for Emily and Kaitlyn. These are just emails that I sent back home during the two trips. Some people find them boring, while others find them interesting. I will let you decide.

Also, as time goes on, I will put up some information about my son Patrick.

Haircut

We have felt that Kaitlyn would look better without her bangs cut. So we were letting all of her hair grow out. However, at her age (19 months) it was too much of a pain to always do something with her hair to keep it out of her eyes. She wouldn't sit very still for it most times. When you did get it out of her eyes, she would pull it out eventually or at least some of the hair would escape and be in her face again.

Thus we have this very cute picture of how she looks now. Strangely enough, she sat very still while Kirsten cut her bangs. Afterward, she spent a lot of time looking up at her hair trying to figure out where everything went.

Accidents Happen

It is interesting how kids can pick up on those catch phrases that make everything better. Emily has figured out that it is ok when "It was an accident". Of course, she is getting a little liberal with her definition of an accident. I am going to have to nip this in the bud, but today was too funny and I couldn't do it.

Today, we went to Wendy's on the way home from Kaitlyn's Post Adoption trip. I will write about that tomorrow. Anyway, among the other things we got was a large sprite for me. When we got home, I had about half left and set the cup on the counter. Then Kaitlyn and I took a nap. Kirsten napped a little down stairs while Emily pretended to watch a movie (she napped in the car).

So when I get up, my sprite is in the exact spot it has been, but it is now empty. I ask Emily if she drank it. She said, "Yes, it was an accident".

Everything is shared

In our family, everything is shared. In this case, it is a cold. I made it all winter without getting much of a cold and now that it is May, I have one. In this case, everyone except Patrick has a cold in our family. Patrick was sick on Wednesday and Thursday of last week and the other four of us started feeling poorly on Saturday. Patrick is fine now, so there is hope that it won't last long.

Of course, this means that we have two fussy girls at a time when Daddy isn't feeling so hot himself. This generally means that they will "tag-team" me. Take yesterday for instance, I put both down for a nap at 1:00 PM. Emily (3 yrs) keeps getting out of bed for various reasons, which is doubly annoying, because Daddy really wants to take a nap. I finally get Emily down just after 2:00 and then Kaitlyn wakes up 2:30. Such much for Daddy's nap.