Okay - that was better.
Aug. 3rd, 2009 11:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kyburgFirst off, This is awesome. Beehive in a belljar. Go check it.
Hello, I finally spent a weekend as myself.
I've also had far too much Pokemon in my daily diet and I'm here to tell you - stuff as big as an Onix does NOT make a good household pet. (I hate my dreamworks sometimes.) Did not wake screaming, but pretty anxious. And this stuff is for kids. Riiiiight.
I am also still coughing a bit - but it's no longer a constant. About as healthy as I can be at this point. (Still a sitting duck for anything that wants to cruise by, however.)
Saturday was our four-month update for the agency in Taiwan, and that meant putting on our best faces, cleaning up the place and having a social worker give us the once over. Again. We have another one of these at the one year mark - and then after that, any oversight is completely at our discretion and nobody needs to have eyes on our family again.
('At our discretion' means I can blab all I want - or not. I don't have to.)
She also wanted to do this at 11:00, which meant most of it took place while we tried to feed kid lunch. (New person I don't know = HUGE distraction. Ate little until she left, then chowed down.) Then, nap.
Going to sleep has a new wrinkle - he's good at fighting sleep with little effort expended (no, I don't have a kid who has to run screaming through the house to stay awake...but that's your first clue he could go down if you work him there). However, we have an understanding on the matter - "What time is it?" "Bedtime." "And what does that mean?" "Sweeping." "Uh huh. So lay on your back, close your eyes...nite nite."
And if I hang out by the door, the 'eyes closed' is just enough to finish the job. Leave the room? Oh, that's room enough to fiddle with lovies and just plain resist the urge.
But if someone is in the living room? Nothing works. Christmas Eve is going to be a howl, I can tell already. Remove all the distractions? Everything falls into place.
When he got up, we took him out to get signed up for swimming lessons -
Grocery shopping, (I put the groceries away while the boys got wet in the pool out back), dinner out and then back home for bed.
Sunday. Sundays are tough, because I'm on my own - if I don't have a good idea of what I'm going to do next, I tend to flail because the default setting is KID IN MY FACE ENTERTAIN ME. I'm told this will lessen soon - it's part adjustment, part age. I deal by having plenty to do - we go to the park, we go do the marketing, we wash the car...we go out to brunch with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
catsonmars at a new place down the street that is going to get Yelped OMG right away.
The people watching was the absolute best - and that's saying something, the food was incredible.
It's hard to manage kid in a place that requires a high chair and ordering at the counter - one, the high chairs tend to be scarce, so if you see one, you grab it first. Then find a table where you have completely unimpeded access and sight to kid, seated at the table in high chair. Order food.
Oh, I don't have to carry it back? Okay, next time I won't put kid at the table while I order. (You can't carry food and kid.) This is a win - place is a single-location burger joint that also serves mexican food and real-live breakfast (waffles, omelettes, yay).
Will have to remember to bring cup with me next time for kid - only size in drinks is as big as he is.
Note the after-church group sitting together in a booth behind me. "The Bible has a passage that says..." Checking it, I see plenty of very intense faces, but no Bible on the table being referred to. UH. It does? (So help me, I'll have all 12 books I have on CD on any device I buy to carry such things to read. "Soooo...which passage were you thinking of? This one...and in what translation? Oooohh, that one. Yeah. Really?") I had to feel sorry for them. Three piece suits and ties, and the lady was wearing a slip the wrong color, too long...under a polyester double-knit dress with a kick-pleat in the back showing her sartorial piety in all its glory. Polyester double-knit. Oh, and it's already 83 out. Sorry, I feel for them. Yes.
Sit down, and kid zeroes in on the large Pinoy family nomming behind us. At least five kids under 12. They are definitely interesting, and I kind of wonder what's going through his mind (They're actually EATING that? Are they going to go play? Where did they come from?)
Keep in mind, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center is just catty-corner from this place (the location used as Rampart Hospital in Emergency! BTW), so watching this poor soul stumble into the place between two of his friends was only a fast OH YEAH THAT'S RIGHT. Both arms had had IV's in them, he still had his ID bracelet on...and had the worst - I mean WORST - periorbital hematoma I've ever seen. That's black eye for the rest of us, but that doesn't begin to describe the poor guy. Obviously, something big had smacked him in the head, he had been discharged from the hospital and was getting something to eat on the way home - but the eye is swollen shut and the swelling from the eye socket is distorting the telfa pad and bandages on the side of his head out at least four inches. He looks like he had gone to one heck of a party that ended in one heck of a fight and now it's Sunday morning and oooh, my aching head.
Not fifteen minutes later, the paramedic team shows up for their breakfast. Oh, this gets kiddo's attention something fierce - what IS it about firemen? Who's that? Who's that? "Firemen." He repeats this in tones of reverence and just thinks they're cool. They sit down, nom - and then catch up with the poor sack of bones who now has six people around him having breakfast. I love me my firemen in the land of Emergency! - yes, I do.
catsonmars shows up, we're already nomming some excellent chorizo and eggs (Kid has his chicken fingers) and we go our separate ways - he, to work, us to swimming lessons.
I am still thanking myself to keeping this kind of thing to a minimum. Yes, he had a GREAT time and the instructor thought he was absolutely incredible. Smart, intuitive, receptive...wonderful to teach.
He was terrified of the whole thing initially. This had to be the biggest pool he'd ever seen, all the people were new (except me) and it's water. Lots and lots of water.
Some water toys (and I'm grateful as heck this place is smart enough to know you need 15 minutes to warm up before being taught) and a little getting acquainted...and he was FAB. Next time, I'll dress out too and go in as well, but I stayed right on the edge of the pool (even got some pictures). That made it all work.
Place from the outside wins the award hands-down for the WTF OMG GHETTO award - and ghad help you if you park in the shared parking lot. That's for the liquor store, the pupuseria and the barber shop that share it.
So park on the street.
But once inside - it's all good, and better. Best part was there was no racial majority. Kids that looked like me, kids that looked like him, kids that looked like neither of us, kids that looked like both parents and neither of them. The lessons are also a bargain and if this works out, we'll likely keep this up while the weather stays cooperative. I got to sit and listen to mockingbirds while the kid swam.
I drove the boy around to let him settle down before napping at home. After that, it was marketing, wash the car and go home and find Dad already at home!
But boy, what he does to Jim vs. what he does to me - really different. And he's a LOT harder to deal with if you're Jim.
Pokemon continues to amaze me as a concept and a property.
Welcome to Monday, already in progress.
Hello, I finally spent a weekend as myself.
I've also had far too much Pokemon in my daily diet and I'm here to tell you - stuff as big as an Onix does NOT make a good household pet. (I hate my dreamworks sometimes.) Did not wake screaming, but pretty anxious. And this stuff is for kids. Riiiiight.
I am also still coughing a bit - but it's no longer a constant. About as healthy as I can be at this point. (Still a sitting duck for anything that wants to cruise by, however.)
Saturday was our four-month update for the agency in Taiwan, and that meant putting on our best faces, cleaning up the place and having a social worker give us the once over. Again. We have another one of these at the one year mark - and then after that, any oversight is completely at our discretion and nobody needs to have eyes on our family again.
('At our discretion' means I can blab all I want - or not. I don't have to.)
She also wanted to do this at 11:00, which meant most of it took place while we tried to feed kid lunch. (New person I don't know = HUGE distraction. Ate little until she left, then chowed down.) Then, nap.
Going to sleep has a new wrinkle - he's good at fighting sleep with little effort expended (no, I don't have a kid who has to run screaming through the house to stay awake...but that's your first clue he could go down if you work him there). However, we have an understanding on the matter - "What time is it?" "Bedtime." "And what does that mean?" "Sweeping." "Uh huh. So lay on your back, close your eyes...nite nite."
And if I hang out by the door, the 'eyes closed' is just enough to finish the job. Leave the room? Oh, that's room enough to fiddle with lovies and just plain resist the urge.
But if someone is in the living room? Nothing works. Christmas Eve is going to be a howl, I can tell already. Remove all the distractions? Everything falls into place.
When he got up, we took him out to get signed up for swimming lessons -
Grocery shopping, (I put the groceries away while the boys got wet in the pool out back), dinner out and then back home for bed.
Sunday. Sundays are tough, because I'm on my own - if I don't have a good idea of what I'm going to do next, I tend to flail because the default setting is KID IN MY FACE ENTERTAIN ME. I'm told this will lessen soon - it's part adjustment, part age. I deal by having plenty to do - we go to the park, we go do the marketing, we wash the car...we go out to brunch with
catsonmars at a new place down the street that is going to get Yelped OMG right away.The people watching was the absolute best - and that's saying something, the food was incredible.
It's hard to manage kid in a place that requires a high chair and ordering at the counter - one, the high chairs tend to be scarce, so if you see one, you grab it first. Then find a table where you have completely unimpeded access and sight to kid, seated at the table in high chair. Order food.
Oh, I don't have to carry it back? Okay, next time I won't put kid at the table while I order. (You can't carry food and kid.) This is a win - place is a single-location burger joint that also serves mexican food and real-live breakfast (waffles, omelettes, yay).
Will have to remember to bring cup with me next time for kid - only size in drinks is as big as he is.
Note the after-church group sitting together in a booth behind me. "The Bible has a passage that says..." Checking it, I see plenty of very intense faces, but no Bible on the table being referred to. UH. It does? (So help me, I'll have all 12 books I have on CD on any device I buy to carry such things to read. "Soooo...which passage were you thinking of? This one...and in what translation? Oooohh, that one. Yeah. Really?") I had to feel sorry for them. Three piece suits and ties, and the lady was wearing a slip the wrong color, too long...under a polyester double-knit dress with a kick-pleat in the back showing her sartorial piety in all its glory. Polyester double-knit. Oh, and it's already 83 out. Sorry, I feel for them. Yes.
Sit down, and kid zeroes in on the large Pinoy family nomming behind us. At least five kids under 12. They are definitely interesting, and I kind of wonder what's going through his mind (They're actually EATING that? Are they going to go play? Where did they come from?)
Keep in mind, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center is just catty-corner from this place (the location used as Rampart Hospital in Emergency! BTW), so watching this poor soul stumble into the place between two of his friends was only a fast OH YEAH THAT'S RIGHT. Both arms had had IV's in them, he still had his ID bracelet on...and had the worst - I mean WORST - periorbital hematoma I've ever seen. That's black eye for the rest of us, but that doesn't begin to describe the poor guy. Obviously, something big had smacked him in the head, he had been discharged from the hospital and was getting something to eat on the way home - but the eye is swollen shut and the swelling from the eye socket is distorting the telfa pad and bandages on the side of his head out at least four inches. He looks like he had gone to one heck of a party that ended in one heck of a fight and now it's Sunday morning and oooh, my aching head.
Not fifteen minutes later, the paramedic team shows up for their breakfast. Oh, this gets kiddo's attention something fierce - what IS it about firemen? Who's that? Who's that? "Firemen." He repeats this in tones of reverence and just thinks they're cool. They sit down, nom - and then catch up with the poor sack of bones who now has six people around him having breakfast. I love me my firemen in the land of Emergency! - yes, I do.
catsonmars shows up, we're already nomming some excellent chorizo and eggs (Kid has his chicken fingers) and we go our separate ways - he, to work, us to swimming lessons.I am still thanking myself to keeping this kind of thing to a minimum. Yes, he had a GREAT time and the instructor thought he was absolutely incredible. Smart, intuitive, receptive...wonderful to teach.
He was terrified of the whole thing initially. This had to be the biggest pool he'd ever seen, all the people were new (except me) and it's water. Lots and lots of water.
Some water toys (and I'm grateful as heck this place is smart enough to know you need 15 minutes to warm up before being taught) and a little getting acquainted...and he was FAB. Next time, I'll dress out too and go in as well, but I stayed right on the edge of the pool (even got some pictures). That made it all work.
Place from the outside wins the award hands-down for the WTF OMG GHETTO award - and ghad help you if you park in the shared parking lot. That's for the liquor store, the pupuseria and the barber shop that share it.
So park on the street.
But once inside - it's all good, and better. Best part was there was no racial majority. Kids that looked like me, kids that looked like him, kids that looked like neither of us, kids that looked like both parents and neither of them. The lessons are also a bargain and if this works out, we'll likely keep this up while the weather stays cooperative. I got to sit and listen to mockingbirds while the kid swam.
I drove the boy around to let him settle down before napping at home. After that, it was marketing, wash the car and go home and find Dad already at home!
But boy, what he does to Jim vs. what he does to me - really different. And he's a LOT harder to deal with if you're Jim.
Pokemon continues to amaze me as a concept and a property.
Welcome to Monday, already in progress.
