The Magic Words

For some reason, Erika seems terrified of this particular illustration of Blackbeard, the pirate. It is on one of the picture books that we often look at and read. When she first saw the illustration she just got off my lap, ran away and stood a distance from me and the book. She’ll probably get over this fear in due time.

But in the meantime, I was able to use this fear as one of my magic words to convince her to follow me. One use of this was during bed time last night. Maita was long asleep as she’s a bit sick and she normally gets to sleep earlier than Erika. Erika wanted to go out of the room to play. I told her that the pirate is out there and she decided to stay in the room.

This afternoon, after coming back from lunch and grocery shopping, it was time to put both girls to sleep. I tried to convince Erika to go to the toilet before sleeping. Her mom also tried but was not successful either. The use of the magic words allowed me to finally get her to go to the toilet to pee. I told her that if she needed to pee the pirate will help her. She said she didn’t want that and I told her that she better let me help her then. She dutifully followed me to the toilet to do her thing.

A similar thing happened at dinner time. We tried to convince Erika to eat dinner but anything we said seemed to fall on deaf ears. She just ignored us and continued to look at her book. She did eat one yellow kiwi and some apple when she woke up at 5:00pm. I asked if she wanted to eat some Hwo Long Kuo (Dragon Fruit) and she pretended not to hear. The magic words that finally worked were Honey Crunch (the honey and nut coated breakfast cereal).

As I write this final post of the year, I think about the challenges in raising our two young daughters. For Erika the current challenge is to teach her to visit the toilet in a timely manner. Given that she’s three and learning to assert herself, we hope that eventually we are able to instill the habit of regular toilet visits. Hopefully, we can reduce the scrambles to the toilet whenever Erika gets that tingling feeling that’s a certain sign that she can’t hold it in anymore.

For Maita, the challenge is a bit different. She’s quite headstrong and she has to learn to compromise and share. She ends the year slightly sick. We remind her that she should have taken an extra jacket to wear in school yesterday. Her classroom is a lot colder than our home and she needs to wear more when she’s at school. We hope she sees the cause and effect of her actions.

I end this post with a picture of Maita when she’s about Erika’s age. I think it's a fitting end to the year. I like her smiling face when I picked this photo of her. I’m glad that I was able to improve it with photoshop.

18 Peak Mountain

We had two nice weekends before the cold weather came. During these two weekends, I took Maita and Erika to a popular local destination for walking – 18 Peak Mountain. This hiking trail is popular with many locals and is located quite near the Hsinchu city center. It’s a nice 20 minute walk to the top. I hesitate to call it the top of the mountain as it is more of a hill.

On the gentle slope up to the top, you can see lots of greenery and also flowers. On previous walks, we would even see squirrels scampering around some of the trees. I was looking out for squirrels to point out to both girls but unfortunately no squirrels were in sight.

Both trips to the top were rewarded with a taste of locally made ice cream. On both of these trips, Maita and Erika each had one ice cream cone. They quickly finished the ice cream cone then promptly asked for another one. As it was close to lunch time, I just obliged and got the second ice cream cone. They were able to try different flavors such as strawberry, taro root, and pineapple. In their eyes, these were the pink, purple, and yellow ice cream.

Merry Go Round

Yesterday was a cold and windy day. The weather has turned cold due to an approaching cold front.

I took Maita and Erika to the nearby Hsinchu Zoo. The objective of the trip was to see the hippopotamus, orangutan, and other animals. I did not find a parking place at the park so had to park under the overpass. This meant that we had to pass the flower market on the way to the zoo. It was then that Erika saw the merry go round. She wanted to ride it immediately but it was not possible as the old lady manning it was still setting it up. I managed to convince her to go to the zoo first and ride the merry go round when we come out.

The wind was quite cold and I was worried that Erika didn't have enough clothes. So we quickly finished looking at the animals and came out to ride the merry go round. These are the pictures I took using an old digital camera.

Maita's Stories

This week Maita asked her mom to help her write down her stories. She prepared three cards with some drawings and each card had a story to tell. These recent activities (the card drawing and storytelling) are a reflection of what Maita has been doing in school. I'm not sure whether it is a combination of two activities or just one main activity. I do know that Maita attends an art class once a week and the teachers for the storytelling and the art class are two different ladies.

Story 1
Long, long ago, there was a boy who ran up the 18 Peak Mountain. He climbed up to a very high place where it is very cool. At the top, he ate an ice cream cone. The way down was very steep and he was afraid he would fall down. Later, when he went home he ate lunch then played with his toys. After playing for awhile, he took a nap. When he woke up from his nap, he went to Hoping Hotel to eat dinner. After dinner, he went to skating class. Christmas is here and the boy got ready to go to sleep. When he woke up, he saw that there were three presents under the Christmas tree. One present was a train, another was a book, and the other present was a toy.

Story 2
Long, long ago, there was a girl who ran into the forest. In the deep forest she met a flower, a really beautiful flower. She also met a beautiful apple tree. There was an apple in the apple tree. She met a beautiful butterfly and also a beautiful bumblebee. She saw a boy and girl get married. When she went home she did her homework. After doing her homework, she played with her toys. After playing with her toys, she went to skating class.

Story 3
Long, long ago, there was a girl who ran up the mountain. She went too high and she needed to find a way to come down. At the top of the mountain she ate an ice cream cone. Then she went home and ate lunch. After lunch, she took a nap. When she woke up she had dinner then played with her toys.

It's interesting and funny to read these stories. For they are a combination of actual places and activities that we've done together. I've been taking both girls to a nearby place called 18 Peak Mountain. At the top they have each eaten ice cream. We were there again last weekend and we climbed down a very steep staircase on the way to the parking lot.