tech savvy baby

My baby is almost 14 months old and already he is very tech savvy. When he sees cell phones and the house phone, he picks them up and brings them to his ear and says, "aloh!"  When he picks up a TV remote control, he holds it up to the TV and starts pressing on the buttons. He knows that the ceiling fan/light remote points out to the ceiling fan. He points the Wii remove to the TV also. And when it comes to the handheld baby video monitor, he holds it up to his mouth and start babbling. He sees us talk through the monitor to talk to the kids when they're in their rooms.

The only thing he is questionable about is the computer mouse. I've seen him use it properly but putting it on the keyboard and moving it around, but one day he brought the mouse out in the backyard. Was he trying to walk the mouse? I just don't know.

the comedian

I took Big M to the park right after school since Daddy stayed home sick again. He watched over the other kids so Big M could practice biking. He used his bike for a short while, but played in the playground the rest of the time. He made 2 baby friends, a 1-year old and a 2-year old. They just wanted to follow him around and he enjoyed playing with them. I am pleasantly surprised that he is equally attached to older and younger kids.

But the funniest part of the day is this bit on the swing. He was sliding on the swing, but his pants was staying put.  Oh the dilemma.

in the beauty parlor

izzy.minti.com

This is what happens when 3 year old twins get into being girly girls. They make up their baby brother.


(J in pink, K in white)

Lessons learned this week

Raising four kids is a tough job, especially when there is a pair of twins. Raising twins is a lot of trial and error. Here are some life lessons I learned this week:

1. Make sure they potty before biking because biking gets the motion going.

2. Make sure they go potty before taking a walk because walking gets the motion going.

3. Watching 2-3yo twins on bikes and pushing a baby in a stroller while going around the neighborhood is foolish. Go back, abandon the bikes and let them walk instead.

If all else fail, don't be afraid to stay home until the children are 18 yrs old.

That is all.
izzy.minti.com

the many faces of J

belting it out at the grocery store

What's hard to tell on this short video is that K was singing very loudly. Perhaps she will get discovered by a music producer this way and then Mommy and Daddy will never have to work ever again.

all my children are special

especially this one...



I just love Sister K. :)

What is love?

Notice that he also said a person loves himself. We've always taught him that. :)

we have a mr. smarty pants

I found an envelop in Big M's school bag containing a test result that the school had done. Big M was tested for school readiness using BSRA test. I had no idea what this test is, so I Googled it. Apparently, some schools in the U.S. (particularly NY) use this test as a measure of who gets into a Gifted program.

My little man scored in the 97th percentile. This prompted Daddy and I to look into the school districts Gifted program and what it takes to get into it for Kindergarten. I found out that there is a testing for it in the fall, and those who are accepted starts in the Gifted program in January. For Kindergarten, this means the student is pulled away from his class for 30 minutes a week. By 1st grade, the student is pulled away from his class for a total of 2 hours a week.

Our very own Mr. Smarty Pants has always been bright and we've always been told about it. But to someone who doesn't quite know how to take a compliment, I have always thought that surely he's just like other kids his age. This test is the first to make me think that, hmmm, maybe he is very smart. Daddy and I are not the kind of parents that would plan out out where the children would attend college and what kind of professionals they're going to be, but this does alert us of what kind of things we need to provide for them in order to facilitate their learning and help them become what they may want to be as adults.

We have already seen that Big M is not the kind of child who would sit in class and do the same thing over and over again. He's the kind of child who needs to be taught how to think so that he may apply what he has learned into something outside what he was just taught. He thinks outside the box. He gets from A to C by skipping B. He needs to be told "why" and not just "what". In other words, he drives us crazy most of the time. :)

The other day I explained to him what "liquid" is. And being spur of the moment, I will admit that I gave a very poor definition. I told him that liquid is something that can change shape, and in order to help him, I said that the opposite is "solid" - something that can't change shape. So then I listed things and I asked him to tell me whether they're solid or liquid. I asked him to identify a house (again, a poor choice) and he said it is a liquid because it changes shape when you wreck it. He went on to say that his poo (I swear I didn't bring this up) is also liquid because it can change shape. Yeah, let's just chuck this up to him being a smarty pants shall we?

it's all about the good germs vs. the bad germs

I'm not showing you how dirty my mini-van is. I can't even remember the last time it had a wash. What I'm showing here is the Upward.Org magnet that we got when Big M played soccer. This magnet used to be on the left side right under the word Carmax. I don't really pay attention to it, until one day I noticed that it was on the right. It made me pause for a moment. Maybe I just thought wrong and it was really on the right side? I shrugged it off. A few days later, it was back on the left. Was my husband moving it around? But why?

Then one day, when Daddy and Big M came home from school, he told something funny Big M told him. He said Big M moves it around in order to confuse the dirt. We had a good laugh about that one, especially that it proves I'm not senile after all!

Then yesterday, Big M got into it with me. He said that he must move the magnet around to confuse the bad germs in the "car nation" so that the good germ have a chance. Have a chance at what, I don't know. :)

brown?

Big Bro was brushing his teeth one morning getting ready to go to school when he looked and touched my arm. He said, "Mommy, I'm turning brown like you!"

It's safe to say it's not me he heard it from. He really isn't as dark as me, but he isn't a glow-in-dark-white like his Daddy. But he does now have a yellow (or dare I say, Asian) tinge. The girls are also getting a nice golden yellow tinge to them.

BandAid

This is what happens when mommy is busy on the laptop and daddy is busy in the office and there are Curious George and Shrek bandaids lying around.