Notepad, worklog, tasks, etc.

We bought a house on June 26, 2009. Did the move on the weekend of June 27, 28. I like the small south facing gardening space in the backyard. This always reminds me of the farmer days in my childhood, when my father and mother made their living on a small land, growing cotton in the summer and wheat in the winter.

June 28: planted 8 tomatos from Chi Shuang.

June 30: planted 4 more tomatos from Chi Shuang, a line of 14 garllics, one purple flower that we grew from seeds (I forgot name).

June 30: introduced myself to Julia across the street. Carol visited us with a card a flower pot. Helen and Joy visited us with a pot of rose. Refrigerator arrived in the morning. Spent a lot of time cleaning tap residues inside it (damn GE for not using better quality tap). Caulked most of the 90-degrees. Oiled the garage door. Padded two chairs and the dinning table. Finally we can sit while eating!  

- 红薯叫什么？
- Sweet potato
- 应该叫Red potato呀。

- 狼的英文是什么？
- Wolf.
- 那Sugar wolf是什么？
- 糖狼.
(原来桌上有一只玩具螳螂…)

Lele ran to the wall to join in his team, but his coach leaded him in front of me and asked to take Lele home. I smiled to the coach and said ok.  When I turned to Lele, my eyes were in tears. I said something to Lele in order to let me calm. Finally I could say goodbye to another mother.

Lele has soccer ball class every Friday morning. Every time he is reluctant to  go to the class. This morning he told me he was not interested in the soccer ball. I told him not to waste money and to be nice to his classmates. Then we hurrily headed to the class.

Fredo hit his classmates twice. One was happened when they were walking backward. He came up against a short boy. He stoke the boy on the head and shoulders several times. His coach stopped him and asked him to say  sorry. The other one was happened when they were kicking the soccer ball to his coach. Lele ran around instead of kicking the ball. Lele ran to Harrison who is his classmate in the last session and began to beat Harrison on the head, face, and shoulders. The coach stopped him before I got there. My heart was twisting not only because Lele hurt his friend again but also I felt the feeling of  Harrison’s mother. The coach told Lele to go home. After talking with Lele and getting a promise from him, I let him join his team again. Not until he got there, the coach leaded him to me.

Finally Lele got a punishment for his hitting. When I stepped to the car, I thought it over if this is the result I force Lele to play the soccer ball. Anyway, he doesn’t show any interested in playing soccer ball. I shouldn’t push him and give him a chance to hurt other children. We decided to quit the soccer ball.

Just come back from a small party where there are two boys, two girls and four mothers. Lele had a lot of fun. When four kids played a bamboo dragonfly, Lele was a little unpatient during waiting his turn. After several rounds, he finally learned to wait his turn and hand the toy to the next player. He also said thank you when he accepted something from others. Lele cried when he said goodbye to his new friends. I found he became to enjoy playing with other children. I am really happy for his improvement.

Recently I am worrying if Lele is related with autism because of an article from a mother in his soccer class. Now I am encouraged by Lele’s behavior. Comparing with other children, he still lacks social skill, but he has improved than before.

Lele quit the daycare on Apr. 11. It’s already three weeks.  During the past three weeks, I was busy taking him to attend all kinds of activities and tried to find something interesting to do as well as installing my new computer. In order to schedule our  activity time, I started to use google calendar. It’s a useful tool. But I eventually move to Windows calendar when I found it’s faster than google calendar. I summarize these three weeks at here.

First week:

- enrolled to an indoor soccer class at the first week.

- attended Chinese story time in Redmond library.

- attended Crossroad kid’s play and learn program.

- observe Redmond co-op preschool. Lele stayed about one hour in the class. He  likes the school very much. He kept on asking when he could go to the school again in the following days.

- walked at the river trail.

- bought some art and craft tools and paper.

- volunteered at starlight foundation.

- children museum.

Second week:

- observe Bellevue co-op preschool. Lele refused to go when we left.

- soccer class.

- walk to grasslawn play ground.

- circus at mercer island and pine lake park.

- volunteered at startlight foundation.

- swimming.

Third week:

- soccer class.

- drop-in program in the community center

- developmental obsevation at kindering center.

- volunteered at startlight foundation.

- children museum.

- kid’s workshop at home depot.

- swimming.

I am researching the summer kid’s programs. I wish we could have more chances to play with other kids and parents.

I also found some home school web sites. We will try some activities and share the experience.

After our careful consideration, we decide that Lele stays at home for a few months. Last week the daycare director from another center talked with me for about one hour. She told me she found Lele was not happy and engaged in his class through half day’s observation. Her talk reminded me to learn more about the daycare’s education. I watched tow classes this week. I was totally disappointed. Since Lele dislikes the class of his age. He changed to the class of four years old. The teacher often threated him to send him back to the old class if he didn’t listen to her. The teacher could say that so frequently even if I stood beside. I cannot imagine how many times she threats him every day. How can a person be happy under the pressure? The teacher spent the half class time on keeping order. When she told the story she didn’t care how many children were listen to her. She just tried to finish her job. I can understand her, but I cannot agree with her. As a preschool teacher, she need more tips and skills to keep her class easier and happier. The teachers often send Lele to the director’s office. So Lele spend more time in the office than his class. He is not happy in the daycare. I don’t find any reasons that we should keep on sending him the the daycare. We decided to teach him at home for a few months. When he is ready for the shool, he can start his school life again. We wish Lele has a happy childhood and learn new things happily. That is why we call him Lele (double happiness).

Last night, after I finished reading a story to Lele, I kissed him on the cheek and said good-night to him. Suddenly Lele kissed me on the mouth and put his tongue between my lips. I was surprised why he did that. Here is our conversation.

“Why you put you tongue into my mouth?”

“I put a baby into mommy’s mouth, and then the baby will get into your tummy and grow up. Finnaly the baby will get out from mommy’s bellybotton.”

“Do you want to become a baby again?”

“Yes, I want to hide into mommy’s belly.”

That’s the imagination of a three-year-old boy.

Last weekend Xudong and I bought a musical instrument respectively. A guitar for Xudong and a harmonica for me. Xudong played guitar since college time. After we went abroad, he didn’t have any chaces to play his favotite instrument. Recently Xudong wants to enrich his spare time. So a guitar came to our home. I found Xudong played his guitar every minute he could use. Even when he was looking after Lele, he still indulged in his guitar, no talking and eye contacting with Lele. I dislike this. Lele wants to play with his father not just play beside him. I wish Xudong would pay more attention to Lele when they are together. Maybe everthing will be fine after his honey moon with new guitar. Why I choose a harmonica? Because I had one when I was young, but I didn’t know how to play it. I’d like to learn playing harmonica to realize my childhood dream. Although the harmonica is small, playing harmonica is not as easy as pople imagine. Good luck for me.

Easter day should be a religious holiday. American people may think it’s boring for children. They invent egg hunting activity for Children. Lele joined the egg hunting at Seattle woodland zoo last Saturday. Some people put colorful plastic eggs on the grass. They also put some tree branches and hide some eggs under the branches. Children rushed into the grass land to pick up the eggs. All children had baskets or bags to store the eggs. Lele picked up slowly. At the first time he picked up every egg he saw. At the second time he just picked up the  whole egg in his favorite colors. When the game finished, the eggs were supposed to put into a recycling can. Lele refused to put back the eggs. He wanted to take them home.  We told him the eggs couldn’t be taken home. He finally emptied his basket onto the grass instead of in the reclycling can.  That’s fine since there would be another round in 30 minutes.  Lele wanted to take the carousel . We would like to give him the idea that it is not something free. So we asked Lele that he must co-pay one of the two dollar ride fee. Not sure how much idea Lele know about money at this age: he always agrees to co-pay.

Today we went to Bellevue botanical garden  with another two-kid family. It has been raining for about one week. The sun came out this morning. It seemed a good day for outside activities. Lele was scribbling  on his new magnetic drawing board (the gift for his third birthday) when we decided to go to botanical garden. He refused to go out at first since his was still interested in his new toy. I told him we would invite his friend to go there together. He finally put aside his drawing board.

We spent about two hours at children playground near the botanical garden. During the course of playing, Lele showed a will to play with a same age boy. Lele followed the boy up the hill and helped him to carry a small broken tree. Actually the boy was so strong that he could move the tree alone. The boy’s mother was walking their dog. It was  grey curly hair dog. The mother saw Lele was very happy to watch the dog when the dog caught a ball.  She gave Lele the ball and asked him to throw the ball. In case of safety she said to her dog to sit. Following her words, not only the dog but also Lele sit :).

There are many kinds of plants in the botanical garden. But it’s a little early to visit. We didn’t see many flowers in the garden. Xudong saw a hummingbird eating the nectar. It flied away up to tree when we were close to it. It’s bigger than what I imagined.