A Baby Book at Last!

Well, it only took me a year, but I have finally finished Jonathan's baby book for his first year with us.  I think I started it before Vivienne was even born.  At very least, I remember sneaking into Jonathan's room at night before I got my laptop and working on it while holding a very tiny Vivienne.  It was one of the few creative things that could be done one-handed.  Vivienne did not make it very easy for me to finish up these last few days, because for some reason the little journal I write in for Jonathan from time to time was so much more attractive to her than anything else in the house and she kept walking away with it every time I tried to copy something from it, but I persevered (and pulled an all-nighter) and got it done in time for Shutterfly's Cyber-Monday sale.  It lasted until midnight Wednesday, but that's where living in a timezone 12+ hours ahead of America finally pays off.  (I'm not sure how it's getting from my parents' house to Taiwan, but that's for another day.)

Jonathan checks out his baby book on mommy's computer.

I loved adding in all the funny little animals and cars and things.  Jonathan will like them.  I can just imagine sitting down with Jonathan and showing him all the pictures and telling him the story of his coming to us.  Since I think we will leave Taiwan before he's very old, I want some way to help him feel connected with his beginnings here.  Now to start all over again with Vivienne's ...  Ay-yo!

(I can't get the link to the book to work, but when I do I'll put it up here.)

Mommy Milestones Part 2: Homestyle

A little while back I wrote about some of the milestones I have gone through as a mother of two toddlers.  Yesterday, my apartment passed a milestone of its own from which it will never recover: wall, meet toddler with marker.

Now, my interior decorating style below-toddler-height can best be described as exploded-toy-box-meet-crumbled-cookies and above-toddler-height as about-to-topple-over-piles.  My walls already have years worth of while-board-marker-gray from my husband not using his eraser much at work, chocolate-covered-handprints, crayon scribbles, wall stickers (and peeled paint from when the toddler thought it would be a good idea to reposition some of those wall stickers), posters of abc's (and the Taiwanese equivalent, shapes, colors, numbers, etc.) placed at kid-eye-level, old maps with chunks missing (from our pre-kid cat days), abstract art from the landlady that took me years to figure out, and other such things.  Additionally, we have been in this apartment for almost ten years and between all of the above plus the generally damp and bubbling paint from living in a sub-tropical country with a rainy season and fairly porous walls, it's not as if my landlords aren't going to have to give this whole place a total re-haul to make it livable for the next tenants, so I'm not too worried about it.  Still this house is definitely now branded as the home of a toddler.

(As an aside, I am reminded of my first day in my job as a helper in the nursery school when I was in seminary.  Emma, one of the smallest and cutest little girls in the class, was enjoying the finger paints when out of the blue she looked at me and said, "You don't finger paint on walls" and made it clear that this was not her first experience with this artistic medium.  I'm guessing Emma's home also bore the marks of a toddler.)

Fortunately, only a few other things got branded with the red marker.  The lower bookshelves were scribbled on -- you know, the ones in toddler reach which are always empty, unlike the ones crammed to within an inch of their lives above toddler reach.  Those, however, are non-porous and the marker should come off them, being that it was a white board marker that daddy accidentally brought home.  (You can lock all the markers in a box out of toddler reach, but you can never really safeguard your home, especially with an unobservant dad like Jonathan's.)

The only book that I have discovered so far as having come in the way of the marker is this children's book in Chinese I bought years ago when I was actively studying Chinese.

Ironically, the book is called Mamma's Sick.  

It's a story all about mommy being sick and daddy and two young girls running the house.  Now, I wasn't sick when this marker matter was happening, but it did happen in the interval of time between me leaving for work and the nanny arriving on the only day of the week Stephen leaves for work after I do, and I don't think that was a coincidence.  (Vivienne's terrible shampoo incidents and 9 out of 10 dismantling of mommy's purse also happen on daddy's watch.)

Here's a page from the book where the younger sister gets
into mommy's makeup and toiletries.  On the next page,
she gives herself a haircut.  Fortunately, we haven't reached
that stage yet.

However, I am proud of my home and all the marks it bears, because it's so much better a home with this little guy in it.  (This is not to say that I am encouraging any future occurrences.)

My little interior decorator, pre-interior decorating.
(Post-interior decorating, the football on his shirt was a bit
more colorful.)

Party Planning, Clark style

(It took a while to get this up, but this was mostly written the night before Jonathan's birthday party a few weeks ago.  Hopefully it won't take so long to put up pictures of the actual party.)

Last year around this time we were celebrating Jonathan's first birthday.  I was also 9 months pregnant. Basically, I hijacked a church pizza supper, threw some birthday hats and blowers on the table, blew up some balloons with Josephine during the church service while we were watching Jonathan and her daughter, Anastasia, in the cry room, and brought big cakes for the adults and a tiny pumpkin cake for pictures and for him to make a royal mess of.  I figured, first birthdays are mostly for pictures, and we managed to get some good ones with him making a total mess of himself in his nice, bright Ikea smock/bib.

Jonathan at his first birthday:
He doesn't know what's going to
happen, but he thinks he might
like it.

He was so busy with the cake he forgot to pull his hat off
until after the cake so we got great pictures.

This year, however, I decided to throw him the real deal, even though birthdays aren't really celebrated much in Taiwan.  With two toddlers, it's really hard to break out of the rut of every day life and this is a good excuse to invite everyone I know to come and hang out and break up the monotony of life.  Besides, I figured he would be old enough to appreciate some of the fun.  My friend (and former roommate) who now lives in Taipei has a daughter who just turned one, and Vivienne and I decided at the last minute to go up for her birthday about a month or so ago.  (Well, I decided and I figured Stephen would be much happier on his own with Jonathan all day than with Vivienne so she came by default.)  Beth went all out with her ladybug theme and it was an awesome party.

My friend's amazing ladybug spread.

I also decided that with two toddlers who are always in the middle of everything, a theme was probably pushing it.  Instead, I decided that we would stake out a spot on the Cultural Center lawn and order pizza from one of the nearby shops.  It would be a truly Taiwanese experience.  We could choose from Pizza Hut or Dominoes.  Then I figured we would need cake.  At first I was going to go with an incredibly cute Taiwanese cake like we did last year, supplemented, again, by the good stuff.  But the only one I really liked was a rather huge chocolate blueberry panda cake, and really, standard Taiwan cakes are not bad but not great.  And so, we are going with the good stuff (a cheesecake and a black-forest-y type cake from the coolest, no-frills bakery in town) and, as a bonus, a pumpkin pie from Costco -- with real whipped cream in a spray can.  A friend is helping make a tuna pasta salad and I'm bringing chips (a.k.a. crisps) and other goodies.

I figured if I was going to throw a whole lot of invitations out there for a birthday party, we should do something birthday-y.  Two-year-olds aren't really into organized activities, so I had to think about what two year olds ARE into.  Fortunately, I've had a lot of recent experience observing a two year old in his natural habitat, so I came up with Bubbles.  And Balloons.  And Balls.  So there we go, a theme and activities all in one.  Round things that begin with B.  Not as catchy as some, but easy enough to throw together.  And fun.

But when you are mommy to two toddlers, there's not much unencumbered free time at home to get a party ready.  So pretty much what I've been doing is buying things in bits and pieces for the past few weeks and throwing them into bags and boxes out of the way.

The night before the party, with one baby in bed, I had Stephen help me pull out those bags and boxes from our bedroom, and Vivienne helped me pull everything out to see what we had.  Helpful kid I have there.

Bubbles in one hand, wrapping paper in the other ...

Vivienne made sure that everything
got out of the boxes for mommy.

Taiwan does stationary supplies really well, and a few weeks ago I found some great Winnie-the-Pooh bags.  Deep in the recesses of my memory I remembered that there existed these wonderful things called goodie bags and thought maybe I should make some up in case any kids actually showed up.  The challenge came in finding things appropriate for kids in a wide range of ages, but I think I managed fairly well.  (There are a few extras with safer balls and no balloons in case really little ones show up.)

Time to put the finishing touches on the goodie bags.
Here is Vivienne once again being helpful 

The contents of the goodie bag -- cracker sticks, stickers,
vitamin gumdrops, Kinder chocolate, and -- of course --
the three B's: a ball, bubbles, and balloon sticks
(those ones you blow up and release to make that
annoying loud noise that kids love.)

The night before the party and it all comes down to this: assessing what I actually have, rummaging around to find anything I might need (I am particularly proud of remembering trash bags and being able to use up all those plastic utensils from take away meals), and loading it all back into boxes and bags.  

Vivienne takes stock of the party supplies.  (Mommy passes
thanks to Toys 'R Us and Ikea.  It's crazy how to my knowledge
Ikea is the only place in town to buy party napkins --
other than the ones sold individually for decoupage.)

Vivienne helps mommy get out root
beers for the party.

The plan: put most things into two large boxes that can be emptied and used as a make-shift table in the park.  Fortunately, I happen to have both a single and a double stroller, so transport shouldn't be a problem.  The kids can be loaded into Jonathan's awesome new double tricycle, a birthday gift from his nanny.  I have a few people coming over before the party to help cart things over, so I think this "birthday party in a box" might just work!