Early Father’s Day Presents
We had two early Father’s Day presents this week. The first was a nice 24-48 hour stomach bug. The length of recovery depended on the family member. Allison was the first to go, followed by me and Katherine two days later then Steve. Within 48 hours, I felt fine enough to raid the freezer (always a positive sign) and scarf down some Morningstar patties. Katherine was itching to get out of the house by the end of the second day – she exclaimed, “we’ve been home FOREVER.” Needless to say, Steve and I have lots of fond memories of this week that we’ll probably laugh about in a couple years.
The second gift I hauled out of the garage after dinner. Katherine was such a hoot. She insisted on helping me carry the box from its hiding spot to the family room. She said, “I can carry it!!” I promptly let go and Crash went the box on the floor. Steve arrived in the family room to see Katherine inspecting his open Quadrilla wooden marble set box and exclaiming, “what a cool gift!!” (In case you read German: quadrilla.com)
Allison’s reaction was a bit different. She didn’t really understand what it was and why everyone was so rapt on building a tower that they didn’t want her to push over. So, I spent about 45 minutes distracting her from the marble set – only to have Katherine push it with her hand and accidentally knock it over. These towers are not quite a stable as they would appear in their pictures or in the toy store (i suspect they super glue them). We now have a very tall marble set tower sitting on our kitchen table with a tupperware lid at the bottom to catch stray marbles. ๐ Allison and Bisco are enamored with the marbles.
More Words!
Allison is picking up words at a very fast clip. Here’s the newest list, with an addition from my mom:
- Sheh – means shoe in Mandarin (e as in elephant)
- Bana – referring to banana of course
- Duh – done as in eating
- Stra – strawberry
- Sisss – sister
- Sock – described below
- Awooo – sound a dog makes when barking
I think I may have also figured out Allison’s nickname for Katherine – it may be “anya.” At times we will hear Katherine talking in the house. Allison will turn her head and say, “Anya!!” It’s all very odd since these names don’t sound anything alike!
I’ve also been practicing some Chinese for clothing. I’m sure that’s got to be really confusing, hearing the same item named in three very different languages. Speaking of which, Allison is starting to actually show some Spanish comprehension. The other day Patty was talking about soup on the stove being warm and used the word “caliente.” Allison promptly began blowing as if to cool the soup.
End of Year Party
Today was Katherine’s end of year party for preschool. She, Allison and I were pretty much recovered from our bug, and Steve was doing fairly well (although not quite 100%). We went down to the Redmond Community Center auditorium for a program filled with songs, an interpretative short play and kindergarten graduation. Katherine was fascinated with “graduration” as she put it. I tried to explain it, likely she’ll figure it out before her kindergarten graduation year.
Katherine’s class was first on stage. She had no issues with standing on the stage and did her best to stay with the other kids. One funny moment was when Katherine stopped singing this Danish song…oh about 2 seconds after all the other kids. And then, they moved onto another song which involved alternating humming and singing. Katherine broke into song while everyone else was humming. We have it all on tape. It was just hysterical. This is not to say that just about all the other children didn’t have priceless momemts because they did from: crying from stage fright, bumping each other (really), not singing, sneezing / coughing….
After the performance, Steve took Allison for a car ride as she was exhausted. Katherine and I ate a little bit – including some grocery store, non-tasty mini-cupcakes with very attractive sprinkles. There must have been 30 dessert dishes at the event. It was phenomenal if one had the calories to spare, which I still didn’t after the flu.
Allison and I took off for home after dropping Steve and Katherine off at the Audi dealership. The S4 has been having wierd alignment which the dealership fixed. If you ever want to hear a rant, ask me WHY the S4 has alignment issues. In short, it has to do with some numnut trying to drive around a cyclist in the Arboritum, swerving into Steve’s lane, forcing the S4 to graze the curb. I’m so peeved. The only bad news besides spending $ on someone else’s bad judgment is that we need new tires again. Back to the story…Steve and Katherine picked up the car and went to Baja Fresh so Steve could have Mexican food. We all tucked into our spaghetti tonight including Allison, so it’s safe to say that we’re all raring to go on Father’s Day sans bug.
Tomorrow is strawberry picking in Carnation. Katherine is just sooo excited because she had a blast with family and friends picking strawberries last June. I’ll post the latest pictures tomorrow night once we’ve uploaded them.