Dancer, Artist, Warrior

Any day (and week and month) that begins with an overflowing (cloth) diaper, oozing its murky contents on to every available crib surface, causes one to enter with a certain level of caution and suspicion. This wasn't our most stellar day. But Julian cheered me considerably after lunch with his enthusiasm for dance, which I captured on video. I wanted to post it, but, alas, he was scantily clad, and we're a little funny about that. I'm going to mail it to grandparents, but if you'd like a good laugh, let me know and I'll send it your way.

A few recent things:

Emmy's first art show, displaying her work from the first semester of first grade.

Khaw Meow is doing just fine, and becoming an integral part of the family.

He's cute with clothes on, too...

Sometimes, on Tim's day off, he'll take Asa on a boys' adventure outing, often riding the soeng taew to the King's Park for some treehouse/paddleboat fun. If we time it just right, they go during Ju's nap, and it's amazingly great for me. They come back all hot and sweaty and sometimes bring somtam, chicken and sticky rice for lunch...yummy.


This guy is our little warrior. He emerges from his bedroom each morning, clad in next to nothing, with a sword in each hand. He directs me to be nefarious characters and dragons all day long so that he can defeat me. He only wants to read books with battles (hard to come by in appropriate form for a 3 year old), and scours every book carefully for any picture of swords, shields, spears, even guns. He'll take shovels and machinery if no pictures of weaponry are available. I often coerce him to read Beatrix Potter, Robert McCloskey and Winnie the Pooh, and he enjoys them once we're into them. He also loves fairy tales, because he loves the princes with swords.

After some recent, ahem, incidents, I'm really trying to develop his sense of knightly honor and valor to extend to love for his siblings. Our recent drill has gone like this:

Me: "What is your duty?"
Asa (standing at attention): "To protect Julian!"

It's working, too. He still occasionally bops him on the head with a sword, but he's becoming quite aware of the need to close doors so our little bottom scootcher doesn't head for the hills (or the stairs), and that sort of thing.

And this was fun...our friend Catherine brought us polynesian sauce from her trip home over Christmas, so we had a taste of home!