Jason: Did he? Oh my!  (Jason already did know.)

That’s right! Baby #3 is a BOY!!!

what it sounds like

when a 17 month old boy

falls head first into a washing machine?

Maybe because we all love them so much? No kidding. They’re cute. Even Abram will point up to the door and declare, “Moon!” or “Bat!”

Ellie was the one who reminded me that we needed to give the bats something to eat. Thankfully, the bat in our book (Bat Loves the Night) ate moths, so that’s what she settled on. (Remember? Her other choice was blood.)

Nice, huh? Again I found an old water color “painting” Ellie had done awhile back. I drew the shapes and cut out the bodies. She cut out the wings and we did some “teamwork” to glue on the wings. (The best-ever unimagined upshot from the Nest Gluing Debacle was that Ellie learned and internalized the word “teamwork”. She loves it when we do teamwork. This has been something of a sanity saver. Really. We use it when we are trying to impose our help when she wants to do it all herself or convince her to help with something she doesn’t want to do. Like clean up toys.)

I did let her do most of the glue work, but I didn’t give her free reign with the glue bottle. I squeezed some out for her and she dipped the wings in and then I helped her hold the paper so she could stick them on the moth bodies. I told her she could choose to put the wings on the same side of different sides. She did some of both.

I let her choose where to put all the little buggies. I especially love the way she made sure all the bats were catching a moth and will have something to eat. She put some of the moths on leaves because those moths are eating the leaves. As I write this I realize I missed the chance to talk about food chains. Dang. Maybe next time.

And then, the pinnacle of our bat month was we got to see real bats while we are in Taichung. We were leaving the Tunghai University campus just at dusk. The sky was full of bats chasing moths, mosquitoes and other flying critters. It was great! One even buzzed me close enough that I could see it’s face!

Next up…owls and possums. Still not sure which one will be first. As much as I like bats, and flat out LOVE owls, I think possums are gross.

And that’s what I’m going to do here.

This is my current favorite picture of my two littles. What’s the story behind it?

You tell me.

Ellie likes to play that she is the mommy and I am her child. When she does this she either calls me Darlin’ or Child.

Here we are playing in the grass at Tunghai University. We were pretending to be at Ellie’s “home” and she wanted to show me some of the amenities of her home.

“Darlin’, so you want to come and see my pile of grass? It’s right over here. It’s not too far for you to walk Darlin’.”

I know you can walk that far Darlin’. You have strong, healthy legs. I know you can walk that far.”

“So come on. Let’s go, Darlin’. You can walk that far. I know you can Darlin’.”

(It was a spot the mowers had missed. About five feet away.)

Her word: “m’anemone” (like “anemone” but starting with an “M”)
Real word: M&Ms

Her phrase: Z+adjective
Examples: “I’m z-tired.” or “I’m z-hungry.”
What does it mean? Ellie started (by herself) using a scale of A-Z, with “Z” representing the “maximum” or “a lot” and “A” meaning the “minimum” or not very much. We sometimes talk about distance this way. ”Church is A-close, so we can walk.” and “This place is Z-far, so we need to take a bus.” Got it? She rarely uses the letters in between, mostly just “A” and “Z”.

There is also the extreme version of this phrase, when she needs to express an even greater need, like this:
“I’m A to Z, 1 to 20 thirsty! All the way through the numbers and all the way through the alphabet.”
(Ya know, because numbers above 20 don’t quite exist for her yet.)

And there’s this little gem that she threw out at us tonight (because we made her disassemble and clean up her toys):

(with crying) “Mom…You broke my feelings…all of them…you broke some of them and Daddy broke some of them…and now they’re ALL broken!!”

Finally, a little bit of 3-year old theology:

“When it’s time for us to go to heaven, will God be the engine?”

As in, train engine. As in, when we all walk in a line to pretend that we are a train and Abram and Ellie fight over who gets to be the engine.

Abram is talking a lot, but not very clearly so a lot of words sound the same. Here are a few of my favorite of his “homonyms”.

The way he says “Ellie” and “Owie” sound identical. Most of his owies are indeed caused by Ellie, so maybe only one word is needed?

He loves to clean up. In fact, sometimes he gets “in trouble” with his sister for picking up toys she is in the middle of playing with. Perhaps because it’s the only time he really gets to touch most of the toys? Or because sometimes there are so many toys scattered across the floor he can barely maneuver. Or maybe he’s just still in the wonderfully compliant stage before true independence really sets in….

He also sings the “clean up song”. You know the one? “Clean up! Clean up! Everybody, everywhere. Clean up! Clean up! Everybody do your share!” Only, he sounds like this:

“Kee-uh! Kee-uh! Eh-wee, eh-wee…”

Which, in Abram speak, sounds identical to “Clean up! Clean up! Ellie, Ellie…”

Also fitting, because getting Ellie to cooperate and help clean up toys is one of The Issues that we flat-out just do not have a handle on around here.

Kristie: Abram, do you want a drink of water?

Abram: No!

Kristie: Do you mean “yes”?

Abram: Yes.

How else could this story end?

We went on Friday. Ellie and Abram were beyond excited. Ellie talked all week about how we were going to go and “pick Daddy up”. As though he couldn’t get back home unless we went and got him. And when we pulled into the bus station Abram started calling, “Daddy! Daddy!”

But we still had a few hours before Jason would be finished. We needed to go visit the language center and then I had promised the kids that I would take them to a big grassy area where they could play. Funny how they never questioned the fact that we were taking a three hour bus ride just to play in some grass.

The space between the library and auditorium at Tunghai University is lovely. Picture perfect. Ideal. Even the trees there give off a scent that helps ward off mosquitoes (albeit, imperfectly). We brought a bucket. And a ball. The kids were beautifully content to play with the rocks and dirt and sticks while we waited.

Other highlights of the day included seeing the cows at the campus farm. Big deal for these city kids. Also a bunny playing beneath a bush and a termite infested tree.

I remember being completely in love with the convenience of life when we first moved to Taipei. Now, I remember why. Let me just say that it is nearly impossible to cross the major road in Taichung if you are a mother pushing a stroller. Or handicapped. Or elderly. Or just plain tired.  There are no crosswalks at the intersections of the eight-lane road. No. Only sky bridges or tunnels beneath the road. With steps. Lots and lot of steps. I had two children, a stroller and three bags. Sky bridges were out of the question.

I don’t mean to knock Taichung, it just has a ways to go. But there is no question that the campus at Tunghai University is beautiful. I don’t think I could have survived my three years living in Taichung otherwise.