Monday Feb 28th 2011

Yo ho ho ( sorry, Nea's been into Pirates recently)



Nothing much to report ( then don't, everyone would say) same old.
It's been freezing this year, even for rest of the world standards.
Snow even in downtown LA and the weekend was spent mostly shivering my tooshie
off in a couple of parks ( the Mr was on a business trip to Arizona) and just lounging around near
the heating.
The kids were happy that we'd been to TJ Maxx ( grand place, pick up things for half the price)
and got the much wanted city blocks, so they were busy playing bayblades and blocks, tag and
pirate pretends, camel houses and you name it by themselves.

  I also acquired a long-discussed dilemma of a tako-yaki machine, usually they are some 70 dollars to buy- not worth it- and found one on sale for 20- now that's acceptible, I must say the kids had oodles of fun turning it, plus once it's bought really cost affective since one can just throw little bits of anything inside ( sausages, cheese, octopus, shrimp, bacon- you name it)
and hey presto everyone's happy.

 I had some calls from Japan on Friday and it seems, that once one friend  decided to come for summer suddenly all three of them thought it was high time they came too- so were announcing that they were on their way to find tickets- it seems that it's going to be a busy summer. I hope there are not too many Disneyland trips, I think I can only handle it once, if that much.
 Anticipating the summer business, am slowly (very slowly) getting through much-needed things to DO before a probable winter move, such as rifling through all stuff that is put away in the garage to "deal with another day"- clothes that are now (rather happily) too big for me, now when I see how enormous I used to be.... I kept on holding on to them for the day I went all bloated and horrible again, but really, one just has to put one's foot down and tell oneself one's NOT going to go back to being over 60 kilos ever again and that's it. So those have to be rifled through, Nea's old clothes, toys... I think I'll have a yard sale soon,
get rid of some of the things, even a dollar a piece should fetch at least 50 or something. Not to mention all the CDs - got at last 4 huge folders and am finally ditching all the labels and jackets, far too cumbersome for a moving family, got a huge 3 shelves cleared out on Sunday. Whoopie!
One always feels lighter after having dumped some trash just where it should be- in the trash.

And after that very boring report, I'll let you go so that you might just return to this blog again,
So goodnight and good cheer!

Sunday Feb 20th

Pay day! Yeah. I love Pay day.


But we just went to Redondo beach for a walk and a scooter run, in the morning the Leo was busy typing out project and Nea was too busy playing with Papa. I spent the time putting in a look at the older one and cleaning up.

ALl together rather cold. Yesterday was IN home again, raining. Painting and drawing, arts and stuff.

THe lakeshore shop ( like early learning centre in England) has great projects to do for free every Saturday so they made president briefcases (??) in any case had fun

And the evening yesterday. I cut 1cm off Leo's bangs and now he looks like a mushroom head.
He's got so much hair that it's positively amazing, only that 1cm was ... was.. as if you had got to a lamb or some other hairy being. Have to get that sorted out but it's such a challenge always.

  OK if you didn't know that's my Diplodocus.

THis morning. UUUh we love a morning snack; nori-maki with a bit of fried chicken breast and
tonkatsu sauce on it! Yummy!

At Redondo, first Mariachis that play every Sunday after 12pm, make quite a racket and atmosphere of their own, bought a lovely brancin for tomorrow's tempura and some fish roe for just 2 bucks; a whole bucket of it practically. Now I only have to think what to do with it.

   HEEEEY you stole my scooter!

... Of course near the end of the day the kids favorite chore is taking out the garbage, after that

Leo did my dreaded task of swinging Nea. Lovely. Well done kids!


Goodnight folk and good cheer! XOXOXOS

February 18th 2011

Afteroon on a windy, stormy day. One more Friday with sudden rain and no Raul classes for Leo,
I think we'll just stick to a bit of house play and a couple of videos, Leo wanted to go to the cinema and watch Gnomeo and Guliet but in this pelting rain frankly, I'd rather come home to the comfort of home TV (generally what happens) not to mention a outing of 3 to the cinema costs 50 dollars and it seems ridiculous. At least he had a FREE ( does that ever happen?!) checkup of his teeth at school and everything seems to be top notch, I must say that that water-pik does wonders, or he has his father's teeth for the moment, in any case, it's one sigh of relief.

 Woke up this morning feeling there was a presence in the sitting room and there was, a little munchkin sitting on the sofa with no trousers or nickers and reading (or looking) at a book in the freezing dark at 6am. I realize that there is a big puddle in front of the loo with some discarded trousers and ask Nea what on earth happened, why was she there with no trousers on and had she pissed herself? The answer was
" Yes mummy, I was going to the toilet and... someshing happened, it just came out! "
Oh well so sorry to hear that Nea, that's unusual (It is, about the 4th time since she started potty training, she even goes by herself during the night and crawls back into bed without ever waking a soul) but you should have come and told me! You must be freezing!
"We..lll.... I was talking to my trousers, and they were so surprised!!! I was too!"
By George.
I forgot to mention that the last traces of babyhood have gone, at the beginning of the month Mako and I decided that teeth wise and other wise, although sort of sad it was time to get rid of the Babu ( pacifier) during the night, and rather unwillingly told her that is was bad for the teeth and better try and do without if she could. It's uncanny the way she thought it over, looked at the afore mentioned object and said "OK, bye bye Babu, I'm just not a baby anymore" and gave it up that very night. I still look at some discarded ones that come out behind beds with a trace of sorrow, kids grow up so very quickly, especially some of them.

She and Leo respectively ( this was hers ) came up with ideas of how to scare away the ghosts during the night, made drawings and put them up on their walls next to their beds. Apparently these are the happy smiling ghosts ( in Nea's case with necklaces) that keep the bad ones away.
I know that there is not much on Leo but we spend so much time just "getting work done" that the rest dwindles somehow, he just flonked out at 7pm yesterday and slept till 7 this morning, that sort of thing never used to happen.

    She loved this, it almost ever gets used

I asked Leo whether he would like to go to Symphony orchestra at the Disney hall (It's spectacular apparently and I've never been ) for 21 dollars tomorrow morning, arts and crafts and all instrument playing included-but I was declined with an unwilling shrug. Apparently they had Jazz players at school today (Mr Glickman) and had a GRAND time, during the rain he just wants to stay at home in the morning and roll. I understand. Oh well, next time.

   (in the second one Leo looks as if he7s ..... wait, Vens will think of that one for me I haven't got the time or wit)


Oh and the news was that he passed one of his exams, but the "bad"?? was that they had an alarm at school; in the middle of a test! (WOW!) -intruder alarm, and they all went on their faces and the teacher told them not to move or talk or someone might shoot from out of the classroom. It wasn't a drill apparently  and it seemed to leave a deep impact, he was quite scared and apparently even the teacher was down on all fours crawling around. Who the mystery squirrel was who set off the alarm, I have yet to find out. IN any case I bet he's going to be dreaming about it tonight.


As Nea would say, Hash to go.

XOXOXOXO Pie

Wed 16th February

 .... Well we've got our Valentine's out of the rear end without too much hassle. Too many things to celebrate in too big a fashion is my outdated parent idea of constantly re-making and making of
projects, visiting dollar stores and party places. At least noone is going to kindergarten. (yet, at the moment) at least in second grade Japanese immersion things tend to taper off a trifle.
  Been a bit out of it, first with a first time full blown sinusitis attack which has been bugging my upper extremities generally for the past 3 weeks or so, it's not as bad as to lie down but is rather infuriatingly persistent. Even going off Booze seemed to make it, if anything, worse. Oh well can only wait. In the meantime my head constantly feels like being inside a massive drum and then when the kids start their wailing, well... you can only imagine.
But then there are the little treasures...for instance-
                                                 

Oh it didn't come out straight, nights when suddenly Leo appears with a kiss and gives me a stolen empty Starbucks card and a get well card- aaaawwwwwwwwww   I love you too

Or when they just entertain themselves. Ahh the luxury. It's becoming more frequent than ever though after Nea passed the crucial 3 and a something phase.








... Generally been up to the nose in school projects and homework, just been measuring how many inches and cm everything in the house is and however much I seem to explain that well, let's say that your finger is about 3 inches and your arm is about 18 it doesn't seem to help with estimation. I think that we've finally broken the ice now that I put my butter brain to even more useless use and came up with - what would interest 7 year old boys- actually, boys in general - measured his "wiener"  ( I won't let him down and tell ) and THEN giving him an option to estimate something-Worked wonders! after all those downcast looks and obvious disinterest he was going around for hours measuring everything comparing them to his penis. Lovely. Chuckle. Won't go very far when measuring a table though. Lots of estimation to be made there, or rather, imagination.
 Not to mention we've got a full blown Dinosaur project going on, there is everything from a bibliography, various descriptions and analysis plus re-writing and re-typing it all ( all this you see, takes a VERY long time with a child with a shut-down, I looked at it and thought it would be a breeze but... turned out to take QUITE a while) and we've still got the diorama and presentation left- shucks I'd never even done a diorama, had virtually no idea what it was.Just shows what various things come up in various schooling systems.

....
Classic girl reading to her bunny. Now see, here's 3 balloons.... they're pink. Do you know? Let me teach you.

Actually I was doing one of the kindergarten workbooks with her- she had refused to for a while and I left her- that suddenly her knowledge had suddenly progressed quite a bit, and surprised me not only with the comparing drawing lines and dot to dots and rest but actually found that she had coloured all the squares, circles, rectangles and rest with the accurate colours- and it didn't have the instructions illustrated, only written. I asked her how on earth did you do that? she looked at me like I was a dirty creature that had emerged from the bog and exclaimed " Look, it says so" pointing to the words. Now it would be different if I had actually been teaching her - I mean I do along the way, but not for hours at a time- and not only that but she had also written the times on the clock correctly ( well, not the 5 15s but the 5, 5 30s) - although the 5 was upside down, it ain't bad.Since she loves taking instructions but hates being corrected or mentioned that ANYTHING is wrong about it (pencils go flying) the wrong bits I just let go and let her feel happy about herself.
Sigh. She desperately  wants to go to some sort of structured school- that I've finally really been looking around. I know that even if we got in it would be some half a year or so, but, .... I'm still betting on the one next to Leo's school , that would be perfect. It takes them an age to answer though and there's a waiting list the population of China.

 ... A favorite new park nearby named by Nea the Mushroom park ( there are a few mushrooms, plus she is into EVERYTHING mushrooms now, can't get enough of them- from morning to evening, all she wants is mushroom, mushroom, mushroom. We've been through enokis, criminis, normal ones, chinese, japanese, (many of them) portabella and... I can't rememeber anymore. She just claims it's good for her tummy. Which I guess they are. Leo looks at her often with a mixture of pure amazement, adoration and despise.I've about had enough of them at the moment though, especially at 7 in the morning on a busy day.

In any case quite a nice place, they love the whale and ....

Of course the beach days, weekends- as usual as Vesna would say- AND we went to the beach. Do you see your beach dress Cousin Lara? I love it SOOO much, I can wear it now! 

 Like a doomed sailor

 Of course I can hardly watch him swimming in that ice water , but really, he doesn't seem to mind. I feel so pathetic, my feet are about the only body part I can venture in with. Typical old fuddy duddy mummy, yuck.

Surfer (although a bit too white for one) and Madame
Bovary. I don't know what she was thinking but exclaimed that she had to be "dressed nicely" in the beach blanket.

        ................................. Just not to forget for myself, I know I did the chicken and tofu hamburgers before but this is one of the BEST beef - and I'm not one for patties- ones I've ever had. Whatever the case, and however much the sound of "tofu" might disgust people, one can't taste it at all, it just makes them last twice as long, super-juicy, soft and yet well done and yummy.
Can be used in particularly any lunch or dinner as a side with .. well, anything but rice is their favorite. ground beef, one pack of tofu, nutmeg, bit of crumbs, nutmeg, dash of milk, onions, a bit of herbs if you want, S and P, one egg, I think that was about it. Oh, put in some beef stock just for a bit of extra. Great stuff.

Also Ikura being a tad cheap at the moment, this is a REALLY SUPER DUPER easy 5 minute thing of -  bit of butter, Shio dashi, dash shoyu, S&P, and- SHIrasu- they are really white sardine fry, popular in Japan-not to be confused with Chirimen which is the same stuff but dried.  FULL of calcium goodness( not that they lack any) plus give off a really nice fishy but not too strong  flavour- I would say, of the sea. I had used it with rice before but this was just too good to miss. Love the easy stuff.
OF course ikura on top.

Oh just to add that out of an old onion now my money that went on green onions had been reduced considerably. Thank you, ever sprouting onion, I feel like Jack and the Bean-stork since you came into my life.

 And jsut a little bit of the helper, as always cutting something-
(this time her dinner-portion) See my butterfly facepaint? I think I7ll have to ask Auntie Ninja how she does all those beautiful ones- this one being done gratis by a young lady at a kiddie playplace, Nea had such a good time with her and in the end she gave her a big hug and exclaimed "I just love you OSOO much my new friend"- ..... although I felt sorry for her spending her free time with her, I still think we'll have to go back there.

... and claiming that Mummy's valentine gift was ACTUALLY hers.






Oh I don't know why but I just remembered that 

Oh just a fun quote decades old you know me-still

 "What we, or at any rate what I, refer to confidently as memory- meaning a moment, a scene,
a fact that has been subjected to a fixative and thereby rescued from oblivion- is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling. Too many conflicting emotional interests are involved for life ever to be wholly acceptable, and possibly it is the work of the storyteller to rearrange things so that they conform to this end. In any case, in talking about the past we lie with every breath we draw."


-William Maxwell

Sunday Feb 6th

 Somewhat slow day. Just lounging around. See your boogie board Vens? In much use,
although somewhat different content at moment!

Trust Leo to get himself wet whenever humanly possible! I can't imagine going into that sea but
the young don't seem to mind. What an old fuddy duddy I am.

 .... ANd after being pleaded for months at last cut the damn hair off. SInce she cut off her bangs at a 75 angle a few days ago, I had to remedy. Oh well as Mako says, it'll grow back. Must admit a lot easier. She was prancing around like anything, saying she was now free. ????

A

as usual, at the end of the day the life game. Something new hah?
As of this night the bug that has been going around for the family from person to person for
some 2 months came to me again. I think I'll be off the blog for a few days.

  Will love to see the Lara costume! What an effort!

Saturday Feb 5th 2011

 

 

 

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