Katy and Ying Ying

After Mass today, Katy had a lovely little play with Ying Ying, one of her classmates at Green Pastures. Ying Ying goes to the Chinese Mass.



Postscript:

When Mama dropped Katy off at school on Friday 3rd December, Katy got a little sad and clingy (as she usually does when Mama sends her to school), and was upset that she had hurt her finger a little. Ying Ying came right over, very concerned, put her arm around Katy, and looked at her finger, and led her into the classroom with a hug and reassuring tones. Children really do pick up what the adults around them say and more important do. It was a wonderful parenting moment. We are blessed to be in such a supportive and caring school environment. Especially since the kids this age seem to be sometimes quite cruel and feral in their reactions to each other!

Tinkerbell goes to School

Katy has been pretty adamant about choosing her own clothes since she was about 10 months old and insisted on wearing her stripey Hello Kitty boy shorts and tank top as a playsuit 5 out of 7 days.

Every two months, her school has a "Birthday Party" for all the kids whose birthdays occur during that two month period. The kids can dress as they wish. Katy likes to dress up. Maybe a carryover from the days when the DMK party was themed and we would go dressed appropriate for the theme (animals, fantasy etc).

Katy decided on Friday that she didn't want to be a Princess. She wanted to be Tinkerbell.

Turkey Days

Daddy loves Thanksgiving, so took the day off to prepare a fabulous stuffed turkey.

Mama made three lots of pie dough, two pecan pies, and a pumpkin pie. And cranberry sauce.
As well as brussel sprouts with pancetta, and sugar snap peas with pine nuts.
Tia made ooey gooey stretchy cream cheese mashed potatoes, roast sweet potato, corn, and...
...pork adobo (as Tia and Naan don't really like turkey).

Katy nibbled a leg and played with the beautiful pomegranate decorations.

Katy's favourite bit? The canned whipped cream Auntie Pinky expertly sprayed on her vanilla ice cream, and the sprinkles she got to swirl over the top.
Uncle Bert and Aunty Pinky said it was the best turkey they had ever had, as they helped themselves to their third lot. But they always say that every time Dada makes turkey. Even Naan and Tia enjoyed the turkey though, so that really says something!

Hairy Crab

Auntie Pinky and Uncle Bert invited us over for hairy crab on Sunday night. It was Mama's and Katy's first time for hairy crab, and they are both big fans now!!



The roe is amazingly rich and creamy, custardy in taste and texture. The big surprise was the meat, which although a lot of work to get out, was very tasty and rewarding for the nifty fingered. Having spent many years oblivious to the frenetic hairy crab season in Hong Kong, I can see what all the fuss is all about now.

Nap Nest

We are still struggling with Katy's sleeping. She just really does not want to go to sleep, but she needs her sleep, otherwise she gets grumpy and volatile.

For now, we are taking a break from sleep issues (supposedly) and letting her sleep where and how and when she wants. It's not really working very well though. Every afternoon, she has had a meltdown, because she has been so tired and refuses to nap.

On Sunday, Katy agreed to take a nap in our room and built herself a little nest from the linen press.
Of course, no nap actually took place...but it was a lot of fun and very cute.

Cantonese singalong with Sofia

Sofia's Mummy is a very talented pianist and piano teacher. They invited us over for a Cantonese singalong of school songs. Sofia is in Katy's class at school.

Here they are singing one of Katy's favourites - the song that Mama thought was about Fast Chocolate but is really saying Hurry Up Come Out to Grandpa Sun.

Check out Facebook for the video.

Starfish Ellie

Katy really has not enjoyed her swimming lessons much. She very much dislikes having water in her ears and eyes and refuses to put her head under water. This, although we were so diligent about having her go under water as an infant when they still have the reflex and love being under water.

Katy loves water and splashing around, but with her head firmly held high above water! Also, the weather has been cool on and off and Katy definitely does not like cold water, despite the spiffing wetsuit her Uncle Bert and Auntie Pinky bought her.

She has enjoyed taking the classes with her friend Ellie and with the teacher, Kendall, who has been great.

Ellie is a real fish. This past Summer, she really got into swimming in a big way and is very happy to go under. Although interestingly, she also doesn't like water being poured over her head in the bath.

Ellie did an amazing job with their first floating exercise. She could have floated forever it seemed.

Katy's Favourite Foods at 3

So Katy's (my!) class project this week was to bring photos of Katy's favourite foods. Here are some of them:

Katy still loves avocadoes. And they are still our go-to source of nutrition if Katy is too tired and/or fractious to eat anything else.
Hubba Bubba bubble gum is also a fave although she is not quite at the bubble blowing stage - one is in danger of having a gob of gum launched at one if in the wrong place during one of Katy's bubble blowing attempts.
Katy loves pancakes on the weekend, especially with plenty of syrup. We use Grade B as it is meant to be healthier...Katy floods the pancakes and enjoys the syrup more than the cake!
Katy still loves her stars. I have no idea how nutritious these are. They are sweet but not too sweet. And they are marketed as a nutritious baby snack, but that doesn't mean anything. Again, a great go-to snack for when she wants something yummy and we want something not too bad for her.
Hmmm, Mama's favourites as a child too. Little flower biscuits. Of course, Katy just bites the icing off the top. So we often find clumps of flowerless biscuits lying around...

Disney Princesses Look After Their Friends

Tia and Naan took Katy and Jonah to Disneyland on Wednesday afternoon. They had a great time and wanted to wait for the fireworks at 7pm. So we had two very tired preschoolers! Jonah started crying a little from overtiredness. Katy told him to sway side to side, side to side, to calm down, like the Hula Ducks on Kai-Lan. The she said:

"Don't cry Jonah, life's just like that, everything will be alright. You're just overtired."

Katy's Dictionary

"Doughnut"

Overheard by Mama at 3am in the morning...

"Dada, Dada, you forgot to put my doughnut on. I really want you to put my doughnut on."

Mama drifts back to sleep wondering "what is Katy's doughnut?"..."must be that nursing pillow that is crescent-shaped".

Several days later, Mama tucks Katy into bed for her nap and Katy says "Mama, I want my doughnut"...pointing to her...
...
...
...
DOONA!
And the penny clicks.
M: "Oh, your doona."
K: "Yes, my doughnut."

"Wee Waugh"

K: "Mama, how come when I hurt my knee, the wee waugh didn't come to get me?"
[Mama looks completely baffled.]
Tia says "Katy calls the ambulance the wee waugh".
M: "Oh, because you have to be really really sick before the wee waugh comes."
K: "Oh, but Dada has been really really sick, how come the wee waugh doesn't come to get him?"
M: "Oh, because you have to be really really sick and need to go to the hospital."
K: "But when we were in Minnesota, d'you remember that Dada was sick and had to go to the hospital, how come the wee waugh didn't come"
M: "Oh, because Mama had a car and it was quicker for me to take Dada to hospital than to wait for the wee waugh."
K: "But why?"
...
...
...
a few days later
...
"Katy, what do you call the ambulance again? The woo woo? The waa waa?"
"No, I call it the ambulance."
[But she still calls it the wee waugh, as do we all. This is a useful term for all vehicles with sirens, including the fire truck. The whole family has adopted this terminology now.]

Busted!

Katy was given candy last week by her teacher and the school bus Auntie. She also found two gummies I had been saving for her. Practising Adler psychology, we managed to get her to NOT eat them immediately, but save them for Saturday...so (with Dada's help) she decided to hide them in Dada's sock drawer (inside a sock) so she could eat them on Saturday and share one apiece with Mama, Dada, Tia and Naan.

Well, she came home on Friday, and went upstairs quietly and calmly to change before lunch. This should have been the first warning sign. She was very very quiet so I took the time to go through her schoolbag and the thousands of notices that come home for us on Fridays...after about 10 minutes, I looked at Tia and Tia looked at me, and we thought "where is Katy, so quiet?"

I went up the stairs and caught the little one red-handed rifling through all of Dada's socks to find her candy. She was quite distraught and accused someone of stealing it.

Finally, after emptying out most of the socks, Katy found her little pink sock of candy.

Little minx!
ps so did she wait until Saturday as agreed?

No! She and Tia had them for afternoon tea on Friday. Oh well, almost.

Happy Birthday Auntie Pinky and Uncle Chad!

Auntie Pinky and Uncle Chad have the same birthday. Katy slipped on a pretty pink dress and we went in to Central to have cake with Auntie Pinky and Uncle Bert.

Katy spent the ferry ride on the phone to her "daughter". Katy's "daughter" seems to be an alter ego of sorts, bearing uncanny resemblance to Katy on a naughty day.

Poor Auntie Pinky has pregnancy induced diabetes. Uncle Bert managed to find a low(ish) sugar mascarpone fig cheesecake, which we all enjoyed! Katy is obsessed with eating the decorations off the tops of cakes.

The Dog Issue

Daddy says no dogs. Katy loves cats but is not very keen on big dogs, despite proximity to Junior and McGee when he was alive.

Our neighbours have 21 cats and 3 big dogs.

So we visited them and brought treats for the dogs, so Katy could get more comfortable with big dogs. She spend the visit chasing the cats around trying to get them to let her pet them.

Adler Playground Psychology

So my friend Debbie recently lent me "Honey I Wrecked The Kids" by Alyson Schafer. The author is an Adler-raised Adler-trained psychologist specialising in families and children. It was great and I am a big fan now. Rick is reading it too.

It's really worked well for us so far.

An example of how it has helped us is that we have been having battles every morning to get Katy ready for school. First of all, she still will declare sometimes that she doesn't want to go to school, she would prefer to stay home and play by herself. In addition, she really resists getting on the school bus. In any case, even if she isn't complaining about going to school or getting on the school bus, she will resist stopping her play to brush her teeth, get dressed etc.

So instead of having these battles, we have made it her choice. If she gets ready before 8.15am, then she can go to the playground. Otherwise there won't be time and we'll have to go straight to the bus. If she starts complaining, we just focus her on the fun of going to the playground.

It's worked a real treat.

And the bonus is that she has enjoyed her fully focused playground time with us so much in the morning that she has been much happier about saying goodbye and getting on the bus!

It's November, so we've switched to our Winter Uniforms.



Teething problems? You betcha. The first time I tried this, all went well at first and Katy played happily and came over to the bus stop with me reluctantly but calmly. I started chatting to some neighbours I did not really know, because we only started catching the morning bus in November. The next thing I know, the bus arrives, but no Katy to be seen. She had run off back to the Playground while I was chatting. So I had a wonderful audience of preschoolers and parents to see me sprinting back to the playground like a mad woman, climbing the playgym, grabbing my child, climbing back down, and sprinting back to the bus, child tucked under my arm yelling "I don't want to go to school"! Katy thought it was hilarious. So did I!

Chinese Breakfast Treat

As a child of Foodies, Katy is pretty used to outings built around special foods, meals and tastes. She's enjoying her Cantonese preschool and she is increasingly enjoying the fact that she can speak many more languages than most people. Katy loves nothing more than declaring that we should speak Putonghua when she hears it spoken on the ferry, or, if feeling contrary, if she is supposed to be having a Tagalog playdate!

But language is not only about words. It's also very much about culture. And of course, to us, culture is very much about food.

So, because Katy rarely gets Cantonese food (or much of any other type of Chinese food) at home, Mama has taken Katy out for "special Chinese breakfast treats" enroute to her school in Tung Chung.

This last time, we hit a very typical Cantonese breakfast joint - Cafe de Coral! It was great fun, although ordering in English is always a bit of a hit and miss adventure.

Having learnt my lesson from the last time, I meant to bring a bib for Katy, but forgot. Oh well, Katy loved wearing my pink jacket as a bib!

Katy's favourite dish is lo bak goh - fried grated turnip cakes.

And this time, she really enjoyed the cheung fun - giant rice noodle packets. She thinks the ones at Cafe de Coral are the best, but Mama likes the ones downstairs better.


After successfully eliminating spills on her uniform, Katy posed outside of school. It was a Monday, so she was wearing her Winter sports uniform.

Bedtime with Auntie Yvonne

Yvonne is such a dedicated adopted Auntie. She came early for bookclub so she could read Katy some storied before bed. Katy was thrilled to entertain Auntie Yvonne in her new butterfly canopy.

Too Busy for Dada

At 7pm, Dada rang Katy for his nightly goodnight call.

"Hello Katy."

"Dada, can I call you back? I'm too busy cleaning the house."

School Bus Blues

Katy has had a pretty gentle introduction to school life! End of August, Mama and Tia took Katy to school and stayed for class. September she started Kindergarten for two hours a day by herself, Mama, Tia and Naan took Katy to school and picked her up. October, she started three hours a day and caught the school bus home, but Mama, Tia and Naan still took turns taking Katy to school. Now, November, she caught the bus to school for the first time. She didn't like it and put up a bit of a fuss, but was allright in the end. Nurse Chan took control and the young bus driver seemed to know what he was doing too. I guess they are pros at the reluctant Kindie kids scene. It helped that our K3 neighbour QQ was there at the bus stop too. Naan will still take Katy to school on Mondays and Thursdays, so Katy will catch the bus to school on the other three days only. And once a month, Tia will go with Naan to treat Katy to a special Delifrance breakfast, and once a month, Dada and Mama will take Katy to school for special Chinese breakfast. Well, that's the plan.

Princess Aurora visits Snow White

We went to visit the Chens at Disneyland yesterday afternoon. Katy was dressed as Princess Aurora and Isabella was Snow White. The girls practiced holding their skirts out like real Princesses.


Katy was very excited to meet Alice, but only because she thought she was Cinderella! They had a lovely conversation, but we don't know what was discussed.




And how do you end a lovely afternoon at Disney? The Chens took us out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant and the girls clustered around another table of kids playing with an iPad. Katy kept saying she wants an iPhone for Christmas because all the kids love all the games you can get on the iPhone, especially Talking Tomcat. But now she has seen this, Katy is requesting an iPad! And a DS!