Saturday

Today was actually very good for a Saturday. We skyped with my parents and had a slow morning. Around noon we headed down the mountain, parked, then walked to a pizza place we know. After that was a park and then some more walking. Emily had a cup of coffee and I drank some tea while the babies napped. Sam got to to go to two different playgrounds. All in all, a very nice day. The group bath went well (although I think our tub has a small crack) and the babies went to bed comparatively peacefully. There were some small frustrations (Sam wouldn't go to bed without one of us in the bed, and it took him forever to fall asleep), but all things being equal, it was a nice day. Last Saturday was sort of the opposite extreme (sick kid, rainy day, exhausted Emily) whereas today we all seemed on top of things.

I think I've had just a touch of homesickness lately. It coincided with the end of the semester, Christmas, etc. Some of it is also that January is one of the months where people start asking me to do things for the coming semester, and I always feel like getting out of these things takes more energy and work than I'd like. I try to keep repeating that my goals now are language study and teaching. I can do worship services, some student advising, the occasional sermon, help with a thesis, etc., but there's a limit to what I can do well.

The babies are very entertaining right now. They were both very smiley today. I had fun pulling Eva around the apartment (her pajama feet make it like skates for her). She can blow kisses and say bye-bye. Her talking sounds like, "hsieh, hsieh" or "nyiah, nyiah." Eli's is more of a barking "Gba!" They both have molars through. I think Eli must be up to 10 or 12 teeth and Eva's at 8. They're really coming along.

Sam loves drawing. His beloved Crayola 64 pack has really come in handy. We're trying to figure out whether to try him on piano lessons. There's a Suzuki school near his preschool. My thought is that trying him now could be a low pressure way to encourage music and he could play at it for the next year. I don't remember loving piano lessons, but I also don't remember really disliking them, and they at least helped me to think about music. I think I was nearly tone deaf as a child, and I can't tell with kids what the balance is between nature and environment. I've always been more visual than aural, but maybe this is just because I come from a family that was more focused on the visual/reading (although big brother was musically gifted). It's another place where there's a cultural difference. Here kids start on music early, but by junior high most of them stop their studies because the academics take over and the tests are the most important thing. With us, we seem to focus more on sports and clubs early and then music begins around fifth or sixth grade and really only gets serious in high school. Anyway, these are my cultural thoughts today.

We're trying out more different tv shows too. We have sesame street, leap frog, and wiggles. I'm not sure what they'll like the most. We have a really dumb phonics video, but Sam likes it.

I think Emily is coming along. The spreadsheet she needs to put together for her dissertation will be fairly massive, so she's trying to figure out how to move to the next stage. I don't know if she needs info on all 400 sites, or if she can do a faster initial read and more focused depth later. I feel like for the semester we're at an in between point. We have New Year coming up, which will throw us off our stride. In the meantime, we have two weeks to get caught up, for me to do grading, for kids to do their thing, etc.