9 More Days

School started this last week. A week ago Friday we all went on a school retreat. It was a mixed bag. I did a "good" with a fifteen minute sharing time in local language. Eli through a gargantuan fit at dinner, but then all the kids played well with another little kid on the basketball court. Sleeping was a challenge. Eli migrated over by Emily during the night. In general it seems like the twins do well together. It's a big development--we can travel and stay in a room together!--but still not perfect, alas.

Eli was sick Monday and by Tuesday Eva was home too. Sam wanted to join them and his Fit of the Week was Tuesday morning. Nothing worked to calm him down. Neither threats nor bribes were effective and Emily was pretty upset by the time she left him at school. We began discussing how things were going. In the afternoon I went to pick him up and... he'd had a great day. We went to his first day of baseball and he joined in with no problems. It's so hard to figure out when and how and whether to push kids to participate. Thursday and Friday were a national holiday here (kind of) although I had school Friday and a retreat yesterday. The work culture here is pretty fierce. It was a pretty good first week of school, but I still think it's a bit harder than I hoped. About half of our teachers have high blood pressure and they all claim its genetic, but, hmmm, I think work culture may be involved too.

There were some other small victories this week:

• Sam loved going to church today with me and stayed in Sunday School by himself, helping with the little kids. Big success!
• Sam's still drawing his little books. He's big into Transformers now.
• Eva and Eli are both pretty hilarious. They are both speaking more, but are still only about 65% comprehensible. Eva says "Weva." Eli sort of slurs his words through his pacifier (we're probably too lax on this--he doesn't use it at school at all).
• They're all doing great on language. Sam interacts with other kids pretty much entirely in local language.
• They like music and it's probably something we should work on.
• We played with footballs outside this afternoon--pretty fun.
• Emily took them all to the student center yesterday during the typhoon.
• Sam's started reading the Ralph and the motorcycles books (I loved these as a kid, and my gerbil was named Ralph)
• Sam has homework now: math, local alphabet, and "proverbs." He likes the homework so far.
• I'm getting to relive my childhood, watching old Justice League Friends shows, transformers, Ralph, and so on. 
• Sam and Eli are a bit competitive, so that drives us a little nuts.
• They're also kind of picky eaters. Em made an excellent eggplant parm, and only Eli would eat it. The trend is: Eli will eat anything, Eva will eat pasta or rice, Sam eats little. They're all skinny, which just amazes me.

That's the news. Not a lot else to share. Will update as able.

A Harbor Visit

We tried a solo family vacation, leaving Friday afternoon and returning Saturday. It was fun, but as I read somewhere recently, with small kids you take "trips" and not "vacations".

We went to a harbor area with some attractions nearby. It worked out well, and we just missed torrential rains. On Friday night we headed to the night market, which had a range of foods: corn, fried squid, vietnamese papaya, baked sweet potato, etc. We haven't been to a night market in forever, and though there is one close. The nice thing about this one was it was not humongous and seemed easy to navigate. It was close to the hotel so that we could get back before anyone melted down.

We had a king and twin bed, so Emily took the twin, Sam and I slept in the king and the twins actually chose to sleep on the floor (I think they're used to it from nap time). The kids have just reached the age where a hotel room is super fun. You can jump on the bed! There's a harbor you can watch! Cable TV! They had a blast.

The next day we did breakfast, Emily got a quick swim, and we went to some sort of Buddhist-theme park, which is one of the main regional attractions. There were few people though. The only challenge was that the kids really wanted to ride the coin-operated vehicles that were almost everywhere. They got basically two rounds and that was enough for us. It's funny how enjoyable I remember Chucky Cheese and these kind of places being when I was a kid, and how much they seem like an incredible time suck now. I probably need an attitutude. I think Sam described riding on this moving car-thing as "the most fun thing in his whole life" or some such language. Anyway, it was a memorable trip for them. I'm kind of glad we won't be repeating this immediately, but know the kids had a great time.

Otherwise life is going pretty well. I have a quiet, creeping dread about the start of the new semester, but am trying to keep it in check. Church work is relatively contained, school is currently an "OK" schedule, but I have this feeling we may end up doing our apartment switch mid semester and Emily is "close" on dissertation. All good things, but also quite stressful.