Life on an Island

1. What happened in India is beyond horrible. It is again but one manifestation of the overall cultural and social mentalities that objectify female bodies and assume no concept of equality for all. The consequent uproar may hopefully force the government to pass laws to penalize the crime of mistreating women. However, punishing the behavior is the last step. The first step is to bring awareness about equality amongst people of differences, whether the difference is of gender, race, class, size, region, national origin, age, or anything else. Very idealistic, but it's important to know that's the goal before we get there. Hopefully one day with respect no crime will come from exploiting differences. I do understand the complexities of this, because I witnessed the gap between generational and regional groups and saw how deep-rooted certain ideas are.

2. Where have all the past time gone?

3. So many cookies and desserts over the Christmas holidays.

4. Amazing how we and the kids are sharing the movies we like now. When they grow up more, hope we can share more delights and thoughts and life's many elements.

5. This break we've made yummy chocolate cake, cookies, roasted chicken and veggies, veggie lasagna, stewed spiced shredded pork, braised pork, roux butter bread, and will make more special bread such as challah and brown sugar rolls and hopefully my favorite fried bananas.  The 3rd-grader also made madeleines. 

It was so cold outside that when we retrieved the camera from the car the lens was foggy in the warmth of the kitchen.

6. The 1st-grader has been discussing Garfield, Star Wars and Harry Potter characters with me when I get up around noon this break.

7. We've been sleeping in every morning, and going to bed around or after midnight everyday since the break began. 

What I have learnt in 2012:


8-yr-old:
1. physics is very cool, a bit algebra,
2. to stay away from badminton bats
3. I should not play with my brother to the point he goes crazy about the game
4. I'm bigger now and have lots of responsibilities
5. my brother is very annoying
6. the school i went to last year was better
7. some of my friends are too serious about ghosts
8. I get annoyed by A***
9. my brother plays with A***

Mom:
1. attitude determines how you live wherever you go
2. need to stay flexible and positive
3. need to focus on priority goals and plan in order to get it done
4. kids grow fast 

Dad:
1. how to manage money
2. how to relax and adjust in the low times of life cycle
3. enjoy life with family by working with kids and making dinner
4. about patience in learning and investment

When the kids were a bit older than toddlers, they asked for more siblings. When they were a bit bigger, they wished for twins. I told them since they didn't choose to come at the same time, they missed the chance of being twins. They explained that they each wanted their own twin, not each other as twin. The younger one told me when he was 3 that if we had a baby, he would help take care of the baby, get up to feed the baby in the middle of the night, and change diapers.

Now they are both school age, their ideas about additional family members changed a lot. Both of them do not wish to have a baby in the home any more, because babies drool, wear diapers and cry, all the things they did plenty before but don't remember.

The 1st-grader: Only I'm the cutest when I was born, other babies are not cute. I don't like babies.
The 3rd-grader: Babies are cute, but they are noisy. I like them.
                Mom: Is it okay to adopt a baby?
                Both: No more babies.

I read a short article from a parenting blog at the beginning of the new school year as the younger one enters school age. This article reminds parents that the time kids want to be around you is actually very short. Most kids after elementary school won't want to be around parents; for some kids at most 2 more years beyond elementary school. After that time kids won't spend much time around parents any more.

After kids started school, there is an obvious change. The younger one definitely hangs around after school to play with friends and no longer sticks to our side so much any more. He talks a lot about friends. I started feeling that the kids are now becoming more independent, and their young years are no longer. While feeling happy for them, I became nostalgic for their toddler cute chubby cuddly selves, and changed my screen saver and desktops to albums of their toddler years.  They are still cuddly and huggy, but definitely become older and more in charge of themselves.

As I was feeling nostalgic, the 6-yr-old came to hug me one day and said to me: I would like to become a baby again and go back into your tummy. What a big contrast to his claim of being a bid kid! His godmother said that's growth pain. The other day he said he misses me because he feels that he doesn't see me so much any more. So on the one hand he enjoys the freedom of being bigger and friends' company but on the other he doesn't want to let go of the bond. I hope we will share a deep bond that's regardless of time passing. I cherish every moment we spend together.

Throughout the summer, the kids read through the beach info. in the island parents page. The younger one simply loved the description of French Beach. When friends came over they mentioned Botanic Beach and the series of beaches between it and the French Beach. We thought we'd check out it and finally made the trip on the first full day of the long weekend.

The light didn't allow clear indications of what's on this map -- the dark dots are all beaches along the coast.

French Beach turned out not to be so big, or maybe we didn't walk around enough to explore. We went on to the following beaches.
We got off at the China Beach camp site parking, and had to walk 1.5 km through the hills, campsites, and woods to get to the beach.


There's nice sandy beach here and we just loved it! The younger one was 3 quarters wet when we left.

It was already almost 5pm when we got to the Botanic Beach. All the tide pools were really cool, but we had to be very careful not to step on any thing. We shouldn't go walk around too close so we don't step on the many lives living on those beautiful sand rocks by the sea. Again we had to walk through trails to get to the beach.







Really have to plan to go back there next summer!

Today is the last day of this summer, and we went for a long bike ride through the beautiful trail, and picked blackberries along the way!

Today is Canada Day. The kids took a long nap in the afternoon so they can stay up tonight to go see the firework in the Inner Harbour. Yesterday they asked the security guards at the Parliament Building when the firework will be, and got 10:30pm today for an answer. Mom checked online and it stated 10:20pm. We went out at 8pm because dad couldn't stand the kids' noises. People were leaving for the day's activities at the time so it was not very crowded. Only by 10pm did it start getting real crowded. The firework was amazing but lasted only 10 minutes.  
Mom saw a master talk about this question in the circumstance of 5 minutes, 5 hours, 5 days, and 5 months, so asked the family the question. But they only had patience to think about a couple of them.


If you only have 5 more minutes to live, what would you do?


Kindergartener: I would hug and kiss my family and say bye.
2nd Grader: I would eat my favorite food and drink water. 
Mom: I would eat mint chocolate and tell my loved ones how much I love them and appreciate their being in my life.
Dad: I would hug my family.


If you only have 5 more hours to live, what would you do?