Parent Teacher Interviews

The kids are now finished with the 3rd quarter at school. With this came report cards and parent teacher interviews. Thankfully there weren't any negative surprises. In fact I was surprised with how well Sydney has been doing with her letters and sounds. Brayden has excellent reading skills and along with that great comprehension to what he is reading. Madison has really warmed up to the routine of school and the teachers and kids in her class. It's fun to hear the teachers perception of the kids in the school environment and hear the little stories.
Along with all the report cards the teachers will give an impressive summary of the kids 'multiple intelligence profile.' They include a paragraph for each of the following: verbal/linguistic, logical/mathematical, visual/spatial, musical, bodily/kinesthetic, interpersonal,intrapersonal and natural/environmental. I thought I'd share a few of my favorite points from each of my kids. Some are because I'm proud of them and some because they are hilarious and I copied them word for word from their MI reports.

Brayden
Even if he doesn't speak Ilonggo, he still responds to his classmates.
Gabriel: Indi nay a amo Brayden, mu ni hu. ***Translation: "It's not like that Brayden,it's like this..."***
Brayden: Okay, let's try that.
He is reading all the words he meets even if they were not introduced yet.
When the class listened to a story on recycling, he said, "You know in Canada, there's no garbage on the streets. They are clean."

Maddy
Maddy can definitely follow rhythm. Whenever she hears music, she hums. She sways her hips when dancing and claps her hands.
Maddy can already get and return her bag from her cubbyhole without any help. She can also pack away her placemat, plate, and cups by herself.
Maddy has not been to any of our field trips because mommy does not have any help and they have been on vacation a lot. (I'd like to add my own little note to this. No she doesn't really do the field trips since they are at a bad time and I sacrifice her field trip so the other two can get to school but she has been on one field trip: Maddy's Fieldtrip)
As long as she has something to eat then she is one happy baby.

Sydney
Sydney's favorite song is "Tale as Old as Time" from the movie Beauty and the Beast. She sang this song in front of her classmates during the talent show in the classroom.
Sydney is an affectionate child. She has her favorites among her classmates though, namely, Liam and Kashie. She likes to kiss them on the lips.
This quarter, she did an amazing job in sight reading Dolch words.
Sydney has no trouble expressing herself.

So apparently Sydney is putting the moves on the boys already! Quite the shocker and as I sat in the hallway reading this before my interview I laughed out loud. She really is just one super affectionate kid! I guess I never thought about her kissing and hugging her friends the way she does her family!

ALWAYS BEWARE of "Mom, You Gotta Come See This ... QUICK"

I have learned rather quickly that when Brayden comes into the house with something I need to see urgently it's probably better that I ask first. His interpretation of "must see" is a lot different then mine and I don't care about the gross bloated frogs being devoured by masses of red ants or the eroding remains of the big black snake that now only has it's skeleton as proof of it's existence.
Well we had one of those moments this morning. Finally we were granted a break from the rain and so the kids were excited to play outside. I cover them with mosquito spray and off they go. Maybe 2 minutes later Brayden comes running back into the house and is so excited about something! "Mom, you HAVE to come and see this! Hurry."
"Um, what exactly is it that I just have to see?" I ask. I've learned my lesson.
"A rat head!" he answers.
Ok, So I have to admit I was curious. A rat head? Seriously? What in the world was he trying to trick me with, it just didn't make sense. So outside I go and this is what I found:

Cleaning that up was about the grossest thing I've had to do in a while!

New Haircuts!!

It has been rainy for 2 weeks now. Well, we've had 2 sunny days but it's been kind of a drag. I know, I know, I know, it's not cold and snowy so I shouldn't be complaining and I'm not super upset about it because it's been kind of cooler so we've been giving the air conditioners quite a break.
This morning I woke up early to go for a run before the kids got up only to find it absolutely pouring rain. I just sat around in the dark until the kids woke up and got them some breakfast and then they went off to play and I just sat there wondering what I should do. My house is clean, breakfast is done and a load was in the washer and dryer so there wasn't much to do there either.
Well, I figured it out! A week or so ago Ryan mentioned that maybe it was time Sydney got a haircut so I decided I was going to give my girls a haircut:

I admit it's not much for Madison. I just had to trim half an inch off the bottom to even out the last of the layers so now it's a nice even bob. Sydney we cut off about 2 1/2-3" and it looks great (or I think so anyway). She seems to like it to which is a nice boost to my hair cutting self esteem, hehe.

How Do You Like Them Apples?

One thing that really sucks here in the Philippines is the size of the produce. It's like mini veggies. Even when we tried growing things in our garden the green peppers are so cute, like little babies. Our tomato's all looked like cherry tomato's and all our cobs of corn were Maddy sized. Actually the only thing that seemed to come out regular size was the cucumbers.
Last time we were in Canada I was shopping at the Superstore and picking up some veg. There was a Filipino family also shopping and I quickly jumped to the conclusion that they were pretty new immigrants. What made me jump to this conclusion!? They were wide eyed looking at the HUGE green peppers, onions and tomato's saying in awe "GRABE, GRABE!" which is said like grab-i and translated to english means: "WOW, AMAZING." I chuckled to myself partly because I know exactly what they were thinking about our giant sized vegetables and partly because I was so pleased to eaves drop a little into a foreign conversation.

During our recent travels we ran into some amazingly sized apples. They were huge, the biggest i've ever seen. This time it was my turn to say "grabe" and take a picture:

I love shopping in grocery stores in different parts of the world. It's always so fun to see the different products that they carry like the shrimp flavoured Pringles or the crazy finds in the meat section. The other day we were checking out pig ear drums, yummy. I think one of the best we've seen were the fried maggots and grasshoppers or baby chicks. Although we get to see all these wonderful delicacies, Ryan and I are quite cautious about what we do eat so unfortunately fortunately we haven't really tried most of these things we just like to take pictures of them. Our next adventure will take us to Singapore for the second time and I'm looking forward to roaming the aisles of a grocery store and checking out the cool foods we can find in Little India and Chinatown! Hopefully we'll find something picture worthy for our collection that I can share with you!

Bum Meow

Maddy and I can get quite frustrated with each other. She doesn't feel the need to talk and so I really struggle to figure out what she wants. She then gets very upset with me because I have no idea what she is trying to explain to me. Her vocabulary is thankfully getting bigger and she's starting to make 2 word sentences but I still struggle. Brayden started talking at 14 months and was speaking full sentences by 2 years old but Sydney was just the opposite. I don't think she said one word until she was 2 and it looks like Madison is going more the route of Sydney then her brother.
Today I was in the kitchen cleaning up a bit after breakfast. The kids are in a different room and I can hear them all giggling and getting along just fine. Madison comes bolting out of the room, into the kitchen and is very aggressively repeating "BUM MEOW, BUM MEOW, BUM MEOW!" She gets this look on her face when she's trying to tell you something all serious, her brow furrows and her lips pucker way more then necessary (it's really quite cute), and her eyes get HUGE. I have absolutely no idea what she is trying to tell me since we don't own a cat and I didn't even know she knew the word for bum.
"Oooooh, really!?" I reply and off she runs satisfied. About 30 seconds later Brayden comes out of the room looking like this:

I'm not shocked, this is one of their favorite games. Maddy even has to get involved and gets the kids to shove small stuffed animals down her pants or up her shirt. The one thing that I finally understood was Maddy's earlier statement. Brayden had shoved one of her stuffed kitties down his pants in his bum hence "BUM MEOW"! It moments like these when the light comes on and I breathe a sigh and remember it goes so fast. She will be talking in sentences soon and I need to just slow down and appreciate the furrow of the brow and small frustrations when we don't get each other. It will pass.

Eruptions in the Kitchen

The kids really scored with Christmas gifts this year. The theme this year was create. Building blocks seems to be the biggest hit but they also got a lot of other construction type things that you can recreate new cool things every time. One example is the Dragster kit Brayden got. It's just like kinects but bigger pieces that comes with wheels and you put them all together to create race cars. He's made dozens of designs already and then drives them around testing out how they do. I love it. It keeps them busy and active. Ryan also got a 'creation' gift from Santa this year, a volcano kit. It came with 3 volcano molds and the goods to make it erupt. Brayden and Sydney each picked a volcano and then read about their volcano in the little information book that came with the kit. It also came with these great science lab type goggles for them to wear which of course the kids LOVED!. They mixed the mold and poured it into their volcano's and waited and waited for a whole day for the volcano's to dry. Ryan was nice enough to share with all the kids so they each were able to do their own mixing and pouring. One was really tall, one was really fat and one was the 'baby' which naturally became Madisons volcano. No fighting, which is always a bonus!

After the volcano's were dried they each painted one however they liked. This was really just to buy mom time to quickly get to the grocery store and buy the missing ingredients for the volcano's to erupt. Once all the necessary ingredients were available they erupted their volcano's.

I Don't Hate a Lot of Things But This is One:

I have always been one to immunize. I've never really thought twice about it. I know some people are so against it, some believe it increases the chances of autism or for whatever reason they choose not to ... they just don't do it. Brayden and Sydney have actually been given every needle one their age can get. Rabies, all the Hep's, typhoid, you name it they got it. When we moved out here to the Philippines and had no idea what to expect I took them to the local health unit and thought it would be better to be safe then sorry. Looking back now I probably wouldn't have been so cruel telling the nurse "yes I understand it will be 7 addition needles to their already schedules immunizations, let's do it." I would have maybe picked one or two but hey! Now they won't have to worry about doing any of those things later in life and they can travel the world and know they've got all the vaccinations needed. I really did them a favour because I remember getting mine, they won't remember theirs.

Madison is a different story. I don't do immunizations here in the Philippines. Maybe that sounds paranoid but if you have seen the hospitals and clinics here then you might agree with me. When we go home to visit I schedule immunizations then. Madison moved here when she was 2 months old, got needles the next time we went home including a half dose of chicken pox (which apparently is good for a little while) and then came back here for a year. She's quite behind! So with that being said she has never had her full proper chicken pox vaccination but guess what!? It's one less needle she needs now because we did chicken pox the old fashion way.

I know these are NOT attractive pictures of Madison but as cute as she is there was no way to make her look good. I started to notice it one day touring around in Thailand. She had a few red bumps on the back of neck and spreading up a bit onto her hairline. I thought a bug got into her bed and didn't think about it again until the next morning Ryan was bathing her and called me in. There were more red bumps, some on her tummy, the ones on the back of her neck and few on her back. We talked about maybe something living in her bed but Ryan mentioned chicken pox and it made sense. They all looked like these huge blisters. She didn't seem bothered by it at all but the next day they had really spread! There was no hiding them. Our last night in Thailand was a night train and it was like a scene from the Exorcism of Emily Rose. She was screaming, twitching out, back arched. We had to straddle her to pin her down and poured tylenol down her throat and smeared calamine lotion all over her body and 5 minutes later she was sleeping. Thankfully. We rented a hotel room for the day in Bangkok and she had a few extra naps and thankfully slept the flights back to Bacolod. She's fine now. Almost all the scabs are gone and she's back to her normal temperament. While talking to the doctor yesterday (finding out if she's still contagious or not) I learned that the incubation period can be 2-4 weeks so she got it before we left Thailand and probably from school since that's really the only place she's been. They start being contagious around 24-48 hours before blisters appear which is usually when a fever begins along with a runny nose and those flu like aches. When that last blister scabs over they aren't contagious anymore. I'm just happy it's over. Our poor little girl had them ALL over her scalp so I couldn't wash or brush her hair without her screaming, they were in her belly button, inside her ears and on her eyelids (well, just one eyelid). BUT, we all survived here at home as everyone who is reading this did before us! BOO to chicken pox.

Boys Will Be Boys

Final Tribute to Thailand

Ryan made this and as my final post about our amazing trip here it is!

Old Chiang Mai Cultural Center

Our last night in Chiang Mai we decided to go with the reccommendation of one of the taxi drivers and check out the Old Chiang Mai Cultural Center. We weren't too sure what to expect, all he told us was that we would need to make a reservation and there would be dinner and dancing. When we were arrived and led into the hall where we would be eating there were a bunch of seats set up on the floor in different groups. We were led up to the stage to take our places. Soon after we sat down all the musicians came out and started to play traditional Thai music while our food was brought out to us. The tray they used was filled with Thai dishes, mostly from northern Thailand and they were brought out on something that resembled a lazy susan. It's called a Khantoke and used to be used for special occasions like weddings. The food was so yummy and when one of the bowls was empty someone would come and replace it with a full one for us. For dessert we had freshly sliced fruit.

While we were eating the dancing started. They were all classical Thai dances distinct to Northern Thailand. I had to research them a little bit because we couldn't really hear or understand the announcer during the show. My favorite dance was the finger-nail dance which apparently is supposed to mimic the movements of the elephants (which were held at huge value by the Thai people). Another really captivating dance was the sword dance where the dance was able to balance and dance with 16 swords all around his head and neck.

There were other really amazing dances and you'll have to go here to see the pictures but they were all slow moving really putting the focus on the movements of the hands and the wrists. It looked like it would take some patience to be able to get all these dances moving at the right angles and right times. It was also relaxing and enjoyable to watch. It was such a perfect way to finish our trip to Northern Thailand!

Almost Forgot About the Monkeys

I've been trying to do these posts in chronological order since this site serves a little as my journal and was reminded yesterday I didn't post about the monkeys. Well the reason for that is because not only was it lame, it was super disturbing. It started out promising with the kids being able to feed these little babies some milk and we bought a couple bunches of banana's for them all to eat. Then we went to where the bigger monkeys were and it just went weird. They were playing this music like some crazy jungle tribe and there were all these monkeys chained up with only a few feet allowance. We were told to throw the banana's at them and they would catch the banana's. The kids like it, thought it was a pretty amazing trick but us adults thought it was just mean. They had about 12 of these monkeys all chained up. After our banana's were all gone we got to sit down for a 'monkey show' which was equally disturbing. They had the monkeys shoot basketballs, climb coconut trees, ride a bicycle, do some number recognition but not at one point during the whole show was the monkey given anymore then 2 feet of rope allowance. Definitely not giving off the impression that these monkeys were safe or trusted. It was ok, but nothing like the other things we had already seen and done and not something we would ever do again!

The Snakes

We went to this snake show one of our last days in Chiang Mai. It had cobra's, water snakes and a huge python which the snake guy wrestled in the water. The announcer was hilarious and kept us laughing at his crazy jokes which we keep repeating even now in his funny brocken english accent. The kids really liked the show too but I think they enjoyed holding some of the smaller non poisonous snakes before and after the show! The guy came over and handed it to Brayden and he took it without pause. I'm not too sure if he knew it was alive or not at first but he loved it. Then the guy wrapped it all up for him and put it on his head as his hat and Brayden was eating it up. He loved it. Brayden and Sydney did a good job sharing that snake taking turns wearing it on their heads, around their necks and petting it. Then the show started and we were mesmerized by the cobra. We even got to 'touch the cobra for good luck' which who knows if it really does bring luck. The next day Madison was completely covered with her chicken pox. In her ears, in her belly button and on her eye lids. *sigh* Poor girl.

A Tiger's Roar

I love tigers. I think they are so beautiful and elegant. I always wished I could be like Princess Jasmine (from Aladdin) and have my very own pet Raja! But unfortunately I don't live in a Disney cartoon, I live in the real world where tigers maul humans for fun.
After our elephant ride we were thinking about going ziplining but Ryan made an executive decision that Tigers would be cooler then sailing through the jungle. To be honest I was bummed out. As much as I love tigers I've already seem them in a zoo. I saw them in Vegas and I've seen them on TV. I had never been zipling through the jungles of Northern Thailand before! Why would I want to see another tiger in a cage when I could experience flying through the tree's like a Gibbon Monkey!? I know I sound like a baby, and that's what Ryan told me so I stopped whining and we continued driving to the Tiger Kingdom.

HELLO! Was I peeing my pants with excitement when I learned I would actually get to touch a tiger!!! Um, way cooler then flying through the trees like a monkey. And yes, Ryan was right and I was wrong, the tigers were better. Boo.
We arrived around lunch time and so had the buffet lunch first. Weirdly an old drama classmate of mine from Lethbridge was there too with his wife. What a small world! After lunch we got ourselves all prepared to see the tigers. We really wanted to take a family picture with the big tigers and I was disappointed to learn that the kids could only go into the smallest tigers (the cubs). Knowing the kids were only able to see the one size of tigers we used the saved money to just go and see more for ourselves and decided on the smallest, small and big. We started of with the small tigers that weren't really that small at all! Just a few months old but already bigger then a golden retriever. The kids were with us although they weren't able to go inside the cage they could walk along the paths and see all the different tigers in the establishment and we thought it would make it easier. My parents could go and do their turn while we stuck close by with the kids and it would be an easier switch when our turn came up. This did not go according to plan. As soon as the kids were in the view of the tigers they didn't want to do anything but stare at them hungrily through the cages. The people that were in the cage at the time couldn't play with them and the tigers were so fixated on the kids they wouldn't respond to the trainers to turn for pictures either. The trainers had to ask us to take our kids away! While my parents were in the cages with the tigers Ryan took them down the pathway were they watched some of the different tigers laying around. They were watching 2 tigers, one of which was stalking the kids. Then Brayden turns around and says "daddy there's another one" and Ryan also turns and finds a third tiger hunting the kids then takes a leaping pounce at the fence! SCARY. I guess that's why the kids are only allowed with the babies!

When we had our turn with the tigers they were playing around and burning off some of that toddler energy in their pool. The cool thing about was that we were in there with them. Well, not in the pool but standing at the edge of the pool 2' away from where they were wrestling with each other. Water was streaming off their whipping tails onto us! It was amazing to watch them play like that right in front of us! I was able to get a few incredible action shots (including the one directly above) and they just reminded me of energetic huge kittens. Eventually they came out of the water and we were able to pet them and take some pictures with them before moving on to the tiger cubs.

The cubs were so cute! They had two different sections set up each with cubs at different ages. The first set of three were a few weeks older and were running around playing with each other. Unlike the ones we just saw a few months older, they were completely unaware of the kids and could have cared less that 'lunch' was in their grasp. Brayden and Sydney just followed them around petting them every time they stopped to take a breather. Madison was a little unsure. She is such an animal lover but we've learned that the love comes with distance. When they start to get to close the excitement subsides and nervousness takes it's place. Maybe it comes from my constantly starting to freak out when she saunters towards a street dog "MADISON, get AWAY from that nasty dog! it's GROSS!!"
I'm sure my kids will have numerous complexes because of me! Anyway, after we played around a while with the bigger cubs we got to see the tiny little 6 week old cubs. Not that they were so little, still bigger then Sheba my fat cat. We played around with it like we would a kitten. Brayden and Sydney took turns dangling leaves in front of it like it was a piece of string and it would swat it's paws at it. He was super cute!

We were able to get the little one to stay still long enough that we could all crowd in for our family picture. I was so happy with how it turned out and although it's not with the big tiger like I had originally hoped I'm just glad we got one without having to sacrafice one of the kids. We just love them too dang much ...

We then spent some time with the 3 big tigers which were so HUGE. I couldn't believe the size. They were also only 22 months old and hadn't yet reached their maximum weight. We started out behind him and slowly were able to lay on him and feeling him breathing and knowing if he got mad at me there wasn't much I could do was a little nerving. But hey! I've done it now, no need to do it again. And, we only live once...
For more shots of us and the kids with the tigers, just go here

Riding the Elephants

One thing we really wanted to do while in Chiang Mai was ride the elephants. The first time we were in Thailand we came across an elephant just walking down the street and got to feed him some sugarcane. It was so amazing and the kids loved it (Sydney was only 1 at the time) and being that close to such a huge animal was so cool, defiantly peaked my interest in going for a ride if we ever made it back to Thailand.
So we did it. We drove up into the mountains to an elephant park (they have numerous) and bought ourselves an hour ride in the jungle. Our elephant was so HUGE. I'm sure he was the tallest, and he was fast. We were going to go with a few other elephants including the one the kids were on with nana and papa but no one could keep up with us. It worked out nicely, kind of like our own personal tour. It was really pretty where we were. Part of the trek was through the river with this amazing green jungle to the sides and then our elephant climbed up this steep hill with his giant feet while we swayed side to side on the top. Madison wasn't shouting for joy but she wasn't crying either, and she seemed to warm up.

After our ride was done we took these Ox carts back to where our driver was waiting for us with the van. It was kind of cool and I think that the kids really like it. Sydney was brave enough to hop into the front and take the reins for a while and Brayden was happy enough to stay where he was. After arriving back at our initial destination we spend a little time checking out a few of the elephants they had in the main arrival area. The kids seemed to really enjoy the little baby elephant who kept sticking it's trunk out to feel them. At one point one of the large elephants came over to give my mom a big wet snotty kiss right on her head and then took a hat from the trainer and placed it properly on my mom's head. It was really neat.

It ended up being a great morning and as we loaded up into the van onto our next pit spot we all just sat back taking in what we just did, the excitement, the beauty and the amazement. It really was a lot of fun.

Chiang Mai Zoo

We spent our Tuesday afternoon at the Chiang Mai Zoo. It was the most bizarre zoo I've ever been too. It wasn't really made to walk around in, you drove your car around ... which sucked because we didn't have a car and there were some pretty intense hills. The zoo is designed in the side of the mountain and so the exhibits are pretty amazing but hiking up the mountain to the different animals was a good workout. The other pretty crazy thing about this zoo was that they had no real cages! There would be a mote or hedge and then a hip high cement fence separating you from the animals. It was pretty cool when we first arrived and it was flamingo's and monkeys but when we started getting into the bigger more scary animals like the lioness who was hunting my kids with her eyes, it was a little frightening.

They had some pretty awesome animals. We were pretty pumped to see the baby hippo with it's mom and dad. They were swimming in the water and as we showed up their food was coming and slowly the three of them sauntered out of the water to the pile of nasty food and started munching down. They also had some elephants out of the normal spot and put them out so that we could feed them sugarcane and 'pet' them. The mama was super pregnant and we could see the sides of her enormous tummy moving around as the baby moved. They also had a little baby elephant with her that we were feeding. It was so cool to feel their trunks and get so up close to them. The kids loved it and each got a couple bowls of sugarcane that they fed to the elephants. Another awesome animal we saw were PANDA'S! How amazing is that!? First we found the exhibit and made our way to the display. There was one panda laying with its back facing us and that was it. Totally disappointing, especially since we had to pay extra to see it. Then it started to move around and came down, played on his little park for a few minutes and went away into the den. Totally bummed we left and continued on the path. We went into a room that was a lot brighter and there was this huge panda just chilling out with bamboo shoots all on his tummy. I thought it was stuffed he looked so posed for the camera but then I noticed he was moving and eating and ripping up the bamboo shoots! He was so COOL. They had two panda's up in these other rooms eating away and chilling out. I took millions (ok, so that's a little exaggeration) of snaps but I couldn't resist. They were so amazing! You'll have to go here to see the rest of my zoo pics!