Milestones

It may not be readily obvious all the time, but I do actually try to limit the number of posts I write that center exclusively on our kids. I recognize that children and their antics are always much more interesting to the parents and don't want to bore too many people. I know that unavoidably our blog will be pegged as a mommy blog, but for those who couldn't care less about how cute our kids are, I try to capture the goings on of our life on a broader scale. After that disclaimer, here is a whole post about what the kids have been up to lately:

For Theo's birthday, our crafty neighbours made a really cool Mario pinata. Theo had a great time bashing at it but eventually we gave up on the blind fold as his swings became more and more wild. William seemed just as enthusiastic as Theo did when candy started to spill from the hole he bashed in Mario's head (wow, I didn't realize how vicious this whole thing was!).  The next day, we were able to have more fun by turning the pinata into a helmet/mask. It's fantastic to have good neighbours!

William was pretty absorbed in checking out all of the fallen goodies

"It's-a me, Mario!"

Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper by Theo

Theo's new favorite past-time has been drawing in his sketch book. I absolutely love this new focus of his because every afternoon he happily doodles away for an hour or two instead of bounding around, destructing the apartment, and making his brother upset. I am always happy when my children develop skills that make them more independent and less demanding of my one on one attention. I think the reason he is so interested in drawing is that he has recently hit a big milestone in fine motor skills and hand eye coordination. All of a sudden he has been able to draw fairly accurate shapes, pictures that are more or less distinguishable for what he says they are (even though the cats have eight legs and resemble spiders with tails), most letters, and even a few hiragana. He seems to have entered into a very sensitive period for learning to write letters and numbers, so I am more than happy to indulge his interest. He has also taken to labeling things in the house, like his brother.

I'm not quite sure what his label is supposed to mean, but William didn't seem to mind it one bit.

Also, despite the chilly temperatures and wind, we have been able to get out on the weekends and discover a few of the nice parks in our area and fly our kite. Once the weather warms up a bit more, I would like to get Theo a little pole so he can learn to fish. Most of the parks in our area are along the river, so it would be easy to teach him at one of these.

Flying the kite from the wind free comfort of the play tube

Making sure that the park pandas get enough bamboo

Meanwhile, William has grown a few more teeth and is able to cruise his way along all of our furniture to dismantle and bite anything he can get his grubby little hands on. He has a remarkably driven curiosity and Theo is always a willing accomplice in his most destructively mischievous acts. Here are a few recent shots of wee Wills:

Pretending to be mild mannered and innocent

Now showing his true personality and his four new sharp teeth

His favorite scrunch faced grin

Samurai in training

...and that is what has been going on in our children's lives in the past couple of weeks.  

The Path of Least Resistance

One of the problems that I keep running into since Dustin and I have started studying Japanese is controlling the impulse to blurt out German words. After years of studying German, my brain seems hardwired to come up with the German word for something instead of the correct word in Japanese. It will probably take a while before I stop doing this, and I am sure that I will be embarrassed a few times in Japan when I randomly insert German into sentences.

Learning German is a very pleasant experience for an English speaker. The vocabulary, syntax, and phrases are similar to English but with the added benefit of being so much more  organized and predictable. As a kid I thought it was much more fun to play Nintendo games with the Game Genie. Legitimately beating Mario Bros. caused a certain level of pride, but playing it with infinite lives and infinite Fire Mario just made it so much more fun. Learning German was a very similar experience for me, like learning a foreign language with the native English speaker Game Genie.

I am finding Japanese to be much more difficult, but ultimately more rewarding language learning experience. It is not nearly as intuitive for me, but I am enjoying the challenge. Dustin has another Japanese class starting tomorrow, in addition to the one we are currently taking at the U of M, but this one is through the JET Programme. I think we are both anticipating/dreading having to rely on our feeble language base very soon.

Theo has been trying to speak Japanese to us, which usually involves repeating nonsensical lists of words he has picked up from watching Anpanman or shouting "いただきます" at the top of his lungs before each meal. It is neat to see how much his three year old brain is understanding about the impending move and encountering a foreign language.