I keep calling him "stink pot"

As I was walking up the steps to pick Ezra up from school today, I noticed that the outside stairwell stunk like Chinese B.O. It was horrible. I decided that someone with B.O must have just walked the steps. Then I walked into Ezra's classroom and the smell intensified and I realized it was Ezra's teacher. Seriously, it was the most obnoxious scent I've smelled in a long time.

But then, we got in the taxi.

I smelled Ezra's breath. It was that same smell. I had brought a book to read to him in the car and had to try to hold my breath while reading. Bleh. Gag me. It was something they had cooked for lunch.

Back home, if he didn't come near me, I was okay. As long as the child stayed at least three feet away and didn't breath in my direction, the smell was only vaguely annoying.

But as soon as I came back in the door from running errands, I could smell it horribly in my house. Ezra was sitting about thirty feet away on the couch but his breath and body were so covered up with that smell that it had permeated the entire downstairs!

I asked Ayi what it was that smelled so badly all over Ezra and the literal translation was "big garlic." Anyone out there know what the vegetable is or could be? I'll know to stay away from!

Elias, Santa Claus and the Wii game

At dinner tonight, Elias said, "Mom, Jeremy says that Santa Claus isn't real."

He kind of stuttered along at first and Jeremy's mom had told me that Jeremy knew the truth, so I was totally prepared with, "Yes, he is real."

Then, Elias continued, "He says that HIS DAD said that his parents just hide the gifts and put them under the tree themselves."

Now, I think it's probably about time Elias stopped believing. But what I couldn't believe is that he was saying it in front of Ezra--and Ezra was looking at me expectantly. I shot Elias a dirty look.

I think, for once in his life, he actually took a hint and he changed the subject.

Now, how to broach the subject again? And will he immediately tell Ezra?

I don't quite get why he was bringing this up anyway...Friday, I got an email from Elias' teacher informing me that Elias had hit another student and that he has been doing it a lot the past couple of weeks. It was never in anger; this time, they had been playing during free time and ten minutes later, in the bus line, Elias was still raring to play and hit the boy in the back. So, I broke the fighting game that he's been playing on the Wii. I figure that is just punishment.

Oh, it broke Ezra's heart. He cried, no exaggeration, for an hour. I felt really bad for him because it's his favorite game. I would finally get him calmed down a bit and he would look at me and just start boohooing all over again. He kept asking for super glue to glue it back together.

After a good, long cry, Elias came in and announced that he didn't really care that I'd broken the game because he was going to email Santa Claus and ask him to bring them another game. *shocked*

So, because Jeremy had already told him ~*the truth*~, either he was saying that for Ezra's benefit (good big brother) or he was trying to prove to me that he cared not a bit that I had broken the game. (Whatever the reason, Ezra stopped his hysterics.)

I'm sure my eyes became slits and I spoke through my teeth, "Santa would NOT bring you that game and if he did, it would go IMMEDIATELY back into the trash anyway!"

Later, he emailed Santa a list of things that he wanted.

can i please have an ipod nano and a spy kit thank you. Elias

I'm so relieved he wrote "thank you" this time because last November, I had to have a talk with him about demanding gifts from Santa.

In happier news, he read a whole "Magic Tree House" book in under an hour this evening. I told him it was time to move on to harder books but he just looked at me like, "Yeah, right."

Today, yesterday and last week

"Hi. I am Elias Marler. I am a male. I am not a vegeterian (sic). I like chicken the best."

I finished reading Charlotte's Webb to Elias and Ezra last night. Ezra cried and cried when Charlotte died. It was so sad. He's such a sensitive kid. I love it.

We actually had our first conversation about death a couple of weeks ago. We were watching "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" and at the end when the man drinks from the wrong cup and ages very quickly until he turns into a skeleton, I covered Ezra's eyes. Apparently, I didn't do a very good job.

It was a couple of hours later when I found out. He was sitting on the counter "helping" me cook dinner and he started asking all kinds of questions about getting old. He finally admitted to "peaking through the cracks" at the end of the movie. He asked about Brad and me growing old and dying. He began to cry. "I don't want you to die!" He thought that it would happen very quickly like in the movie. Then, he asked about Poppaw getting old and when he would die. It was all very sad. Poor thing.

We went swimming this morning. Elias is really good at swimming now. He can swim across the pool without any help and we told him he could get in the deeper pool as long as he stays near the wall. My little Ezra, who used to be so shy and afraid of everything, has become a daredevil and will try anything. That kid might be the death of me. Brad and I each got a chance to swim 10 laps.

This afternoon, we went to Elias' Italian friend's birthday party where I ate too much (real) pizza. He had a good time. Even in Italy, they know Tennessee through Jack Daniels. Too funny.

Til the next time!

xoxoxoxo

Zuri's new trick

This afternoon he was asking for a granola bar but I didn't want to give it to him because they are so messy (it's the dry kind that have two in each pouch) so I was just letting him carry it around with him.

A few minutes later, I noticed he had opened it. I had no idea how he had done it and honestly, I didn't even think about it. Weirder things have happened. He made a huge mess but I just decided to just let him eat them anyway. He didn't finish them, just set them on the kitchen counter but brought another pack, walked over to the art table, picked up Ezra's kid scissors, and started trying to CUT OPEN THE PACKAGE! That's how he had opened the first one!

I was quite impressed. Ayi says he is "too smart." haha.

I forgot if I mentioned he has a three word sentence, "I want..." whatever, usually a duck.

Zuri's language development

Ever since ayi has again realized that Zuri has good language skills and can speak Chinese, she has doubled her efforts to make sure that he learns. They read picture books together, she is teaching him his numbers and she talks to him ALL the time. Things like, "We just met. Let's shake hands." *shakes his hand* It's so funny and I'm so happy. I like to hear him repeat after her in his little voice, "yi, er, san, si..." to count to ten.

Yesterday, he said a new Chinese word--"zhe ge" which means "this." I asked him what he wanted and pointed at the crackers and said "zhe ge." I was impressed and had to brag about it a little bit to friends. He'll be translating for us pretty soon!

He also has a deeper understanding of the languages than the other two at this age. He already uses yes and no appropriately (he says it "yesh"). I forgot to blog about on the plane back from Guilin, he didn't want to sit still during the last half hour and he was yelling, "Bu yao! Bu yao!" over and over again (don't want! don't want!) much to the humor of the Chinese folks about him. I even heard, as we were getting off the plane, one Chinese person tell another, "That's the little boy yelling 'bu yao.'" Imagine being Chinese (and remember Chinese people are very racist by nature), hearing an annoying little kid screaming and crying on the plane...looking back to give his parents an irritated look only to see a little red headed boy! Actually, I didn't really notice any annoyed looks. I've said it once, I've said it before, Chinese people love children.

We went over to our friend's house last night. They made chicken curry for us for dinner. It was so good! (They even gave me some of the spices they make it with!) The kids played together nicely, even Zuri decided he was a kid and didn't want to be with the adults.

I register for school on Friday. I'm ready to go back.

Quote of the day

Brad, on being the one in charge of the lantern for Chinese New Year (see a couple of blogs below):

“That was like my worse nightmare come true! I’m such a careful guy and to have to fling a lit lantern over the side is not my idea of fun.”

Quirky Kids

Zuri and I have a fun game. We google pictures of various things that he might want to know about. We see different ducks, cats, dogs, horses, cows...you get the idea. I was checking my email and he stood at my feet and said, "I want duck!" just as plain as day. So we looked at ducks and kittens and dogs for awhile as he would say, "I want..." I decided to call Brad and let him hear Zuri's new sentence while Zuri could still remember it. I said, "Let's go call your daddy!" and he walked to the middle of the room and yelled, "Dadaaaa! Dadaaaaa!" Smart boy.

Ezra and I made watermelon hearts using a cookie cutter today. Ezra can eat more watermelon than anyone I've ever seen. We almost don't have any for tonight! Right now, he's in the baby walker (which we haven't used in months) allowing Zuri to push him around except really, he's walking as fast as he can making Zuri run along behind and he'll bang into walls and Zuri just laaaauuughs.

Elias can whistle now. He wants to grow up soooo badly! His latest annoying habit is to take things apart. If it's broken, he thinks he can fix it. From phones to the vacuum cleaner, I've had to deal with his new found love. He "fixed" Brad's computer and he has such an ego now! He thinks the rest of us are dumb and he is the only one who can fix anything. He's very upset Brad won't let him play with his new iPhone. The other day, Elias hooked up his Nintendo DS to the TV so that he could hear it while he was playing; and I must admit, I have no idea how he did it!

The truth be told...

...I kind of have it easy with three kids because I have an ayi. She's been gone for over two weeks, though, for the Chinese New Year. I just haven't felt like myself here lately with the kids. I felt like a monster demanding, yelling and ordering around three wild heathens. I have searched websites on how to keep three children, all at different stages in their lives, entertained to no avail. But today was wonderful. I don't think I've had to yell once. I even got Elias to practice piano and Ezra to read without many problems. Elias has also read, we had a lunch play date, they've helped me bake a pineapple upside-down cake and make gumbo for dinner. Zuri has listened and not made too big of a mess. I've had patience and have entertained them. They helped me clean with no fuss. I don't know if it's my patience changing them or because they listen that is making me more patient and tomorrow, it may fall apart again, but either way, I feel like the kind of mother that I want to be.

I wanted to catch up on a couple of blogs: for the Chinese New Year, we went over to our friends' house who we also went to Guilin with. Sarah cooked a delicious dinner and bought a huge box of fireworks and sparklers. We went outside with the box, thinking there were many different kinds of them to set off like in America, and lo and behold, the box was one HUGE firework: it set off 49 explosions and sent them well above the 20-floor buildings! It was so funny. The kids enjoyed it.

Later, they also had bought these lanterns that the Chinese set off for good luck. You light this box in the center, it fills up with hot air like a hot air balloon and you let it go and away it flies. It's supposed to be good luck. Well, somehow, Brad became in charge of this. Now, why the most nervous person around would be put in charge of something that you set on fire, in hindsight, we have no idea. Not only is he nervous about fire, but he also hadn't really thought through how it worked.

So, he lit it, let it stay there for a few minutes and then kind of threw it off the balcony. There wasn't enough hot air in it and it sank, right onto the neighbor's balcony's satellite dish where the WHOLE THING CAUGHT ON FIRE! I could tell Brad was internally freaking out...they finally had to get water and poured it down onto the flaming lantern. It became dislodged and floated away...along with all of our good luck, too! Obviously, Brad didn't do anymore and I was very relieved when Song said they would wait until later to do the rest because otherwise Brad would have been a nervous wreck and probably insisted we go home because he wouldn't want to be anywhere near responsible for setting a building on fire!!!

My camera was acting up that night so all of my pictures are blurry but here's a picture of Brad letting the lantern go, just so you get an idea of what we were dealing with!


Later around midnight, the fireworks were going off full-blast, non-stop and I was outside taping it. (It is really an amazing thing and I have a video of it up over at http://www.dropshots.com/carleigh from February 2007 if you care to look.) He came outside, too, and when he went inside, he shut the door all the way, thus locking me out. No amount of yelling or screaming was making him hear me out there over the bursting of all of the fireworks. I had on no shoes or coat and it was around freezing. I threw things at our bedroom window (which probably dented cars below) and I tried to turn on the water hose at our window. He just could not hear me.

I knew that if I didn't get his attention in the next few minutes, he'd fall asleep and I'd die or end up with hypothermia out there overnight because once he's out, HE'S OUT. I thought about climbing up to Elias' balcony and even though it wouldn't have been a great fall (only one story because his balcony is above ours), I remembered a story about an expat boy who sneaked back into his apartment by climbing to the balcony and fell to his death, I just couldn't do it.

Luckily, there is a window that is semi-hidden behind a swing on our balcony that was unlocked and I pulled it open with my fingernails and crawled through. I was hysterical when I saw Brad. I said some things that weren't too nice and later had to apologize for but my GOSH, I was seriously AFRAID. :)

Anyway, it's dinnertime, Brad will be home soon and we're off to enjoy some gumbo and pineapple upside-cake a la Elias, Ezra and me. Cheers!