Kirst Afloat

"I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up"

James has a new favorite game at the indoor playroom in our club. It involves riding around on the Little Tykes car and then "crashing". He'll lay on the ground and call out, "Help! Help!" He thinks it is especially funny when I then say, "Call the ambulance! Doctor, doctor, over here!" James will then start driving around, go through my legs, run over my feet, and fall off again.

Ta Da!

Claire, along with all of the other girls in gymnastics classes at our club, received her new uniform on Tuesday. She is so proud of it. "It's like the kind professional gymnasts wear in the Olympics."

He's TALKING!

I don't know how, I don't know why...but all of a sudden, I'm hearing a word explosion. Not that all of these words are clear, but they are coming from James. Tonight I've heard: car, cir-cle, cups, win-dow, doors, yellow, green. This is in addition to the usual words we've been hearing recently: Help! (pronounced -elp! most of the time...can't believe I'm writing this, but I am getting sick of hearing this particular word OVER and OVER again), up, down, hello, good-bye, etc. James also said "and" for the first time today: "Up and down". He also said "sun" and "hot" yesterday while I was reading Go, Dog, Go. "Coke" and "cookie" made an appearance over the weekend...It's been truly amazing to witness.

I'll have to save my "spoiled expat kids and the parents who leave parenting to the maids" rant for another night. I'm now too excited about James' progress to complain about anything!

Randomness of the Universe

We went to church this morning in Stanley. James was the best that he has ever been at church (other than when he sleeps through Mass). After church, we had a nice lunch at Wildfire.

Right before we left, I took James to the ladies' room to change his nappy. While washing my hands, a woman came in. She made eye contact with me and said, "You look familiar." After working out that she'd only been in Hong Kong for one day (and I've been here for 10 years...), we moved onto where we grew up. Bingo! We had gone to high school together and graduated the same year. In fact, I'm pretty sure that she was in the same homeroom as me since, aphabetically, there are only three people in between us in our yearbook.

I don't remember ever having a conversation with this person in high school. So twenty years out, we finally talk...
...in a bathroom,
in Asia!

Water, Water, Everywhere...

Our boat (and home in Hong Kong), Another Moondance.

It's been windy and damp here the last two days. Lots of fog. Lots of rain. Claire's Sports Day was cancelled today (to be rescheduled in May) although she still insisted she wear her new sporty orange (the color of her team) shirt today instead of her P.E. uniform shirt.

After hanging out in Pacific Coffee this morning (okay, same as most mornings but James was REALLY good today...he hasn't been there all week), we hailed a taxi. Our taxi driver decided that I must be a Cantonese speaker (after I said "Jo san. Sai Ying Pun, m'goh" "Good Morning. Sai Ying Pun, please") and asked me for further clarification about our route. Eventually he gave up...I told him that I wanted to go via highway, and then our driver spent the rest of the journey trying to increase my spoken Chinese vocabulary. Sigh.

After not seeing James for two weeks, Mandy was very impressed with his progress. He has several new words and she heard more consonant sounds. Some of his vowel sounds are still quite distorted, though. James had a great session: excellent attention and he blew TONS of bubbles. Mandy also had some more speech therapist leads (she goes back to the UK in May). Next week I'll start tracking people down and seeing who seems like the best fit for James.

Took the kids to McDonald's after school (it was a half day). Now that the McDonald's in Pacific Place is gone, we had to go to a more local one. It's actually nearer to the school, I think. Claire was thrilled to eat lunch with India. James was just happy because he was REALLY hungry. He also liked the Pokemon toy. Dylan played with his Game Boy.

On the way home, both Claire and James fell asleep. I called the boat and had Mariz bring me a Diet Coke and the book I was reading (an English one, fiction, Altar Ego. entertaining, but very unrealistic). After hanging out in the carpark for awhile, James woke up. When then drove back up to the Country Club and they ran around in the play room. Claire made friends with another boy who turned up and we left around four...only to be greeted on the dock by Mariz (who was going to check the mail). Apparently our water pump failed. So despite being surrounded by water, there was no usable water on the boat. Fortunately, Mariz had already called Neg (our boat boy). He arrived later, installed a new water pump (West Marine loves Tom) and left before Mariz.

The Sound of Silence...

Hear that? I don't. For the first time in the last 11 days (when the virus from hell took hold of James' body and before it spread to both Claire and me), both of my kids are asleep. Without me being with them. At the same time. A major victory!

Didn't think James was going to sleep. He did his usual climb out of bed once the lights were turned off. However he only ventured into the living room to retrieve a vehicle to sleep with. Tonight's choice: a small wooden ELC ambulance.

Ms. Claire

Claire...She is an individual, energetic, opinionated and constantly (at least it seems that way) talking. She has always been an extremely verbal child. She spoke in sentences while other kids were speaking in words and later in paragraphs while her peers put together sentences. When she was entered speech therapy for articulation (she met her goals in 9 sessions), her vocabulary tested out 2 1/2 years above her age. Claire loves animals. Dogs are her favorite, and she now runs around barking and pretending that she is a dog.

For several years Claire has told us that she wants to be a rock and roll star when she grew up. Princess and ballet dancer also were professional goals but only rock and roll star was consistently mentioned. Now, probably she has matured to almost six years of age, Claire tells me that she going to be a vet.

Claire believes in fairies. All sorts of fairies: color fairies, flower fairies, tooth fairies, friendship faires, jewel fairies, etc. There are a lot of wonderful books published on this subject and we read about them most nights before bed. "Faires are real. Monsters are not."

Some more characterisics:

Loud!
Extremely social
Likes to spell words out instead of saying them (Hi J-A-M-E-S!)
Musical
Artistic
Nosy---always wants to know what you're talking about
Loves protein---meat and nut girl
Has very enlarged tonsils
Impatient: Wants stuff "Now now now" (but improving in this area)
Funny


...and a sweetheart

Sweet Baby James

I love that James Taylor song, Sweet Baby James. When James was first born, we used to listen to that song a lot. My mom even sent some cards to Hong Kong addressed to "Sweet Baby James". James is still sweet. However, he is not a baby any longer.

People sometimes wonder when babyhood ends. Is it when babies are weaned? When they begin to walk? Become more independent? I never really had a strong opinion about this. However, with James, I've come to a conclusion babyhood ends when speech begins. Children usually start telling you what they want. They say that they aren't babies any longer---that they're big boys or girls. James still hasn't told us this yet. James has apraxia of speech which is a neurological condition that affects speech production. I've heard it described something like this. Imagine that you have a television and you have a DVD player. Both the TV and the DVD player work properly. However, the TV is not set to the correct channel to receive information from the DVD player. Apraxia is a bit like that. James' brain works fine as does his mouth. However, the information is not getting from his brain to his mouth.

James has been in speech therapy since June 2005. He is now consistently saying several words (besides "Mom" and "Dad"). He can say "Up" and "Dow" (down). "Do" is both "dog" and "duck". "Elp" is "help". "All done". "Uh oh" (this is used in a variety of contexts---a very handy phrase). "In". "Ou" (out). "O as" is "Thomas". "Duhdas" are "bubbles". "Bop" is both "pop" and "stop" depending on context. James also has a word for "go" but I'm not sure how to write it. His vowels are often distorted. He can also say "s", "t", "p", "b", "d", "ah" and probably some other sounds in isolation. He's made a lot of progress and we're very proud of him.

It's hard, though, having a child that isn't developing typically. The thing that upsets me the most is when I wonder what James' future will be like. Will he be able to talk properly? Will he have friends? What will he do for a job? I'm getting better with this, though. Slowly.

James is a happy, engaging child. He loves going out (especially in the city where there are lots of taxis, mini buses, double decker buses, trams, trucks, cars, etc) and he loves it when people smile and talk to him. He now says "Hello" (not clearly) and "Good bye" and waves. He's great at running, jumping, climbing and building with blocks and Lego. He'll play tag and hide and seek with Claire. He's also starting to take more of an interest in other children. He attends a playgroup, Panda Junction and Kindermusik in addition to speech therapy.

Although I wouldn't trade James for any other child in the world, I look forward to the day when I don't look at James and think (at least at some point during the day) about how apraxia is affecting his life.

Hong Kong Signs Part 2

Another classic sign.
Located on Queen's Road East in Wan Chai near the Seven Eleven.

Hong Kong Signs Part 1

One of my favorite signs of all times.
Located in Admiralty by the bus queue for Ocean Park.