Baybee doll's got religion

More success - Liam is now walking. He started on the day he turned 17 months, at Kindermusik. I guess he got tired of watching his brother and other toddlers walk around the room to more easily find the drums, shakers, and other supplies. It makes a difference when you can see what's on low tabletops. He's now walking most of the time, though if he really needs something that second he crawls very quickly. He can't run yet like his brother, after all.

Speaking of running, it appears that Graeme thinks it's funny to run away from me now. Of course I catch him, but he still laughs. I'm trying to teach them to eat their snacks at their table in the playroom instead of the floor, and they are mostly successful. However, sometimes they must take a cracker or other snack and go to the other side of the room as fast as they can. Testing mommy is fun, evidently. The first signs of the terrible twos, perhaps?

I've now seen one of my sons actually shaking with joy. I decided to try coloring with the boys the other day after a three month hiatus. The first try mostly consisted of me grabbing crayons from their mouths, so I figured I'd wait awhile 'til the next session. This time, I cut a few pages from a coloring book and taped them to the kids' table. I showed them how to color, and gave them each a crayon. After a minute or so of them tapping the crayon on the paper, they got the hang of longer strokes. When he viewed his creation, Liam got so excited that he was shaking, unable to speak, with his little mouth forming an "o" while holding the crayon in his fist. He continued to color for a few minutes more, then put the crayon in his mouth, as did his brother. No surprise there. At least this time I had something to show Sean when he got home from work.

Their latest words include ball, balloon (almost the same sound), go, and up. New activities other than coloring include a strange form of toddler tag, beating their mop and broom together like swords, and rolling around on our new rugs. I took them to Toys R Us two days ago without the stroller and let them walk around with much steering and some hand-holding. Surprisingly they didn't pull everything off the shelves. They were probably too excited by their new foam swords, which hurt much less than the plastic mop and broom.

The cultural funny of the past two weeks goes to Dasem, our Indonesian housekeeper. Dasem is good-natured, and she'll laugh at the boys when they do something hilarious, which is often. She doesn't usually say funny things though, because her English isn't so good. She knows enough to get by with household and childcare tasks, but other than that, not so much. I'll be sending her to English courses this January. Anyway, the boys were playing with bandanas, and she took one and put it around the babydoll's head, holding it underneath the doll's chin, and said, "look, the baby has become Muslim", and then giggled. I laughed for a full minute. Dasem and I had recently talked about the head scarves many Muslim women wear over here. The few Indonesian housekeepers I've met don't wear them, though. I guess Baybee doll is safe from a career of cleaning and cooking for others, as long as she's got the scarf.

And now a word from Sean...

Décor of Despair

A few months ago Tiffany teased you with the tale of the furniture in the serviced apartment we lived in for the first month of our Singapore experience. Since I was the primary victim of the couch I thought I should be the one to share the story with you. Before I get started, one side note. When we came here for our look-see, Tiffany and I considered a high rise apartment with a beautiful view of the parks surrounding the Orchard Road area. It was nice, but cozy (1200 sq ft). We opted for something larger so the monkeys would have room to roam. It was a good choice. Our serviced apartment was about that size and the boys (not to mention Tiffany) would get stir crazy in about two or three hours, which fortunately was the gap between their naps. The best indicators of when they were going to melt was whether their toys were evenly distributed through every room and if Liam was stationed by the front door desperately trying to pry the door stopper off the wall.

Which brings me nicely back to furnishings, with only one more aside. Door stoppers in the US are springy and make a lovely “boing” when experimented with. The boys had just discovered these in the US before we left. In Singapore, door stoppers are about twice that size, solidly attached to the wall with a ball at the end, and magnetic (doors stay propped open until closed). This is less entertaining for the boys from a musical perspective, but provides a more significant challenge to their destructive powers. The score to date is door stops 0, twins 0. I hope they lose interest before they score.

Right, furniture. So we’ve never been fans of modern-style furniture. I’ve always found it pretentious and uncomfortable. I’m okay with the first, but the second gets in the way of my (and Liam’s) laziness. When we arrived at 6 am on our first Saturday in Singapore, the apartment had a variety of furnishings. Most importantly, it had two cribs and a double bed, but most strikingly a couch and rug in the den area. They almost defy description, but I’ll try and then you can look at the pictures.

The Rug of Clinging – Okay, the visual here was only part of the annoyance. Imagine a rug laid out with a tic-tac-toe board of concentric squares in seventies colors. Avocado, burnt orange, and brown. UG-LY. The part that really got to Tiffany was the material. I still don’t know what to call it (some sort of crazy, cheap acrylic-T), but the largest portion was made of a green material that shed fuzz, green fuzz, on every creature that came near it. I think I actually saw it leap onto Graeme at one point, but that wasn't necessary because guess where the boys chose to play? On the rug. The fuzz got EVERYWHERE, and we do mean everywhere, on the boys. Bath time became more like sheep sheering.

The Couch of Camouflage – When you see the pictures, you’ll wonder why I didn’t call it the Couch of Seizures, but the truth is that no one had a seizure. It’s basically a white loveseat with small black and white circles and squares. Ugly, but not dangerous or so I thought.

The couch was hosting hostile organisms. I got my first clue from the fact that every weekend when I got back from Hong Kong, I thought I’d caught a cold from the travel. I’d take Claritin and wait out the symptoms. By the time I was back in Hong Kong, I’d be better. The first week I spent entirely in Singapore, I began to suspect I might be allergic to something in the apartment. I was sitting on the loveseat working one night when I looked up and noticed a water stain on the plaster ceiling above me. It looked old, except for the middle which looked darker. I stood on the couch and did what any American man would do. I poked the spot.

One eyeful of plaster later I realized that part of the very high humidity in our apartment was not just from living on the Equator. It was then that I thought to myself that the couch had always seemed a little damp. Looking to my right like a man about to be killed in a horror film, I realized that the trail of spots on the wall were not a result of flinging food by the boys, but the journey of the mold from the ceiling leak to infest the arm of the couch I was standing upon. Insert scream of terror here. Oddly my microbiologist wife was not nearly as appalled as I was. I think it has something to do with who was actually having the allergic reaction (no, I just wasn't surprised based on the strange smell of the couch-T).

The story continues…I will post an epilogue to this one later.

Success

Well, they finally did it. Two days ago both boys succeeded in climbing on the red couch by themselves, twice. They were quite pleased with themselves. They have done it a few times since, but still cannot make it up with every attempt.

Speaking of please, Graeme has started saying a few words, including please, though he says "peas". He uses this sometimes when he needs something done or when he wants me to open the door to the playroom so he can escape. My favorite word of his, though, is baby, which is pronounced "bay-bee" with a bit of a southern drawl. My southern relatives will be heartened to know that the boys will have a slight accent like what is left of mine after living in Atlanta (which is not really southern anymore) for years. Graeme likes to hold and feed the bay-bee doll, which he will then throw across the room.

Graem has also begun feeding me bites of his snacks. The boys usually have some Cheerios or Oatmeal Squares for morning snack, and he'll walk up to me if I'm sitting on the floor and shove a piece of cereal in my mouth. He thinks this is hilarious. At least it tastes good.

Liam is not talking so much but he is experimenting with sounds. His latest is the shushing noise, which he can't quite get without spitting a little. Very cute though, especially when we're on the way to his crib for a nap. He also pokes out his bottom lip and blows upward in an attempt to blow on his own hair. I have found that blowing on their hair will make them laugh when they are upset, so I've done it a few times. I guess he liked it so much he decided to do it himself.

Other than these developments, not much is new. The boys continue to beat me up daily. I think the beatings are unintentional but I'm starting to wonder. Today Liam stepped on my throat while trying to sit on me when I made the mistake of lying down on the playroom floor. Graeme slammed the top of his head under my chin causing me to bite my tongue. They both hit me in the face with board books also, with one strike hitting just below my cheekbone and the other landing close to my eye. When they drop their cups during meals, they somehow manage to hit the top of my foot in such a way that I limp for a few minutes. I think they've secretly had a little training over here in their spare time. I'm starting to sleep with one eye open.