Jazz hands & the flying monkey

Graeme has started walking, though not exclusively yet. He does the standard toddler beginner-walk, with turned-out duck feet for balance and arms out. Sometimes his arms are out in front like Frankenstein (says Sean), and at other times his arms are bent at the elbow but out to his sides, with his fingers splayed. Those of you who have had dance lessons in the past will recognize this hand position as jazz hands. Hopefully this will not last too long, or he may end up in a musical touring company - not that there is anything wrong with that.

Liam is observing Graeme, and getting more interested in walking daily. He stands up, takes a step or two, then crashes. Once Graeme stops crawling and only walks, I think that Liam will follow. He is devoting a lot of his time to experimenting with the castle slide. He likes to climb up the slide and slide back down on his belly, but his current favorite slide activity shows some daring on his part. While I am waiting at the bottom of the slide, he will climb to the top, sit down, and jump into my arms instead of sliding down. I think he does this because he will not lift his feet off the slide, so they stick to it when he propels himself forward. No matter, I'll catch the flying monkey. His brother is now doing this too, of course.

No new words because they are concentrating on walking and flying. They are pointing at things now, especially the caterpillar from The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and any dogs they see on our walks. We saw a dog the other day that could be our former pet dog Zoe's brother, and the boys went nuts. Zoe was/is still probably crazy, but the boys always loved her as soon as they were aware of her. We'll be getting a dog when we return to the U.S.

Random cool thing in Singapore: assigned seating at the movies. Whether you buy your tickets online or at the box office, you can choose your seat as long as it's still available. They open the theater for seating only 10 minutes before the show, you sit in your assigned seat, and the movie starts on time. Well, it's really the previews and commercials that start on time. We saw a hilarious commercial for an herbal drink at the movies in which Godzilla stops terrorizing the city and cries when he sees a cute kitten after tasting the drink.

Coolness aside, we are going through culture shock now, at about the typical time of three months in. Please enjoy using the drive-thru ATM, drive-thru dry cleaners, drive-thru fast food, drive-thru anything! Land is obviously scarce on this small island, so of course there are no drive-thrus. We have to park and walk in everywhere. Enjoy fast service, too. People over here take their own sweet time as we Southerners say, whether it's the check-out clerks, waiters, or just someone walking in front of you. I don't mean a slightly slower than normal pace, I mean sloooowww. I'm not even from New York, where people want things done yesterday - the Singaporean pace would be like time has stopped to someone from there. Ah yes, a visit in December to the U.S. with its mostly efficient service industries will be just what I need. Other culture shock moments will have to be discussed elsewhere as they are not remotely politically correct. Email us if you want to know.

And the word for today is...

The boys are fascinated by lights. There are two sconces on the wall leading upstairs to their bedroom, and when we get to the top of the stairs, we let one child turn on the lights, and the other turn off the lights. Since we are trying to help the kids start speaking actual words, we repeat "light" when we pause to look at the lights and when we let them turn the lights on and off. They love flipping the light switches, so much so that I have to move Graeme's crib away from the wall at night because he kept turning on the light a wee bit too early for Liam's taste. Of course, Graeme's first word is "ight" or "igh", which sounds like the urban slang word for all right.

Liam says it too sometimes, but his first word inspiration came in the bathtub. We have a collection of different colored rubber ducks, given to the boys by Sean's Uncle Skinny and Aunt Jane. The kids love these ducks, and I repeat "duck" whenever they are holding one or two. Liam now says "duh" (thankfully without the teenage attitude) most of the time when I ask him what he's holding. So there you go, "ight" and "duh". I'm so proud.

I think their next word may be belly. Graeme has started lifting my shirt and looking at my belly when I'm sitting near him. Somehow my twinskin has not blinded him yet. Anyway, he looks at my belly, then will pull up his shirt to look at his. Liam will then pull up his own shirt and look at his belly if he's sitting nearby. If I'm changing one, the other sometimes comes over and touches the exposed belly and bellybutton. Graeme's also touching my ears and trying to touch Liam's eyes. I guess the My First Body book with pictures of babies' body parts is influencing them.

I finally bought a tiny cleaning set. I found a Mr. Clean set, so it's blue and yellow as opposed to the lavender and pink sets that dominate the shelves. One will hold the mop, the other the broom, and they will clean the floor sitting on their little butts. Pretty funny. Sean swears when they do this that they're not his kids.

On another note, some Singaporeans are fond of those little signs for the rear window of your car, like the "Baby on Board" ones that were so popular in the U.S. years ago. Here they usually say "Baby in Vehicle" or "Kids in Car" or something boring, but we saw two quite funny ones last weekend. The first was in the American Club parking lot, and it said "Cheeky Monkey" with a picture of a cartoon monkey's head with big cheeks. I almost left a note with my number because the sign would be so perfect for Liam. Maybe I'll see it again and do so.

The second sign thankfully does not pertain to us, but viewing it did cause loud laughter, so I thought I'd mention it with a brief explanation. The trunk of a car is called the boot here, another British term. The sign said "Ex-husband in Boot". You gotta love it, unless you're an ex-husband with no sense of humor.

As promised, Sean will blog soon about his Singapore experiences in taxis, indoor plumbing, and some other fun topics.

To all the other Harry Potter geeks: We will try hard not to call you at 7:01 PM Eastern standard time on July 20th and start reading the final book to you. It is released over here on 7/21 at 7:01 AM, and we're 12 hours ahead of you guys. Happy reading this weekend!

Control

They say S'pore has two seasons: outdoors and indoors. Singapore is close to the equator and is tropical, so it's quite hot and humid most of the time. In many buildings, the air conditioning (or air-con) is set at a temperature so low that you need at least a long sleeve shirt or light sweater to be comfortable inside. There is central air in large buildings, but most apartments and homes have an air-con unit in each room except for bathrooms and storage areas. The units in our home are high up on the wall and have remote controls.

The boys' playroom is about 400 sq. ft., and the air-con unit doesn't cool the entire room always. We bought a 4 ft. tall cylindrical oscillating fan which sits in the corner opposite the unit, so together they get the job done. The fan has its own remote too. When we enter the playroom, we turn on the air-con and fan, and turn them off when we leave. Graeme is clearly becoming more observant lately, because a few days ago after I turned on the air-con and fan, he crawled over to the toy organizer, grabbed the toy Elmo remote control, pointed it toward the fan, and pressed a button. He then pointed it toward the air-con unit and pressed a button. He has since done this every time we go into the playroom. I told Sean we have to be careful with our actions as well as our words in front of the boys from now on. The age of mimicry has begun.

Liam couldn't care less about pointing the remote toward objects. He's obsessed with trying to get on the couch and large chair in the playroom. He will stand in front of the couch and stick his leg on top of the cushion, like some tiny ballet dancer warming up. He then whines once he realizes that he's too short to hoist himself up. Those are the times when being cute and unintentionally funny saves him, and I'll help him up. Once atop the couch, he rolls around and looks over the edge and acts like he's somewhere special.

Both boys are standing better than ever and close to walking. For the past month they would crawl, then straighten their legs like they were doing the downward facing dog yoga pose. Then they would look between their legs and laugh, as if to say, "Look at my hiney!", or continue crawling with straightened legs so they looked like gorillas. Now Liam will stand up from the gorilla, slowly lifting one arm at a time straight out to his sides. Then he'll raise his torso, try not to fall over, and fall over anyway after a few seconds. If I'm close by, he'll lean toward me, falling into my arms. Graeme stands up from the gorilla or from his knees and is slightly steadier than Liam. Today Graeme even took two steps after standing, but I'm not calling it walking yet. It's more stumbling than walking at this point, but it's a start.