Around The House 2010 Archive

150 Stars!

November 11, 2010

Let’s read it again! squeals La Petite Fille as we sit huddled in front of the family computer on the coffee table in the Cinnamon Room. As the book slowly progresses from frame to frame, she giggles and replays each frame several times. La Petite Fille loves to read. Everyone knows that.

But as she sat and enthusiastically read her books on raz-kids.com, I marveled at how wrapped up she was in the activity. She read several books: Yummy, Yummy by Brian Roberts, Making Salsa by Ava Kolish, & The Woodsy Band Jam by Pam Bull. While that was impressive, her reading comprehension quizzes were even more so: she didn’t miss a question!

We were going to go upstairs to bed, when she wanted to re-take the quiz for Feelings by Cheryl Ryan.

Each time she read a book, she got 50 stars! Each time she got a perfect score on a quiz, she got 150 stars. And when she re-took the quiz and got a perfect score, she got 50 stars. She had a total 650 stars!

The other thing she had to do was read the story and allow the website to record her. She read so happily and listened to the playback over and over.

One of the questions for Feelings was “What is another word for angry?” I read the choices and asked her if she was mad. “No, I’m happy! I’m not sad, scared, or mad, I’m very very happy!”

Grandma Marshall spent her summer on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula with her husband, Ron, all of their cats, and their fifth wheel. They love it there, but I guess they were in a wacky mood because they sent us this fantastic purple octopus hat:

Secret “How to be a Girl” Lessons

November 4, 2010

It’s been a rough day. Very hard day for Papa Trio. I hate computers, well, maybe not computers; maybe, I hate computer programs. Anywho I was late getting home and very tense after having a dreadful encounter with a program at school. But, La Petite Fille is very enthusiastic about her Hamsterball youtube videos and I have fun watching them with her. She is absolutely obsessing about the Sky Arena and we watch it by clips over and over again.

Maman Trio, gets home and eventually we get started with dinner and House. La Petite Fille has been onto me to draw a scene from the Sky Arena. I’m game: a joint project indulging one of her obsessions. So, I draw the scene, but then she wants me to color it. I told her she should color, after all, I drew. So she colors the hamster balls and then gives it back to me to finish coloring.

By now my nerves are worn to a thin frazzle. Everything irritates. All I want is to eat and watch TV, so I tell her no. We descend into frustrated disappointed land, but with a twist!

“You don’t care me,” she wails as she presses her forehead into my ribs as we sit on the couch together.

“I care about you,” I say as sympathetically as possible. “It’s hard to be disappointed, though,” I offer hoping to empathize, identify the “feeling,” and talk about how to handle it. Maman Trio is conveniently out of the room getting more bread-and-butter.

“I want you to undisappoint me now!” she wails in retort. “You don’t care me! Undisappoint me!”

I look on helplessly wondering where this language comes from. Maman Trio comes back into the room. I look at her as she sits down and a sudden almost evil thought occurs to me: She’s been giving her secret “how to be a girl” lessons! She’s been teaching her how to guilt me into caving into her wildest whims! They’re ganging up on me.

House, Redux

Last night we watched an episode of House as we are want to do as long as we have “fresh” episodes to watch. We’re on season 6; this was episode 14. The patient vomits over the railing of her bed — once again Maman Trio is out of the room — and La Petite Fille happens to catch sight of it. They have a good clear shot of her greenish biley vomit spewing from her mouth and arching over the rail. She’s “fascinated,” and we end up rewinding it endlessly to watch her lurch to a sitting position, grab the rail, and hurl.

“She vomitted on the floor,” she comments. I nod sagely. “She vomitted on his shoes,” she means the doctor standing near her. I look at her in mild surprise. She had to figure that out! She had to understand the puke, the falling, the splatter, and the not-wanting-to-get-puke-on-you universal response. Of course, she had to figure out the vomit fell to the floor, too. But, that is no real feat for a five year old. That she cared where the vomit went, though, that impressed me and the whole vomit-on-the-shoes thing really impressed me.

Hamsters Don’t Have Numbers

November 3, 2010

Yesterday was a busy day and I was having so much fun that I completely forgot some of the most fun and interesting stuff that happened!

We were talking about all the places we had found numbers in the house when La Petite Fille suddenly said, Hamsters don’t have numbers! And, you know what? She’s completely right! They don’t. We don’t have any hamsters, either, so we couldn’t check to be absolutely certain, though.

While she was out trick-or-treating one of the girls had a little folded paper fortuneteller thingee that girls lke to make. Here’s a pic, I’m sure you’ll recognize it:

Well, it made quite an impression on La Petite Fille because she cut out a square piece of paper and asked me to make one. She didn’t know what it was called any more than I did, so I didn’t know what she was talking about. Completely undeterred by the lack of anything even remotely resembling what she wanted, she colored the four corners: red, blue, pink, & purple. And proceeded to ask Maman & I to pick colors. When we did, she would crumble the paper and make a slurring blurry sound, straighten the paper out, turn it over, and ask us to pick a number: 3 or 14. She would count and then blurt out: Your rich!

Maman Trio realized what she was doing and made her one. It was terrific fun to go through the seemingly endless permutations of colors and numbers.

The Great Number Hunt!

November 2, 2010

Tonight Maman Trio worked late, so it was just Papa and La Petite Fille at home! Luckily, La Petite Fille’s computer obsession was curtailed when the battery on the laptop died and it didn’t occur to her right away to plug it in. I was able to engage her surreptitiously in The Great Number Hunt aka her homework. We donned our pith helmets and took up our blunderbusses and tiptoed quietly into the living room. There we surprised a nest of ten digits resting quietly in the dark on the telephone! La Petite Fille wasted no time in pouncing on the unsuspecting buggers! We bagged all ten!

Then, it was it off to the Cinnamon Room where we quickly ran down two herds of numbers. They ran, but there was no where to go in the close confines of the room. In the end, we had all twenty of the numbers on the TV and DVD remote controls.

Our hunt next to took us to the teeming wilds of the kitchen where La Petite Fille’s keen eye quickly spotted a small group numbers feeding on the microwave. These led us to an even larger herd on the toaster oven. We bagged a brace of fractions on the electric kettle and surprised a well camouflaged covey on the water dispenser that included a rare eight digit phone number complete with area code!

We took a short break to rest up from our efforts so far and felt ourselves very lucky to have tracked down so many disparate groups of numbers. They literally seemed to be everywhere we looked. We could not have swung a cat without hitting something with numbers on it. Why, a casual perusal of the refrigerator resulted in finding a good dozen numbers on the day’s grocery receipts and just around the corner were TWO calendars and then there was the clock on the wall behind us and a note with ANOTHER phone number this time a ten digit cell phone number!

Flush with excitement, we headed upstairs to search out the digits that could be hiding at the fringes of the digital world. In La Petite Fille’s room, we found a bevy of numbers: the TV remote, the AC temperature, her numbers flashcards & writing cards, and the real prize: the dart board!

In Maman & Papa Trio’s room we quickly located some numbers on a cell phone and watch and ended the hunt with the biggest capture of all: one of Papa Trio’s sudoku books! It was chock-a-block full of digits veritably brimming to the brim with numbers. Our hunt was so wildly successful that we were awash in integers.

Back downstairs, we sat proudly around the dinner table recounting the hunt’s various tales when La Petite Fille produced a fine set of drawings of the places we found numbers: a pencil, the telephone, a remote control, the toaster oven, the microwave oven, and a calendar.

Homework done, we had a rousing game of magnetic darts until Maman Trio returned home.

READING!

November 1, 2010

We’ve long known that La Petite Fille had extraordinary language skills. She’s read for the past three years, but I got a great big heapin’-helpin’ of it tonight!

She only got four stars at school today.

“How was school today?” I asked her.

“I was noisy during quiet time.”

“Oh, so does that mean you got four stars?”

“Yeah.”

Because she only got four stars, she couldn’t use the computer, although she kept asking. But, when we would suggest that she do her homework: read on raz-kids, she would refuse! She’s already refusing to do homework! We had a rousing game of checkers and drew a lot in her new notebook and then went up stairs to get ready for bed.

Snuggling into bed, I asked her to read to me from her Hightlights High Five magazine (Thanks Grandma Marshall!). And this is what she did:

• She was able to sound out “collected,” “tricksters,” & “pinwheel!”
• She didn’t know the word, “drifted,” but did a credible job with it anyway.
• She recognized the drawing of the boy and correctly figured out that the man was his father even though the father never appeared in the story.
• She got “sushi,” “twist,” & “short-grain rice” right, too!
• She SELF-CORRECTED “flash-ed” to “flasht!” when she read “flashed.”
• There was a page of two-step instructions for making a “Triangle Collage” (cut-out triangles from construction paper and glue them on to another piece of construction paper), and she said, “We could do this in math!  When I suggested that she could show this page to her teacher tomorrow, she was almost too excited to go to bed!
• But the best was reading about swift foxes! She sounded out “swift” and guessed that it meant soft! But, after I explained what it really meant, she said, “I could be a swift girl.” She used it correctly in a sentence.
• She got “shortgrass,” “prairies,” and burrows.” And repeated “miles per hour” as a phrase after being corrected on her pronunciation of “per.”

I have never been so proud of her!

HOMEWORK!!!

October 25, 2010

La Petite Fille had her first homework assignment!!! I type breathlessly! She had to read for 30 minutes from raz-kids a website made for kids to read! The only problem was the website didn’t exist! So, Maman Trio called upon her tearchy instincts and located tumble books! Her favorite author is Robert Munsch.

She’s been using other websites lately, too. Most notably, kerpoof, a drawing website. She’s even making money by selling her art to the site. Okay, it’s not real money, but credit to spend in their store. I’ll have to  kype some of it off of Maman Trio’s Compaq. While I can’t show you any of her drawings on the site, I can show you what’s she’s done with an iPhone ap.

And the last tidbit for tonight: we were watching House as we often do in the evening. House asked his staff to help him choose a tie by describing the ties as, Party or party hearty? La Petite Fille immediately started asking us over and over.

Sunday Morning Snuggle

October 24, 2010

One of my favorite family fun times is when La Petite Fille gets up early and comes and joins Maman Trio and I in the big bed for a little snuggle. Welp, this AM Maman Trio was out running, so it was just me! Since I still don’t have a new cheap camera, I took out the netbook and snapped a few pics to share. Unfortunately, the pictures are a bit grainy. Check out the larger fuller album on the Gallery. Otherwise, her’s the story in pictures:

Vacation Movies

October 23, 2010

Here at Trio Central, we haven’t had the greatest luck with movies lately. It is Fall Break for the Trio, and we’ve spent it at home, so we’ve been watching a lot of movies. We watched I Love You Phillip Morris, the other day and had to quit barely five minutes into it to save ourselves a daughter running around talking about “a man’s wiener” (of course this was the only part La Petite Fille took any interest in, or maybe thankfully), or other gay hijinks — and we’re not talking Will and Grace here. (RATINGS ALERT: Be careful of the trailers for the movie because they ain’t family friendly.) Then we tried A Serious Man. La Petite Fille enjoyed the Hebrew and the discussion of Schroedinger’s Cat and whether the cat is dead or alive. There was lots and lots of language that I don’t want to hear coming from her for at least six more months!

Other weekend news: La Petite Fille had her nails done. The left hand is orange and the right hand is gold glitter ala the gold hamster in Hamsterball. She’s quite proud. We went swimming and she could swim half-way across the pool on her own. I didn’t even feel very concerned about her drowning the two or three times she went under. She’s gotten to be quite independent in the water if still a little shaky in her stroke.

A First Visit to the Dentist’s

October 22, 2010

Whilst Papa Trio was in Kuala Lumpur for his IB extravaganza, otherwise known as Psychology level 1 workshop, Maman Trio took La Petite Fille to the dentist for the very first time! No, she doesn’t have a cavity or any other dental issue. This was just an introductory visit. By all reports, La Petite Fille loved the dentist… let’s hope that continues.

Like everywhere else La Petite Fille goes, she draws a crowd. Look carefully and you’ll find evidence of some mysterious guy in dark pants watching the proceedings as well as a dental hygienist or two. Of course, there’s the dentist and Maman Trio, too. Good thing Papa Trio was off somewhere or else it would have been a crowded exam room!

Kids’ Garden

October 22, 2010

We’ve been taking care of  bidness as we say in Texas this week! We’ve applied for La Petite Fille’s new American and Canadian passports. Her Canadian passport was only four years past expiry, but of course her American passport has been kept up to date. The American authorities will question a foreign-born child’s citizenship at the drop of a hat or document, so it is super important to keep all of those things up-to-date. Check here for the photos we had to provide to the US Consulate to support our application. On an aside, I am amazed at how different the American and Canadian consulates here are from those in Korea. In Korea both were angry stressful places, but here they are laid back, friendly, and, surprisingly, very accessible.

So, after getting her guarantor’s signature for the application for her Canadian passport, we went to the new shopping building here: VinaSun, maybe? Anywho, it is nearly devoid of business. But on floor B2 is the Kid’s Garden! It is a huge playscape. When we got there, we were the only people in Kid’s Garden. Poor Petite Fille! She was so lonely, but gamely making a run at having fun in the giant empty space. Papa Trio felt sorry for her and went in too. It was fun! There were big plastic guns that shot nerf-style balls with compressed air. We gathered those balls by the dozens and set up targets. La Petite Fille was a great loader — the trigger was too hard for her to do.

La Petite Fille played so well with a young Vietnamese girl who showed up shortly after. I only had to encourage her a little. La Petite Fille even spoke Vietnamese with her… well a little. She still talks to people without getting their attention, though. But she is getting better.

There was a merry-go-round with cushioned seats hanging from ropes so that children could sit on them and be spun around. La Petite Fille — the little thrill seeker — immediately wanted to play on this, but promptly toppled off the seats even when trying it by herself. I taught her how to hold on and balance and with some gentle encouragement she could ride it. She LOVED it and sang “I’m getting dizzy, dizzy, dizzy! I’m getting dizzy, dizzy, dizzy!” over and over. I believe it is her own composition.

Maive and Sophie showed up with their parents Julie & Charles. I played with the girls while they went for coffee. I encouraged La Petite Fille not to leave the young Vietnamese girl out and to include her in their games. That worked reasonably well, but the girl left shortly after they arrived.

Several other families showed up and the place was rocking! Unfortunately, they didn’t allow cameras.

We had a little crying fit at the end, but La Petite Fille managed it well.

Gold!

October 21, 2010

As noted earlier, at least I think it had been noted earlier, La Petite Fille has been obsessed with a game called, Hamsterball. She watches tons of their videos on youtube. Well sir, I’ll tell ya, we also play on the netbook. And today, we won a GOLD MEDAL! in the Intermediate Race! That’s right La Petite Fille is a gold medal winner.

Take a gander at the intermediate race:

We completed the race in 23.5 seconds! That is a full three seconds faster than the gold medal time and only 0.5 seconds off of the Weasel’s time! We both ran around the house screaming “Gold medal! Gold medal!” high fiving, fist-bumping, & chest-bumping each other. We encouraged Maman Trio to celebrate with us, which she gamely (and lamely) did. Secretly, she was annoyed by the noise and the chaos. But who cares because we got a GOLD MEDAL, baby!

“Daaad! Nooooooooo!”

October 21, 2010

La Petite Fille is learning to be more independent which includes dress herself and prepare to go out. Since we’re on vacation this week, we decided to go out for breakfast and sent her to her room to get dressed while we prepared. Maman Trio and I were both ready and I shouted up the stairs that we were ready to go.

“Okay, we’re all ready down here!” I shouted.

“Daaaad!” came the panicked reply. “Nooooo!”

I ran up to the landing and standing at the head of the stairs worried and scared was a naked little girl. I smiled gently and went up with her to her room. I encouraged her to get dressed — her clothes were all laid out — and we had a nice breakfast.

One Sunday in October

October 10, 2010

This morning finds the Trio all cuddled in the parental bed, each with their own computer: Maman Trio playing Sims, La Petite Fille playing Toupie et Binou, and Papa Trio updating the blog! The family that computes together, stays together. It is quite the Norman Rockwell scene…

The Video…

August 31, 2010

La Petite Fille has worked out how to find video on youtube! She opens the computer, turns it on, logs on, opens the browser, clicks on google video, and searches for what she wants. Here are a few of her latest obsessions:

Waterfall, Whale, Red Monster: a little boy, an indulgent mom, and a slide into a ball pool. La Petite Fille’s idea of heaven!

La Petite Fille has discovered the wonderful world of water slide videos. It is the next best thing to riding them!

me on that crazy funnel ride: what La Petite Fille wants to be when she grows up!

me on that crazy funnel ride

Kalissa’s Mommy | MySpace Video

SB Rapids Big Thunder: fun for the whole famn damily!

Great Wolf Water Park, Kansas City: A commercial for a water park La Petite Fille would love to visit — the little thrill seeker!

…And now there’s Mouse Trap! Yes that’s right. La Petite Fille found the game invented 60 years ago and has been obsessing over it ever since!

The commercial that started it all! Take a walk down memory lane:

Mouse Trap — Board James: There’s some questionable language in this. I’ve given up hope of getting La Petite Fille off of this one or that she won’t be repeating it soon.

La Petite Fille’s Big Weekend

August 29, 2010

La Petite Fille had a big big weekend. Very active, and one presumes very fun. I don’t know since I wasn’t around for most of it with her, but she seemed to have a great time. With luck there might even be some pictures of it since Maman Trio had her camera around and took some. I’ll try and hijack them and post a few.

Saturday was the great furniture moving day and birthday dinner. Tough combination especially considering that by 3:30 PM it was raining cats and dogs and didn’t let up until 6:00 PM. The streets were full of water! Well, enough of that. What was La Petite Fille doing?

Papa Trio was charged with entertaining her whilst Maman Trio tended to the furniture. But, we all know the saying about the best laid plans of mice and men, don’t we? Well, we made a swell breakfast: yolk eggs (sunny-side up) for La Petite Fille, cheese omelets (two-yolk, four eggs, and burger slices of cheddar) for the Trio Parents, and toasted baguettes with butter. It was a swell breakfast. Whilst Papa Trio cleared things up in preparation for swimming with the Doty boys later that morning, Maman Trio did some furniture movin’ ‘rangin’. Things were going as planned until Maman Trio managed to scald her left hand pretty badly and the furniture movers went off of the deep end.

There are some very complicated and confusing bits here. The movers were to pick up a living room set (couch, two chairs, & two small ottomans) way across town, pick up a huge and heavy wardrobe way across Phu My Hung, and drawer, mirror, thin closet, shelf thingee very nearly across the street and bring them to our house by 11:00 AM. Needless to say, by 12:00 they hadn’t been heard from. Maman Trio had already scalded her hand and we finally had heard from the movers that they had the living room set, the wardrobe was too big and heavy for them, and they the people with the thingee weren’t home. They were waiting outside.

The they were waiting outside sounded particularly ominous to me. After several phone calls, like one to the people who supposedly weren’t home — they were — and several  to the “owner” of the moving company who was trying to coordinate all of this, the movers were still waiting outside. Well, the folks with the thingee looked outside and didn’t see them. The folks with the thingee went outside and couldn’t find them. Then, I thought to ask what they were waiting outside of. They were waiting outside of the gate of the gated community.

I finally decided that it would be easier if I just went over there in person to sort things out and found them waiting outside of the gate. The guy — a friend — who owned the thingee was there at the gate, but the guard at the gate was refusing to let the movers in. The guard claimed that he needed to hear from the landlord that our friend was renting from and after he did he left and brought someone to translate. Then, he let the movers sign in, took and ID card from one of them, and allowed them to load the thingee onto their truck and slowly make their way across the street to our house!

The movers proceeded to mar the walls, door jams, and furniture itself as they hurled it into our house and designated rooms. They seemed to have no concept of how to fit things through doors. By now it was 2:00 PM, Maman Trio, La Petite Fille, and the Doty’s had been happily swimming for about three hours. All of the pieces of furniture had arrived and been wedged through the doors that they would have comfortably fit through had they followed my directions and common sense and now rested only slightly damaged but otherwise quite comfortably in the designated rooms.

Giang and family including the illustrious Lanh Anh would arrive at 4:00 PM. Maman & Papa Trio would depart for a 6:00 PM fancy dinner celebrating Papa Trio’s arrival at the second half of his first century.  And then, it started raining like all heck. The movers almost made it to the house where the wardrobe was when their truck broke down. They sat in the truck for the next two hours in the deluge. We figured out that the reason I hadn’t been able to contact the restaurant we were rendezvousing at was because it was out of business and hurriedly made arrangements to meet at 7:00 PM at a second restaurant.

As we were leaving at 6:30 PM the wardrobe arrived. I was putting on my shoes, but had yet to tie them when I looked down the entry corridor and saw Lanh Anh struggling to handle one of the front corners of the behemoth that we had purchase. I hurried to lend a hand. It was heavy and unwieldy and the taxi had arrived as it sat in the hall outside of our apartment. I cringed to image what these Keystone Kops would do to our walls as they tried to heft it up the stairs to the guest bedroom. And, left orders for them to leave it downstairs for us to dissemble tomorrow and reassemble in the upstairs guest bedroom.

Miraculously, it was still downstairs in one piece and paint still on the walls when we returned home some hours later.

I presume that La Petite Fille had fun on Saturday swimming with the Doty boys and playing with Do, De, Lanh Anh, and Giang. Maman & Papa Trio had fun at our dinner.

Sunday dawned. Giang and company were still here having stayed the night and breakfast was served up to the youngsters: cereal. I went off and bought baguettes, croissant, petite pain au chocolate, butter, eggs, and ketchup. Breakfast was not made with those things. The kids, Giang, & Lanh Anh went swimming; Maman Trio went to breakfast with friends; Papa Trio prepared for the return of the movers who were to dissemble and reassemble the wardrobe. In the meantime, I ate a croissant, petite pain au chocolate, and had a cup of strong black coffee and listened to “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me” the oddly informative weekly news quiz show on NPR.

The movers arrived; Giang & company returned from the pool; the kids and Lanh Anh were ensconced in the TV room with “Tom & Jerry;” and the dissembling began. All of that went very smoothly and we met upstairs in the guest bedroom. The reassembly went smoothly enough, but it was slow going. Ban mi op la (egg sandwiches) were made for the kids at about 1:00 PM. The movers finished at about 1:30 PM. Maman Trio returned from her breakfast date. Giang & company left. And we all went down for a nap at about 2:00 PM.

One presumes that La Petite Fille had fun. When I gave her a bath at 7:00 PM I noticed a small scratch under her left nostril and a scrape on the triceps of her left arm. All the proof I needed that she had had a wonderful time this weekend.

Kiwis, Robots, & Un-perfect

August 28, 2010

There are a couple of videos that La Petite Fille has been obsessing on lately. I thought I’d share them along with a little commentary.

First up is Kiwi! The story of a little kiwi bird who dreams of flying and how she fulfills that dream…

It is a very sad video in many ways, but La Petite Fille doesn’t get that part of it, yet. She only sees the little kiwi bird being happy having fulfilled a dream or wish.

Next up is Defective Robot about a robot who is found to be defective right off of the assembly line and placed where all defective robots are — the defective robot chute leading to the defective robot room. There is only one other robot there and they develop a friendship of sorts…

This video led to the discussion of “un-perfect” versus “imperfect.” Eventually, La Petite Fille picked up on imperfect and started using it. She asked what “im” means and upon hearing that it means not, pointed out that “un” also means not. When I agreed and said that the correct word is “imperfect” anyway, she began using imperfect. Amazing!

Of Punctuation Marks

August 25, 2010

Well, today while watching our DVD of the cartoons, Jerry found himself running along the ledge of a tall office building missing a corner and pumping those little mousey legs in mid-air. A question mark formed over his head as he wondered what had happened, or, perhaps, what would happen. As he fell, he grabbed the question mark and it hooked a flag poll sticking out from the building saving him from hitting the ground. Of course, Tom wasn’t far behind, but when he found himself in mid-air, he was more alarmed about what had happened, or, perhaps, would happen, and an exclamation point formed over his head. He grabbed it, but fell past the flag poll since the exclamation point would not hook it. Realizing his mistake, he bent the exclamation point into a question mark, but there weren’t any more flag polls. He hit the ground.

La Petite Fille immediately wanted to do a google image search for questions marks and exclamation points! These were her favorites:

La Petite Fille was disappointed by her next search: “cats and exclamation points.” She did not give up, however, and searched for “cats and exclamation points together!” Then she suggested that mice would be with question marks and cats with exclamation points!

“Let’s Play Goats!”

August 24, 2010

Lately La Petite Fille has been inviting me to “play goats.” I don’t know where she got this idea from, but it may have been here because this is more or less what she wants me to do:

So, when she wants to play goats, we press our foreheads or even the tops of our heads together and gently push against each other maaaaing madly! What fun!

Plans: Angkor Wat

August 23, 2010

Both Maman & Papa Trio are in training for the Angkor Wat Half Marathon! Papa Trio is a veteran of two marathons: the Singapore 2008 Marathon and the Athletik-Waldniel 2010 Marathon, but Maman Trio has not been running at all these past few years and is essentially starting from scratch. She’s now running two miles a day five days a week. She’s got 14 more weeks (December 7) to build her distance. Papa Trio has been concentrating on improving his time. His goal is nine minute miles throughout. Considering his time of 4.5 hours for his last full marathon put him at about 10 minute miles, he just might be able to do it.

La Petite Fille may get into the action, too. She won’t be running the half-marathon (13 miles, by the way), but the family run of three kilometers with Grand-Papa Chauvin! And all of it in the beautiful temple complex around Angkor Wat! Yes! That’s right, Grand-Papa Chauvin will be here for Christmas and will be visiting Angkor Wat with us. It should be a fun filled weekend for the whole family! Hopefully by then, Papa Trio will have a new camera and will be able to post some pictures.

A little more history: Papa Trio visited Angkor Wat in the summer of 2008 and posted these pictures. Unfortunately, these pictures were lost when the external hard-drive they were stored on bit the dust. Hopefully we will be able to make up for that since Angkor Wat is a photographer’s paradise. The Athletik-Waldniel 2010 Marathon was a great experience. It was held outside of Dusseldorf, Germany in the small village of Waldniel in an area called Schwamtal: a wonderful small marathon that hopefully one day soon I will post about in Trois Valise.

Look for more training related posts as December 7 nears!

Visitors!

August 22, 2010

On Saturday last, La Petite Fille had a great day! It started at 10:00 AM when her friend Phuong came for a surprise visit! You may recall that Phuong not only lived next door to us at the old Trio Central, but was a classmate in EC-4! We were so disappointed when Phuong transferred schools. Lucky for La Fille, Papa Trio invited him for swimming! We had lots of fun playing in the pool! While we were there, the Doty’s — Blair, Trey, & Taylor — came over. We had even more fun playing with pool toys, squirting each other with the squirter, and our favorite pool game: blowing water out of the noodle!

After her nap, Giang, Lanh Anh, Do, & De came over so the Parent’s Trio could go to the best French restaurant in town for dinner with colleagues. Everyone had a great time! The kids ate pizza, played games, had ice cream, & watched movies, The Bee Movie . La Petite Fille chose it. For a review check here.

Playing Games!

August 21, 2010

We’ve had two significant changes to Trio Central, that is in addition to moving house! First, La Petite Fille has started kindergarten! She has finished her first week and is loving it. She seems a different child: much calmer and easier to keep on a schedule. Second Giang’s youngest sister has moved to town from Hanoi. She now comes with Giang everyday until they sort her out. La Petite Fille has come to lover her as much as she does Giang. She gives them both big warm hugs and kisses when they leave.

A new habit around the house is playing games! La Petite Fille gets Giang and Lahn Ahn and Papa Trio to play after school. There are several that have become favorites:

(i) Frogs & Lily pads: There are a dozen lily pads that you set out to form a ring. The largest one is the start. There are five gaily colored wooden frogs that will hop around the lily pad ring in vicious competition to be the first to reach the largest one marking the start and finish. In the center of the ring are circular frog heads. Each has two colors. Each has two removable eyes. Under one eye a frog is painted. Players role the dice which will come up with two colors that you match to the circular frog heads. The player then picks an eye and checks for the presence of a frog underneath. If there is no frog, then the player may advance their brightly colored frog one lily pad. If there is a frog, then the player may not advance. It is strangely captivating.

(ii) Quizmo! This is a bingo-style game based on recognizing words and sounds. There are four possible games each one using more difficult words than the last. Each game has bingo-style cards printed with words on which red colored markers are placed should the word be called. Each game has a deck of cards on which are printed the possible words that are distributed among the cards. The player covering a column or row first wins! La Petite Fille has fun making plays on words while playing: “I am finding find!” Lifter the card with call on it to her ear and saying, “Hello! Hello!” as if on a phone; and “It’s no good!” when she found no & good in adjacent squares! Good times!

(iii) Flipping Frogs has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity with La Petite Fille exhibiting better hand coordination and an ability to land a frog on the tree now and again.

Don’t Mess With the Lady Bug

March 10, 2010

Maman Trio got a DVD called “Miniscule” from somewhere, and La Petite Fille has been watching the heck out of it! She loves it. It is an odd thing though. It is 3D animation of insects with live action background footage of rural, wilderness, and urban areas of France. It looks sort of like a BBC nature documentary but the bugs do funny stuff. Okay, check out the youtube video since pictures and video speak a 1,000 words… and remember, don’t mess with the ladybug!

(Let me know if this doesn’t work!)

Growing Up

March 8, 2010

Tonight as we sat around the table, we planned more of La Petite Fille’s upcoming birthday party. It was nice imagining the party and talking about the details not there are many details for us to talk about. The Trio is outsourcing the party!

Maman Trio’s old colleague, Khanh Pham, has opened an after school kids club called Kids Club Saigon. We’ll also enroll her for her first summer camp experience, but that is grist for a later post. Khanh will do most of the planning, but the kids will decorate their own cupcakes and party hats and we’ll play some games.

One of the big tasks to engage La Petite Fille in was who to invite. To keep it manageable we’ve been advised to keep it to about the same number as her age, so we’re limiting it to six children. It was tough to narrow it down, but with the aide of pictures and encouragement, La Petite Fille came through!

I was warming up dinner for us tonight — thank goodness for Giang! And La Petite Fille came into the kitchen and took a glass from the counter. I looked at her as I did it, and she looked so grown up! She has always been independent, but she really is very independent now. She is tall and elegant, too. Well, when she’s not being clumsy with a five year-old’s coordination.

Talking about elegance & clumsiness, she is swimming! She is mostly just fighting to keep her head above water, but she propels herself forward, too. She has been inching her way towards independence in the water for months. The last time we were at the PMH pool, though, we started to play “Splash!” where she jumps off the side, I catch her, and then she glides back to the side of the pool to start it all over again. I noticed her trying to swim and kept inching backwards until she really was swimming. Then she realized that she was swimming. We were both so proud!

John’s Birthday Party

February 6, 2010

La Petite Fille attended her little schoolmate’s and Mama Trio’s colleague’s son’s birthday party — I think I got all of those possessive in the right place, but if not, you know what I mean, right? Okay. The kid’s name is John and she went to his birthday party last year too! This year it was in a place called Red Box; it is a children’s toy/bookstore with a party space upstairs

... something better comes along.

Giang’s Birthday!

January 23, 2010

Here at Trio Central, we all love Giang, but no one loves her more than La Petite Filles. Unfortunately with all the goings on the past few weeks, we forgot Giang’s birthday! So, last night we had a little impromptu celebration and here are the pictures.

La Petite Filles was thrilled to be allowed to carry the cake with the lit candle! She really gets the idea of birthdays, birthday parties, and getting one year older. She’s into it. She was so careful as she carried the cake. She wanted it to be perfect for Giang.

Giang had left the apartment to take the trash out, so we turned out all the lights and lit the candle to surprise her when she returned. Maman Trio et La Petite Filles did a credible if very quiet job with Bonne Fete. I love the expression on La Petite Filles’ face as she hands the cake to Giang.

La Petite Filles with the urging of Maman Trio finished off the gift giving with a big heartfelt birthday hug. They have such a great relationship. It really makes me happy to know that La Petite Filles is being looked after by someone who genuinely cares for her and has a strong connection to all of us. It is going to make it so hard to leave Viet Nam when we eventually do.

These are the girls in my everyday life. They all mean the world to me. I would be so lost without them. I love the expression on La Petite Filles’ face. She was in mid-pose, poor thing, but we only took one picture of this one.

Beetroot Humus!

January 22, 2010

One of La Petite Filles’ favorite books is Vegetarian. Yes, really. Stop laughing. She loves that book and we read from it all of the time!

Well, last night Giang made two of her favorite recipes from the book. You’ll never guess what they are! One is “Vegetable Shapes with Creme Fraiche and Fried Leek!”

The funny thing is that she loved looking at them and she loves reading about them, but she will only take a pretend bite! She would let me touch them to her mouth and even her tongue, but she wouldn’t take a bite! She wouldn’t admit that she didn’t like them either, but she would look distressed when I insisted that she take a bite and very relieved when I switched to a pretend bite. Dads can be so cruel.

Here’s her other favorite recipe, “Beetroot Humus!” She wouldn’t eat that either, not even a pretend bite! Isn’t it beautiful!

 

And here’s the recipe:

Giang reports that La Petite Filles was terribly excited to know that she was making “Vegetable shapes with creme fraishe and fried leeks” and “beetroot humus!” She squealed and shook her little hands with excitement. When I got home, she was very proud and showed them to me. Good thing Papa Trio likes beets! Luckily, Maman Trio took most of the humus to her book club meeting.

Pet Shop Adventure!

January 22, 2010

One of La Petite Filles favorite Christmas presents was her Littlest Pet Shop set. She plays with it constantly. Here is a little pictorial  adventure we put together with the four chums — the astute among you will recognize one of them as a “Flipping Frog” and not a pet shop animal at all — La Petite Filles and I put together.

Where La Petite Filles picked up the peace sign and finger to the dimple pose, I don’t know.

Eating Candy!

January 22, 2010

I got home from work and found La Petite Filles with this long-stemmed heart-shaped sucker! I don’t know where she got it, but she unwrapped it and enjoyed it. You can, too!

I love the adoring look she is giving it here!

She doesn’t exactly have a sweet-tooth or anything, but she is eating more sweets — Thanks Grandma Marshall!

And a good time was had by one and all.

Telling Time!

January 10, 2010

I got home from work the other day and La Petite Fille had a huge scratch on her nose! She told me she fell against the chair.  Look for yourself, but, unfortunately, the pictures didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped.

This morning La Petite Fille got up and started playing Boowa & Kwala on the computer. I started to listen when I heard Kwala say, It is time for our foursies! They were teaching her to tell time! I looked over her shoulder and there was a little clock she could maneuver the hands of. With just a little help, she worked out the “big” hand and the “little” hand! TELLING TIME! By the time Maman Trio gets home, she’ll be a regular pro!

I was combing her hair this morning. Maman Trio has gotten her to count when we’re doing something that she finds unpleasant, like combing her hair, so I had her count to 30. She counted, One, two, three, twenty-five… TWENTY-FIVE! The little minx!

I stopped her and had her start again. I finished when she got to twenty-six, so I stopped combing her hair: she asked me to continue so she could finish counting to thirty!

La Petite Fille tells this joke: a b c d e f g h i j k l em en em en o pi pi! Get it? Pi pi? Get it? Man, she’s a chip off the old block. She’ll be as funny as Papa Trio.

Finally, she started talking about being a bumble bee right as we woke up at 5:00 AM! (Not that all of the above took place before 5:00 AM) I’ll make honey for you by going to flowers, dad! Then we went downstairs, got a spoonful of honey for her, and she put on her bee costume from her dance class.

Good-bye! Have fun!

January 8, 2010

Kieu Ahn, our housekeeper, Giang’s, sister was working here this week because Giang was off at her grandmother’s funeral. When Kieu Ahn was leaving, La Petite Fille said, “Good-bye! See you later! Have fun! Take care! Have fun with Do, Di, & Giang!” in rapid order. Where she got those phrases, I’ll never know: they aren’t on any DVD, in any movie, or by anyone around her that I know of; they weren’t used in Canada while we were there that I heard; and she hasn’t been in school since mid-December. She is just bursting with good ideas and phrases.

These are a Few of Our Cute Things

January 4, 2010

“Yesterday was mom; today is dad; and tomorrow is me,” explained La Petite Fille the other day. That might be the basis for some New Age philosophical double-speak some day and earn her a however many digit income is considered luxurious in whatever currency is considered stable in her adulthood, but I thought it was cute and an interesting mixing of family and knowledge: she’s looking for threes.

Today we went to see Alvin & the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel today (IMBD, Rotten Tomatoes, & NY Times). La Petite Fille OD’ed on popcorn, but otherwise had a good time. She adored the chipmunks.

She has taken to exclaiming “My name is Madeleine. I am four years old,” at odd moments. It is cute. Another thing she says that says pretty often is “Hi guys!” when she meets or approaches a group of children. And, “Hey everybody…” when she needs to address a group. Unfortunately, she doesn’t know how to get people’s attention before she talks to them. The last thing she says is “I am very cold!” “I am very hungry!” or “I am very thirsty!” It is very cute and never fails to have me running through fire to satisfy her.

Someone gave her Littlest Pet Shop for Christmas and she is just in love! The spider is her favorite, and she enjoys “scaring” me with it. I pretend to be afraid of spiders. I’m surprised that we haven’t lost any of them… yet.

Boxing Day Pre-Breakfast

December 26, 2009

“I can plunge a spoon into my yogurt and find a blueberry for me to eat!”

The Trio was up at 4:00 AM — recovering from jet lag quite nicely — but La Petite Fille and I had laid down at 5:00 PM and so had gone to bed without our supper! Since I woke up hungry — several times last night — I figured that La Petite Fille had also.  For a house full of food, okay The Ayers Annex’s is full of food, ours is long-term frozen storage and other odds and ends, mostly odds, there is not much that La Petite Fille will eat. Luckily, La Femme had boiled some eggs before we left Burlington and we had one left. Then there was the yogurt and blueberries.

NIGHTMARE at Trio Central

• December 8, 2009 3:36 PM
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Almost every morning, I ask Bebe Trio if she slept well and had a good dream. She invariably answers with one of her patented monosyllabic monotone, yeses.  This morning, I told her I had a dream about a man walking a skunk like a dog and that it was very funny.

She said she had a dream about rats! She actually likes rats — thanks Ratatouille and Remy! But, I asked her is she was afraid of the rats in her dream, just to be sure, and much to my surprise, she said, “Yes, because mom said, ’shhh shhhh shhh.”

The parental trio has witnessed bad dreams by Bebe Trio before. She often is moaning or crying during those times. On occasion she has even woken up crying. This time was no different, but she didn’t wake up crying.

“And they killed me,” she added quietly. The line chilled me to the bone.

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Terry Fox Run 2009

• December 6, 2009 1:47 PM
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Howdy y’all!

Today was the Terry Fox Run!

Bebe Trio was especially excited because she was going to run in the Terry Fox Run! We were up early! And Papa Trio dressed in his little used running gear. Bebe Trio got her “PE” shirt and shorts! Maman Trio looked sheepish and tried to figure away to get out of it all!

Finally, all was prepared and Papa & Bebe Trio left Trio Central and took a taxi over to the Sai Gon Convention & Exhibition Center the epi-center of today’s festivities.

We wondered the parking lot chocked with people looking for friends and students. Finally it was time to start running!

Papa Trio hoisted Bebe Trio onto his shoulders and everybody walked! We saw several of Bebe Trio’s little EC 4 friends there. We saw students and co-workers and friends galore. There were company personnel decked out in their matching shirts carrying banners. There was chatter! There was good will! There was mirth! There was merriment! Everyone walked, except for those who rode bikes or roller bladed or skate boarded.

We ran into Ms Kerry the OTHER EC 4 teacher. Bebe Trio exclaimed, “Hi Ms Kerry! I’m in the Terry Fox Run! This is my dad.”

Finally, Maman Trio caught up with us on her bike about halfway through. She distributed Gatorade and cashews, took Bebe Trio on the back of the bike, and Papa Trio gamely jogged the remaining distance.

Then we jogged-biked to Gourmet for breakfast — a very happening scene packed with post Terry Fox Run… um… “runners.”

Check the photo gallery here:

http://www.marshalltrio.com/photogallery/main.php?g2_itemId=33

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Lumpy

• December 6, 2009 1:14 PM
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Howdy y’all!

Bebe & Papa Trio have developed a series of games that we enjoy playing. I’ll describe some of them here.

1) Lumpy

a) Bebe Trio lays on a couch or a chair.

b) Papa Trio pretends to sit on her!

c) After “wiggling” around a bit, Papa Trio begins to complain loudly that the couch is “lumpy” and “uncomfortable.”

d) Papa Trio stands up and sits down a few times turning to Bebe Trio each time and asking her if the couch is lumpy.

e) Bebe Trio giggles insanely.

f) Finally, Papa Trio sits down and realizes that the couch has feet!

g) Papa Trio pulls on the feet and is surprised that the couch also has legs.

h) Bebe Trio giggles and shrieks in delight.

i) Finally, Papa Trio yanks Bebe Trio off the couch by her ankles and realizes that it is Bebe Trio!

j) The game ends when Papa Trio drops Bebe Trio on the couch and proclaims that the couch isn’t lumpy, Bebe Trio is lumpy!

k) Bebe Trio giggles and shrieks in delight and squirms under Papa Trio as he tries to sit down again.

2) Falling

a) Bebe Trio lays on the edge of the bed or couch.

b) Papa Trio goes and hides around the corner.

c) Bebe Trio begins to slip over the edge and yells for help.

d) Papa Trio proclaims loudly that he’ll save her and comes running into the room.

e) Papa Trio spies Bebe Trio in her perilous condition and rushes over snatching her into his arms narrowly averting a disastrous fall from the couch to the floor.

f) Bebe Trio giggles and shrieks in delight.

g) Papa & Bebe Trio cuddle.

h) Papa Trio lays on the couch while Bebe Trio goes and hides around the corner.

i) Papa Trio begins to slip over the edge and yells for help.

j) Bebe Trio runs in and shoves him back on the couch.

k) Papa Trio pulls Bebe Trio onto the couch hugging her tightly proclaiming his never ending gratitude for her heroics.

l) Bebe Trio giggles & shrieks.

m) Bebe & Papa Trio slip over the edge and plummet to the floor landing in a heap of giggles and shrieks!

Those are our games! And everyone is a winner!

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B-I-N-G-O

• December 1, 2009 9:48 PM
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Howdy y’all!

It continues to be slow going here at Marshall Trio Central: school & social life take up a lot of our time. Also, I find this new format discouraging.

Recently, Bebe Trio has taken to singing BINGO. And during that process, she becomes BINGO, I become INGO, and Maman Trio becomes NGO. Not surprisingly, she won’t let me sing along with her.

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November Notes

• November 15, 2009 9:38 PM
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November 15, 2009

Howdy y’all!

I think I’ve finally got all of the bugs worked out with using the new “set-up.” Now, all I have to do is make myself update it regularly. Until then, let these notes about what we’ve been up to suffice:

Halloween came and went and Papa Trio organized us to be a family of pirates! We had on matching pirate costumes and went to a wonderful Halloween party sponsored by one of Jo’s colleagues. It was the closest thing I’ve experienced to the real house-to-house trick-or-treating in 30 years. It was so much fun to be scampering up and down the street with hordes of anxious costumed children seeking CANDY! Oh and Bebe Trio enjoyed it, too.

Visit our Halloween 2009 photo album here:

http://www.marshalltrio.com/photogallery/main.php?g2_itemId=16

Our favorite pediatrician, Dr. Agnes, at Family Medical Practice has advised us that Bebe Trio has “cough asthma.” She coughed every night for a month. We kept taking her back and ala “House,” we diagnosed by treatment. First we gave her an antihistamine. And when that didn’t work, the doctor decided it was because it wasn’t an allergy. Then we gave her an anti-biotic. And when that didn’t work, it was because it was not a bacterial infection. Viral infection was eliminated when it didn’t go away after a week. We x-rayed her to eliminate a pesky hard to find infection. Once all of that was done, we gave her the inhaler again. When her cough immediately cleared up, the doctor knew that it was “cough asthma.”

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One Day Post Mama Trio’s Vacation

• October 17, 2009 2:42 PM
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October 17, 2009

Reporting from Illy Coffee Phu My Hung, HCMC

Howdy y’all!

Maman Trio departed this morning for Shanghai. She has arrived safe and almost sound — headachey and tired after a delayed 1:00 AM departure and five hour flight.

Bebe & Papa Trio are making the most of it, though. We’re soldiering through. Today so far:

(i) We went to our favorite breakfast haunt, Gourmet Deli, and had our favorite breakfast: croissant, scrambled eggs, and banana-apple smoothie for Bebe Trio & croissant, rillette, and cafe sua nong for Papa Trio.

(ii) We went to ballet class where Bebe Trio met up with one of her best friends, Sophie. Sophie was so glad to see her, she gave her a big hug — lifted Bebe Trio off the ground! They played and played before, during, and after the class.

(iii) We went to see “G-Force” for the third time at the Paragon Cinema. We ran into another little friend there, Oliver. They were there to see “Aliens in the Attic,” which I had hoped Bebe Trio would consent to, but she insisted on “G-Force” one more time. We indulged in our favorite movie snacks: pop corn, M n M’s, and water!

(iv) Home again at 2:00 PM. Giang, Yo, & Ye are there. So, Bebe Trio is having a full day. I doubt she naps. She’ll be in bed early tonight.

Later tonight, I’ll try and process the backlog of pictures and get them posted.

Papa Trio

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We’re Back!

• October 16, 2009 8:32 PM
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16 October 2009

Reporting from: Highland Coffee in Pham Ngu Lao, HCMC

Howdy y’all!

I’ve finally had to admit that I cannot find anything better than this to update the site with. My apologies, but at least we’re up and going. I’ll link to the old site and build content here.  let’s start with what’s going on right now in Trio Land and I’ll pick up the lost months of 2009 when and where I can.

First, and most important, Mama Trio is off to Shanghai for a week! Shanghai! Leaving Bebe & Papa Trio here in HCMC to fend for ourselves. We’re looking forward to the stories and pix from Shanghai, but we’ll miss her and wish we were going.

Second, Bebe Trio is taking ballet lessons! I’ll post some pictures when I get them processed. The classes are intense! Last time, two of the girls cried! They’re only four and five years old! But, man o’man, do those girls, including Bebe Trio, love that class.

Third, Bebe Trio has some kind of wicked allergy that causes her to cough, especially at night. It’s been over a week and she’s still coughing. Luckily, we’ve got some medicine for her and it is helping a lot.

She is such a trooper when it comes to taking it. There are two types: some syrup and a nasal spray. She hates the way the syrup tastes and hates the way the nasal spray feels. But, she’ll do it.

She takes the syrup through a syringe. She pops the working end into her mouth, and PLUNGE! Then, she makes a face and drinks some water.

She wants to do the nasal spray herself, but has difficulty coordinating it all, so I end up doing it. I know she hates all of it and once and awhile will fuss, but by golly she takes it.

Fourth, Bebe Trio is much more social in her play. She makes up little games for us to play. We got her a doctor’s kit, so we go to “Doctorland!” She usually is the patient and I’m the doctor. Sometimes we’ll switch. It really helped out when she went to the doctor and she did everything we usually do in “Doctorland:” listen to her heartbeat, look into her ears, look down her throat, check her eye sight! Bebe Trio loved it all! Gone are the days of being afraid of the doctor.

Fifth, Bebe Trio loves playing Boowa and Kwala on the computer. She can turn on the computer; open the internet browser; type “boowa and kwala” into the search window; and click on the link! She is almost a computer expert!

We’re doing really well here in Trio Land and hope y’all are too. We’ll be posting pix of everyone and everything soon, i.e. this weekend, knock on something resembling wood.

Papa Trio