Improvised hockey

Whenever I cook in the kitchen, the boys would explore the kitchen drawers. Last week, A1 found a spatula and A2 found a kitchen soup ladle. With a ball, they played hockey in the small kitchen. They passed ball to each other and made lots of noise.

The two boys were laughing away as they had so much fun. They play togather more and more often and day like this made me so happy.

Jardin d'Acclimatation

This was our third visit to Jardin d'Acclimatation and as usual, the park was crowded and we enjoyed ourselves. This time round, we took time to visit the whole park.

There was a Korean style park.

There were a few playgrounds planted all over the park. The boys had fun in this well designed playground. The setup was a maze and the kids could go under or climb over to get around.

Beside the playground was a water park. It was a hot day and there were many kids but I did not bring extra clothes for the boys. So they just wet their hands and legs at the bank of the water park.

 We then walked around to visit the animals in the park.

There were donkeys, the one above was huge; sheeps, cows, goats and lots of different kind of hens.

A2 had taken over his brother's tricycle while A1 was on his balance bicycle.

One of the big attractions of the park was the village of fun rides. There were many choices for young kids like merry-go-rounds, mini roller-coaster, bumper cars etc... A1 is not a fan of such rides so we could easily walk past this area.

SAHM

I'm a stay at home mom since 6 days. Things are looking bright.
I vacummed the floor everyday after the boys had their breakfast with biscuits or bread crumbs all around. Now, I made them sit at the dining table for breakfast so that I could just cleaned up that area after.

I cooked lunch and dinner and most of the time, A1 finished his meals while A2 took only a few spoons. A2 was more interested to play with his food. He tried to drink everything including thick yoghurt, porridge etc.. He loved to hold the bowl and put it to his mouth. He loved soup. I remembered A1 had this phase too when he was A2's age. I did not force A2 to eat nor did I feed him extra food(biscuits, cheese) which he liked. He will eat when he is hungry just like what A1 did before.

This evening, I made a quiche and A2 finished his food while A1 preferred to eat the left over from lunch; rice and salmon fish minus the stirred fried spinach. He did eat lots of spinach for lunch. My boys; one prefers ang moh food while the other prefers chinese. Good thing, both love soup.
I can understand my mum's headache when her kids were young. It must not be easy to cook for a family with different taste buds.

On most days, after lunch, the boys napped and it allowed me to clean up the kitchen, do some chores and even napped for an hour. Still, I hardly had time to surf. On two occasions, I went to the shops and it was just impossible with the 2 boys.  Once to the electronics shop to check out on a fridge and dish washer and the other time to the DIY shop to get a toilet brush and check out paint colors. The boys were distracting, playing.... A2 crying to get out of his stroller so that he could run around with his brother.

Other than that, it is great to be at home with the kids. They make me laugh. A2 can repeat after us and can say many words and be understood. He picked up from A1 saying 'Pas this' instead of 'Not this ' or 'Pas ça'. Well, we do need to work on their mixed french-english.

Yesterday, we played our usual hide and seek. And for the first time, A2 counted from 1 to 10 in english while A1 and I went to hide. Usually A2 either counts with one of us or hides with the other.

During bathtime, the boys played with each other. A1 liked to wash his brother's hair. They teased each other by splashing water and throwing bath toys at each other.

A1 is good at negotiating. Each time I want him to do something he would say "Wait, maman. Encore une fois. D'accord?" and empathise ONE by showing me his index finger. Meaning "Wait, mom, one more time ok?" It could be while he was reading a book, watching sesame street, playing etc... while I asked him to eat, bath, dress up. If I said no, it would be a disaster; him showing me a black face, or running to his bed and me being upset. Now, I always say ok because he would come to me after he had finished his task. Furthermore, it never took him long to finish what he was doing. It seems to be that he did not like to take orders like this but wanted to have a say. So by asking me for a prolong time and me approving it, he feels that he is in control of what he wants to do instead of us "forcing" him. Well, that's my analysis. I could never know if this is true.

I guess my post will see more of my days with the boys. I do keep a journal for each of the boys but had not updated them since a long time. It would be nice to record things somewhere and this is the place for the moment.