Dancing, Traveling, Rambling

Sitting here at the computer, listening to "Rave Anthems", put on by DJ Kyle, looking out at the hills, and drinking a nice cup of coffee, with sounds of Hannah and Kyle playing drifting down the stairs, I think this defines "Nice Family Sunday".  Richard is silent, as through all of this, he is trying to pretend he gets to sleep in.  Anyway, I am going to try and sneak in  few minutes' worth of updates before chaos inevitably overtakes the day.

Kyle is still taking dance class.  Recently, he has been reluctant to go to the class, but he still enjoys it during the actual class time.  On Friday, the head teacher had a chat with him and found out that he finds some of the stretching difficult, and that he wants to learn some MANLY dance actions.  So, yesterday, I took him to the school's hip-hop class.  Wow!  I havent' seen Kyle so high since we attended the insanely intense Gymboree exercise class when he was a year old.  (His little friend got so overstimulated that he passed out halfway through the 50-minute class, and my friend and I had ringing ears for a couple of hours after the class.)  He would do the actions, run to the side and do a somersault or some other move he had learned in other dance classes, then come back and continue.  Even during break, he was dancing around.  The poor teacher came out of the class in quite a sweat.  The moms said they had never seen the teacher so excitable.  Kyle was happy all through the day, dancing and laughing right through to bedtime.  Actually, Kyle is too young to attend that class but we wanted to show him that guys dance and guys can teach, and that after  you learn the basics, you don't necessarily have to become a ballet dancer.   He told the teachers he wants to continue with dance class now.

When everyone came out of class, one of the girls told everyone, "好憐憫,清松要去紐西蘭找老婆".  I thought a long time and then realised he meant, "找外婆"
(He said, "I am going to NZ to find a wife."  He meant, "I am going to NZ to see my grandmother.")

You can see some information about Kyle's dance school here:
http://www.wenindance.url.tw/en/about.htm

Hannah is one smart little cookie.  She has an answer for everything, in both Chinese and English.  And, she knows what she wants.  On Friday, we had her gymnastics class.  Half-way through, she wet her pants.  I only had a skirt for her, and a pair of Kyle's underpants.  I knew before I offered them to her that she would not readily accept it.  She flat-out refused to wear them, and I refused to let her do tumbling without pants, so she gave up that and our Friday lunch together, to go back to grandma's and get her own clothes.  Going out yesterday, she had to change her whole outfit because she didn't have a jacket to match her skirt.  At least she can dress and undress herself, so I just let her change, as long as she puts everything else away.  Hannah is ready for school, and I am looking forward to letting her go to daily kindergarten in September.  It will be great for her to have some new friends her age to play with every morning.

We are leaving for New Zealand early May.  We looked at Jetstar but the ordeal of booking over the phone and trying to work out how to get there was too much, and we ended up going with Air New Zealand.  The travel agent I used is the first that has given me great service, and fast, for a long time.  Their information:
http://www.martin.com.tw/ (Zora is the agent that helped me out.)  They are the agent Singapore Airlines recommends to you if you call their Taipei office.

We've been reading some great books lately.  One that has helped get the kids thinking about life balance and other habits is "The Seven Habits of Happy Kids" .  It's fun to refer to the characters and ideas in the book rather than just nagging the kids to do exercise, turn off the computer, and so on.

Well, the CD has finished and dirty laundry is calling!

Easter?

Ok, I admit it, I am really really really REALLY lazy when it comes to holidays like Easter and Halloween.  I just couldn't muster up energy to find chocolate eggs, decorating kits, and so on for my kids.  I gave them a candy and made them papaya milk, and that is the extent of my Easter celebrating.  Maybe it's because it wasn't that big of a deal for us growing up anyway, and then there is the whole WORK side of finding things for the holiday.  We did get a couple of books out from the library to read about Easter.  Hannah had two fillings on Wednesday, so I also figure the less chocolate she has sticking to her teeth, the better.

I have spent the day trying to find out about jetstar and other cheap flight options to New Zealand.  I've read some NASTY reviews of jetstar, so if you have something positive to say, please let me know!  The tickets are a third less than the other airlines, and if you take the view "you get what you pay for", it should be OK, right?

On Friday night, we went to a wedding celebration at gardenmall, which you can read about on my other blog (http://www.kidzone-tw.blogspot.com/).  Here some pics of Kyle and Hannah, dressed in their flowergirl/pageboy clothing from the week before's wedding:

With the changing seasons comes the time of friends moving on.  This week, I have found out three lovely women and their families are moving early/mid June.  It's getting harder to deal with as time goes by.  It takes a year or so to get to know people, and most move on after two years.  Just long enough to form friendships but not long enough to really enjoy that friendship after you form it.  The nature of the expat community in Taiwan is, most expat women stay two or three years then move on.  It's really hard work to stay motivated to meet new people when they move away again so soon. But, with somewhat different philosophies toward child-rearing, and probably life in general, its also difficult to develop meaningful relationships with Taiwanese moms.  I mean, I know some lovely local women, but there is some fundamental difference that forms a barrier in total understanding.  I do  have some great friends who are not going anywhere soon, but I know they feel the same way about our social circle.

I've been updating my http://www.kidzone-tw.blogspot.com/ blog, so if you are in taiwan and looking for child-oriented things to do, take a look.