Wednesday 1-30-08

Here are the pictures of Calvin's chair, which arrived last week.

He's getting used to it, spending gradually more and more time in it for play and feeding. He gets in about 20 minutes a day right now.

He's learned a classic two year old's game of "drop that thing on the floor" -- he takes a toy that's been placed on the chair's tray, lifts it over the side and drops it noisily onto the floor below ... over and over again.... He was playing it with me in the car today, too, with his pacifier.

It's another positive sign of intelligence, and his wacky sense of humor. The ability to grasp and then release at will is a really good thing, plus he knows he's playing a game.

Things are going well at my schools. Right now I'm teaching my main bunch of hours at the school in Tainan, Classtime English School, about 7 minutes from our place. Plus, a two week morning Winter Class in the harbour town of AnPing, about 30 minutes away by scooter. The same place we went for Ukranian Christmas, called A Yen for Learning.

Eli and Rhiannon are taking the classes at Yen in the morning, which they're really enjoying. They even willingly get out of bed at 7:30 to go with me. They'll be going to classes at Yen regularly after Chinese New Year.

Eli finished his term at Public School, but it just wasn't working out for us. The classes were too big, he came home with stress issues and he just wasn't the same kid. So, we're back to home schooling plus buxiban. He's a lot more relaxed since we took him out of Public School, more able to focus on things, less prone to argument...

After Chinese New Year, Gosia'll be teaching at Yen four days a week. The Taiwanese administrator/cook/everything woman who works there was a nurse, so she'll be able to care for Calvin while Gosia's teaching, and the kids can take classes. Well, that's all for this Wednesday, next post will be on Sunday!