Rania's High Point & Low Point

As mentioned in a previous posting, each evening we share our high point and low point from the day. Due to popular demand (Read: Auntie Tasha's insistence), here is Rania sharing her high and low.



We'll hope this works.

Feb 29 doesn't come every day.

It isn't every day that you get to post a blog on February 29th. We have friends who have a daughter in 2nd grade. She has her birthday today -- her 2nd real birthday. Funny, not sure I know anyone else who was born on leap year.

Well, we're excited that the weekend is here. Play at school, potential sleepover for the kids (all 3!?!) at grandparents. Things are going well. One thing that has worked out well is Reeve's bike. We shipped over his bike -- which was purchased brand new -- a 20" bike before leaving. I figured he'd grow into it quickly and we'd have it for a lot longer.

Much of last semester, he didn't like riding his bike because the bike was too big for him to start on his own. Now, he can start on his own, and is doing all sorts of tricks ("Look, Dad. One hand.") and riding over bumps and curbs. So it is good that he has a good bike for that.

Rania sometimes takes her rescue rider out to ride -- and we just bought a tricycle for her -- but she can't do that very well. So much of the time she wanders up and down the street wanting to sit on any bike she can find -- especially those of our neighbors. It is hilarious to watch her interact with some of the neighbor kids. Sometimes she grunts & screams to try and get what she wants. Other times she is quite docile and willing to let the others get their way.

Nearing the end of February

Well, it has been a wee bit of time since the last posting -- most of last week was filled with an obnoxious head cold that had Doug missing his first day of school from the year. Last week, we also enjoyed a Beethoven and Mendelssohn chamber concert at the beautiful concert hall in downtown Kuala Lumpur. The price tag for such a musical night on the town -- less than $3 a person.

At home, Rania continues to run, run, run -- with many scrapes on her knees and elbows. She adamantly wants to go "bye-bye" at just about every opportunity and generally cries when someone leaves without her. But due to her inability to stay in a grocery cart and her fussiness when we try to take her out -- Rania is increasingly being left behind with an adult. The full family outings to the store were quickly recognized as less than brilliant ideas.

But Rania can be quite helpful -- when it comes to knocking down her siblings blocks (she is actually getting much better at this -- though may be quite confused when at one moment she is reprimanded for destroying a great tower; and the next is invited to knock down a simple structure and then cheered. Tracy calls this "mixed messages."

She also will grab the broom from whoever is using it and insists on sweeping herself. (Can you guess which adult most often is using the broom in our household? -- If you guessed either Tracy or Doug instead of Juvy, then you're definitely wrong!)

Reeve has had a great time playing with a 4th grade neighbor who lives down the street -- and also attends ISKL. You can see them swinging just outside our door on the playground that occupies much of our evenings. They will also ride bikes and scooters up and down the street. We continue to be blessed by having great neighbors and being in a neat housing situation.

Reeve is also greatly enjoying school -- another incredible blessing. Each night around dinner, we try to share our "highs & lows," hopefully in a way to touch base from our days. Reeve increasingly is saying "going to school" is his high point -- which brings great joy to our hearts considering about this time last year, Reeve was refusing to go to his pre-school of the past 3 years.

Rania also shares her "highs & lows" with a big smile and then saying "da-dad-da-da-da-ad." Then we ask, "Was it when you got to see the puppy -- roof roof?" And she will nod her head. Same thing happens when asked about her low. Fortunately all of our follow-up questions have clearly deciphered her gibberish.

Gabi is generally the delightful middle child who plays great with either older or younger sibling. Yesterday, she enjoyed an afternoon on the town with her mother, who, after school, took Gabi for some special time with mommy, a trip to the aquarium, and -- of course -- a stop at Starbucks.

On the school front, Doug is starting to coach 6th & 7th grade basketball, and Tracy is teaching some Shakespeare in English class.

Valentines Day As a Family

To celebrate Valentine's Day, we decided to go the nontraditional route. Instead of leaving the kids home for some alone time, we decided to have the whole family go downtown for dinner.

So we zipped down to KLCC, the HUGE mall at the base of the Petronas Towers. One of the neat things about getting to KLCC is that we can get there in about 12 minutes from our house -- without encountering a single stoplight. In an engineering feat that brings great joy to me, you can reach the underground parking garage straight from the highway.

There, we enjoyed a great meal at Chili's -- where the kids ate free (with an adult meal), and we had a great view overlooking the large park that is the center of KLCC. You can see the large pond, as well as the wading/swimming area (in the far area) that is free and a fun place for kids to play.

KLCC, as are most of the many malls around KL is incredibly modern. While Tracy stopped in an electronics store to look for a coffee grinder, Rania enjoyed dancing in front of the 103" plasma TV which sells for the price of a small home ($70,000 US).

After dinner, we walked to the largest playground you can imagine -- with play equipment as far as the eye can see -- where our kids enjoyed playing in the shadow of the Petronas towers. Swings, play equipment, slides -- a kids paradise!

Life on the Street

One of the many wonderful places about where we live is all of the fun, kid-friendly action that takes place on our street. As we live in a gated community, our street dead-ends about 100 meters past our house. (If you look past Gabi's funny face, you can see the end of the street.)

So in the evenings when we aren't playing on the playground behind our house, we are often joining the many other kids that are playing on the street. Reeve and Gabi love to ride their bikes up and down our street, often with several other kids on our street.

Our amazing neighbor, Nani will sometimes be playing badmitton outside on the street and Reeve, especially will love to join in. In just the past couple of days, he has gotten much better at hitting the "shuttlecock" as it is now called.

Another daily highlight for our girls is going "jogging" with Candy. Each morning our amah takes Rania and Gabi for a "jog" around the neighborhood -- so our kids are quite well known by everyone. In fact, one evening, some neighbors who live a few streets down were walking, and Gabi went up to them and said, "I'm Gabi." The older man replied, "Yes, everyone knows you're Gabi." I thought "Uh-oh," but the man generously replied that it was a good thing.

But often the girls morning jog involves two dogs that live at the end of the street. Terrance is not nice, but Candy (in picture) is delightful, so the girls will go "jogging" with Candy.

We've been so blessed and pleased with our housing situation and the wonderful neighborhood that we have here. Enjoying "life on the street" and the cool evening air has certainly been fun parts of our evenings.

The Ultimate Sleepover

We had the greatest gift for Chinese New Year. Doug's parents took all three kids for a sleepover. We enjoyed visiting a new place downtown (The Pavilion Mall), a fine dinner at a Thai restaurant, a much better than expected movie (Dan in Real Life), and a very quiet house. It was rather surreal not waking up to screaming kids or little ones coming into our room saying "is it morning time yet?"

The sleepover can best be experienced from Doug's parents' blog -- www.rnwoodward.blogspot.com where there are many more pictures from their sleepover. When the kids came back they told us all about their trip to McDonalds. Reeve got his first strike in bowling!! And Gabi got a spare! (All with the help of the bumper rails to keep the ball out of the gutter, of course).

Swimming to bring in the (Chinese) New Year

We had a great start to our Chinese New Year with a visit to the grandparents pool, popular place to go. Thursday afternoon we made our way down there where the kids had fun swimming in the pool.

Rania has decided that she wants to wear goggles, which makes for a funny sight. Both Reeve and Gabi did some good swimming in the deep end. Reeve swam all the way across the deep end and is doing good at floating in his back. Gabi has decided she can kind of bob (tread water) without putting her face in the water. This makes for some slow moving, but at least she is safe. . .until she runs out of energy.

We're still looking forward to when the kids can swim confidently without adult supervision. We're getting there, but not yet.

Happy Chinese New Year!

It was a glorious day to start our 4 day break to celebrate Chinese New Year. Clear blue skies, hot (but not overly humid), and very little traffic. Because of being a large urban area situated in a valley, there is often a fair amount of haze that sits in the city. We're quite thankful that it is nothing like most major cities -- Jakarta, Shanghai, Beijing, LA -- but it is quite refreshing to see the blue skies. A nice wind and being close to water made the day even more enjoyable.

In the morning, the kids borrowed our neighbors' little pool and had fun playing in the water in our front yard. After naps, we went down to the grandparents pad and had a refreshing and fun swim and some "grandpa friend chicken."

Reeve quite enjoyed himself with Auntie Nani's water gun, as you can tell! His sisters and his parents (who tried to stay dry) were frequent targets.

Super Bowl Heroics & Funny Kiddies

Ahh, the entire NFL season was redeemed with one final Manning drive to vanquish the Patriots. Unfortunately, it was the wrong Manning, but as New England's maddening drive for perfection continued through the season, I wondered if I wanted the Patriots to lose MORE than I wanted the Colts to win.

So, in an unprecedented miracle, I managed to avoid news of the Super Bowl score through all day Monday -- and gathered with about 25 other teachers for a TIVO replay of the game at another faculty member's house. Since my parents (who both knew the score and are certainly don't relish Bill Belichek), opted to go to the game, I was pretty optimistic that maybe the Giants could pull it out. (Since it had already happened, there was a surreal sense of knowing that "it must turn out right.")

So it was a great ending to a NFL season that too often had me replaying the Colts demise against the Patriots and all the "what-ifs" of a self-destructing Colts team in their final hurdle before a potential showdown in Foxboro.

On the home front, we are excited for a 4 day weekend, starting Thursday to celebrate Chinese New Years. We are planning on sitting around home and relaxing. Apparently all of KL heads out of town, so hopefully it will be relatively quiet (though many stores are probably closed).

In the cute picture display, we've sure noticed how much Reeve and Rania are similar. Meanwhile, Gabi often plays the perfect middle child in the mold of her perfect mother. It has been SO FUN to see how well Gabi has been playing with both of her siblings. Reeve and Gabi will giggle for hours at a time (they spent an hour in the bathtub together recently). Reeve is loving school more, and Rania's grunts and screams can sure wear thin on our patience, but she sure is a doll!