Altoid & Other Cuties' Thread

[Schmeelkie]

I've heard good things about the sealant now too...
Husband has gone 3+ years more than once between cleanings and never has a problem. So far it seems I inherited my dad's gums and mom's teeth - no problems for me. I rarely floss and end up with an annoying 3-5 min of scraping between the front bottom teeth when I go in every 6 months, but no problems beyond that. Here's hoping the good genetics got passed to Pumpkin and Bella. Bella did end up with two tiny cavitites in her front baby teeth, but I believe that was related to many colds, with honey being administered post-brushing to calm coughs. Backed off on honey and the cavities haven't grown.

[piqaboo]

undecided still, re the teethes.

On another note (intentional), Altoid took part in her first piano recital this weekend. She was the 2nd youngest performer (our neighbor's kid is a bit less than a year younger). The oldest performer looked highschool senior-ish (17-18 yrs old), and picked what seemed like competition pieces - not so easy to listen to but amazing to watch played - judge pleasers.
The audience of course was all friends and family of the ~ 15 students. There were maybe 70 people in the room.
Altoid opened the show as the first performer. She walked up to a stage empty except for the piano(s)*, sat down, composed herself, lifted her hands and played, then took her bow. And THEN a smile sneaked thru.
They played on a Steinway concert grand (9'), which was very exciting for some of us, anyway.
She had excellent posture and timing, played well, and was poised. The kids were mostly playing 2 pieces each, but they didnt play two in a row, so there was a circulation of performers at a given skill level.
Altoid ended up going up three times, which gave her the honor of being the last performer in the early beginners section as well, so that she was followed by "real" piano pieces (things of which you may have heard, such as the Rocket Boogie, Fur Elise, etc). She was the only student to memorize all her music (granted, its easier for her than for the kids playing later on - her total playing time was well under 2 minutes .

Anyway, I'm proud of her for her performance. She didnt let going first rattle her, she didnt let better players (the girl who came right before her 2x) rattle her, she didnt let her friends in the audience rattle her. (Separately, I'm very pleased at how well she's doing with her lessons, but that's a different post.)

I was interested that tho our neighbors kids chose the "duet" options (the kid plays the lesson, the instructor plays a line to fill in and make it more musical), Altoid specifically mentioned after that she was glad she had 'soloed' and didnt have her teacher on stage w her. I had wondered if she'd regret not having at least one duet of her three pieces. Guess not!

* there was a spare piano on the stage for some reason.

[dai bread]

I am glad that Altoid is memorising her pieces. Keep her at it. One comment made time and time again by judges and teachers when my Private Pianist was in competitions is that they want the competitors to memorise the music.

BTW, PP has a child, (a girl, and yes, PP is married) and also her own piano. She's back into it.

[piqaboo]

I'm so glad you are still in touch w PP. That's awesome.

We have a PP now too, but not at that level. The intern we host is a recreational player. Its fun for us,
and nice for Altoid to hear someone else also play just because they like to, and watch someone else work thru the hard bits.

We got word yesterday that next year we'll probably be hosting a young lady from mainland china.
That may be quite different from hosting taiwanese - more culture shock on both ends.

[dai bread]

It's not all that different these days. Mainlanders have been leaving for foreign education for some time now, and the days when they expected to be served for (as) breakfast are long gone. They usually come from big cities, too, so they know about cities. Ours came from cities that could swallow our entire country. For breakfast.

They're also well aware that China is a rising power.

[piqaboo]

Yeah, that.
But not so used to kids who talk back and get away with it, etc.

Even our current dear resident refers to the principal in tones of respect as "my boss, Mr. xxx".
While we respect the man, we also call him "Ed".

[Schmeelkie]

We're through another round of swim lessons. Pumpkin 'graduated' to the next level, while Bella pretty much thought it was fun to be dragged around the water with Mommy. She would tell the teachers (HS students) that 'my body doesn't want to do that' when they would ask her to kick or blow bubbles if she didn't want to. My only consolation is that she's more relaxed in the water - think I'll lay off lessons for her for a while and just try to get to open swims more often until she seems more motivated to try to practice the skills.

On the other hand, she's been a little (but only a little) more willing to do what we're supposed to in her soccer class. It's a soccer class for 3-5 year olds - just learning the skills you need to play. Decided yesterday after she kept wanted to fall on the ball after trying to dribble that she'll make a great goalie! Her lack of focus is pretty common in the class, so I don't feel bad. She liked throwing the ball best yesterday... if it's not too cool this pm we should be able to practice - got her her own soccer ball (which she slept with for 3 nights in a row - wouldn't let her sleep with the new goggles for the pool, though) on Sunday.

When I have a little spare time I'll look into karate or Tae Kwon Do for Pumpkin - first sport (other than swimming) he's showed interest in. He's never wanted to do soccer, baseball, etc. Doesn't seem to big on team sports...must be related to me!

[Schmeelkie]

Oh, and congrats to Altoid! I'm sure she comes by her talent honestly too!

[piqaboo]

Its funnny how interests come and go and so forth.
Altoid is currently obsessed with learning to jump rope. And knit.

[dai bread]

Yeah, that.
But not so used to kids who talk back and get away with it, etc.

I wouldn't bank on that at all, Piq. The one-child policy has some unintended consequences.

[piqaboo]

It will be good if its not too disconcerting.
I'm so spoiled by our current resident. She treats Altoid like the little sister she always wanted,
except she has a built-in escape route. Its awesome.

I laughed myself silly, and our resident into confusion yesterday, with my simple minded amusement over a combination of mandarin words.
Yesterday we saw a baby cheetah at the zoo, so that was the new term for the day.
bao(4) bao(3) bao(1)
then there are bao tze (not too sure of the pinyin for the second part) (fluffy white steamed dumplings)
and
han bao bao (hamburger)

so, I kept trying to say that the baby cheetah eats dumplings and hamburgers, and then I would crack myself up and fall apart giggling.

bao bao bao shi bao tze, han bao bao.

[Shapley]

I am reminded of something Bernard Moitessier wrote in Tamata and the Alliance regarding language. I'll have to paraphrase, since I don't have the exact quote, but he was commenting on the beauty of Chinese characters in permitting people who speak not only different dialects but different languages to communicate with one another. He said this is important with languages where "Bo, Bo, Bo" not only has meaning, but a dozen different meanings depending on how it is accented.

The French attempted to codify Southeast Asian languages into European format, using various accent marks and special characters to capture the pronunciations, but this was still problematic, since the Lao meaning and the Cochin Chinese use of the same word pronounced the same way may have entirely different meanings. Chinese characters, by not being limited to phonetics, permitted the conveyance of ideas rather than sounds. This permited, per his observance, Cochin Chinese to communicate freely with their Japanese occupiers during the War, even though their languages were markedly different. As he said, (still paraphrasing), it is a great accomplishment to have someone be able to write the word 'house' in one place, and have someone half the world away read it and recognize it as 'house'. But, the significance of that accomplishment is lost if the person reading it calls a 'house' a 'casa'.

[piqaboo]

I disagree w the last sentence. Even if I call it house and you call it casa, we could write to each other with excellent understanding that the shape on paper refers to a domestic domicile.

Brag alert:
Altoid and one other young lady received "Outstanding Accomplishments in Mandarin" awards for their grade level (from just over 50 kids). She's on her way to being able to talk your ear off in TWO languages.


We added words this weekend, just to twist our ears: lee(3) = plum lee(2) = pear.
3 is the swoopy down then up intonation 2 is the rising intonation

[Schmeelkie]

Well, Pumpkin started 3rd grade yesterday! Bella and I went in to her new school for a few hours to set up stuff in her room and tour the building. Her Kindergarten teacher seems really nice and responded well to Bella's refusal to stay still for a picture (it was in front of a pic of a container of popcorn and Bella wanted to BE popcorn and couldn't get why she should have to stay still) - she let Bella do something else and came back to her later, then explained why she needed the pic and finally Bella stayed put for a few sec. I felt a bit embarassed about this, but know that she's generally well-behaved and am chalking this up to enthusiasm. Amusingly, this is the kind of thing I would have expected from her brother at that age, not her! Anyway, put her on the bus this morning with her brother! It's going to feel weird to just come straight home every day! If the bus is as late today as it was yesterday (and probably will be as it will be the Kindergarteners first time), I should be home in time to see them get back off the bus.
Hopefully, I can download the pics we took this pm and get them up soon. It's been a while since you've seen my cuties!

[BigJon]

'lil'bit started first grade last week. No wimpy homeschooling for her, it's a real brick'n'mortar school, bus and all. So far, she's loving it. So serious about the homework.

[Schmeelkie]

Bella's best comment after her first day of K - "They didn't teach us to read!" Had to explain that it takes a while...
A friend's new Kindergartner was bummed he didn't get homework.
Pumpkin, on the other hand, is happy he's not getting any until next week.

[Giant Communist Robot]

My son is in 5th grade now. His school has a big Hawaiian language immersion program. He isn't in it, but does know many Hawaiian words. Even in this age of budget cuts the schools maintain music programs. All students are introduced to music notation. My boy is learning two instruments, the recorder and the violin. All students learn to play at least a little on either the recorder or the ukulele. At the end of each year they have a celebration mirroring the Hawaiian Court and Royals with dancing on the grass and students playing music. They even have taiko drums, which are very loud.

My daughter is in the 8th grade. She is taking Chinese as her elective. She figures this will be useful if she achieves her career goal of paleontologist. Oddly, her mother is a native speaker of Chinese but doesn't help her. She attends Kumon math tutoring and I am teaching her simple calculus, such as the constant rule and power rule for derivatives.

[Schmeelkie]

Happy Birthday to Pumpkin! Can you believe he's 8? Or, as I calculated and had on my FB status - 2922 days old!

Was looking through a list of celebrity b'days seeing if he overlapped with anyone he knew about (he won't care about sharing a b'day with Tommy Lasorda) - found Tom Felton, aka Draco Malfoy from Harry Potter - he's 24 today. The pic they have of him - he could still pass for 15 if he shaved! On the other hand, Mark Hamill (aka Luke Skywalker) is turning 60 on Sunday and looks TERRIBLE! Bruce Springsteen at 62 (forgot the day) looks much better...

[piqaboo]

Wow! How old we've all gotten... I mean, my how fast they grow!
Altoid is in week 3 of Grade 2. 50/50 english mandarin so two teachers.
She started jiu jitsu over the summer and is more intense and driven than skilled.
7 yrs old. Oh my Still can wear the easter dress we bought for her to wear when she was three.

[Schmeelkie]

Now Bella's 5! (well, that was last Friday, but haven't gotten on here for a while...) She got a number of 'girly' gifts at her birthday party and after initially being less than thrilled (though she did a good job of not saying anything inappropriate at the time and saying thank you), she's decided that most of it IS fun to play with. I think it just represents a change from all the 'boy'/neutral toys we mostly have at home. And she got some butterflies to decorate and hang on the wall that came with a few to turn into barretts. Well, on our sick-day yesterday, we decorated them and this morning she picked out 'girly' clothes for the first time in months so she could wear the barretts. Which also meant that we discovered that her 'girly' sneakers are a bit too tight... I hadn't replaced them as she has only worn her brother's hand-me-downs and other 'boy' clothes/sneakers I've gotten for her since about July.

'Tomboy' runs strong in my family - my grandmother, mother and I all were tomboys and never were too interested in make-up, dressing up, etc. Which did make it frustrating when I was pregnant and 90% of maternity clothes are covered in flowers, lace and frills. Ok, maybe it was the one store, but still...

Had two great parent-teacher conferences last month. Apparently, we have 'nothing to worry about academically' with Pumpkin. The perfectionism he inherited from his dad slows him down sometimes, but 'given time, he always does a stellar job!' Nice stuff to hear! Bella, for the fact that she's the youngest in her class, 'holds her own' and is improving at a good pace. She absolutely loves Kindergarten! They do a lot with songs in class and she's sung every one she's learned to me. I have a feeling music and rhyme will be a central part in her ability to learn in the future. She's got the same eagerness to learn that her brother has - I have a lot of fun learning along with them and satiating their curiousity.