new shoes new tudes

Ivo and Ryan are napping - at least one of them will probably wake up before I finish this and then I might not get to post - oh well. What a glorious and eventful long weekend it's been. It's 1010 Day here in Taiwan - Founders Day or such like. The date chosen to mark the beginning of the Repubulic of China - though not on this Island and kinda by accident but down with the Qing anyway - they weren't even Chinese.

The weather has turned beautifully less humid and a bit cooler. We spent a lot of the weekend outside. On Saturday 8 Oct, Ivo and Karin and I met on tea street. I'd been waiting til I got paid to buy some sumptuous scented cream at the Body Shop - anyway, while enjoying our tea and fried dofu, we met up with the woman who owns Sahara Restaurant. She was out with two of her 5 sons - the youngest is 18months. She told us that a shoe store down the way was going out of business and all the kid shoes are only 199nt. They're soft leather and flexible like mocassins. So we picked up a dark blue pair for Ivo. These are the first shoes that Ryan and I bought him. He's been given shoes by Steve and Lisa and by my sister.

Another thing the woman from Sahara - this is her actual name - told me was about potty training. I didn't really get it all but suffice it to say super-early - diaper-free - prewalking, like 7 months of age. She's done this with her later kids and they don't even wet the bed... Well, ok. Ivo's still pretty small and his pee is largely inoffensive to me but I haven't even considered potty training yet. Then I read an article in the New York Times about "elimination communication" and how 50% of babies worldwide are toilet trained by the time they turn 1. So I don't know what we're gonna do - but I like the idea of not having to train a 2 yr old to do anything he doesn't wanna do. Unlike the whole baby sign language phenomenon - this actually seems to hold water! This is a link to diaperfreebaby.com - it's useless to link to the new york times cuz they start charging after a week.

Now to the big concidence. Drumroll, please. On the day that Ivo got his blue shoes - he also took his unassisted first steps. 1-2-1-2-and catch him - he did it twice on saturday and once on sunday... so exciting.

There's some more stuff but I'll wait - both Ryan and Ivo are up!