Ivo - motorcycle-boy

This is how Ivo celebrated Double Ten Day!

Ivo eschews sleep and other unpleasantries

I'm about to complain a lot - but not about my dear sweet husband who came home this morning on his break and fed Ivo breakfast...


So it's the day after no-shut-eye-night 2. Hard to know who to blame it on... Hard to know how to fix it... Hard to know how to complain enuf...

Last night I tried sleeping on Ivo's bed, cuz he was in my spot. He woke up an hour later, maybe 11pm and joined me. We watched the teletubbies on merciless repeat for about 4 hours - nursing much of the time (sore, sore, sore). But not sleeping and when on booby-break chatting to himself or his dinosaur about its tail and eyes... At least we got to sleep in til 8am and stay in bed resting til 10ish. One nice development is that Ryan, formerly the super-sensitive princess-and-the-pea, your-mouse-clicking-is-keeping-me-up type, is now able to sleep with a strobe light flashing in his face as well as all manner of toddler sounds and mama irritability.

Ivo definitely has a cold. Quite mild - but still there. And he doesn't know about in-between-ness - only extremes. So when his nose is runny, he says "ow!"

An especially trying situation lately is that Ivo keeps throwing non-ball, often hard-dense expensive electronic items - not so much at people as - as hard as he can onto the tile floor. We are continuing to direct him only to throw balls and, if possible, let a person know before you beam them in the face... Having caught on to some part of the idea, Ivo now throws non-ball items and then says "BALL!" or "GOOD THROW!" He's just knocked the ADSL box off the computer table, the cd-player onto the floor behind the tv, the remote control smashed into 4 pieces...

In case it needs saying, I'm very cranky. And tired. I know I'm supposed to feel better in the 2nd trimester but I think I feel worse - More tired and more moody-irritable-edgy. But I know I'm super lucky... I have love and support, an easy-light teaching schedule, everything I need and more.

Ivo on vacation

Yesterday morning Ivo and I fed Karin's cats and then met Rayne, Katherine and Olivia at Caves book store and spent the next few hours together. In addition to the bookstore, we went to the arboretum, lunch and ice cream which we ate on the causeway green between the science museum and Chung Gang Road.

Here are some pics... Oh yea, we saw a rooster tethered to a truck full of garbage... What with all the animals around, it's like we live on or around the ugliest most garbage-filled farm in the world! Exciting!

Then we slept!

Nobody knows the troubles Ivo's seen

Watch the video

This is one of 2 videos I took while Ivo was explaning to Sho and me what went down with the firecrackers.

 Ivo says "moon" "roar" and "wow" over and over.  He looks up a lot, too.  I tried to get him to talk about his ball-ball shirt, but he wouldn't bite. Ditto on talking about Sho's dog, Juju...

Ivo on the phone

Watch the video

This is taken with Ryan's new cell phone.

Ivo a little pa!

In addition to faking injury and insult, Ivo has added exaggeration to his repertoire.

There were some bottle rockets, fire crackers and sparklers on display last night. Ivo was initially startled and turned the sensation into an hour-long crisis. We almost had to go home! And we're talking hand-held fire crackery stuff. This is Taiwan - fire crackers explode at least weekly in and around Ivo...

Dwayne had set off the first bottle rockets - without a heads-up - Ivo wasn't the only one caught off guard, but I think he was the only one who ended up crying. Ryan took him for a walk down to the pet store to look at the miniature dogs. Dwayne, motivated by remorse and other things I'm not gonna try to name, chased them down the street waving a lit sparkler. Strangely, this did not calm Ivo down. Until then, he had believed he could get away from the 'hot, roar, moon, pa'... he didn't know they could run toward him! He thinks firecrackers go to the moon, like astronauts and rockets. 'Pa' means scared. The pics are from outside a convenience store on Da Ye in front of a bunch of dreamcatchers. I took some video (will post later) of Ivo telling the story of his recent travails... Above is a group of stills.

Ivo is great at sharing

That's right! Ivo really gets a kick out of playing with other peoples' cool stuff. He's got quite a talent for it too!

However, over the past few months - except for Kaia who's 7 months younger than Ivo, easily overpowered, distracted and mollified - he's had no guests. Ivo has been a frequent guest at Dylan's house and sees kids out and about every day. He gives them stuff to play with; books off shelves, other kids' toys and the like while conducting hands-on studies of their toys. Quite often trading his car for another kid's, his bubble blower for another kid's... Half sweetness of heart and half pragmatic, Ivo uses toys he has little interest in to divert a kid's attention so Ivo can play in peace.

Well, Dylan was over on Thursday - and it became clear that while Ivo is an expert at sharing others' things he's sort of forgotten how to share when he's on the giving end! Witness pics... He's happy using Trey and or Dylan's stuff but not so much when Dylan uses Ivo's!

Also Ivo can say so many words now; ow!, moon, roooaar!, bubble, pea, pee-pee/niao-niao, mao, yu... Details lates!

Ivo Mid-Autumn Festival Taichung

These pics are from last night - a Moon-Fest bbq at Fubar on Soho Street. The cutie with Ivo is Trey - Dwayne's son. He's slightly taller than Ivo, heavier and 5 months YOUNGER!!! Keep this in mind, when I moan about Taiwanese telling me how HUGE Ivo is - simply because he's a foreigner... He's never been more than the 50th percentile of weight and 80th of height - and that's for Taiwanese kids... But still, there are people blinded by the glare of his shiney whiteness!!!

Ivo is in the midst of an unprecedented 5-day weekend in Taiwan. Friday, 10/6, was the lunar holiday, Mid-Autumn Festival, mooncake-city - Ivo likes them and everywhere he goes he has his pick. Tuesday, 10/10, is National Day, Independence Day, Founding Fathers' Day. So what of Monday, 10/9? It was a workday until 10/2 when the government declared it a holiday too.

The catch is that everyone has to work on a Saturday to make up for the Monday off. Which Saturday? It seems companies/schools can choose between 10/14 or 10/21. It seems most will do the make-up day on 10/14 which is only one of the best days to get married according to Chinese farmers' almanac/fortune tellers... So a lot of people are ANGRY because of the expense of throwing a wedding banquet ony to have many of yr guests unable to attend...

Why the Monday off so late in the game? Cynics say it's cuz the gov't wants to avoid the embarrassment of a rumored general strike possibly planned for Monday. In case yr out of the loop, Taiwan has been experiencing island-wide protests both pro- and anti- the president. Mostly anti-. It is strange, indeed. People wear the same t-shirts and caps and the leading anti-Chen organizer is a guy who'd spent years in prison under the KMT. So much for 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' theory of politics...

90% Boy

Doctor Lee may have said 99% - it hardly seemed scientific... But it does seem more than likely that baby 2/22 is a boy! And if so, we're sure he's all boy!

In the ultrasound, Dr. Lee checked the intestines, kidneys and as always the head circumference... Baby's hands and legs clearly recognizable and cute. Nice heartbeat. But when it came time to taking a picture, baby became camera shy, covering his face with his hands so I'm not posting it cuz it's sort of a visage only a mother could love... But you can check this one out.

We only had 2 good pics of Ivo-in-utero... I saved 'em. One is the standard fetus-looks-like-a-real-baby shot and the other shows his penis for the first time.

Speaking of Ivo - he's still sleeping. In our bed, where he spent the entire night. I don't know where, when or how we lost control like that. All he wants to do is sit his little bum right in front of my face, forcing me to watch Ice Age (again) -no reading allowed. When he senses Ryan and I are exhausted and not cheerful about being jumped on and around, he squats down, tilts his head horizontal and says "hiiii" with a little wave and huge smile. It's too much. Too cute. Totally disarming. It reifies the thesis that mammal babies are cute and round so that their elders cant' help but protect and love them - even when they need sleep!

Also I heard a show (Unconditional Love 9/15/06 Episode 317) on This American Life last week on kids with attachment disorder and how the theory of loving and cuddling kids had to be (re-)established in the 1950's cuz science thought physical closeness b/w parents and kids was enfeebling...

So we're very very excited about baby 2/22. We welcome names suggestions. We wanna give him 9, like Ivo (2 are family surnames - so already chosen). We've got a name we love, but as I said to my sister Nicky - I'm not ready to weather the onslaught of objections!

One more thing to say

on this Sunday night...

While washing all of our dishes for the 2nd time today (I don't get it either), I was thinking how even though babies don't come on their due dates, 2/22 is a really cool date to be due. And I thought how Ivo's date was really cool too - 1/1. And then it hit me how cool it is that Ivo's our 1st and his #'s were all 1's and this baby is our 2nd and his/her #'s are all 2's!

I thought to myself, if doing the dishes engenders this kind of breakthough brainstorming, I'm just gonna have to do them more often! I haven't even mentioned the movie storyboard flash I got during the first bout with dishes...

One one more thing, I saw the doctor on Friday and everything with bloodwork is great, I don't even have low iron like with Ivo - and the doctor says he's 90% sure the baby is a boy or a girl!!! Just kidding he's 90% sure it's one of those - but I'm not saying which til I check with Lawrences if they're ready to know...

Ivo after his first good sleep in he can't remember...

Here's Ivo Saturday night after a preliminary nap on his new bed!

Excuse us, but we're headed up to the comfort zone...

Ivo's bed is ready!!! He slept in it last night - from midnight all the way thru til 7:30 - when he came into our bed for a little booby and slept til 9.

Wow it was great - and continues to be great! Kevin showed up at our house at 8am yesterday (Saturday) and he and Ryan worked on the bed til noonish. Ivo and I went to Hola (now located in the Giant stor on Wen Xin and Chung Gang) to buy pillows and sheets. He picked out cows, a car, an elephant, some mao (cats) and dolphin sheets. A couple months ago Ivo was pointing at Ryan's pillows and said, "baba" then my pillows, "mama." I asked him where his pillows were. He looked around flatly, then rotated his wrists and said, "mei yo" (no have). It seemed a little sad to me so it's awesome seeing him jump around, play, love and sleep in his bed!!!!!!

Thank you Kayababa and Papa!

The Amazing Ivo

Tonight Ivo and Ryan went to a banquet thrown by Ryan's school for Teacher's Day which falls on Confucius' birthday. Ivo loved the banquet fare - stuffing himself on fish pastry and fish soup... At the end of the night, a coworker of Ryan's told him that after seeing him spend the evening with Ivo, she has decided she wants to have kids!

I don't know how to write that without making the joke that she was propositioning Ryan...who could blame her??? So, ok, there's the joke... Anyway, it wasn't smarmy at all, definitely whiskey-washed, but hearing that takes our breath away...gives us the best feeling chills. Good luck to all those engaged in Ivo-inspired breeding! We do know we got the best one ever!!!!

Ivo's gonna try quinoa!

Half the house is organized. The other half is not without hope, but let's just say, it's in process.

Ivo and Ryan are out for a(nother) walk, leaving me free to rest and read online papers. Neat story from NYTimes about intersex people, neat story in the NYObserver about memoirists, addiction and AA. Feeling great and relaxed and better get dinner going!!!!

Oh yea, quinoa has tons of calcium and all the amino acids a guy could want. Like almost everything great to eat (except ice cream) it's from the Andes. I hope Ivo likes it.

The pics of Ivo reflected were taken at one of my favorite dumpling places this week. The pics outside and with pebbles (dirtiest pebbles in the world) were taken on Soho Street, Taichung on 9/22. Dinosaur Ivo was taken in the morning of 9/22. We ate at Salut Pizza and Ivo ran around like he hadn't spent the whole day at the museum and park! Ivo's been working on his bottom incisors and it's painful - so he's been a little cranky/moody. He really wanted to be happy at the museum - but he just couldn't pull it off!

Ivo on a sunday morning

Ivo and Ryan went down to make coffee before me. This is what I found when I got downstairs, perfect contentment mixed with a bit of self-satisfatction!

Ryan and Ivo are out on the town - giving me time and space to clean, sort - hopefully pare down some stuff. The problem is - obviously, I'm sitting at the computer... THe other problem is that I really need to attack the bedroom while the boys are away but I already started on the living room/toy room... and now I feel overwhelmed in an ocean of half-sorted crap...

I'm tempted to leave the down stairs and go wreak havoc upstairs - then at least we'd have balance!