Craig had to wait until well after dinner time for his birthday cake because he waited until Craig's Dad came home from work. Craig didn't seem to mind though and was actually quite happy to hear that there would be cake.
Craig wasn't too sure what was going on when the candle on the cake was lit.
Craig's Mum tried to get Craig to blow out out the candle but he needed a tiny bit of assistance. He'll probably do better next year.
Craig did much better at helping to cut the cake but what he did really well was help eat the cake. And that's what the birthday boy is supposed to do, don't you think?
Craig's 3rd birthday was a big day at his kindergarten, Uncle Jason's American School, and Craig was invited to join the fun. All the main activities were to be held in the morning and Craig usually doeasn't arrive until 11:30am. So, Craig and his parents had to get up much earlier than usual so that they could arrive at the kindergarten at 9:00am.
Craig's hat gave Craig's Mum a lot of trouble but due to her hard work the hat stayed on the boy's head at all the crucial moments.
The first event was all the children taking turns to get up onstage and introduce themselves one by one. Halloween in Taiwan is a little bit different to the original US version. From the left in the picture below we have Mr. Skeleton, James Bond, Mr. Incredible and Mr. Cowboy.
Even the smallest kids at the kindergarten had a turn with the microphone.
Craig was in one of the last groups to get up.
He didn't appear to be nervous when he was onstage.
But when it came to his turn to speak, Craig refused to answer any questions. That's pretty normal for him.
The end of the show was some of the bigger kids who seemed to have a much better grasp of what was expected.
Some of their costumes were pretty spectacular as well.
Craig's costume won a Best Recycling award. The prize was a very cool toy car.
Everyone then gathered outside in the little front yard in preparation to go trick-or-treating.
Craig's Dad must have enjoyed himself too much while walking along with the crowd of parents and kids doing some very Taiwanese-style trick-or-treating. He forgot to take any pictures!!! The event was actually very well organized but sometimes that made the giving of the candy to the children a bit perfunctory.
Back at the kindergarten Craig was already hungry. It was getting on towards 11:30am and it had been a long time since breakfast. So, the candy started to disappear.
Then a photo was taken of Craig with the daughter of Craig's Mum's friend Jackie. He and his daughter are the people who introduced Craig's Mum to Uncle Jason's.
The last picture has a story attached to it. The teacher was playing a game of "Pin the Tail on the Donkey" with a picture of a cat and some magnetic tails. Any child that tried to pin the tail on while blindfolded would receive candy. Craig lined up several times but chickened out whenever it came to his turn. Then, he snuck around behind the teacher and put his hand into the bag of candy that can be seen next to the teacher's left shoulder in the picture. Craig's Mum pulled Craig away before he grabbed a freebie.
Eventually, Craig played the game, with some help from Craig's Dad, and was given candy by the teacher.
Craig has quite a few jigsaw puzzles that he likes to play with. On a recent rainy Thursday, his parents needed to keep him busy so that he wouldn't become too bored too quickly. He has had this puzzle for quite a while now and can do it it pretty quickly.
Craig also has a few smaller puzzles with four to six pieces. He can do them without too much trouble as well.
The most recent puzzle to be aded to Craig's collection is a bit bigger.
He often has trouble working out where the first few pieces should go.
But, he's a fast learner and Craig's Dad expects he'll be doing this one just as quickly as the others in no time at all.
It's coming into flu season here in Taipei and with Craig already a kindergarten student it was no surprise when he came home with a little cough after class one day. Craig's Mum bought two little masks for Craig to wear to kindy and Craig's Dad thought they looked so cute he had to take a picture.
Craig has been very good about wearing the mask. Sometimes it might slip down to expose his nose but not deliberately and he's always good about allowing an adult to pull it back up.
The drawing in the middel is a stylised version of a baby's milk bottle with the word "nei-nei" underneath, which is baby's milk in Chinese.
Saturday dawned with clear blue skies as far as the eye could see. It was the first such dawn for many weeks and it was the first time that Craig and Craig's Mum had seen the sun in Taipei's sky since their return from the US. Craig's Mum and Dad thought they should take advantage of the fine weather and get the bicycles out!
Maybe you can't tell in the first two pictures but Craig was so excited about going out that he was singing and laughing continuously for almost half an hour.
After riding for about 30 minutes to Neihu Sports Park, a picture was taken from the park's lookout with Songshan Airport in the background. Craig was still very happy and was still as energetic as possible when tied up in a child seat.
As soon as he got off the bike he began running around like a mad thing on the jungle gym. He really liked climbing up this corkscrew thingamajig.
Craig has become quite good at climbing on this type of thing. It must be because he gets taken to parks with jungle gyms all the time... well, he does when the weather permits.
Craig did his own version of circuit training by climbing up the corkscrew thingy and then sliding down a curly slide no less than 20 times. Craig's Dad's video only captured one or two laps.
There's no pictures of Craig having lunch at the usual windy spot outside of KFC in Dazhih. After lunch Craig was taken to another park with a jungle gym in a very quiet neighborhood. Craig's Mum and Dad were able to sit on a comfortable park bench and chat while Craig played happily, sometimes with other kids but mostly by himself. About an hour later Craig's Dad picked his big fat lazy bum up off the bench to take one picture before the journey home began.
About half way home Craig was given the opportunity to get out of the bicycle seat and ride a blue rocking duck. He really likes anything blue at the moment and rocking ducks are another favourite so it doesn't get much better than this.
After being back in Taipei for almost two weeks, Craig was invited downstairs to the second floor for a big family lunch. Craig was as popular as ever with Craig's Mum relatives.
After lunch, Craig came back upstairs to play with some of the other kids including Craig's Second Cousin Ying-chi who hasn't been on the blog for a long time.
Craig is becoming much better at using the little men on the fussball table to kick the ball. He still doesn't care much about teams and scoring goals, just kicking the ball is enough.
Craig's Cousin Soit-Jade was also there with Uncle Guapo, who was looking a little bit tired.
After playing for a couple of hours, Craig was obviously getting hungry so Craig's Mum provided custard puddings for Craig and Ying-chi. (The others had all left.)
Ying-chi had played a game where she would write as many English words as she could think of on the whiteboard in the front room where Craig's Mum teaches math. It turns out that Ying-chi's English name is Gigi. Craig's Dad didn't know that.
While playing with Gigi/Ying-chi, Craig decided that he wasn't wearing enough flotation.
There was also some fun and games where Craig chased Gigi around the house for quite a long time.
When the two of them finally sat down they both looked a bit tired.
Craig went back down to the second floor for dinner where the lunch leftovers were finished off. Craig's Aunty Jessie had balloons that made Craig's Dad and Craig's Mum go red in the face when they tried to blow them up. That made Aunty Jessie look pretty clever because she could blow up the balloons much easier.
Monday Sept. 5, 2009 was a big day in Craig's life. It was the very first day that Craig went to kindergarten. The first time he went to Uncle Jason's Day Care Center, Craig's parents were just having a look but Craig seemed to like the place so much that they left him there for the afternoon. 2009年9月5日對逵革來說是個大日子，是逵革第一天上幼稚園，逵革的爸媽帶他到傑生幼稚園去看看，沒想到逵革似乎很喜歡那裡，那天下午就留他下來試讀了。
However, just two days later Craig wasn't enjoying it so much. He'd played happily in this car on the first two days but on the third morning he didn't want his Dad to get too far away. 兩天之後逵革就不再享受上學了，逵革第一二天還很高興地開這輛車，但是第三天他就不想離開爹地太遠。
Uncle Jason's has a nice large yard in front where the kids could play if the weather had been nicer. It rained every day for Craig's first week but hopefully he will get the chance to take advantage of it in the near future. 傑生幼稚園有一個很大的前院，如果天氣好一點小朋友會在那兒玩，可惜逵革上學的第一個星期都在下雨，希望不久的將來逵革會有機會好好的玩。
Craig and his Mum arrived back in Taipei in the early morning of Aug. 25. Not after dropping their bags upstairs it was time for breakfast. And, what could be better for Craig than his favourite scrambled egg crepe and a big cup of soy bean milk. You can tell he was happy about being back..... well, Craig's Dad was happy.
Back at home, Craig had lots of fun with his Lego blocks. He didn't want to build anything, in fact, he mostly wanted to put them down Craig's Dad shirt. When he becamne bored with that he began putting the blocks down his own shirt!
Despite the fact that he has used the same bathtub since birth, Craig still likes this one.
On his second day back at home the weather was nice enough to go to the park where Craig played on his old favourite the blue rocking duck.
Craig also went for a long afternoon walk with Craig's Dad while Craig's Mum tried to take an afternoon nap.
On his third day back, Craig had lunch in the local cafe with his Mum and Dad.
And, he came out to meet Craig's Dad for lunch on one of those long days when Craig's Dad leaves home early and doesn't get home until late.
But the jet lag still meant that almost a week after returning home Craig and Craig's Mum were sleeping at odd hours. The good thing was that they could sleep together.
Time passed very quickly and soon the day for the postnatal care team to return to Taiwan. Their return trip involved a 9-hour wait at the airport in New York. So, they decided to take the subway to Time Square to have a look around. They took the Air Train and transferred to the subway down to 42nd Street. Craig's Uncle Amitha had prepared info on how to travel including ticketing. Unfortunately, after they bought three tickets, when it came time for Craig and Craig's Mum to pass through the ticket gate, maybe because the subway is tool old or Craig's Mum was just very unlucky, but no matter how it was swiped the ticket did not open the gate. In the end a subway employee had to open a gate to let them through.
When they arrived in the neighborhood of Time Square they found a coffee shop to sit and rest. Craig had some cake and bread because he might get too hungry and become cranky.
來到時代廣場當觀光客，當然要拍照留念。 Being a group of tourists that have come to Time Square, of course photos had to be taken to commemorate the occasion.
只是人來人往的人很多，都快要被人潮淹沒。 But the crowds were thick and the little group was almost buried underneath them.
摩根費里曼在街頭閑閑沒事做，逵革邀他入鏡。 Morgan Freeman was hanging around doing nothing so Craig allowed him to have a picture taken with the star of this blog.
結果回程坐地鐵時，逵革的媽咪搞錯了帶大家坐到最後一站才下車，結果出站發現不太對勁，問了 一些人才得到結果，他們應該提早一站下車，所以為了那一站他們還要再花相同的車錢再坐回去，還好沒有迷路，大家順利地搭飛機回到台灣，接著又要再把時差調整回來。 On the return trip, Craig's Mum made a small mistake and they didn't get off the subway until the terminal station. When they came out of the station they felt something was wrong and asked for directions and were told that they should have gotten off earlier. So they had to spend money on new tickets. But, they didn't get lost and made it to the airport in plenty of time to return to Taiwan where they had to begin getting used to the time difference again!
A rapidly aging person who spends some of his spare time blogging about his sons. I also spend a lot of time thinking about how to spend all the money I never win on Lotto.
Craig's Mum tried to get Craig to blow out out the candle but he needed a tiny bit of assistance. He'll probably do better next year.
Craig's hat gave Craig's Mum a lot of trouble but due to her hard work the hat stayed on the boy's head at all the crucial moments.
The first event was all the children taking turns to get up onstage and introduce themselves one by one. Halloween in Taiwan is a little bit different to the original US version. From the left in the picture below we have Mr. Skeleton, James Bond, Mr. Incredible and Mr. Cowboy.
Even the smallest kids at the kindergarten had a turn with the microphone.
Craig was in one of the last groups to get up.
He didn't appear to be nervous when he was onstage.
But when it came to his turn to speak, Craig refused to answer any questions. That's pretty normal for him.
Craig's costume won a Best Recycling award. The prize was a very cool toy car.
Everyone then gathered outside in the little front yard in preparation to go trick-or-treating.
Then a photo was taken of Craig with the daughter of Craig's Mum's friend Jackie. He and his daughter are the people who introduced Craig's Mum to Uncle Jason's.
The last picture has a story attached to it. The teacher was playing a game of "Pin the Tail on the Donkey" with a picture of a cat and some magnetic tails. Any child that tried to pin the tail on while blindfolded would receive candy. Craig lined up several times but chickened out whenever it came to his turn. Then, he snuck around behind the teacher and put his hand into the bag of candy that can be seen next to the teacher's left shoulder in the picture. Craig's Mum pulled Craig away before he grabbed a freebie.
Eventually, Craig played the game, with some help from Craig's Dad, and was given candy by the teacher.
Maybe you can't tell in the first two pictures but Craig was so excited about going out that he was singing and laughing continuously for almost half an hour.
As soon as he got off the bike he began running around like a mad thing on the jungle gym. He really liked climbing up this corkscrew thingamajig.
Craig has become quite good at climbing on this type of thing. It must be because he gets taken to parks with jungle gyms all the time... well, he does when the weather permits.
Craig did his own version of circuit training by climbing up the corkscrew thingy and then sliding down a curly slide no less than 20 times. Craig's Dad's video only captured one or two laps.
About half way home Craig was given the opportunity to get out of the bicycle seat and ride a blue rocking duck. He really likes anything blue at the moment and rocking ducks are another favourite so it doesn't get much better than this.
