Kindergarten Report Card

Craig received his first-ever report card last week! It is unbelievable how early these things start for kids these days. Seriously weird.

However, the good news is that Craig has been making progress in his English class. His teacher, a very nice woman called Amy, seems very well-organized whenever Craig's parents have seen her teaching. The only minor negative thing that gets mentioned here and in the little Parent-Teacher Communication Book is that Craig is quite shy sometimes.

The other major event in Craig's life is that he now has his own room. Craig has been very happy about this development. On the first night that Craig's Mum and Dad had moved their bed out of the room, Craig was too happy to stand still long enough for a good picture to be taken.


One good thing about having his own room is that Craig has his tent (once again, thanks to Uncle Dean and Aunty Suprana) in his room. Craig was very quick to pile all of his toys inside the tent and then close himself inside with them.


And, here is a short video of Craig coming home last Thursday night after dinner. It was raining outside so Craig was still wearing his raincoat. When he arrived downstairs Craig's Second-Cousin Ke-jhen was riding his bicycle around in circles in the tiny garage at his place. Craig jumped on for a quick ride before going upstairs.

Monday Morning at the Park

Monday was a holiday because of Tomb Sweeping Festival but Craig's Dad had to work in the afternoon.

So, Craig and Craig's Dad spent an hour or so at the park nearest home where the drunks and other odd people play. Thankfully, most of them stay away from the children and the jungle gym.

Although other kids came and went while Craig was there he spent virtually all of his time playing by himself.

Blue slides are still Craig's favourite places to play.

He was mostly happy to just hang around on the slide by himself until it was time to head back home for lunch.

Sunday Walkabout

Overcast, cool but mostly dry weather plus no relatives downstairs to play with on Sunday made it almost essential that Craig be taken outdoors. He went to the 4th floor playground at a local department store but, as usual, Craig preferred to stand around looking at a nearby fountain.

Once he started to play on the jungle gym he had a good time.

The mum on the left of this picture is looking a bit concerned because, a few seconds earlier, Craig was hugging her little boy very affectionately.

After being warned that hugging strangers is not the done thing Craig decided that playing on the slide would be safer. He has recently taken to sliding down slippery slides in any manner other than facing forward sitting on his bum .... that would be too boring.

Lying around on the slide was only briefly possible because more kids were arriving all the time.

When he climbed back into the little capsule thingy there was barely room to move. Taipei can be like that, especially on weekends.

Wet Saturday and Craig's Cousins

It was raining outside last Saturday but luckily Craig was able to go downstairs to the second floor flat at lunchtime to play with some relatives.

While the kids were playing in the middle room, Craig's Aunty Jessie (aka Yu-fang) began feeding Craig as well as her two girls.

Craig seemed to like that and ate more than the other two put together.

There was a good little group of kids that spent most of their time playing together happily.


The only minor scuffle was between Craig and his much larger though not older cousin over a basket that had wooden blocks in it. They were fighting for the right to bang the basket on the floor and make noise with with it.

After a stop had been put to the noise-making some great fun was had piling kids on top of each other in various places.

The game was heaps of fun for all involved but Craig's Dad thought it was pretty funny when Craig's Uncle Guapo tried to play and take photos at the same time. He's a very ambitious man.

At one stage Craig's Uncle Guapo tried to escape to another room to take a nap but the kids were having way too much fun to allow that to happen.

The kids really enjoyed this game and since it was raining outdoors there wasn't much else for them to do. It was about as much fun as they could possibily have had on a rainy Saturday.

Craig's Life Could Be Worse

Craig has become very fond of taking a large range of toys with him when he has a bath. Unfortunately, his cheapskate parents haven't bought a new bath for him for years so healready has trouble just lying down when he's in there by himself. Hopefully, one day he'll be lucky enough to be given a bigger bathtub so he can fit everything he wants into the tub.

Last Saturday, Craig had lunch at LA Cafe where he got lucky and occupied the one and only sofa in the place with Craig's Dad.

Craig's Mum seemed to enjoy sitting on the one and only single-seat sofa in the place and reading her newspaper in peace.

After lunch Craig was taken to a playground on top of a nearby department store. He's been there plenty of times before but it's lots of fun on the weekends when there's heaps of other kids running around. The atmosphere is more fun when there's other kids there.

Craig has started taking photos on his mobile phone and naturally one of the first games to play is take-a-picture-of-you-while-you-take-a-picture-of-me.



Late update:

Craig's Dad has just looked on Craig's phone and found this picture! Pretty good for a boy who looked like he was just playing with the camera and not looking at the screen on the back.



Second Late Update:
Craig's Dad looked on Craig's Mum's phone and found three more pictures that were taken that day.

Craig normally doesn't like these little drive around animals. He's seen them a million times before but never wanted to get on and ride around. Surprisingly, on this day he did and he even attempted to steer by himself but needed a bit of help when objects like walls jumped out in the way.

Visit to Dahu Park

Craig's Dad has been a bit lazy about getting his camera out and taking pictures of his golden boy lately. Luckily, last Saturday Craig made a trip to Dahu Park and his parents (Craig's Mum actually) remembered that there is a sandpit for Craig to play in there. Although Craig usually likes digging in the sand, on this occasion he only stayed there for about 10 minutes.

The other thing Craig's parents thought Craig might like was to kick a ball. Although the temperature was over 30 degrees Celsius, Craig stuck at that much longer. Sometimes he didn't chase the ball very hard but that was understandable. It was hot.

Most of the time he seemed to be having fun.

He doesn't have the chance to run around grass very often.

Craig's Mum took a couple of videos of the action.






Craig had sweated a lot while playing. When he went to lunch and took his cap off his hair was a little the worse for wear.

After lunch it was still so hot that Craig's Mum and Dad needed another sit-down in air-conditioned comfort. So, they found a coffee shop and Craig helped eat a waffle. He probably had about two-thirds while his parents shared the rest. His appettite is pretty good when he's being fed stuff he likes.

Craig's Dad was pretty happy about being out of the sun. While he was sitting very still Craig took advantage and found a soft place to sit. This is the good life when you're three.

Photos of Craig at Kindy

Craig's parents already knew that Craig likes going to kindergarten but they didn't have a very clear idea why.

He's never protested about being woken up in the morning if Craig's Dad quickly says, "It's time to go play with the other kids," which is Craig's Dad's way of saying it's time to go to kindy.

So, the other day, Craig's kindergarten teacher asked if Craig's parents could supply a USB memory stick. They were very pleasantly surprised when it came back with more than 150 photos of Craig doing lots of different stuff with his classmates. The photos have been uploaded to Photobucket here.

He's been busier than his parents thought. There's a lot of pics of Craig doing P.E. with his classmates where it looks like he had fun, and that can't be a bad thing.

Volare!

Last Saturday was a pretty boring ordinary day until late in the afternoon Craig began dancing on the sofa and attempting to sing along with the Gypsy Kings.

He was a bit tired and he can sometimes become very excited, very quickly when he's tired. But the reults can be pretty entertaining. Enjoy.

CNY 2010: The End

The morning of Craig's last day in Kaohsiung dawned brightly. It was the first he had seen of the sun for quite a few days.

As soon as he'd finished breakfast Craig was taken to the nearest park so he could finally have some fun. Blue rocking ducks are ubiquitous in Taiwan. Fortunately, Craig likes them a lot.

Craig didn't really need a rest when he came to sit with Mum and Dad. He just likes to keep them close.

Right across the street from the hotel, with a lovely view of the Love River was an eatery with a great name.

After lunch, Craig's Dad was permitted to go back to the tower and spend another NT$200 (NT$100 per adult, Craig was free) to back up to the 74th floor observation deck.

The little black line in the photo below encircles the top of the hotel that Craig stayed in as viewed from the 85 Tower.

Craig had heaps of fun running around the observation deck but after a while his parents thought he might have more fun at a park. A short walk took them to a park with a jungle gym that they had spotted from the tower.

You could see the tower clearly from the park.

Craig had plenty of fun on another jungle gym in a nearby school that was meant for bigger kids.

The level of difficulty was high so for the first few runs through Craig's Mum stayed very close.

Craig played on this little obstacle course for at least half an hour.

After he had climbed and crawled his way through a few times Craig's Mum was able to rest at the side while Craig played by himself.

Dinner that night was had on the rooftop of the eatery called Auntie Anne's!!! There was pizza, French beer and sushi.

All in a relaxing riverside atmosphere. It was a shame that they had to leave to catch an 8pm train back to Taipei.