Welcome to Arnoburgh!
 

June 13, 2010    Arno finished another term at Westside Music School.  September was a challenging transition to a new class with other kids who were all at least two years older than him, but he practiced diligently all year and wound up making us proud.  He participated in a performance program called "Festival" this spring, and earned the highest rating.  The extra practice and stress associated with that, though, left him a bit worn out, so for his Spring recital he took it easy and just played a favorite song, The Lion Sleeps Tonight.  This summer, we'll ease off on the piano a bit.

Arno is going to take a skateboarding class at THPRD.  We have the skateboard and the protective gear, and we've been watching instructional DVDs from the library, and started trying out the basics in the garage.  Those first actual steps on a skateboard are somewhat unnerving.

Arno and I usually read together for twenty minutes or so at night.  We fell into a loose agreement that either he will read his choice to me, or I will read my choice to him.  Usually he prefers to read his choice to me.  But the past few days, he has opted to listen to The Odyssey. It took a few chapters to draw him in, but the story has taken hold.  I read to him from the linked version by Geraldine McCaughrean - she brings the personal drama to life most effectively for someone like Arno.  Then we look at Alan Lee's illustrations in The Wanderings of Odysseus: The Story of the Odyssey, and look up whatever gods and goddesses have come into the story in The Gods and Goddesses of Olympus.

May 11, 2010    Today

Kipper is a big favorite now. We like the smooth, jazzy music and the sweet, gentle tone and the stories of friendship and play.

Arno is sometimes drawn to books intended for children younger than himself, too. Frequently he picks something from the board books area of the library, especially (but not only) Spot books. However, once we get these board books home, they don't compete well with the more developed stories.

Our neighborhood Bethany library has a little “find Spot” hide and seek game going on, modeled after the book Where's Spot?.  Arno loves to find where Spot is hiding this time, and get a stamp on his hand when he has succeeded.

Nov 3  In the weeks leading up to Halloween, it looked like Arno wasn't going to participate.  We looked at costumes and pictures of costumes, and he rejected them all.  He didn't even want to be Buzz Lightyear.  I was a little surprised, and I wondered if he would change his mind on Halloween night, when it was too late, but I was also happy to see him make his own decision about this optional social custom.

Then, a few days before Halloween, he started wearing the Mickey Mouse hat that his Aunt Linda and Uncle Roger had given him when we were all at Disney World last year.  (He had refused to wear it then.)  Bettina saw an opening, and assembled a matching suit out of black and red clothes in the closet.  Voila, litte Mickey.

My employer, Kronos, put on an afternoon Halloween celebration for kids, and Bettina brought Arno.  After trick-or-treating garnered him about five pieces of candy, he said, "I have a lot of candy now.  Let's go home."  But we urged him onward - I wanted to let more of my friends at work see him - and he got into the routine, though still saying "let's go home" now and then.  He got a nifty orange noise-making stick as well as lots of candy (which would get recycled out to other trick-or-treaters that night).  However, he would not enter the Haunted Hallway (which was pretty spooky for a little kid, so I think he made the right decision there), and he didn't want to go into the open party area, where music was playing and costumed adults were trying to entice him in.  All in all, a good time.

At dinner time, he got his costume wet, so Bettina decided he didn't need to go trick-or-treating in the neighborhood, in the cold and dark.  He loved seeing the kids who came to our door, and he wanted to show them all his noisy stick and his bouncy ball.  At first, he tried showing them after they got their candy, but usually they were not interested in hanging around to watch.  So Bettina had the brilliant idea of switching the order of events.  First they had to watch Arno's tricks, then they got the candy treats.  That worked like a charm.  One time, Arno urged a group of children to come in and play with him.  Later, he said he wanted to go trick or treating, but acquiesced readily when we said he'd already done that at my office.


Oct 28 Arno finished Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons today.  By way of celebration, I gave him a Mega Bloks Mack & McQueen. He had been looking forward to this for a few weeks.  The intro to the 100 Lessons book says it takes the learner to second grade reading level, but I'd say Arno isn't really at that level, because his language isn't developed to the level of a second grader.  Bettina recommends we start over and do the book again, to build confidence and consolidate the skills.  We'll take a break for a while and just read stories.  Then, maybe at some point, we'll go back to, say, Lesson 50 and read through the second half of the book again.

Oct 27  Arno changed preschools again.  The YMCA day care moved Miss Michelle over to the Kindergarten class.  No doubt, they really needed her there, but that meant that Arno had lost both of the highly talented teachers who had drawn us to the YMCA to begin with.  We started to wonder if Arno, who will be five years old in February, could just transfer to Michelle's class. 

Aug 10  preschool note: "On the playground, Arno was drawing with the chalk.  He was telling me that he was making a stop sign and pink flamingos.  We are still working on the pushing to the front of the line, but handling it better when we ask him to stop."  - Karen.

Arno's YMCA preschool had a family potluck today.  Karen told me that Arno has impressive skills in verbally communicating how he feels.  "I am angry!"  "I am very sad!"  This is unusual in a four year old boy.


Aug 9  preschool note:  "Arno was given the task of not pushing ahead with Sam and if Ms. Michelle had to ask him to stop, he was sent to the back of the line.  He didn't like it, but on the way back he didn't push or want to 'win'!"  - Karen.

I asked Arno about this.  "Why did the teacher make you go to the back of the line?"  "Because she said I have to be the caboose."  That certainly broke the momentum, as I had to laugh for a while.  Apparently, he is applying his Golden Book story, The Little Red Caboose, who was sorry he always had to be the last car on the train.  We have been using the story from Cars (Widescreen Edition) to reinforce the effort.  "Chick Hicks always bumps other cars to get ahead.  Don't be like Chick Hicks.  Nobody likes Chick Hicks."


Aug 7  preschool note:  "Arno has become so comfortable!  He is full of smiles and he is expanding his friendship circle.  Although he still prefers Lele he plays with others too!  Yeah!! :-)  - Michelle

and a note from Karen:  "Arno had a good morning until the walk back from the field trip.  He kept pushing his friends to get ahead of Ms. Michelle.  He eventually was sent to the back of the line.  Arno wanted to 'win.'"

Aug 6  We're in the midst of that four-year-old phase where a child moves playfully - it's not enough to walk purposefully; there are many other body parts, like arms and head, that can get creative along the way.  Arno is carefully and correctly constructing more complex sentences with subordinate clauses.  ("I asked Daddy to bring the Island of Sodor train track box to me, so I can play Island of Sodor.")  He is persistent and urgent when he wants something.  He's gotten interested in dogs, boats, and water.  More than ever, he likes to hear or watch a story over and over again, and explicitly identifies himself with a character, and usually assigns roles to his parents, too.  This weekend, at the library, he picked out Baby Duck's New Friend. In two days, he's had us read it to him at least a dozen times, and he's acted it out just as often, with and without us, with and without props.

preschool note:  "Arno said he loves mac and cheese when I put it on his plate and started eating it right away.  He didn't eat much, but definitely a start!"  --Karen


Aug 3 preschool note:  "Arno was a huge fan of Hungry Hungry Hippos . He played with Victor for most of the morning.  He even was able to play two hippos at the same time!  Arno showed great sharing and sportsmanship."  --Karen

Aug 2 preschool note:  "Arno had his groove on today when he sang 'Yellow Submarine' to the group when he showed us his submarine.  He also boogied down when the "Little Mermaid" soundtrack.  He is really breaking out of his shell."  -KMR


Aug 1  preschool note: "Arno had a lot of fun playing outside during water play!  He didn't get too wet but still had fun!"  -Ms. Jennifer


Jul 31  preschool note:  "Arno had a great day, but had a hard time keeping his body to himself.  He hit a few children and even pushed another child not with the YMCA on the field trip.  We talked about not being okay to hurt our friends."


Jul 30  preschool note: "Arno had a great day bark playing with Susand and Lele.  They did so much imagination play pretending to be animals and doing things in the home area."  -KMR


Jul 18  preschool note: "During circle time, Arno taught us a new song, the 'Rain, Rain, Go Away' song.  He even got up in front of the group to sing it again.  It is something great to add all of our friends' names." -KMR


Jul 17  preschool note:  "Arno was talkative during group time!  I missed yesterday when he constantly raised his hand and had lots to say.  He has been telling me to listen to his words, which is something we are trying to get him to do and tell him that when his friends ask him to stop."


Jul 16 preschool note: "Today during circle time Arno did a wonderful job raising his hand and told us a very good story abut going to the park with his dad and playing on the slides.  He talked a lot! :)  At lunch Michelle was trying to encourage him to eat and try his food and he said, 'I will wait til Mom gets here!'" - Ms. Jamie


Jul 11 preschool note: "Arno had a good day.  When I asked him not to spray other people without a spray bottle and he said, 'Don't be silly.'  I am not sure how to take that.  He is slowly coming into his own." -KMR


Jun 17  Arno started started off the day wishing me a happy Father's Day and handing me a card with a picture of a lawn mower and a sound chip that delivers an impressive lawn mower engine sound when you open it.  We had a good laugh over that. 

After our usual Sunday pancake breakfast (chocolate chips in Arno's, of course), we went to Learning Palace and got lower case refrigerator magnets, a pre-K workbook, a smock, and some paints.  Arno was having so much fun with the trains and trucks on display, he couldn't get over being made to leave until we got home.  (He kept quiet, because he knew I'd change the CD in the car from his choice to my choice, if he fussed audibly.) 

After lunch, we went to REI, where I hoped to persuade a skeptical wife and son that a trailer bike was a good idea.  I wanted to be able to go for a bike ride, get exercise, with Arno's active participation.  But they were right; Arno is not ready for that.  So we looked at the bicycles there.  Arno was immediately drawn to a 12 inch blue tricycle, which was the right size for him, but I was reluctant to get him a tricycle rather than a bicycle.  He was unwilling to try out any of the bicycles, until we showed him that the red bicycle had a bell on the handlebars, and bees painted on the frame.  But this 16 inch bike was too big for him, and the only 12 inch bikes there were pink and white structures he wouldn't touch.  I almost held out for shopping around at other places, but chances were Arno would remain attached to his first choice anyway, so the blue pony came home with us, and the planned "walk in the wild woods" was postponed so Arno could immediately enjoy his new wheels.

When Bettina and Arno returned from trike riding at Jacob Wismer Elementary, she handed him off to me for our much anticipated hike on Wildwood Trail in Forest Park.  This was Arno's second time there, and he had a foreseeable agenda - see a stream, and sit on a log.  We had just a little bit of a stream, thanks to some rains this past week - enough to toss rocks in and get splashes.  Oh, that was funny!  Hikers heard us laughing far down the trail.  Arno was also happy to meet several dogs.  Of one couple, he asked, "where did they come from?  Where are they going?"  He got to feed one puppy a bone-shaped dog biscuit.  He was eager to see them, but not to touch them.  Sitting on the log at the parking area was an occasion to pretend we were riding a train, just as Little Bear and Owl pretended that their log was a boat.

It was a big day.  We were all tired and grumpy at the end of it.


Jun 9 Arno's reading lessons are starting to shift out of the textbook.  This week he worked on The Cat in the Hat a couple nights.  I gave him as little help as possible for the first fifteen pages, and then read the rest of the book to him.  We watched the movie with Mike Meyers last night, but didn't care for it much.  Too raucous.  Well, it's kind of a raucous story, isn't it?  But still, as an evening movie experience, it felt too frenetic and nervous.  We would have liked to be soothed, I think.

He got a big kick out of Big Truck And Little Truck .  Sometimes he asks me to join him in acting out scenes from the story; sometimes he asks me to read it, but to substitute "Daddy" and "Arno" for the main characters.

One of his two teachers at YMCA, Miss Valerie, is moving on to other things.  We're sorry to see her go - she's a vibrant, passionate, early childhood professional, who did a lot for Arno in just a few weeks.  Arno made her a card.

We sold the Burley Bee bicycle trailer via Craigslist yesterday.  Arno wasn't really ready to part with it, even though he rarely asked to ride in it.  But he handled it pretty well.  "I will miss my trailer," he said.  The whole family came to try it out.  Two little girls got in side by side, and came back with big smiles on their faces.  I'd like to get a trailer bike (it's like a bicycle that doesn't have a front wheel, but instead, attaches to the back of an adult bike), but apparently, Bettina got injured pretty badly on one when she was small, so she doesn't trust them.  Arno himself has shown no interest in riding any kind of bicycle for the past year.


May 26 Arno's had four weeks at YMCA Child Care.  During this time, he's blossomed rapidly.  His speaking vocabulary is more varied and colorful; he moves more energetically and playfully; all around, he is happier, even at home.  He is more expressive and assertive in his Saturday music classes.


Apr 29  The three of us went for a walk on Wildwood Trail in Forest Park today.  This was our first walk in the woods that didn't feel like Daddy was dragging along a reluctant family. 

Apr 22  Arno will change schools on May 1.  Many incidents at his present school added up to a picture of teachers who don't care very much about the children.  What's more, Arno, who used to be happy to go to this school, has been showing some resistance recently.  From what we could see, he was generally not participating in any of the activities, and the teachers were doing nothing to draw him in.  There was also the matter of having the children play outside first thing in the morning, even when the weather was questionable.  Bettina found Arno out there once, with his jacket on wrong, each arm in the wrong sleeve, so his back was unprotected.  The teachers hadn't even noticed.  They didn't appear to notice, either, when one child was mean to another and made the second one cry.

My teammate at work told me about the local YMCA Child Care.  Bettina visited it and found very warm, engaged teachers and happy children.  She took Arno there the next day, and he loved it.  He wanted to change schools right away.

We've encountered several different adaptations of Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows and the characters have just entered into Arno's role-playing fantasies.  Normally he is a jeep, or an airplane, or an automobile, but today he announced that he was Toad and I was Mole.

Apr 8  Easter was, like last year, mainly about eggs.  Dying them was great fun.  Finding them hidden around the living room was great fun.  Peeling them was great fun.  Arno also like the card he got from his Grandma.  This is the first card he's paid much attention to.  He kept track of it for a few days.

Mar 17  We're doing about six reading lessons a week.  The practice is reshaping the father-son relationship, not without some pain.  I do think Arno is old enough to participate seriously in daily fifteen-minute tutorials, but it's a bit of a discipline for him.  He enjoyed the first few lessons, when I allowed him to be goofy and scattered, but when I started to require focus and straight answers from beginning to end (ten minutes), he decided he didn't want to do it any more.  But that isn't an option.  He was mad at me for a couple days.  Since then, he became more forgiving, but he still protests before we begin each lesson.

So far as acquiring the reading skills goes, he does quite well.  Skills encountered so far include:

• the primary one of interpreting a letter as a sound
• going back and forth between a series of slowly enunciated sounds and a normal-paced word
• reading a sequence of letters from left to right as an uninterrupted series of sounds, then as a word
  
• not pronouncing silent letters
• reading a series of words from left to right
• using single letters as initial sounds in rhyming words

Mar 6  Arno lost his second tooth Saturday (Mar 3).  He cried over this one, too, but he's been enjoying the shiny quarter the tooth fairy brought him.

Saturday, we visited a pond near my office.  Two Canadian geese swam up close, as if they thought we might feed them.  Arno got to see them eat grass, drink water, and even walk around on the bank a bit.  We also watched a pair of ducks fly past.  The pond visit was Arno's favorite activity of the day, winning out over my office, the library, and the grocery store.

Sunday, we drove up the Columbia Gorge a ways, took a very short walk in the forest, and had lunch at Char-Burger, in a booth overlooking the Columbia River.  While pouring ketchup on fries, we watched freight trains go by on both sides of the river and cars go across the "Bridge of the Gods".   That night, Arno seized the just-empty bubble bath bottle and declared it a "ketchup bottle", and put imaginary ketchup on everything in sight.  At bed time, I quizzed him about all the day's activities, and he said that eating at the restaurant was his favorite.  I assumed it was the river, the bridge, and the trains that he liked so much.  But maybe it was the ketchup.  (Not eating it, mind you - he hasn't been willing to taste it.)

Feb 25   Well, Arno is four, and it seems to be common nowadays for children to start learning to read around this age.  Far be it from us to hold him back!  So I'm setting out to teach Arno to read.  I hope that the work will also build his mastery of speaking the language.  I'm using Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, which is very cookie-cutter, say these words and require these responses, do not deviate from the plan. Each lesson takes about fifteen minutes. We did lesson one today. Arno learned to read the sounds "m" and "s", and to say words fast and slow. He thought the fast and slow stuff was pretty funny. The part I feel most unsure of is getting him to follow directions for fifteen minutes. Well, it wasn't perfect on that score today, but it went pretty well. I think he was curious about what I was up to.

Feb 24  Arno and Bettina came home from Taiwan last night.  It sure is good to see them again!  He has been happily reaquainting himself with all his toys.  The story he picked out for bedtime was The Paperboy by Dav Pilkey.

He has come back more confident, and more competent in many skills, including speaking English.  His speaking vocabulary is bigger, and his enunciation is clearer.  It's been really good for him to play with his cousins for the past month. 

Bettina brought back a CD full of photos and even a few video clips, so I'll be getting some of those up soon.

Feb 17  Today is Arno's birthday.  He's four years old.  Today is also Chinese New Year, the beginning of a Year of the Pig.  Since today is crowded with holiday festivities, Bettina's family celebrated Arno's birthday earlier this week, one afternoon when all the children were together.  They sang "Happy Birthday" to him in English and Mandarin, and he blew out the candles on a chocolate birthday cake.  I would have liked to have seen all that!  They'll be home the night of the 23rd.

Jan 30  Bettina and Arno are in Taiwan for a month.  Bettina writes:

Yesterday was another exciting day for Arno.  As usual after breakfast, Arno said "I want to go to Ama's house" (meaning Ya-Chuan's apartment).  So, Arno, Katie and I walked to Ya-Chuan's apartment.  He played with the toy cars Kai-Kai and Ya-Chuan gave him.  Then Kai-Kai and Ting-Ting came back from winter camp. There was another wave of excitment, of course.

Katie went to the computer and played a computer game.  Soon, Kai-Kai joined in and Arno followed.  Arno did not want to play but he watched with interest.  He insisted that Kai-Kai played with the car race game again and again.  He told Kai-Kai, " I want car race," in Mandarin.  My Mom laughs whenever she heard Arno say something in Mandarin.  That's the way she encourages Arno to speak Mandarin.

After lunch, I took all the kids to the elementary school.  They kicked the ball; threw the ball to the basketball hoop; played slide; clmbed up to the play structure and ran in the field.  Katie was a good runner.  Arno followed Katie to run around the field.  That was a lot of exercise for Arno.  On our way home, we needed to walk through an overpass.  Arno looked exhausted but he managed to walk the stairs up to the overpass.  Ting-Ting and Kai-Kai stayed in Ya-Chuan's apartment and waited for Nu-Nu to take them home after her work.  Arno still has jet lag, so I took Arno and Katie back to Ya-Ren's home; gave him a bath and a bottle of milk; brushed his teeth, and he took a nap soundly.

In the evening we went with Little One Zero and Mei Huei (Mary) to music class.  Ya-Ren drove and dropped us to the class.  With the teacher's agreement, Arno and I were allowed to sit in the back, watching.  There were only three kids in the class.  Mary told me in the beginning there were twelve kids.  It's near the end of the term.  Many kids dropped because they couldn't catch up.

The kids were taught to read the notes and played piano.  They used both hands to play.  The teacher wanted them to memorize the notes for each song.  Besides playing the piano, the teacher also taught them to sing and dance.  Arno jumped in to dance with them.  The teacher was ok with that.  They are going to have an examination soon.  Those who pass the exam are allowed to move on to the next level.  Little One Zero was very active in the class.  When the teacher asked questions to the class, she was always the first one responding to the teacher.  She outperformed the other two kids not only in playing the piano but also in dancing and singing.  Mary told me that Little One Zero would practice the piano everyday at home without being asked.  I hope Arno can do that, too.

Later at night, Ya-Chuan came back from work.  He came to Ya-Ren's home to play with Arno.  Ya-Chuan has been very busy working in both Hsin-Chu and Taichung (which is one hour drive from Hsin-Chu).   He is assigned to the new fab in Taichung.  He will need to officially move to Taichung after Sasha delivers the baby.  Well, Ya-Chuan played hard with Arno and tried all his best to get a kiss from Arno.  But no success yet.

Jan 15, 2007  Today, we were all caught off guard when Arno lost his first tooth.  Even though his first teeth were early risers, and the dentist had commented at Arno's checkup last month that the tooth was slightly loose, it didn't occur to us that we were near that time.  But a quick call to the dentist provided reassurance.  Arno cried for a few minutes and said he had to see the dentist, but his fear simmered down to solemnity after a while.  Fortunately, we'd read The Berenstain Bears Visit the Dentist, which explains the famous rite of passage, including even the tooth fairy's exchange.

Jan 14, 2007  Arnologisms today:
1. Watching me make coffee, seeing it vibrate as the steamer operates - "the coffee is jumping."
2.  We looked at some of his baby pictures online, for the first time in a long while.  Later in the day, he studied his face in the mirror and said, "there's a baby in my face."

Nov 28, 2006   We had a light snow yesterday.  Arno has seen snow out the window before, but this was his first time to be out in it.  Bettina went to pick him up from school, and found him happily playing outside, wearing someone else's coat.  The teacher explained that Arno had insisted on wearing the red coat (which apparently belongs to some child who wasn't there).  We had just replaced the red coat he'd outgrown with a new brown one.  I doubt he was confused - I think he just liked the red one better.  It generally takes him about a week to accept a new article of clothing.

We went to see "Happy Feet" in the theater on Sunday.  Arno was in and out a few times while the movie played (fortunately, we were well seated for that), and found some parts scary, but generally enjoyed it.

Ya know how some book series will put pictures of each title in the series on the back of each book?  Arno has noticed this, and gets a kick out of it.  Last Saturday, this marketing technique led us to borrowing a couple Berenstain Bears books from the library.

Nov 19, 2006  Last month, we visited friends in Bellevue.  One of the hosts was three year old Maya.  Maya subsequently dictated a letter to be sent to Arno.  It goes: 

Dear Arno,
You're my friend.  I like you, Arno.  I love you, Arno.  I'll hug you, Arno.
from
Maya

So tonight, Arno composed a response.

Dear Maya,
Let's go to Maya's house.  I get Thomas and airplane.  We play Thomas and play Legos.  I like to run, run, run with Maya.  I like the letter from Maya.
From
ARNO
P.S. Let's go to Maya's house.  Ready, set, start.

Nov 1, 2006  I didn't think Arno would go trick-or-treating this year.  He's been quite the naysayer, refusing to wear things, eat things, participate in things.  We'd found a firefighter's helmet at Goodwill, which he refused to try on, never mind his love of fire trucks.  Galoshes and reflective tape on his raincoat were to complete the costume, but he refused to try on galoshes at Fred Meyer (a local department store), so I didn't bother getting the reflective tape, figuring the whole venture just wasn't going to fly.  But yesterday, he told Bettina he wanted to go trick-or-treating, and yes, he would wear his firefighter's helmet.  I guess he remembered the ritual from last year.  So Arno and I bundled up for the cold wind, and we visited the immediate neighbors, and up and down the street a little bit.  When we got back, Arno continued rehearsing the sequence with me:

while (true) {
  Arno:  Ding dong!
  Me:    Hello!
  Arno:  Trick or treat!
  Me:    Here you go!
  Arno:  Thank you!
  Me:    Bye bye!
}

We also pretended to eat the candy.  (Arno likes to play with the candy, but he doesn't want to eat it.)

Oct 14, 2006  Mega Bloks and Legos (both standard and Duplos) have become a major element of Arno's play.  He's absorbed the idea of building just about anything out of these bricks, and doesn't mind a very abstract representation.  This morning, a single red brick was a fire hydrant.  Mostly he wants me to build for him, and he will repair the structures if they come apart while I'm at work.  But sometimes he participates in the assembly.  He tends to be conservative about a toy once it's been built - he loudly protests any attempts at improvement.

Arno is becoming more socialized.  He enjoys preschool a lot, and after a play date with Wei Wei last week, he's been asking to go play with him again.  Last night, people came to buy his crib.  When the doorbell rang, Arno sprinted to the door and had it opened for them before I'd even gotten out of my chair.

Last week, we went to a Pumpkin Patch in North Plains.  They had a nice little train for us to ride.  It was a short ride, and the one at the zoo is a better deal.  Arno wasn't satisfied with what the first set of tickets got us, but we didn't want to buy more tickets just for that short ride.  But we got back to the car without anyone making a scene, thanks to methods we learned from Love and Logic.

Oct 7, 2006  See pictures newly (if belatedly) posted, from my mother's visit last month.

We've put Arno in another Montessori preschool, Northwest Montessori.  We liked Teacher Alix at Angels Montessori very much, but the untrained owner of this fledgeling school was a bit too personally involved in classroom tactics.  We had a bit of a rough start at NW - Arno peed in his pants twice on the first day.  But the second and third days went very well.

Some recent reading hits: 

• Gotta Go! Gotta Go! by Sam Swope and Sue Riddle.  No, this book is about a caterpillar who must go to Mexico.
• Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss.
• The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg.
• The Three Little Pigs, retold and illustrated by James Marshall.
• A Boy, a Dog, and a Frog by Mercer Mayer.
• Suddenly! by Colin McNaughton.  (We borrowed a bilingual English-Chinese edition.)
  

Sep 29, 2006  Arno had another victory in managing his waste removal processes, and told Bettina, "let's call Daddy."  But once on the phone, he wanted to talk about other things.  OK.

Later in the day, he was engaging Bettina in his new game, in which everybody sits on the sofa and pretends it's a car, then gets off and goes to a chair and pretends it's a train.  Then back to the car.  Iterate.  Well, Arno and Bettina had this dialogue:

B: Who is driving the car?
A: Arno is driving the car.
B: You are too little to drive.  You have to grow up to be big like Daddy to drive a car.
A: Mama is little!

Sep 24, 2006  This was breakthrough weekend in, er, pooping.  For the first time, and twice in a row, Arno alerted us in time to get him on the potty and keep his underwear clean.  Hooray!

In other important developments, we are learning and adopting "Love and Logic" parenting methods.  My friend Steve Sullivan in Colorado recommended them, and I found a book, Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood: Practical Parenting from Birth to Six Years, by Jim Fay and Charles Fay, in the library.  We're seeing some difference already.  We hope to bring a more pliant, willing and adaptable child with us to Disney World in November.

Sep 22, 2006  The other night, Arno saw the tub of Legos we'd given him for his birthday last February.  At the time, he didn't want to do much more with them than toss them around, so I'd put it up in a closet.  Arno wanted to give them another try.  That turned out to mean, "Daddy, make a train."  And a boat, and a tunnel for the boat.  The boat became Stuart Little's boat, and the train became Dumbo's Casey, Jr.  He was really charged up about these Legos.  The next day, when Bettina called me at work, he wanted to talk to me, too.  He told me he'd fixed the Lego train, and he recited out home phone number.  I got a charge out of that.

July 4, 2006  This evening we went out to watch the neighbors light fireworks in the street in front of our house.  Arno was curious but also wary, and hid behind his parents when the fireworks got loud.  But as the evening progressed, he got happy and excited, squealing, laughing, and jumping up and down.  He wanted to hold a sparkler, but he didn't want it lit.

June 22, 2006  Bettina writes:

Arno loves reading.  The library has a summer reading program called "Paws, Claws, Scales and Tales".  I signed him up for this program.  They gave  Arno a checklist where there were little dogs and cats.   Each time Arno finishes a book, he'll color a dog (or cat).   When the colored dogs (or cats) reach a certain quantity, they give Arno stickers, pencil.   After he finishes coloring all the animals, they'll give him a book (which will happen soon).   We read books in English as well as in Mandarin for him.   He has excellent memory!  He memorizes most of what we read to him and he likes to repeat them.   It's always very pleasant to see Arno turn pages of books and "read" (rehearse) the book, when I am busy cooking and can't play with him.

Our little boy has become more and more decisive about what he wants to wear.  Sometimes, he'll specify which shirt he wants.  The race car --- Lighting McQueen" is his new favorite toy.   Bert bought the book --- Cars, to read to him.   And he even took Arno to the movie theater to watch "Cars" for the second time on Father's Day.   Arno has been repeating the dialogue in the movie ever since. 

June 1 2006  Miss Alix:

Hello Arno!  Today Arno enjoyed his vehicle and flight puzzles, observed an older child writing his vowels and name in print and cursive, repeated the group chorus of vowel pronunciation,

a = apple, alligator
e = elephant, elevator
i = igloo, itch
o = octopus, octagon
u = under, underwear

Arno was wonderful with going to the bathroom in the toilet twice today!  Good job Arno!

Summer ideas:
colors and numbers
sorting and sequence

rainbow song:
"red, orange, yellow and green, blue and indigo and violet.  I can make a rainbow, and arc-ciel and a Kesmet."

Continue with pouring, spooning, patterns, and opposities.  Work with snapping, zipper, buttoning

May 31, 2006  Arno had a couple weeks at home, due to a fever.  Today he went back to Angels Montessori.  Here are Miss Alix's notes:

Welcome back Arno!  Your smile is always great to see! =)  Today, Arno worked on building the pink tower, animal, plane and train puzzles.  For the vehicle puzzle I'd ask him, "where's the police car / fire truck etc ..." and he could always say and identify the correct one.  Arno enjoyed coloring the shapes page I made for him.  he does very well with following instructions i.e. :  lining up for bathroom time, using walking feet putting away work.  In fact, Arno is a great helper!  He even puts away mats and pushes in chairs that aren't his!  Thanks for the wonderful clean-up Arno!  Arno did throw the pink tower pieces (he wanted them to roll), a child reminded him to not do that.  He said, "ok." and then stacked the tower back up.  Arno enjoyed watching another child work on spooining beads and the second level of separating the beads by color too.

May 14, 2006  Arno said "Happy Mother's Day!"

May 12, 2006  Miss Alix was not at school today, so we have notes from Miss Usha:

Arno walked in with a smile and said "bye" to mom happily.  he hopped to the classroom worked with puzzles and dressing frames.  Then we had a bathroom break upon his request.  Then we had snack, he nibbled on his snacks, because he was too anxious to play in the playroom.  He loves trains, trucks and cars.  Today was very pleasant day and outside play was fun.  Arno loves to run and chase.  We are very glad Arno is very comfortable and uses more words and expresses.  Arno is a sweet boy, he is very calm and likes to copy other kids.

May 11, 2006  Miss Alix's notes:

Today Arno was happy than quiet.  He tried to do two work activities, rainbow wooden peg stairs and shapes, when Teacher Alix worked with him.  Yet, he did not want to choose anything on his own right away.  He was very interested in quietly following Michelle around to observe her at all of  her different work experiences.  Such as how happy she was to be able to successfully complete her snap frame, wooden beads #1-10, knobbed cylinders, pink tower, and than, Arno became more comfortable in the classroom and got out his own work.  It was airplane puzzles "vehicles in flight," and woked on a floor mat beside Michelle.

May 9, 2006  Miss Alix's notes:

Good morning!  Arno wasn't ready for a bathroom break when I arrived (I checked and he was dry).  So he stayed with Usha while I took the two girls.
    Arno watched and listened Trisha work with her objects word cards (she sat next to him), I then encouraged him to try the shapes peg board, which he then worked with.  15 mins.  After I'd brought the girls back from the bathroom I knew then that Arno would have to go.  Yes Arno went in his pull-up but also went to the bathroom in the toilet!  Great job Arno!  Returning, Arno saw some children working on puzzles.  He joined in too!  With the automobiles, trains and those that fly.

May 4, 2006  Miss Alix's notes:

When I arrived at 9:25am, Michelle, Trisha and Arno were already there.  They were surprised and glad to see me this morning!  Especially Arno and I too was glad and excited to see him!  Arno only asked once, "where's mommy?" and again I said, "she's at work and you're working with me." to which he replied, "Oh."  And did not stay by my side and instead walked off to a child to see what she was working on.  Arno did on occasion walk over to me or follow me to wherever I was with whatever child introducing or re-introducing a lesson to.  He did a lot of interested watching today.  I'm glad to see that he's feeling comfortable a little more to explore the classroom.  Arno enjoyed the spontaneous group lesson I rechecked with Richa on the work of wooden beads counting 1-10 to identify and separate which, in the middle of the lesson review, sparked the interest of all the children to spontaneously walk over, quietly sit down, listen and observe of their own accord (what every Montessorian loves to witness!)  I did sneak a peek and saw and heard Arno's rapt attention and repeating aloud the #steps involved.  Right now he enjoys listening and observing as his primary work, which IS considered work here.  And yet, he likes to attempt work trials when he thinks I'm not watching him.  :-)  Arno also enjoyed co-participating in our colour box 2 (secondary colour tablets) matching that I regave the lesson to another student and it counted as his work lesson (indirectly).  We match one colour tablet at a time to a classroom object found through walking around the classroom with it.  For an EXACT match.  Arno oved outdoor play and snack time as well as storytime!

May 2, 2006  Miss Alix's notes on Arno's day at Angels Montessori:

Dear Arno,
    Welcome!  It is wonderful to meet you!  Today was Arno's first day and he didn't cry!  He did ask for his mother more than once, "where is mommy?"  And I'd reply, "you are working here at school and she is at her work."  Followed by a quick distraction of showing him something to work with or keeping him by my side while I gave a lesson to another child.  Arno likes to observe, he's interested in the colour boxes that show the varying shades of a colour (light to dark), he enjoyed writing with markers, observed the children for outdoor play, liked to hum, ate snack, watched circle time and listened astutely.
    Arno did well with his first day!  I do believe he will be exploring more sork soon as he gets more comfortable with his environment and gradually branches out from my side.

May 1, 2006    Arno's making significant progress in toilet training, wearing his nifty and comfortable Thomas underpants much of the day, having accidents but also initiating pre-emptive trips to the bathroom.  Sometimes he demands his reward of three M&Ms, and sometimes he makes hopeful, but dry, trips to the toilet simply because he wants M&Ms; but he is also catching on to the benefits of using bathrooms instead of diapers.

He'll be attending Angels Montessori  for three half days a week, starting tomorrow.  We hope this will socialize him a little more.

Last night he had his first well-formed telephone conversation, starting with "hello, how are you", ending in "goodbye", with other stuff in between.  My uncle Norman was his interlocutor.

April 16, 2006  new photos.  Arno's day, yesterday: I made blueberry pancakes (Bettina's request), and offered a small one to Arno; but he didn't want anything but milk for breakfast.  He also insisted that it was lunch, not breakfast.  Then we asked him if he wanted to go the the library with me or stay home with Bettina.  "Library."  He followed me around the house as I collected books that were due.  Under the night stand in the bedroom, we have, as Arno remarked, "lots and lots of books."  He also observed, "it's raining outside." 

He was agreeable at the library today, sticking pretty close to me.  We found some promising materials, including a DVD documentary on how cars are built, a book on airplanes, and The Amazing Bone and Doctor De Soto Goes to Africa.  (We are big fans of William Steig.) 

But, between the car and the library crouched Radio Shack, with boy bait cleverly displayed on the floor just inside the window - a ten dollar, battery powered race track.  A two minute inspection sufficed for me to grab the last one on the shelf.  Arno thought he would take one of the cars from the display with him, but he was satisfied to leave it, when I explained that I was buying the set.  The young man at the cash register seemed to enjoy the transaction.  Arno wanted to hold the box while I drove home.  I'm not sure which of us was more eager to get it set up.

I was momentarily concerned that a ten dollar race car set might be worth ten dollars less than that, if it doesn't work.  But we got past that.  Then it turned out that a simple squash of the controller sends its speeding car over the guardrail - a careful, partial squeeze is required, if crashing isn't your intention.  Initially, this was too much for Arno, and he decided to push his car around the track by hand.  But within an hour, he went back to figuring out the controller, and before bed time, he would have the hang of it.  Bettina fed him a peanut butter sandwich while he played.

At three o'clock, I asked him if he wanted to take his race cars with him to his nap.  No, he wanted to keep racing; but that wasn't an option.  So I carried a squalling child upstairs, and pacified him a few minutes later by bringing up the race cars.  He chattered in bed for a couple hours before falling asleep.

He awoke at six with the words "race cars" on his lips.  Bettina had boiled eggs while we were at the library, but we knew better than to try to interest him in dyeing them before he'd supped sufficiently at the table of Nascar.   After about thirty minutes' racing, I started the egg dyes on the kitchen table, and Arno came to see what was going on.  Coloring the eggs was as big a hit as we could have wished for.  Then it was back to the race cars, where Bettina fed him the usual rice and cheese dinner.

Bettina's father called and asked me to turn on the computer, so we could do  skype  video phone calls with the family in Taiwan. Arno and I popped in and out of the dining room, where Bettina's laptop stays, to see and be seen, while Bettina talked with her parents, sister, and nieces and nephew.

Arno's bath was late, about nine o'clock.  As usual, that was followed by me reading stories while Bettina showered.  We read the new Steig books from the library, and The Tale of Peter Rabbit, and the still-beloved Thomas the Really Useful Engine, which we've been reading almost every night for several months.

This morning, once again, Arno's waking words were, "race cars."  I wonder if his Island of Sodor wooden railway will ever hold the same appeal again.  I hope so, and I think so -- it has so many stories associated with it.  The Easter egg hunt took place in the living room, since it was wet and chilly outside.  It was a hit, too.

April 13, 2006  More fallout from watching "Walk the Line" -- Arno likes to sing "Ring of Fire", too.  Nobody feels uneasy about that.  We went to the zoo, Arno's second time.  He seemed to pay more attention, and for a longer time, than on our previous visit last sumer.  We got quite close to a bull elephant, who was making good use of his trunk, sweeping and vaccuuming up food pellets.  The primates were lively, except for the sleeping orangutans.  But after a couple hours, Arno didn't want to get out of his stroller any more, so we headed home.

Apr 11, 2006  Arno has outgrown his tricycle, but he still prefers it to the Tigger bike we bought him yesterday.  We may have made a mistake in buying the bike that we preferred, rather than the one he preferred.  He can shoot a basketball conventionally now, i.e. by throwing the ball up against the backboard, rather than by standing tippy-toe to push it over the rim.  The other night we were watching the Johnny Cash biopic, and Arno starting telling me, "car, car," insistently, so we paused the movie to see what was so important.  He took me to the guitar ("car"), which I hadn't played in months, and he started singing "Folsom Prison Blues", which I used to play frequently.  I got a kick out of him making that connection.  Bettina doesn't really like him knowing that particular song, though.  "I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die..."

Mar 5, 2006  So, Arno went with me to the library, and we looked for "Jay Jay the Jet Plane" videos, but didn't find any.  I had to explain many times that there weren't any more Jay Jay videos today, as we headed into the book stacks.  So Arno proposed an alternative - "Jay Jay book."  This seemed like a good question to take to the librarian, so we asked her, and she actually found a listing for "Snuffy's Thanksgiving", which was supposed to be on the shelf.  The librarian wanted to find the book for us, but gave up after a few minutes in front of the children's holiday books.  But we persisted and were victorious.  This is the first book that Arno has specifically asked for at the library.

Feb 24, 2006  Bettina made Arno a little orange paper airplane that turned out to be just the right size and weight.  He can throw it pretty effectively, with a straight-armed underhand.  This has thrilled him to no end, and so he demands that I take another glider we've had for several months (which has recently been dubbed the "F-15 fighter jet" due to its slight resemblance to that jet in "Firefighter George's Amazing Airplanes") and throw airplanes around the house with him.  In other body-use headlines, Arno is turning lights on and off without pushing a chair under the light switch first, and he can go up the stairs, one foot per stair.

Recent language includes "Mama disappeared," after Bettina has been downstairs and out of sight longer than expected; also, "let's go find airplanes" and "I'll get it."

Feb 12, 2006  Bettina has had some luck, recently, finding playmates for Arno.  Friday afternoon, Andrew and Ryan came over.  They're going to meet weekly, rotating hosts.  These are Mandarin parties, so Arno is getting more exposure to his mother tongue.  Andrew is several months younger than Arno, but they seem to connect well.  Ryan is a bit older, but shyer.  The week before, Arno went to Ryan's house for a one-on-one, and Arno eventually got Ryan running around with him and laughing; but this week, Ryan didn't get involved in playing with the other boys.  Arno likes to push people playfully, not understanding that small people don't usually consider that a friendly gesture - so we're working on that.

Jan 31, 2006  UPS left a big brown box at our front door.  Arno followed me as I carried it upstairs and asked, "Can you open it?  What's inside?"  He doesn't want to wait for his birthday - probably doesn't understand what that means.  But I'm getting a kick out this, because it's the first time he's shown interest in an unopened box.  So this is how we know that he learned something last Christmas.

Yesterday, Bettina decided to put away the pacifiers.  Last night went much better than we expected.  He got out most of his loud opposition to the new arrangement at afternoon nap time, and was too sleepy by night to argue, I suppose.

Jan 24, 2006  A warm afternoon prompted a tricycle riding session for Arno.  He can pedal now, backwards and forwards. 

Recent speech includes "Come on, Daddy, let's run!" and "Let's go to Island of Sodor."

Jan 15, 2006  We took a road trip to go see some snow.  Theoretically it was a ninety minute drive to our target area near Mount Hood.  But Arno regurgitated a bottle of milk on the way there, necessitating a visit to a conveniently located Fred Meyer for new clothes.  Then lunch at Calamity Jane's.  We did finally get above the snow line, where snow was not only on the ground, but also falling from above, but Arno didn't feel like getting out of the car.  Better luck next year.

Jan 9, 2006  Breakthrough!  Arno peed into the toilet -first time ever.  He danced around the house for a few minutes to celebrate.

A new batch from the library includes picture books on helicopters, bulldozers, concrete mixers, and Baby Sea Otter, which Arno calls “ABC Otter”.   Oh, and Rainbow Fish, specially recommended by Arno's art class to tie in to the underwater theme they are exploring.  Two weekends in a row, I take Arno to bookstores when the library is closed and I want to get him out of the house and weather is not inviting. We look at calendars and wonderful picture books full of airplanes and convertibles before we make it to the children's section. At Barnes & Noble, he stops to listen to a mother reading a “Dora the Explorer” puppet book to her children. When it's over, she says hello to him, and he responds, “Polar Express.” We find Donald Crews' sequel to Freight Train, a nifty board book with sliding sections to show you the contents of each car on the train. Arno is engrossed, though closing the expanded pages is a bit tricky. We read Polar Express again. But when we are leaving the store, and when we are home afterwards, what he asks for is Rusty, one of the Thomas & Friends vehicles, which we saw on display there. Maybe for your birthday, Arno. (In fact, I already have it stashed away for that occasion.)

Jan 8, 2006  Arno's routine these days includes Gymboree on Wednesdays and art class on Mondays.  Bettina has worried that he declines to speak when it's his turn ("the teacher will think he is stupid!" although the teacher has tried to reassure her that all the children are like that when they first start coming), so she was thrilled yesterday when he answered the teacher's color question.  (Actually, he replied to a different question than the one she asked, but at least he spoke.)  And he has started to answer many of her questions to the class, but quietly, so that only Bettina can hear.  All this makes me think of a report card I have from my own second grade at Somerset Elementary, in which the teacher wrote that I never spoke above a whisper for most of the year.  Anyway, Arno loves Gymboree, so it's our main leverage point for introducing him to the days of the week.  ("Gymboree is on Wednesdays.  Today is Saturday." -- and ticking off the days of the week as we go up the stairs)  They also met another Mandarin-speaking mother and son (boy eight months younger than Arno, but assertive) with whom they've arranged Friday play dates (first one is today).

Yesterday we visited David Wheeler, a pediatric ophthalmologist, about Arno's chronic, on-and-off eye discharge.  When Arno was 14 months old, we saw a pediatric eye surgeon in Palo Alto about it, and scheduled surgery to open or widen the drainage tube for his right eye, but the discharge cleared up while we were dreading the appointed date, so we cancelled that.  Then the eye discharge started to show up again, once in a while -- since we moved to Portland in April, three cycles of discharge -> doctor -> ten days of antibiotic eye drops -- which finally prompted the pediatrician, Jeffrey Miller, to refer Arno to Dr. Wheeler.  Dr. Wheeler was all good news, expressing confidence that Arno's narrow duct is probably self-correcting and needs no intervention; what is more, advising against the eye drop regime, except possibly if Arno gets pronounced conjunctivitis (pinkeye - reddening of the white of the eye) - and even then, advising that the antibiotic is not entirely necessary, only speeding the natural recovery from the infection by a day or so.  Hooray!  Bettina also seized the opportunity to ask the doctor about a minor point of contention at home - is it harmful to read while lying down?  No, he said, and went on to mention a few other "things your mother might have told you" that are invalid -- sitting close to the TV and reading in not-so-bright light are not going to hurt your eyes, he said.  :-)

Dec 28, 2005  I believe Arno knows what a present is, now, though he still won't unwrap one.  Gifts that have already acquired a lot of miles include a Thomas playhut from Grandma and Grandpa, a set of Thomas storybooks from (Great-) Uncle Norman and Aunt Patti, "Thomas & Friends: The Early Years" (the original twenty-six episodes of the TV show, on DVD) from Arno's Daddy, and Alfie and Percy with Holiday Cars from Sarah and Daniel (who visited from Oakland earlier this month).  Is this boy obsessed, or what?  I don't mean to suggest that he is entirely oblivious of life beyond the Island of Sodor.  We all enjoyed watching "The Polar Express", and he does happily read a variety of books and play with non-Sodor vehicles.  But Thomas and his friends are the Ground of Being, out of which these other brief phenomena arise and into which they subside.

The "Early Years" DVD set is narrated by Ringo Starr.  He isn't brilliant, but I get a kick out of just knowing it's him, and enjoy the Liverpudlian accent.  These episodes introduce a lot of the now-classic friends, such as Percy, Bertie, and Anna and Clarabel.  The engines behave a bit less admirably in these older stories, but the psychology is realistic and the lessons are learned without bludgeoning the audience.  The sets are superb, much better than the Thomas on air today.

Dec 22, 2005  Winter is icumen in.  Happy Winter Solstice!  Photos document the season and a recent visit from Steve, Ann, Joanne, Sarah, and Daniel.

Dec 10, 2005  We've had a dry week, even sunny today, prompting a walk at Stoller Middle School and a visit to Hillsboro Airport, where we saw helicopters and small propeller planes in action.  Arno started talking about the characters from "Jay Jay the Jet Plane."  When we were leaving, he started saying, "I want Herky," which we answered, "Herky's at home," choosing to interpret "Herky" as his toy, though he might have meant he wanted to see the helicopters again.

Dec 8, 2005  Photos from Thanksgiving are up.

Nov 10, 2005  Oh, I didn't write about Halloween, did I?  Arno was a ladybug.  He has no interest in eating candy, but he had a great time visiting neighbors and putting candy in the baskets of children at our front door.

Oct 29, 2005  We're adapting to the temperate rainforest climate.  This morning, the temperature was in the fifties and it was raining lightly.  But, knowing the weather could just get even wetter and stay wetter all weekend, we decided not to wait.  We put on our sweaters, our new galoshes (that's a new word for Arno and for Bettina), and our raincoats, and drove to a nearby farm.  We saw calves, goats, piglets, chickens, a sheep, rabbits, a pony, and guinea fowl.  Oh yeah, lots of pumpkins too; and plenty of mud puddles to splash in.  Arno didn't particularly want to leave.

Oct 23, 2005  Photos from Taiwan are up. 

Oct 22, 2005  Arno and Bettina came back home Tuesday.  It seems Arno was having some trouble adjusting to the climate - got a rash, didn't eat well - hence the early return.  Their sleeping schedule is all over the place, of course.  Arno and I have had a couple times when we were just looking at each other and giggling, like, "oh, it's you!  Oh, it's you!"  We all went for a little walk in Forest Park yesterday - I found a trail that's only a ten minute drive from our house, so it's reasonable to go even if Arno is only going to be up for twenty minutes or so.  It's a new and different enough environment that we all have to figure out a lot of basics together.  Arno was very cautious at first, walking slowly and holding onto both of our hands.  Then he decided to explore, and Bettina got alarmed a few times.  Arno wants to tromp in the mud.  Maybe we should get him some proper galoshes.  But how many times will he use them before he grows out of them?  Bettina and I should get ourselves some proper galoshes, too, now that we live here.

Oct 9, 2005  Arno and Bettina flew to Taiwan on September 27 to spend a month with family.  Arno, of course, knows more about airplanes and airports than he did on his last flight, which was in March.  He didn't much care for walking through the security gate by himself, but he managed it, seeing Mama right there in front of him, beckoning.  Here's a report from Bettina:

"Besides riding on Uncle's back, Arno likes to play "Arno Sushi" with Uncle.   Ya-Chuan puts Arno on a blanket and rolsl Arno up in it (with head and feet outside the blanket).   He calls it Arno Sushi.   Arno tries his best to un-wrap himself.   Arno is very excited whenever he manages to get out.

This morning we took Arno to the library.   We went directly to the kids' section, where there are books/Video/DVD/computers for kids.   Arno ran around for a while and he browsed about 8 books.   He wouldn't let me read books for him.   He wanted to turn the pages himself.   There's story time every weekends for kids, too.   But we didn't arrive at story time.   So, next time I'll take Arno there for story time.   Arno and I stayed in the kids' sectrion for about 30 minutes; then I took Arno to the newspaper room to meet Uncle Ya-Chuan.   There are all kinds of newspapers there.   Arno curiously looked around.  Just before we were ready to go home,  Nu-Nu called.   She wanted us to go to her apartment for lunch.

As usual, Arno didn't eat much solid food, but he had a good time with Sherry and Kevin.   Both Sherry and Kevin played piano for us.   Sherry is really good at piano.   Kevin is good, too.   For Kevin, the piano class is the basic foundation for the violin class.  The teacher said if Kevin wanted to play violin, he needed to start from the piano.  Kevin was very generous to Arno.   He brought all his toys to play with Arno and he was willing to give them to Arno.  But I don't think my lugage is big enough to carry all the toys.   So, I told Kevin to keep the toys in Taiwan, so that everytime Arno came to visit him, he had some toys to play with."

Sep 3, 2005   We had a visit from Daddy's aunt Geri and uncle Jim.  That was fun, and Arno got to reconnect with some more family.  Next week, Arno's weekday afternoon babysitters, the girls next door, go back to school, so A-Xiang Yi Po will be coming to take their place.  It will be a tough act to follow - Arno has enjoyed those girls.  We met A-Xiang at the Portland Buddhist Temple.  She's a one-time restauranteur, with grandchildren of her own, a very lively woman.

Aug 13, 2005    Arno's downstairs watching "Noodlebug" for the second time today.  Both times, I waited until he asked for it several times, before putting it on.  The narrator enunciates each word separately and carefully, making it a great pronunciation resource for a language learner.  I wonder if that's what's caught his attention so keenly - he watches them more intently than any of the other shows he likes.

It is so much fun watching him "read" books at bedtime.  He reads "Are You My Mother?", page by page, based on how much of the narrative he has memorized.  "Came a kitten.  Are you my mother? kitten.  Kitten looked looked.  Not say thing." ...  He'll then read three Sandra Boynton books perfectly:  "Doggies," "Opposites," and "Moo Baa La La La."  Her "Barnyard Dance!" is also one he knows very well, but the language is much more difficult for him to actually say - "Prance with the horses, skitter with the mice."

Jul 24, 2005   Blow the horns and strike the gongs!  Arno pooped in the potty today.

Jul 16, 2005    We made it through our first week of Mama working at ESI.  Wednesday and Thursday were the hardest - Arno missed his mama a lot in the afternoons.  But Friday went really well, so maybe he started to gain confidence that Mama would be home every night.  The regularity of the KinderCare schedule may be easier for him to handle, too - being dropped off and picked up at the same time every day for five days in a row.  He likes the girls, Cassandra, Tiffany, and Lexi, a lot, and they take good care of him.  Daddy did have to spend some extra time with him on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons.

Arno's interest in story books just took a great leap forward.  Previously, we had to introduce new books a page at a time, and only after several visits would he attend all the way through, even for a board book with one or two sentences per page.  But last weekend we brought Frank Asch's "Happy Birthday Moon" home from the library, and read it all the way through, first time.  We've read it many times since then, too.  It probably helped that he'd seen a video version of the story before, but still, the difference in interest was significant, and also showed in Sandra Boynton's "Birthday Monsters" and a couple "Thomas & Friends" books.

Arno continues to obsess over "Jay Jay the Jet Plane".  The kitchen table is littered with drawings and pictures (to color, printed from the internet) of Jay Jay characters, and he uses crayons as ersatz airplanes.  A blue crayon is Jay Jay, a purple one is Tracy, etc.  Every night he asks Daddy for "Tracy game", which means to sit at the computer and visit www.pbskids.org/jayjay  .  A glider that Daddy bought at the drug store a few weeks ago has been christened "Big Jake" and assumed new importance in Arno's inventory.

Daddy found out through craigslist that a woman in Hillsboro decided to sell most of her Thomas the Tank Engine collection, and he knew there was not a moment to lose.  A lot of kids besides Arno love Thomas, and the stuff ain't cheap, so many parents are keen to pick up the lifetime-guaranteed toys used.  Daddy now has a big bag full of Thomas goodies in the garage, to introduce to Arno gradually, one piece at a time, so that he gets a big thrill out of each one.  The first piece Arno got was Toby.  Toby is in Arno's hand pretty much all day.

Arno still loves his yellow Beetle with ladybugs on it, though.  It's falling apart, and he's been saying "Daddy fix it" for a few days.  Last night, he made sure Daddy understood he really, really wants it fixed, by crying about it.  So, we'll see how much good a bit of Uhu and tape will do.

Arno's singing a lot - songs from his favorite shows, and songs Mama has taught him (including something from "the Sound of Music").

Jul 5, 2005  new photos   Last Saturday we went to Mt. Hood Railroad to ride on Thomas the Tank Engine's train and, we thought, to get our photo taken with Sir Topham Hatt.  It was a bit of a let-down.  They did have a "life-size" Thomas at the end of the train, but we couldn't get close to it without paying another fee, and Arno didn't seem too excited about it.  He did enjoy riding on the train, but it could have been any train, really.  He liked the toddler-sized play structure, but the highlight of the trip was ... shopping!  A Thomas-themed gift shop yielded a Harold the Helicopter (Arno's clear choice out of everything in the tent) and a train engineer's hat with a Thomas logo on it (Mama's choice, but Arno was pretty happy about it, once he figured out what it was, and it made him the envy of another boy at the New Seasons market the other day).  Harold appears to be Arno's new favorite toy.  We also stopped at Multnomah Falls on the way home.  Check that off the list.

On July 11, Bettina starts working at ESI as a business analyst for their ERP implementation project.  So we had to figure out, fast, arrangements for unsuspecting Arno.  His KinderCare schedule will go from three to five mornings a week - we don't want him to spend the whole day there; we just think he's too young for that if we have any choice.  We interviewed one young man for an afternoon nanny position, and we liked him and thought he would be very good; but we wound up making arrangements with our next door neighbors, the Wongs, instead.  Arno will spend his weekday afternoons with three girls, ages thirteen, twelve, and four.  Their parents, and Arno's mama, seem to be quite confident that it will work well.  And Daddy, of course, is home, able to take a peek and smoothe over rough spots once in a while, and respond to any emergency.  It could be very nice, like having a bunch of big sisters.  Come August, we'll have to start working on a new arrangement, since the girls will be going to school in September.

I've never known another neighborhood like this one, for Independence Day fireworks.  We heard a few fireworks every night for several nights, and then last night, almost every block on every street was a separate, dazzling, noisy, smoky display.  We watched some for a while, but after a while we could tell it was a bit much for Arno, so we went home.  It was still going on when we fell asleep.

Jun 22, 2005   Last weekend, Arno found a "Jay Jay the Jet Plane" videotape at the library.  "Airplane," he said.  Since then, he asks to watch it many times a day - we've let him watch it up to three times in a day so far, depending on how tired and busy we are.  We all like Bob the Builder, but Jay Jay is worse than Barney.  Really annoying fake accents - Savannah is supposed to be a southern belle, and she has a standard phony "this is what some ignoramous thinks is a southern" accent.  But Herky's even worse, sort of taking Savannah and adding rolled r's.  Then there's the music - the less said, the better.  The baby faces on the planes are, maybe, very appealing to a two-year-old, but not to me! 

But what an instant hit with Arno!  He talks about it constantly.

May 9, 2005  Arno's first day Kindercare apparently went well.  He didn't cry when Bettina said "bye bye", but he cried for half an hour after a small boo-boo (we suspect he was asking for his pacifier, in Mandarin, and kept crying because he wasn't getting it), and he started crying again when he saw Bettina arrive  to take him home.

May 4, 2005  A little fall on the hardwood floor at the entry moved one of Arno's front teeth a little bit (can you tell in the photo below?).  We were fortunate to find an excellent pediatric dentist, Dr. Hsu ("Shoebox" Pediatric Dentistry, with little pairs of shoes scattered about in every room - get it?) close to home.  Dr. Hsu is not too worried about the effects of the fall, but is more concerned about Arno's teeth splaying out due to pacifier abuse.  Yes, our son loves his binky.  The Citizens' Campaign to Stop the Sucking has begun.  Arno doesn't like it one bit.

May 3, 2005  Shocking!  So much time gone by with no updates.    Well, we moved to Portland, and Arnopolis moved to a new host (from earthlink to godaddy).  Expect some broken links if you go poking around.  First things first - here are a couple recent photos of Arno:

Mar 20, 2005   What's Arno's day been today?  Wake up around 9am, sit in Daddy's and then Mama's lap at breakfast - they had french toast, but Mama gave me cottage cheese and mashed banana mixed up together - you should try it, it's really good.  First performance for the parents, identify the coffee maker when it's brewing. 

Lots of "抱抱" ("bao bao," meaning "hold me") time, lots of "嘴嘴" ("zhui zhui," meaning pacifier) and "被被" ("bei bei," meaning blanket).  About ten minutes in the back yard, but it started raining, so much for playing outside today.    (When we move to Portland, we'll equip Arno for more weather.)  After my nap, I like to be held, or to ride like a bear cub on Daddy's back. 

Oh, "Baby Einstein" and "Baby Bumblebee" this morning, and "Wiggle Bay" this evening.  Read "Barney's Color Train," "Bard's Rhyme Time," "I Know about the Clock," and "My First Number Book" with Daddy.   I pointed out to Daddy the brush on the brown page in "Barney," and Daddy acted astounded, as if he didn't know what a brush was.  This afternoon, I played with my vehicles on the living room floor while Mama and Daddy finished the movie they'd started last night.  There was lots of singing and dancing in it, and some parts made Mama and Daddy laugh a lot.  I love it when they laugh, it makes me laugh, too.

Daddy's been turning the house upside down all weekend.  Every time I turn around, something looks really different.  Empty bookcases!  Curtains down!  And boxes all over the place.

Mar 15, 2005  Poor Arnopolis, no updates in so long... well, what's up with Arno?  He's reading his name ("A, R, N, O ... Arno!") and learning "DOG" and "CAT".  "Bob the Builder" has supplanted the Wiggles as his favorite video entertainment.  His longest spoken phrase to date is "toot toot chugga chugga big red car".  He became (and remains) friendlier with strangers during the time our house was on the market and so many people were coming to see it.   He still loves everything on wheels, especially vehicles that fit in his hand and depend on him to move around, and also depend on him to make whatever sounds he deems appropriate.  He loves the slide in the back yard, though its ladder is not safe for him and a bit awkward anyway.

Feb 7, 2005  OK, I admit it, the update rate has been ridiculously low here.  But at least I have pictures up now.

Jan 22, 2005  We recently spent a few days in Maryland.  As usual, Arno was shy with people who weren't familiar to him, but he did wind up playing with Grandma and Grandpa before it was over.  He even had this conversation with Grandpa.  Yes, I will post pictures.

Dec 21, 2004    Disaster in the Porter household: Arno was sitting on his Daddy's lap at dinnertime, not eating (typical), but cautiously raising Daddy's tall, plastic cup of water to his lips. He knew this was a risky operation, so he just practiced putting the cup to his lips for quite a while. Then, suddenly, he decided to go for it, and lifted the bottom, to deliver the payload. Bonanza!  Water everywhere. Arno was very upset. 

Arno has recently discovered that the computer screen often has letters on it. He likes the Google page because he can nail that 'G'.

Dec 17, 2004    Arno can count to 10.  And he can say "car," "truck," "tractor," and "bus."

Dec 7, 2004   Arno and Bettina spent four weeks with her family in Taiwan.  (pictures)  Lots of fun and learning.  I wish we could all see our extended family more often.  Arno came back no longer afraid of remote control cars - in fact, they are now his new favorite.    Another developmental headline - Arno can pick out and name several numbers and letters.  Bettina's been teaching him at bath time, with the sponge figures my mom sent last Christmas.  Tonight I saw him pick out A,B,C,D,H,W,and Q.  And Bettina reports that he can pick out 1 through 5, and name them in English and Mandarin.

Oct 4, 2004  OK, long overdue, new photos.

Sep 25, 2004  Arno's daily "to do" list:

• open and close doors (note to self: still need help opening them - must grow taller)
  
• seek out and master any other reversible processes available
  
• watch Baby Einstein or Baby Bumblebee
• read "Beh Beh Beh Beh" (Mama and Daddy call it "Brown Bear, Brown Bear")
• read "Ba" (aka "Barney's Color Train")
• take all the rings off the spindle and put them back in the right order
• put all the shaped pieces into the puzzle ball
• eat
• nap
• poop
• drink nei-nei
• ride around the house on Daddy's back
• play guitar, and get Daddy to play some
• play (lots) with trucks and the train and the convertible School Bus
  
• convert the School Bus into a book, read it, convert it back into a bus
• go out somewhere with Mama
• drill Mama and Daddy on Chinese characters
• study letters and numbers, using the sponges from Grandmama and Grandpa, in the bath
• sit in Mama's lap when she is reading email, and take all the pens and pencils out of the drawer
• scribble (usually on paper)
  

Sep 19, 2004  When he isn't hungry or sleepy, Arno likes to play, explore, or learn how to do things.  A major learning theme for him is taking apart and putting back together.  This morning he found a box with three cassettes in it.  He was intent on learning how to open the cassette case, remove the cassette, put it back in, and close the case.  After he'd done that for a while, he grabbed a CD case and proceeded to drill on opening and closing it.

As for literary interests, his favorites now are "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" by Bill Martin, Jr. and Eric Carle; and "Spot's Noisy Walk" by Eric Hill.  "Brown Bear" is on loan from the library.  A couple weeks ago, I brought about eight board books home from the library, and this one took immediately.  One big image on each double-page, with a repetitive, rhythmic pattern, ending with all the previous images together on the last double-page.  After a couple weeks, he could identify all the images.  "Where's the red bird?" and he points to it.  "Spot" is a hand-me-down gift from Ann and Steve (and Sarah and Daniel).  It's one of those books with little sound-boxes to press, to hear sounds that go with the story.

His speech is developing quickly now, too.  He repeats one sound out of a word he hears, or points to an image in a book and says one sound in the word it represents.  "Buh" for "Barney" (he still likes "Barney's Color Train"), "tuh" for "train", "gak" for "quack".

Aug 2, 2004  Arno enjoys scribbling.  But I was dismayed to see him deeply engaged in scribbling with a blue ball point pen on the linoleum in the dining area.  While he was in the bath, I went after the scribbles with 409, but it wasn't doing the job.  After a couple frantic, unfruitful googles, I called my aunt Geri.  She suggested bleach, which did the job nicely.  Thanks, Geri.

Later I did yoga in the living room.  Arno had fun going back and forth under the triangle formed by my legs when I was doing Utthita Trikonasana, Utthita Parsvakonasana, and Virabhandrasana.

This weekend we went to a party at Sarah and Daniel's home in Oakland.  Among the many gifts (very nice hand-me-downs from Daniel) we brought back is a rocking horse.  It's wooden and furry.  Arno loves to climb onto it and hug it.  He's still pretty small to accomplish this, though, even after his Mommy taught him the steps in the procedure, and sometimes he wants to climb it without letting go of his precious farm truck.  That doesn't work.

Aug 1, 2004    Arno loves company.  He gets really excited and happy when any of his mama's friends come visit.

Bettina writes:  Arno is a good observer and he wants to do whatever Daddy and Mommy do.  For instance, we put pasta in his high chair tray and mean to let him eat with his fingers.  He sees Daddy and Mommy using fork to eat pasta.  He wants a fork.  Or, another meal, Mommy feeds him noodle soup with chopsticks and a spoon.   He insists he wants a pair of chopsticks and some noodles in his high chair tray to practice using chopsticks to eat noodles.   At dinner, he sees Daddy drink water from a blue plastic cup.  He wants one, too.  And the cup has to be a blue plastic cup like Daddy's. 

Arno likes to wear Daddy and Mommy's shoes.

Jul 17, 2004   Arno is 17 months old today.  The big event of the past month was our trip  to Oregon and Washington.  We explored the Portland area, visitied with the Lovells in Washington, and visited Crater Lake.

Arno's newest word is "pup," which means "paper."  He's narrowed his diet to formula, bread, pasta, yogurt, cottage cheese, and a little fruit.  Corn on the cob, for instance, no longer interests him.  He likes to feed himself and has developed a habit of lounging on the mattress in his room to drink his formula.  He likes to hear Daddy's guitar several times a day.  Yesterday he went to Gymboree for the first time, an event Mommy has been trying to arrange for a long time.  He waited until class was over to become active.  Mommy takes him to children's story hour at the library once a week, which seems to be a good social event.

Arno picked up the watering can yesterday and carried it around, "watering" the plants on the porch.  (There happened to be no water in the can.)  He's been doing this for weeks, but watching it today, I thought, "every moment he sees one of us doing anything, he's thinking that's something for him to do, too."  That's not quite accurate, because he sees us eating all kinds of food that he won't touch.  But nevertheless, the point is taken that I am a role model without even knowing it, sometimes.

Jun 20, 2004   What's new with Arno in the past month?   Let's see... at diaper time, he brings the diaper to the parent;  he dances and sings to his favorite music; he puts his shaped pieces into the corresponding shaped holes without any help finding the right hole.  Photos.

May 21, 2004     My uncle Jim posted some nice photos of Arno from a recent visit.

The visit to Dr. Witter went much better than expected.  Arno was preoccupied with the resident toy trucks, and his exam was not in the same room as previous visits, so he wasn't too apprehensive.  Then it turned out that the office was out of the combination vaccine he needs, so his shot was postponed until next week.  Oh, happy day!  I think it's good that he got to visit that office once without getting a shot.

He weighed 24 lbs and 4 oz, measured 19.5" around the head (but I got 20' on a separate measurement) and 32' long.

Arno's a lot like a cat.  He communicates a lot with cat-like body language - walking around to my back and grabbing my shoulders, to tell me he wants to ride on my back; bringing his sandals to Bettina, to tell her he wants to go outside.  The difference between Arno and the cat, though, is that the cat never develops any further than this.

May 19, 2004   Arno's literary interests have broadened.  Tonight, first he brought me The Cuddly Beasties Alphabet Book to read to him.  When we were done with that, he went to his bedroom to pick up Are You My Mother? and brought it back to me.  He tries to sit in my lap for reading, but he doesn't quite know how to maneuver into the right position.  Just now, he's "reading" Barney's Color Train on his own.

He turned 15 months old on Monday, and goes to Dr. Witter for his shots on Friday.  Poor little guy. 

Apr 23, 2004    Arno rarely crawls any more.  You can see him walking and performing other amazing stunts in our new set of pictures.

Apr 10, 2004     Arno's walking skills continue to improve.  Now we frequently see him take ten or so steps at a time.

He loves to operate the CD player in the living room.  If he sees us there, he heads over as fast as he can.  He likes to push the lid down and press the play button.

Apr 7, 2004   Arno's walking has been several episodes of three or four steps each, every day, until today, when he made about eight steps in the kitchen.  He's also practicing new linguistic skills, saying "golly golly golly" a lot.

His favorite book, "Barney's Color Train," has a couple pages loose, that need to be taped back into place.  He'll sit in my lap for about six or eight pages of this book every night; other books won't last two pages.

Tonight, he's getting into my socks and underwear drawer for the first time.  He took everything out - standard toddler behavior.  But now he's putting everything back in.  That's my boy!

Mar 30, 2004 Arno has started walking hands-free.  Last night he took the three feet or so from his daddy to the coffee table on his feet.  Tonight he made similar treks a few times.

Mar 17, 2004    We have new photos.  Arno is thirteen months old today.  It's harder to take photos of him than it used to be, because he moves so quickly, and the first flash completely captivates him, pulling him in to get as close to the camera as he can.

Arno's favorite evening activity now is riding on Daddy's back or shoulders.

Mar 14, 2004     Last night Arno spoke his fourth word (that we understood):  "truck."  Actually, he said "duck," very clearly, but it was also quite clear that he meant "truck."  Also among his accomplishments now:  his twelfth tooth is showing.

Feb 27, 2004  Poor Arno was a nervous wreck at the doctor's office for his one-year-old appointment.  He got more and more upset as time went by, until finally he got his two shots, one in the arm and one in the thigh.

On a happier note, tonight I saw Arno stand hands-free, in the center of the living room, for about ten seconds, before he nonchalantly dropped back down to go after another toy.

This week saw Arno's first episode of diaper rash.  We looked it up in all our baby books, and at first had trouble using all that information to figure out what kind of diaper rash he had, though eventually it became clear enough that probably an unusual diet had led to a bowel movement with contents that irritated his skin.  He cried a lot at diaper changing time, and at first, the zinc oxide ointment seemed to hurt, but after a day or so, it improved considerably.  He's still getting over it now.  Dr. Witter was great, calling us back right away when Bettina called and left a message asking for help.

Feb 19, 2004  We had a small celebration for Arno's birthday on Tuesday (Feb 17).  Daddy made a poppy seed cake and covered it with whipped cream.  Mommy got hats, balloons, and blowouts.  We'll get some pictures up later.  But the slide show linked below, on the Feb 14 entry, has a few new photos in it.

Tonight, our neighbor, Mrs. Wyatt, came over with a Christmas present for Arno.  (She'd been sick, and thoughtfully waited to get well before coming over.)  She's a wonderful lady.  She has young grandchildren in Bali, and she's starting to plan her annual trip to visit them.

Arno prefers sleeping on the mattress on the floor, instead of in the crib, because that way, when he wakes up, he can go wandering right away, instead of having to yell for help.

Feb 14, 2004 More Arno updates:  He's sprouting his eleventh tooth (his third molar) now.  He's developing dexterity - he can put the balls into the ball blower, and he can put the rings on the pole.  (Well, we know what that means.)  Family pictures from Taiwan are up.

Feb 12, 2004  OK, so lots has been going on.  We've gone to Taiwan, come back, been busy.  So, where are the pictures, you ask?  I'll try to get some up this coming weekend.

Arno's latest trick is, when he wants to take something with him from one part of the house to another, he'll toss it ahead of him, crawl up to it, toss it again.  He seems to get a big kick out of this process.

Jan 18, 2004  We have new pictures.  We all had fun today when friends from my Project Seed days (Ann Park, Steve Trowbridge, Jim Clarke and Liz Maxwell) came for lunch, with Steve and Ann's kids, three year old Daniel and five year old Sara.  The kids played together well, and Arno was once again the beneficiary of lots of great hand-me-down clothes and more.

Watching Arno crawl rapidly across the kitchen floor, his diaper-clad bottom wiggling back and forth, Bettina observed that he looks a bit like a duck from behind.

Jan 17, 2004 Arno is eleven months old today.  Last night he played a game he invented with his Mommy, where he crawls away, around the corner and out of sight, and then he comes back laughing, to see his Mommy make funny noises at him, back and forth, back and forth.  A little later, he looked at me and said, "Daddy."  Perfectly.

Jan 10, 2004  Some of Arno's nicknames:  Mr. Poopster;  Fusster Buster; Xiao No No; Little Varmint; Ornery Varmint; Xiao Huai Huai; Sugar Punkin; Sweetie Pie; Booger Boy; Xiao Kicki-Poo; Little Stinker.

Nowadays, a significant part of taking care of Arno is stopping him from getting into things.  We have jury-rigged barriers all over the place, somewhat inconvenient for us, but very inconvenient for Arno.  Naturally, he gets especially interested in the things that we won't let him touch.  He tries to trick us and boogie quickly to the forbidden zone when we are distracted.  Then he gets upset when his plans are foiled.

Arno's cousins in Taiwan are all getting ready for him.  They've been arguing with each other about who will get to hold him first.  Tonight, Little One Zero told Bettina that she's already made Arno's bed.  Bettina asked if L.O.Z. will change Arno's diaper.  LOZ hesitated and asked, "will he kick me?"

Arno's uncle Ya Chuan works in China now, in Shanghai.  He volunteered to work on Chinese New Year, and arranged to fly back to Taipei the same day we fly in (the day after New Year).  He'll get there an hour before us, so we'll all go home together.

Arno likes brown rice, better than pretty much any other food we share with him.

2003

Arnopolis   is the central location for all things Arno.