cold season has arrived

First Esme came down with a high fever (103) on Friday afternoon. The fever was down by the next morning and she was never lethargic, in fact she nursed well. Sat. afternoon Jolon started running a fever and throwing up. Jan and I have had terrible headaches, which Jolon is complaining of as well. Sunday morning and Jolon still can't keep anything down, fever coming and going. But Esme's fever is gone and she seems to be fine. Still waiting to see if Jolon just a has a regular virus or if this is the dreaded flu. Meanwhile Kellan is EXTREMELY ENERGETIC and is happily running the show around here.

Making art before 7:00 a.m.

Kellan woke up early and on his way to the toilet, got creative with some shoes from the genkan (foyer).

Kellan's Onichan Party

Click to Play

When Esme was about 2 weeks old, Joy took Jolon to a Carp baseball game for Felix's birthday.  We decided to take the chance to give Kellan a lot of attention and threw him an Onichan (big brother) party.  He mentions kuruma (car) a few times and towards the end he starts talking about his neck, but we never figured out what he was trying to say.

Fashion Police

I mentioned the term this morning to the boys. Their ears pricked up at the mention of police, but I'm afraid the subsequent conversation about fashion may have been lost on them.

esme waking up

the boys enjoyed this

Kellan latest

We are still having trouble with Kellan going to the toilet when he's supposed to. At the villa we kinda gave up and started putting a diaper on him in the evenings, just so our fellow guests wouldn't have to witness the puddle, the wet pants on the floor, the naked 2 year old running through the kitchen possibly trailing pee on his feet and then hear the whole, "oh Kellan, you did shi shi again? Really? We just went to the toilet 30 minutes ago and you said you didn't have to go," conversation. At home, we're getting better at taking him regularly to the toilet and usually he will pee, especially if I race him to the toilet and tell him that I have to go really badly...then he loves to beat me and keep me waiting. But mornings is the real problem, when he's sleepy and really does not want to be forced to go sit on the toilet. We're usually running around with breakfast etc. and don't have the time to convince him to go, and so out of laziness and/or as a reaction to Esme, he's been pooing in his diaper or sometimes even his pants if I've managed to get his diaper off first thing in an attempt to get him to go. Mari Sensei says it's likely that he's still adjusting to Esme. So we're trying to be patient with him.

As of last week he's also started stuttering. Ke-Ke-Can I have some? or Jya-Jya-Jolon and Ke-Ke-Kellan. It started a few days ago, the weekend after we got back from the villa. About the same time, we noticed that his English had gotten better, just from being in an all English environment for a week. I've read that it's a normal stage that a lot of toddlers go through as their vocabulary increases. His teacher said not to worry, that 3 other kids in his class were stuttering too. That was reassuring because to listen to him talking these days is kinda funny and kinda pitiful at the same time.