Goalie

Enoch had a melt down in his soccer game today. He just has no desire to be aggressive and run into a group of kids and kick wildly. He loves to play at home with me but he just doesn't see the thrill of playing with 12 other kids on the field. During the game he started crying and said he didn't want to play anymore.

Luckily, Sharon had the brilliant idea to make him the goalie. He loved it. He even stopped a goal once, and had a giant smile.

McDonalds on the way home

Michael wanted to go to McDonalds on the way home from the gym today. He was in a poopy mood. Sharon told him if he saw a McDonalds on the way home, than we would stop. I whispered that there weren't any McDonalds on the way home, she said she knew. Michael happily got in the car and was looking and looking for a McDonalds all the way home. He eventually got sad he didn't find one. I'm not sure if he knows he was duped, but I thought it was a fun way for Sharon to avert a tantrum.

Grand rounds

Had a grand rounds today about pediatric insomnia. The gist of it was that most cases of bad sleeping are due to poor habits. They are resolved by parents adopting things like bedtime routines. Pretty much every single little trick or tip that was discussed for good sleep was something that Sharon adopted long ago with our kids. Good job, honey!

Mustache

Sharon sort of joked about how I should grow a mustache. Pictures later, but I credit her for a great idea and wonderful inspiration. I am one week into it and it's been forcing me out of my shell a bit but I am settling quite nicely into the new, nasty look.

on the phone

Yesterday, driving home from the beach at night, I was really impressed with how Sharon handled herself in the phone. It was a potentially awkward subject and she did it really smoothly. I think it's great she can do this even in her second language.

Problem solving

Michael is quite the enemy of Peter taking naps. When they are in the same room together he manages to make sure no one sleeps. All the boys like being together at night, though, and we don't want to put one of them in the 3rd room. Sharon put an old mattress we had on the ground and that's now where Michael naps. It's been working great.

Conversation

Sharon and I had a wonderful conversation today for about 3 hours. We talked about a lot of very personal things and it was so wonderful to have her there to talk to and to have her support and smart conversation.

Editor

Sharon read through another draft of a paper I wrote today and found several grammar errors. Pretty good for an ESLer!

Teach kids Chinese

Sharon has been very hard at work with a new blog.

http://teachkidschinese.blogspot.com/

I'm very impressed by how professional her first set of practice sheets are. I'm proud of her! Our kids will definitely benefit from this, and it looks like other kids are going to as well. She's such a hard worker when she makes a goal and gets excited about something, I only hope she doesn't burn herself out. I admire her tenacity and the ability to work towards achieving something beautiful!

Back to school

Sharon is doing a photography class that people are putting on at the church. Last night she was looking through our camera manual, doing her homework. She was really cute about it. I think it's great that she's putting herself out there to try something relatively new. I love that she's not afraid to try new things.

Idea bouncer

I'm working on an essay that I hope to get published. There's some abstract ideas involved, and I was hoping to come up with analogy. I asked Sharon for help, and we discussed what I was trying to write about. After indirectly incorporating some of the things she said, I reread the paragraphs I wrote and was impressed how good they were. I'm glad I can talk to her and that she can help me put words to my ideas, even offering up her own contributions.

Chinese family cookbook

Sharon is putting together a cookbook of Chinese recipes. She is doing this partially for herself, but I know she is also doing it for our kids. She wants them to have something she never had, while also ensuring that our kids keep part of their Chinese legacy and heritage. That is something that is especially hard to do here in America, far from family. It would be so easy to just forget about Chinese culture and language. That's not what we want to do, and Sharon's family recipe book is a nice way of bridging our cultures. The idea of a family recipe book is inherently western and has long been supported by my parent's families. I am glad Sharon thought of using this western idea, however, to give our kids a taste of her culture, and glad she is thinking so far ahead.

Smart

The image I got when I searched for "Enough Said". Probably another movie worth watching in it's own way

We got to go out for a movie tonight (thanks Mom and Dad!). We went to the cheap theaters and saw Enough Said on a last minute decision, based purely off a 96% rotten tomato score. The movie was quite good; we highly recommend it. I don't want to give anything away about it, but I was pleased when, midway through the movie, Sharon whispered an insight to me that I hadn't thought of, which turned out to be true. Sometimes I carry a pinch of arrogance, and I like it when Sharon beats me to the punchline.