the machines and all you need

According to Binbin:

The red machine is hot. The blue machine is not hot. The red machine, it has saws. Look, here and here and here and here and here. They are all saws. The saws cut wood. That one cuts pasts. And that one cuts wood. This machine goes. Look. Watch. From here to here and here. They are all saws. This one cuts carrots. and this one makes bread. It makes little breads and big breads. That one is hot. This one is not hot. Look. I can stick them together. Oops. Sorry. It broke. I can snap it together. These are the machines.

[He brought them to the Kopper Kettle for breakfast on Saturday]



We celebrated out tenth anniversary in June, a few weeks back, and received from the Klines this Beetles card. Binbin recognizes John, Paul, Ringo, and George. And one day, he decided to find all the ancient jade and bronze magnets and surround the message: All you need is love.

It's true, isn't it?

friends

Yesterday, we went to visit Binbin's new friend, Coco, and her family. Anjali and her family came, too. The three toddlers had a blast, running through the house, playing with Coco's kitchen, throwing red balloons at each other. They also played a sleeptime game in between jumping on Coco's bed. Here, they pretend to be sleepy bugs.

First, the album cover:



Now, the snapshot:



All three kiddies go to Miss Donna's daycare, where it's beginning to look like post-United Colors of Benetton.

Chalkboard

Recently, our friends Natsu and Paul moved to Japan. That kind of move definitely motivates one to downsize. Binbin was the happy recipient of a number of things including this chalkboard/whiteboard artist's easel. For this, we want to say a big thank to Aya. And, we hope that you all are settling into your new home. We miss you.

Camping

We've been out camping a couple of times this season. To Lake sebago on Memorial Day weekend. Here are a few snapshots from that weekend.

Getting ready for hot chocolate.



A view of our site.



Very proud of himself after squirting water into his mouth with his squirt gun (a gift from the lady working at the local candy store).



And then to Lake St. George for Fathers' Day weekend. Roasting hot dogs.



A view to the lake.

Fathers' Day

Happy Fathers' Day to Yeye, Ah-gong, and to Baba! Hugs and Kisses from Binbin.

Fathers' Day weekend coincided this year with De-nin & Jack's 10th wedding anniversary (and, less notably, Friday the 13th!). We celebrated by going camping up at Lake St. George. Friday afternoon, we headed up and set up our site. Binbin helped with the tent poles and throwing the mats into the tent. Before evening, we had a campfire going. Saturday morning, it took a little convincing, but Binbin put on his new Personal Floating Device, and we climbed into a canoe. Once he was situated on a seat (as opposed to being in the middle), he was happy enough to explore the lake shore, looking for lily pads, watch for the turtle, and spot other notable lake things. The paddling definitely had him tuckered out, and after driving over to John's for ice cream (Binbin had cherry sorbet), we all crashed in the tent until about 4 pm. Evening settled in, and we had another good fire going. Our neighbors came over to share a set of sparklers with Binbin. He was eager and curious, but when confronted with sparks at arm's length, caution took hold.

Sunday morning, Binbin announced, "I like camping. I like to camp." But as the rain started, we packed up the car for home. But before reaching home, we stopped in Hallowell to celebrate Fathers' Day with brunch. Jack ordered steak eggs benedict; Binbin refused his turkey & harvarti croissant and opted to spoon sugar into his mouth. It's fathers' day, so why not?

The Green Drum Kit

About two months ago, the green drum kit appeared in the display window of Marty's Music, just off Maine Street in Brunswick.

This wasn't just some drab green, ordinary, won't look twice kind of drum kit. No sir. These were magical, sparkly, lime green, light your world on fire drums. And, when Binbin laid eyes on those drums, well, his world was forever changed.

The first day, he saw them while we were driving home from Miss Donna's daycare. "Mama, LOOK! Green drums!" Binbin's little voice just about quivered with excitement. "Yes, I see." I said, agreeably, curbing my normal motherly enthusiasm. While we have consistently sought out play drums, and bongos, and percussive music-makers, as well as opportunities to expose Binbin to all variety of drumming traditions, I was not altogether ready for, let's call it, the big time: professional drums. After all, he's only three, he's barely three feet tall, and... he's not even potty trained. Sure, he can carry a beat, but do we leap from cardboard and plastic to ash and stainless steel? Binbin, innocent of such pesky adult apprehension, followed up with the obvious question: "Mama, how can we buy the green drums? ...is that a good idea?"

How should a parent respond? I told him, I know you really like the drums, but I'm sorry, we can't buy it. True, but inadequate, and of course, he cried and cried all the way home.

The crying ended after the first week, though he made the same request and received the same response daily. Sometimes twice daily.

With Binbin's persistence, though, my answer began changing. Yes, Mama and Baba will buy that for you, but we don't have enough money just yet.


So, how do you explain to a 3-year-old the somewhat abstract, but inescapable fact of working life? He seemed to accept that you couldn't buy money in the store in order to buy the green drums. Still, he persisted.

"Mama, how can we have enough money now?"

Not yet, I replied. Maybe by the time of your birthday or Christmas, there will be enough.

"Oooohhh." says Binbin. "Christman. And I can have lotsa lotsa presents. And Santa Claus."

After two months of this careful, daily banter of desire and delay, Binbin won the battle of attrition. Honestly, it wasn't so much the persistence, though that was impressive. It really was the fact that he truly has an enormous passion for drumming.

So, on May 30, when Binbin turned precisly three and a half years old, we brought him to Marty's Music. And, a delighted little boy brought home the green drum kit of his dreams.


That seemed to satisfy for a couple of weeks. Then, the ever inquisitive and intelligent cherub asked: Mama, how can we go to the store, and buy some money?


As an addendum, Jack did some research and, as it turns out, there are some pretty impressive 3-4 year old drummers out there. (and lots of adults making youTube videos of those kids)

May 18, 2008

Binbin is growing up fast and furious. On the weekends he seems to go at high speed all day long. To give you some sense of his day, I thought I recount today:

Binbin had a very busy Saturday, so he slept until 8am, a very rare occurrence. After waking up he had his milk, got dressed and started playing with his drums. About 8:45 or so, he decided it was time to go to the Kopper Kettle diner and have breakfast. We all packed into the car, along with two drums, and went to eat. After a breakfast of yogurt and fruit with bacon done in the microwave, Binbin took the family to the local big playground where we all ran around non-stop for about 45 minutes. After running around long enough to get bored with the playground, we all got back in the car and made a pit stop at home and then headed to Keena's farm down the road. We spent over 2 hours watering and mulching an entire field of newly planted raspberry bushes. Binbin carried to bucket to help water and then used a huge shovel to put mulch in his bucket that he then dumped in the appropriate location. He worked hard in the sun for most of the time we were there. When he wasn't working he was feeding the piggies or running down to check out the barn and cool off in the shade and chase the local cats. After our farm work was done we went home and got the frog pool out of the garage. We blew it up and filled it with water. Binbin stripped himself naked and preceded to run around the deck waiting for the water to warm up in the pool. We ate a bit of lunch waiting for the pool to warm up. It never warmed up sufficiently for Binbin to decide to get into it, so we went inside to play and rough house in the sun-room. We did that until about 5pm, Binbin still completely buck naked. When, out of the blue Binbin says he is hungry and wants to eat. I ask him what he wants and he reads me a list of things: rice krispie treats, rice krispies, rice cake, senpei (another form of rice cake), seaweed, baguette, and alphabet cookies. We make the rice krispie treats and assemble the entire lot in a single bowl. He sits down at the table and takes two bites and announces he wants to put his clothes on. We put on his cloths at the table while he eats. He then sits on his chair staring at his bowl and eats non-stop for 15 minutes, continuously putting food in as he's chewing. He take one last bite of senpei, looks over at me, settle slightly in his chair, sighs deeply and then his eyes slide close and he pitch forward almost hitting his head on the table. He completely passed out at the table. I carried him upstairs and into bed and he didn't even blink. He is there now sound asleep and dreaming of the piggies we fed at the farm. If only we all had this much energy.