Watching TV

This week it was extremely hot and so we decided to stay inside, with ac on, and watch a movie. The kids picked the movie: The last unicorn. As you can expect, it was a intense cartoon with several 'evil' people trying to catch the last unicorn. Kaio has always gotten very into movies and laughs, cries, jumps around, closes his eyes and gets very emotional with TV. Josefine has never been very much into tv and only in the last 2 - 3 months that she has gotten some interest in TV. She now watches for more then 2 mins, but still does not get much emotional about it. S, going back to the 'last unicorn', as expected it caused Kaio to be very upset and he started crying (which I heard from the kitchen) when I went to comfort him, I caught Josefine with her arm around him and she was saying "don't be afraid , I am here to protect you!" It was very cute and funny! She often acts like the "mom" towards Kaio!

The pic above illustrates how Kaio gets so into the cartoon (he is just laughing out loud) while Josefine just sits and stares at it!

Sensitivities

Our kids are so different in many ways..... (As I mentioned in several previous posts) but one interesting one is josefine's sensitivity to cold and Kaio's to heat. Josefine loves sweets and adores the 'concept' of ice cream but hates the cold feeling in her mouth. She also does not like ice in her drinks.

Kaio on the other side is sensitive to heat. When I fill their bath with warm water (not hot warm), Josefine jumps right in and Kaio often complains it is too hot and will not sit down in it. Kaio is also known, since baby, to prefer cold food and milk. (Which was great since I did not have to warm his bottle when he was a baby!) Josefine is not keen on cold food and prefers it warm....

Books

Kids are true bookworms! They can sit and 'read' them for hours and are constantly asking for us to read to them... Although they can't actually read, they Love looking at the images and then imagen the story, so when I read the book to them they ask lots of questions as the might have imagined it diferently. We now live less then a mile away from a great library where we go weekly and the kids choose 10 - 15 books. They can't wait to get Home to 'devour' them!!! 

Kindergarten

We moved to the US at the end of february, towards the end of the schoolyear. Since his birthday is at the end of september, he was right at the cut off to start kindergarten. He was the youngest. He adjusted really well and learned so much in 3 months, made friends and got fluent in english. By the 'norms' he could start first grade in the fall, however, after taking into consideration his size, his background (moving countries for the third time and 2 languages) we decided to retain him and he will start kindergarten in the fall. It will be great for his self esteem, knowing the teacher (who he really likes and she also really enjoys having him in her room as he is very focussed and eager to learn) and being the older kid.

Feeling a bit guilty

On monday I start work. I am very happy since it is a great opportunity and an interesting challenge for my career. However I have had very mixed feelings since I accepted the role. Kids will go back to full time daycare and it males me feel guilty. Here in the US it is very common mom to leave their career on hold while raising their children (in Brazil, this is not always financially possible). We have also spend some much time together in the last year and specially since we moved to the US! I will miss spending so much time with them! But I am also aware I will be 100% present on our time together once I start working. Both kids will be at the same daycare until Kaio starts kindergarten in august. I am sure they will have lots of fun and be happy as it is a great daycare, it's just this mom's guilt (i would also feel very guilty if I would not have a career!) Since this is our 'last' week together, we had a full fun active week! We went to the zoo, the pool, museum, circus, library, indoor jumping arena, playdatea and ate tons of junk food, ice creams and sweets!

"Popoly"

It is fun and sometimes a bit scary to see how both kids copy US with things we say, our tone of voice, our way of sayin things! Josefine, since she was little was always bossy, well now she repeats the things I say to Kaio. "Kaiooooo, bathroom lights" (when he leaves them on, eventhough she also often lets them on) "kaioooo, come toda a tua comida" or "tidy up" (although she likely has much more on her plate or she also needs to help tidy up.) The other funny word she has been saying is "popoly" (properly) "I popoly put my toys away" 

New job...

We've moved here little over 3 months and finally are getting our employment figured out. Initially Jason took a temporary job in Los Angeles, which was a great opportunity but required him to be away more then 70% per month. After 2 months we decided that it was not going to work! (Josefine, on a week day, asked what he was doing home and why he was not in LA...). We even considered moving to LA, but then I got a great job offer which was also going to allow is to stay here in Colorado. At the same time Jason also got a job offer here in boulder! So, we decided to stay here in Colorado. A much better place to raise out kidlets!

We are celebrating!!!

'Punishments'

When Kaio or Josefine misbehave, they get a warning, and if that does not make them stop, we give them a punishment. For Kaio, taking away his tv is very impactful. We allow the kids to watch tv 30mins before bed (it is rare we allow them any other tv time during the day). Kaio loves tv, so he really does everything he can to avoid loosing his tv! Josefine, on the other hand is not that much into tv and often she just watches it because she wants to be with her brother, hence, loosing her tv is not that impactful. That is why we recently started taking her dessert away! She loves sweets and it is definitely something she wants. We keep the score of 'lost tv or sweets' on the refrigerator. They get the opportunity to get them back is they behave the remainder of the day.... It works pretty well, most of the time ;-)

Vacation time!

Kaio finished school 10 days ago and since I am not working yet, we are spending a lot of quality time together. Josefine goes to daycare 2 full days and on those days we are a bit more flexible in finding activities.... Earlier this week we went to the museum and saw a 3D movies (Josefine would probably be bored after 30 mins) but we were there for 3 hrs and only left as it was 1pm and we were hungry! Today we went to the pool and we spent 2 hrs playing and swimming! I love this one on one with the kids! ( when Kaio was in school I also did lots of fun stuff tailored to Josefine's age...)