Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Tony at leisure.

Tony to go to Suzhou for Children's Day.

Tony, accompanied by his mother Jenny, will go to Suzhou for Children's Day. 
 
They are going on a schol trip to some amusement park.

Monday, May 30, 2011

Tony just #8


Tony just got home from school.  Getting off the van, Tony was picked up by his Dad.
 
Dad took him for a walk.  At the small shop, Tony insisted on Dad purchasing a cola.
 
Tony told his father to look at the butterflies.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Tony just #7

It is Monday, so Tony just went to school.
 
He woke up grumpily, but eventually his mood brightened.
 
 
Last eveining, Tony asked me to set up the train set for him.  I put the track together.  And then Tony looked around.  "Where is the train?" he asked.
 
That was the first time, I have heard him ask a "Where is?" questiion.

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Tony just #6

Tony just put his shoes on.   His father saw him do this for the first time at the playground.
 
Just a couple qualifiers.  The shoes were slip-on.   Tony has been doing this for a week.  His father only noticed now.

Friday, May 27, 2011

Tony just #5

Tony was just at my school.  He and his mother were downtown so they could go to the playground.

They first came to the school so we could have lunch together.  We went to a restaurant near the school.  Tony ate quickly and dragged Dad to the upstairs of the establishment.  He made me sit down in the upstairs for some reason which I was not able to ascertain.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Come on Tony! Get up!

Tony just #4

Tony just showed Dad that he can count to 7.
 
Tony also surprised his father by identifying the color purple and by "out of the blue" saying banana and pineapple.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Wuxi Tony jumps and struts

Tony closes his eyes, pretends to sleep.


This photo was taken on the morning of Thursday, May 26, 2011.

Tony just #3

Tony just went to kindergarten.  His father carried him to the van that takes him there.  

Dad gave Tony a good bye kiss and told him to be a good boy.  Tony gave Dad a kiss in return.

Tony just #2

Tony just drank the bottle of milk his father made for him.  Now, it remains to be seen if Tony will happily get up to go to school.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Tony's Hands

Tony on May 22, 2011

Tony Just #1

Introducing a new feature to TKIC, called Tony Just.  Think of it as tweeting, TKIC style.
 
Tony Just #1: 
 
Tony just asked Dad to put a disc of music videos by The Jam into the DVD player.  The Jam were late seventies, early eighties British Punk Band.  Tony's Dad liked them a lot.  And now, so does Tony.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Five a.m. Bottle

The K family, all three, sleep together: Mom on one side, Tony in between, and Dad on the other. 
 
The last week has seen Tony,  awake his father at about five a.m., and ask for milk.
 
Dad has been obliging Tony.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Tony and his toy helicopter

Tony goes to the cinema for the first time.

A neighbor gave us free movie tickets for a cinema on Wuxi's Zhongshan Road.  We (the K family) used them last night (Saturday). 
 
We went to see a Ultraman movie.  We saw People with plastic/metal clothes and headwear battle each other, as well as other people who were wearing Godzilla-like rubber monster suits.  And there was a lot of grunting and explosions.
 
The movie half captured Tony's attention who wouldn't sit at a seat with Dad, but half the time sat on a folding chair in the aisle when he wasn't running up and down the aisles.
 
It will be a while before we will be taking Tony to a cinema again.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Tony holds up his car for the camera


Dad pointed the camera at Tony. Tony noticed the camera and so held up a toy car (one of the two that had been found in a previous entry).

Tony seems to know about posing for the camera now.

Last night, Tony greeted his father by saying "Fight!" with a mischievous smile. Tony loves wrestling with his Dad.

Tony plays a guitar and sings into a mircrophone

Two Toy Cars Found!

For the longest and darndest time, I had been wondering where one of Tony's matchbox cars had gone to.  The particular car was a bright lime green American muscle car model from the late 1960s.  It had gone missing before, been found, and then almost immediately went missing again.  For the past month, I had been asking my wife if she had known where it had gone to, but she didn't.
 
Then yesterday, my wife took the cover off our of the sofas in the living room of Casa K for cleaning purposes.  She found the green car and another brilliantly blue muscle car which I had forgotten about.  I was happy to see the cars again, as was Tony, who took the cars to bed with him.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Wuxi Tony goes underground


Tony sings Going Underground with Paul Weller and the Jam.

Quiet at school but wants to be a rock star.

The K family invited Tony's kindergarten teacher to Casa K for supper on Monday evening.  The teacher, a female,  was from Columbia and Venezuela. 
 
She asked me what I thought was a strange question, about why Tony didn't seem to speak so much English.  I had thought he spoke a lot of English for a child in China.  But then I noticed how quiet Tony became around her.  The whole evening the teacher paid us a visit, Tony said very little, not being his normal chatterbox self. 
 
Tony, I learned from the teacher, is very shy at school.  He doesn't speak much to the other children and likes to do his own thing.  He does like to show off his vocabulary for his ma and pa around whom he isn't shy.  But bring a stranger into the mix and he clams up.
 
 
Tony, the past few evenings, has, you maybe already know, been pretend-playing his toy guitar and singing along to the music of the punk-ear band the Jam.  Last evening, he found a toy microphone to sing into while playing his guitar along with either an MP3 or video of the Jam.  Last night, after having had his bath, he went into the living room; after which, I saw him sitting the sofa, his toy guitar in his lap as he watched the Jam video.
 
Video of Tony doing this will soon be on the Internet  -- worry not!

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Tony plays his toy guitar



Tony plays along with a song that is coming from his father's mobile phone.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Friday, May 13, 2011

Tony wants to fight!

The past week, Tony has been asking his father to fight.

So whether the two of them are lying in bed, or are sitting side-by-side on the sofa, Tony likes to say "fight!" to his Dad.

When Dad says "no fight!", Tony won't accept it.  Tony doesn't seem to mind if his father trounces him.

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Tony not happy this morning.

I sometimes find it hard to gauge Tony's mood.  There have instances when he cries and moans but I can't help but he feel is faking it.

This morning, he didn't want to get out of bed.  He fought his mother's efforts to dress him.  He didn't even let his mother to put on new underpants.  He tried to pull them off.  And he moaned in a way that had me thinking he was faking.  I could have sworn he was smiling as he fought.

But then as we put his shoes on, and tried to give him his lunch and book bags, he resisted us in a way that left no doubt that he did not want to go to school.  He wanted to throw his bags in the garbage, and he flopped putting his head and legs backwards.  He cried as I carried him to the van that takes him to school.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Tony this morning

Tony! It is time to go to school!


Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Tony's latest fascination: a handheld fan.

Tony wanted to take a small hand-held fan to kindergarten today.  I am not sure if he wanted it because it was an interesting gizmo or because it was hot in the kindergarten (it certainly was hot last night).

His mother didn't want him to take it to school, so she secretly took the fan out of his school bag as soon as he had put it in.  She supposed that Tony would be upset about this.  I support her doing this because little boys, being little boys, will hurt themselves or someone else with battery-operated fans.

Tony likes to do his own thing

Jenny went to see Tony do something at his kindergarten today.  As far as I can make out, from her report to me about it, the kids were doing some sort of outdoors sports show.  

I really don't care what the kids were doing, but I was interested in how Tony behaved.  Jenny said that Tony wasn't acting according to the program and was doing his own thing.  But that is to be expected since he is the youngest in the class.

Youngest though he is in the class, Tony is the biggest kid.  Jenny says he is a giant in his class.

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Tony and his Mom

Tony and Jenny on the evening before Mother's Day.

Bathroom is on the first floor!

The Kaulins Family was going to go to this Chairman Mao Cultural Revolutionary Redux Restaurant that had just opened in the shopping complex near Casa K.  (Casa K is located in the Hui Shan District of Wuxi.)  This restaurant, however, had just opened on a Tuesday, and it being its opening weekend, there was no way the K family was going to get a table without waiting a hour.  So, they instead went to a Korean Restaurant, in the same shopping complex, that had opened a few months earlier.

The restaurant had no lineup.  They were immediately seated on the second floor of the restaurant.  

The little boy Tony was his usual rambunctious self running all over the restaurant and hardly taking the time to sit, eat, and drink. He did drink half a can of cola.  And so he had to use the bathroom.

Tony, when needing to use the bathroom, tells his parents what he needs to do, and they accompany him.  At the Korean Restaurant, he followed his usual procedure.   His Dad was to accompany him.  Dad, however, didn't know where the bathroom was, so to a restaurant staff girl, he asked "W.C. 在 那里?"  The staff girl answered "一楼", which meant the first floor.  Dad then turned to look for Tony, and saw that Tony already had his pants down.  Laughing, Dad pulled them up and took Tony downstairs.

Tony, at home, when having to use the bathroom, pulls his pants down and then head to the bathroom.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Tony in the van that takes him to school.


The photo was taken on May 5, 2011. Tony is clutching a matchbox station wagon toy that his mother bought for him the day before.

Tony Kaulins in the Studio #52

How Dad got Tony to giggle.

Tony's father can be a silly at times. 

Last evening, in the apartment, Dad decided to take off all his clothes.  He walked into the bedroom where Tony lay playing with a toy.  Tony looked up at his naked father and smiled an amused smile.  Tony, his father realized, seemed to know that his parents being naked was usually inappropriate.  Tony's father then himself on his exposed buttocks while dancing, and Tony smiled all the more.

Dad then decided to go to the apartment's second bedroom where his wife (Tony's mother) was sitting at the computer.  After getting his wife's attention, Dad performed his slap-his-buttocks dance.  

Mom, found this amusing as well, and got up and chased Dad back to the first bedroom where Tony lay.  Mom pretended to spank his Dad for the benefit of Tony who giggled uncontrollably.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Tony on May 4, 2011

Tony got up and went to kindergarten this morning.  He wasn't in a grumpy mood.  His father took him to the van that picks him up and takes him to the kindergarten.  Tony gave his father a good bye kiss, and then quickly took his seat in the van.

Tony Kaulins in the Studio #48

What Tony is doing in early May 2011

  • Tony wanted to poo.  He prefers to have his mother help him do this activity -- she will hold him over the toilet while his father would insist that Tony sit on the seat.  So, Tony ran to his mother to get her help.  But she told him to get his father to help him.  So, Tony pushed his father into the bedroom and slammed the door.  Tony then ran to his mother and told her again that he wanted to poo.
  • Tuesday morning, his mother told Tony to get up and get ready for school.  Tony rolled over and away from his mother.  He put his head into his two hands which were folded in a sleeping posture, and with a look of annoyance and coyness he looked towards his father.  His father asked him if he wanted to go to school, and he said "no!"
  • Tony dropped some cheese on the floor.  His father got some tissue paper to pick it up with.  Tony grabbed the paper from his father and tried to clean up the mess himself.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

What has Tony been doing lately?

So, I have been publishing photos of Tony taken in February, and have neglected the Tony that is living in the now. 
 
He is doing okay.  He has been obsessed with Tom and Jerry Cartoons.
 
Just now, he brought me a bottle of ice tea because he wanted me to pour some of the beverage into one of his drink cups.
 
Last night at a restaurant, he couldn't sit still for long.  He went to the bathroom ten times.  He ran to a fish tank five times.  We were at a buffet place so he also dragged me to the pop dispenser another ten times.
 
And to top it off, he thought it was a great thing to slurp the drink from the container like he was a cat.

Tony Kaulins in the studio #38