Sunday, July 31, 2011

Tony on July 29, 2011



Tony was strutting and jumping on the bed when he should have been sleeping.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

It's raining outside!

That's what Tony said this morning. 
 
The first time I have heard him say such a thing.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Why was Tony rifling through my backpack?

Jenny and Tony meet me right after I finished work last night.  Jenny told me that Tony had acted strangely.  She wanted to buy him a yellow pickup truck toy but he wasn't interested.  So Tony went away from a toy store without having a toy bought for him and wasn't upset about it.  Or so it seemed.

Jenny, Tony, and I then took the bus home.  As soon as we got home, Tony was looking in my backpack.  He was asking where the yellow pickup truck was.  We told him that we hadn't bought for him.  But he insisted on continuing to look in my backpack.  And he became quite upset when he couldn't find anything.

Strange.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Tony on the bus

Tony can't stand still when he is riding the bus.  He likes to jump up and down, and run about.  Last night on the bus, he sat across the aisle from me.  I observed him acting.  He must have seen a movie or something that got him going. I had to continually tell him to sit still.

Monday, July 18, 2011

How many times did Dad spank Tony today?

Three that he can remember. 
 
Monday is Dad's day off from school and when he can spend a lot of time with Tony.  So many opportunities arise for Dad when spanking seemed the prudent action.
 
Tony is in the phase of his childhood where he wants, he wants, he wants, and he has the vocabulary to say so. **  He is also reckless enough to run away from his parents intent on his desires but not thoughtful enough to think of the consequences.  To reason with him is useless, though Dad believes that the reasoning must happen so Tony can become attune to the vocabulary.  There is also a chance, Dad believes, that Tony will understand something of the tone of reason begging him to think of consequences.
 
But reason and its tone can only go so far.  Children have their reasons, which are reasonable enough if you take their point of view which is  that desires must be immediately satisfied.  But adults would be fools or children to reason from their own immediate desires.  One of which is to satisfy their child's desires and another of which is to somehow not have to use physical force on a child.  One must spank.
 
At a restaurant, Tony was playing with a door.  Dad first asked Tony to sit down.  Tony didn't listen.  Dad then grabbed Tony by the hand.  Tony didn't want to come along.  Dad then grabbed Tony by the arm and meet further resistance.  Time to spank.
 
In the supermarket, Tony gets a toy car, which his parents reluctantly agree to buy for him.  But then he asks for more.  Time to spank.
 
At home, Tony is leaning out a window three floors above the ground.  Very dangerous.  He resists his father pulling him in.  For his own good, time to spank.
 
**Does the I want, I want, I want phase ever end?  Does it extend to adulthood and beyond?

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Friday, July 15, 2011

The Train Set at Casa K in Wuxi, China

Tony tries to hit Tom the Talking Cat with a toy guitar

Tony really likes the Tom the Talking Cat App on the Ipad.  (He also likes the talking dog and giraffe Apps as well.)  For those of you who haven't see the App, I will tell you that the user can, because of the Ipad touch screen, scratch, slap, and punch Tom the cat and the cat will react accordingly.  You can even talk in Tom's ear and he will repeat what you say.  

Tony, as I have been saying, can spend hours with the App.  I guess that instead of being bored of it, as I have quickly become, Tony has thought of new ways to punish the cat.  My wife tells me that on Friday, Tony took his toy guitar and decided to hit Tom with it.  In other words, he was trying to smash the Ipad with a guitar!

Horrifying to an Ipad owner, and yet somehow funny.

Tony Kaulins and his TOMY train set

Tony looks at algae at Wuxi's Nanchang area


Monday, July 11, 2011

TKIC Notes from mid-July 2011

  • On July 12, 2011, Tony was 42 days away from his fourth birthday.  He was also as old in months as his father was in years.
  • Tony's favorite ruse  to justify his wandering about the restaurants to tell his mother he has to go pee-pee.
  • Tony has been locking the door when he pees in a stall of a public washroom of a restaurant.
  • At the Food Court at the Hui Shan Tesco Mall, the K family was having supper.  Tony decided, in the middle of supper, to run to the nearby video arcade, really earning the ire of his father who was enjoying his dumplings.
  • In Canada, there are dollar stores; in China, 2 rmb stores.  Tony likes to go to one at Nanchang Temple so he can buy a motorcycle, or "moto chew" as the Chinese call them.
  • Tony tells his father to set up the TOMY train set for him every night.  His mother hates this because she likes to keep the house neat.
  • Tony woke up at eleven a.m. on Tuesday.
  • Tony asks "What are you dong?" and "Where is mom?"  His vocabulary grows. 
  • His grasp of Chinese verbs is already better than his father's.

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Tony likes the Ipad.

Tony really likes the Ipad his parents bought last week.  His parents downloaded an app that features a cat you can scratch and tickle and poke.  When Tony saw the cat app, he wouldn't let the machine out of his hands and so ran out the battery.

His parents have hidden the machine from him.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Wake up!

Daddy told a demanding Tony that he was sleepy and wanted to go to bed.
 
Tony didn't care.  He told his father to wake up because he wanted help with the train set.

I want

Tony, last night, was using the words "I want.." It was the first time, I had ever heard him use those words.
What did he want? He wanted me to add track to his train set, among other things.

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Tony the guest takes a shower

Funny thing happened Saturday night when the K family was invited to a friend's house for supper.
 
Halfway through the evening, Tony followed his father into the bathroom.  Tony said "Daddy take a bath!", and then proceeded to strip.
 
Daddy not sure what Tony wanted called Tony's mother into to see what Tony wanted.  It turned out that Tony wanted to take a shower.
 
His behavior was inexplicable since usually he has to be dragged, screaming, to the bathroom and the bathtub. 
 
His behavior was found to be very hilarious to all the other guests attending the dinner.