Harvey and Mary arrive!
Happy hugs
Early morning school bus pick-up
Subway ("LRT") trip to the kids' school
International School of Kuala Lumpur
Griffin's soccer field - he plays twice a day, three times on Tuesdays!
Alice, proud of her Grammy reading
Grammy and Harvey reading Alice's book on Komodo Dragons
Alice's Komodo Dragon diorama
Boom's snack time, always outdoors!
We joined Boom to chase him and his friends at recess
Boom's class has pretended to camp in his class, using the blue tent in the back
The girl on the left has a crush on Boom
Taxi Dog!
Alice and Boom's friend, Valeria
Boom's recent artwork: "I am the driver on the boat. My mommy and daddy are drivers. Cousins give people food and drinks. Friends take food away."
A book documenting Boom's progress over his school year.
See the change in Boom writing his name from top to bottom, from beginning of school year to now
Alice's complex jump rope recess activity
3 Generations of Women in Asia!
Durian is an extra stinky fruit, loved or hated
Chinese Steamboat dinner (boiled seafood in soup, you boil it yourself) and chili crab
Petronas towers in distanceApril 1, 2011
We were SO relieved to have Mary and Harvey come to visit us for 11 days. We really really miss them. We were so used to having them be such an important part of our lives, with their weekly babysitting for an afternoon and night and more in NYC. We thought they weren’t going to be able to visit but were surprised when they decided to come, pretty last minute. And, they are joining us for our trip to India!
But, first they got a taste of our life in KL, so they could know what our year here was like. We scheduled them to read to Abraham and Alice’s classes, and we made sure they saw Griffin play soccer during recess. All the kids were so PROUD to show off their grandparents, and Mary and Harvey didn’t disappoint, reading with dramatic enthusiasm and relishing seeing how the kids were thriving at school. For example, Alice has bloomed from an insecure, non-reader to a reader and writer this year, under the tutelage of a dynamic, fun, affectionate 1st grade teacher named Ms. Thompson. Alice showed Mary and Harvey the book she wrote about komodo dragons, index and all! It was spectacular. We took them to lunch at a local street-food outdoor Indian restaurant, Ken’s favorite with lots of roti (fried dough with Indian dipping sauces).
The next day they held Ken’s hand when he made our final flight reservations back from KL to NYC. It’s complicated for lots of reasons, and their support helped Ken over the hump. Truth is, Ken’s often felt isolated here in KL, and he needed his parents’ love and support and conversation a lot. They talked over coffee, lunch at our favorite Buddhist temple across the street from our apartment, high tea at the Carcosa Seri Negara Hotel in Lake Gardens, on a walk through Lake Gardens, and over dinner at Hakka, a big Chinese-Malaysian seafood and “steamboat” restaurant on the other side of the park from our apartment. They figured out what took us a while to understand – the best thing about Kuala Lumpur may be the food, and the diversity of it.
With the kids, Mary and Harvey took them on a few swims in our pool, leaving them amazed by how Boom’s swimming as taken off. He’s been taking weekly swim lessons at his friend Arthur’s home, and they’ve paid off. He’s now doing forward flips into the pool and diving to the bottom, in addition to learning how to breathe while doing the crawl. Every time his face lifts out of the water, a huge smile is plastered on it. And, Griffin showed his speed when he made us adults do repeated games of “Monster” with us chasing him all over the pool, with him constantly slipping out of our grip. Griffin is now running faster than either me or Ken. Our last morning in Kuala Lumpur with Mary and Harvey, they took a swim with the kids, reveling in how warm the water was after a never-ending, snowy winter in NYC. I reveled in them making us all so happy.
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