Wednesday fun

Finally i got a new battery for my laptop and i don't have to be chained down to a desk to use my computer. Now i shouldn't have any execuse for not keeping this up to date.

Let's see, April is almost over and it had just been full of action this month. Tony's birthday, Brandan's birthday, spring break and parties/playdates.  Tony's birthday we ate sushi and as always that was Brandan's favorite food too. He ate both of the Salmon Roe sushi, but didn't like smelt eggs. However Lexi didn't care much for the salmon roe but liked the smelt.  Both of them ate small amount of sashimi, and that just amazed all the people around us. While the other kids at a different table only ate california rolls. The kids understand it's Daddy's birthday too, they were treating him even more like a king by giving him lots of kisses and, of course, hyper.

For spring break, we couldn't go anywhere, Mexico is out of question due to the druglord wars. Tony had to work most of the week anyways, so we went to Knott's Berry Farm one day and Sea World the other day and relaxed between. The kids had a lot of fun and the weather was nice. we had Easter at Kyle's house and that was a blast for all the kids.  It's hard to believe how much candy kids can eat. Especially Lexi, she is so sneaky, she will go ask for one little piece of candy from the older kids, and they will give it to her. Little pieces adds up to be a lot, i think she ate more candy than Brandan at the end of the party.  Brandan has changed since the last time we went to any theme parks. Now he is so brave and just want to do the thrilling rides, big or small. For some baby looking rides, he didn't even want to stand in line for them.  Lexi didn't care and just enjoyed all rides that she could get on.  When we were at Sea World, we watched the Samu show and a few other things that we didn't when Kate and Khoa were here visiting in 2007. Out of the blues, Brandan said "mommy, i have been here before, i have watched this show before, and i was with 干媽.

On Brandan's birthday, we took him to disneyland, he is tall enough for a lot of the rides now even Space Mountain. He was so excited at the first, then he got a little scared right before we went into the roller coaster. Once we were in, he almost cried, but i told him to hold my hands. I thought maybe he just closed his eyes for the entire ride and cry through it. But he didn't, he came out so excited about it, and he even told me that it's all dark in it and lots of stars inside and we turned and turned in the dark.  i regret for not getting the pictures of the ride.

He is so grown now, not just his physical features, he also uses logic and think more mature over things. He likes to say "#)(* person".  He drank lots of water one day and said he was a "water person". He saw red cup cakes on a catalog today and said to me he didn't like pink, but he is still a cupcake person.  He is also getting really good at riding his bike and the floor cart. 

Today, we were on our way to the mall and i told him that we had to go there to get a battery for my PC. He said "no mommy, i will get it for you for Mother's day" after i told him that i need the battery today, then he told me that he will get me a big big rock band with diamonds on it for mother's day then. it was so cute and touchy.  He sometimes will say strange things like "i want to eat something dangerous" although i have no idea what that would be.

With Brandan talking so well, he is also talking very well in Chinese. After he saw pictures of the new baby Mya, he told my mom that there is a new baby in the family and her name is "mya" and he even asked me how to say Mya in chinese before he told my mom.  He is now more into helping Lexi out and showing her ways instead of fighting with her. He still does, and gets upset and cry when lexi just snatch things out of his hand. But he is becoming a lot more tolerable with her and her behavior. Lexi just doesn't ask for turns from Brandan and just takes toys away from Brandan's hand saying "it's mine". That's normally when the fight starts. But they also play together very well most of the times.

Lexi has been going to the pacific club with me a few times a week. She just got tired of it and didn't want to stay today, but after crying for a few minutes, she was happy again and she even played with girls. I think she is starting to realize that it's fun to play with other girls. Maybe because she is more grown that her intuition naturally steering her to the other girls to do more girlie stuff. She likes flowers and kitty cats right now and she constantly ask for grandpa...

She has an amazing memory, looking at pictures, she remembers Dylan and Dylan's mom. She remembers Lila and her mom.

A random tuesday

Today, there was no school, after spending some time in the library we brought back some books and DVDs. After a long nap, we all went to the mall to get brandan a hair cut and they could burn off some energy at the mall playground.  Brandan sat real good during the haircut. Poor thing was trying to watch TV, but the cut off hair was getting onto his face and bugging him around the eye area. Not sure what to do, he kept his eyes half open. That didn't stop the hair from getting into his eyes, he just started to cry...the stylist didn't even pay attention to what he was doing. I had to stop her and try to clean up his face before she continued to cut it.  After the hair cut, i told him that he looked handsome. But he said he wasn't handsome, he was "fresh".  And he made me say after him. ''You are fresh!"

After playing in the mall playground we started to head home. I guess seeing some kids were playing there by themselves, he started to appreciate the companionship of his sister. In the car he told me that he has a mei mei, and he would be sad if he didn't have her.  Then he said, there are some boys have no sisters and some sisters have no brothers.  That was just a total moment of "AWWW!"

Lexi has so much fun when Brandan stays home, the ran around the house doing silly stuff all day and only had 2 little fights. Lexi loves to dance, so when Brandan is idol, she makes up songs to sing and dance around the house.  When she finishes, she claps and asks us to clap with her too. 

Mr Bunky Head

So Brandan is Mr Bunky head, him and Kyle or maybe other friends at school came up with that and they all call each other bunky head. Like "hi mommy bunky head". Not sure what's so fun about it, but they have been saying that for weeks and still not over it yet. Even Lexi picked up and says "bye mr bunky head" to people. Head, Eyeball are two catch phrases i hear about 200 times a day. "Mommy eyeball, can i have an apple", "eyeball plant, grow up now"...

Brandan is a truly loving boy, he loves nature.  He told me many times that we live on a green planet. We planted some flowers in the yard, including grapes, tomatoes and squash. He checks on them daily and help with watering. He was looking at the tomato plant the other day and i saw him drooling over it. But the funny thing is that he doesn't even like to eat tomatoes.  

He is doing really good at gymnastics too, not too accurate with the moves, but he listens really well and tries hard.  He is still too young to really do the forms.  He loves to just staying idol in class and watch me watching him over the glasses, and he will move onto his course until until i tell him or the coach tells him. I need to start him with Teakawdo soon, i think he will do great in that too. He has gotten taller lately, still stayed the same weight at 36 pounds.

I am so greatful that both kids are good eaters, especially fruits and veggies. Brandan loves salad with or without dressing. Lexi loves the dressing more than the salad, but she loves cucumber and brocolli like Brandan does.  Fruits are their must haves everyday, grapes, peaches, pears, strawberries...they love it all. Soybeans, baby carrots, cucumber sticks are their lunch favs.

He is becoming a little thinker too, in the stage of "why, why, why". He sure keeps me talking all day with him. But he asks good questions, like why are homeless indeed homeless and where are their parents. Reading little redding hood causes him to ask 20, 30 questions such as "what is the wolf hungry for", "why does he want to eat people", "why can the hunter hear Redding hood asking for help", "why does the wolf eat the old grandma" and "why is all grandma old".

He can recite some Chinese poems now.  鵝鵝鵝 and 春曉. He can tell my mom stories in Chinese too, he tried to explain StarWar to my mom, but he gets stuck with translating Jaba the Hutt type of names.  With his birthday coming, his obsession with star wars is not getting any cooler. He wants to have a party at home so he can play starwar game with his friends. And he wanted everyone to have a light saber so they can "pretent" fight.

another month had past

It's been such a busy month. Can't believe i haven't left anything on the blog for so long. Umm...where should i pick up.

Lexi, she is becoming a big girl, she is talking a lot in long sentences. She mimics me and my mom a lot. My mom's shoulder hurts sometimes and she swings it to loosen up the muscle tissue. Lexi copies her doing that but she does it in a dancing fashion which is very cute.  She loves to dance. Anytime the music comes on, she is moving. She has rythm but no move. Watching her dancing reminds me of Irene on Sienfield. She is very good at doing gymnastics, everyone in her class is impressed with how much she can do. She can hold onto the single bar and lift her feet up to the bar at the same level and back flip with her hands still holding on and hand on her feet in a 360. Every time she sees a down slope matt, she bends her head down and do a forward roll.  So cute to see her kick her feet up and somersault over and a big smile on her face. At home, she climbs everything too. She is still in the high chair and seems like she is so used to it. She climbs in and climbs out of it all on her own. But she can only do it from the right hand side. She moves her left foot out and land it on the middle support bar first then move her right foot down to the lower bar. And once landed, she then let go of her hands one at a time until she lands perfectly on the floor. Same thing climbing on. She doesn't even want us to help her anymore on it. She gets upset if anyone tries to pick her up and put her in the chair. 

She still loves babies. She's got so many baby dolls. But the one from Marsha remains to be her favorite. She carries her to a lot of places and always trying to take her to potty and give her binky. She is really impatient, i was trying to teach her about colors and shapes, once she learned the first 2, she starts to messing around the rest of the time by calling them the wrong thing on purpose and laughing at it. She would even say "I am funny!" Her Chinese is getting very good too. She knows a lot more words now, but still can't beat Brandan's Chinese.  She sometimes mix Chinese words into English and vice versa.  She even say a few words in Kunminese although she doesn't know what they really mean. She loves the new words she learned lately "樹葉“ was her new love. She collects them and show me each one of them and say daddy leaf to the big ones, mommy leaf to the medium ones and she comes up with Brandan leaf, mei-mei leaf and puo-puo leaf too. 

She does a lot of good doodling, clear lines across the paper or circles that are pretty round and even in size. She is throwing a lot less fit since she stayed home with us. She grabs every chance she gets to go out with me, even just to the post office. But I think she grew up a lot and learned a lot by staying home.  She participates in the play group when we get chances to go and play along side with the girls sometimes.  But not really playing together yet.  

She is becoming so much like a little woman, moody at times, but very girly.

the most horrific day of my parenthood by far!

So, i never thought this would happen, but it did and yes, i spanked brandan, twice, on his bottom after i asked him to take off his own pants. It was definitely called for, i had no other idea of how to make him remember what he did forever and not to do it again.

So it all started today after i put both of the kids to bed and i was pretty confident that they would both fall asleep. We did our usual routine of bath, story time, lalliby and bed time. So when they were both in bed for a while in the dark and we heard them yarning and at least one of them is snorting away. I came down stairs. Tony had suggested for both of us to grab some wine at a local wine bar that's only 3 minutes away from the house. So we changed at 9:30 and went hoping that the kids would be sound asleep after we come back from an hour of wining out. 

After the cheese was brought on the table and the wine was served, we got a phone call from my mom. I had previous told my mom, who was watching the kids to call incase of emergency. And i had also told her that it's ok for the kids to watch some cartoon for an hour or so if they did wake up and looking for us. But i never expected to hear what i heard from her over the phone. After Tony picked up, he gave me the phone, all i heard was my mom saying "they both woke up and the worst is that brandan opened the front door when she came into the office to get the phone. And he had stormed out of the house in the rain to go look for us". My heart just sunk! As i was trying to talk to my mom, i realized that she was on the home phone and it was going to be out of the range soon.  Sure enough! after a few seconds, the phone got cut off and i had no idea what was going on. Right after I told tony, he left the wine bar to head home and left me there to take care of the bills.  2 minutes later, Tony called and told me that the garage door was open, the front door was open and NO ONE, NO ONE was in the house.  I could have totally have snapped right there. Then Tony said he was coming to get me to come home and figure out what's going on. After the bill was taken care of and i was just anxiously waiting for Tony's car, i got another phone call. Tony was at the Pavilions 5 minutes to the house and there were a couple who was there to help my mom to stop brandan, and they had also called the cops not knowing what really is going on and just seeing a little boy running on the street in his pajamas in the rain and an Asian lady running after him with a baby girl in her arms. Quickly, i was hung up again. Not sure if i should just start walking home or not, i sat there and awaited with all my hair stood up.  5 minutes later, tony showed up at the wine bar's parking lot with the entire family in tow. I was so relieve and also so ANGRY with what happened. We had told brandan multiple times to not go out of the house without an adult. He is old enough to figure out how to use the child prove locks and is totally tall enough for the lock and i had seem him use chairs to reach things up high. But i had never expected for him to storm out of the house in the rain like that in the middle of the night. 

After we got home, i yelled at him so hard, i almost lost my voice. I could see him shake very time i raised my voice. I just so want him to understand why it's NOT acceptable to get out of the house without an adult. I asked him to take off his own pants, and i spanked him twice.  As i was doing it, i told him to forever remember the first time i spank him and never go out of the doors without an adult again. I also made it clear that no toys or play time for a whole week as a punishment. Tony then sent him to the bathroom and then bed. Brandan's face was totally pale from all the drama that he caused himself.  

I feel so bad for spanking him, i know physical punishment doesn't always work, but i just felt the need to do it so he will remember it when he attempts to do something stupid like that again. In my mind, he would have been ran over by cars, fell of the hills...I am just relieved that he is not hurt, but i pray that something like this will never happen again. Because I will always remember this day to be the worst day of my parenthood, and i hope brandan will remember too.

sick day at home.

After lexi had her share of the flu and an ear infection. Brandan started the whole cycle all over again. Normally kids 3 years or older don't get ear infection, but it's confirmed today that he did have an ear infection on the right side of the ear. 

In the morning, he cried and whined and fought so hard not to go to school, at the end he did get to stay home under the condition of no TV, no video games. After seeing the doctor, he kept asking where his medicine is. I told him that i had to go get it from the pharmacy, he insisted that he wanted to go with me to "make sure we get the right one". After saw the medicine was pink (antibiotics liquid in strawberry flavor), lexi insisted it was her medicine. And Brandan almost had a fight with her over it. I had to take it away and hid it in my purse.

He wasn't letting it go at all, the minute we got home, he asked for it right away. I had to give lexi some vita gummy bears so she doesn't throw a fit for not having antibiotics. It's so funny that Brandan loves the liquid form of medication and lexi completely despite it and willing to get chewables.  The antibiotics chewable are so nasty smelling, but she loved it and she would keep one in her hands and savor on one, then savor on another one. Sometimes she even asked for more. Funny girl.  Brandan truly knows how to take care of himself. After the medication, he had a little stomach pain as the normal side effects, the first thing he asked was to go see Dr. Shannon to get a different medicine or a medicine for his tummy ache. I had to sit him down to let it pass, then he was acting like the old little self.  Fighting with Lexi and playing with witty words in chinese with my mom.

funny conversations

Brandan enjoyed having Uwe over for dinner one day, Uwe played starwar video game with him and became his best friend instantly.  Here is a conversation between the "friends".

B: do you have a boy?

U: what? 

B: do you have a house?

U: yeah!

B: do you have a boy in your house?

U: no, i don't.

B: you got to get one, every man needs a boy!

U: why?!

B: because he can play video game with you, you know?

U: no, i don't have a boy in my house.

B: you can get one, from the store, they are expensive. (with eyes rolling)

U: i heard they are even more expensive after you get them in your house.

B: but you get a boy to play with you.

Another day when i was driving and trying to find something from my purse.

B: you got to put your hand on your wheels.

m: i am,

B: no, both of your hands.

m: ok, i am sorry. I will now.

B: you got to be careful, drive slowly and follow that car in front of you. So you don't crash.

m: that's right. If i drive bad, the policeman will catch me.

B: are you boogieman? Policeman only catches boogieman, you are mommy.

m: yes, policeman catches boogieman, but they also controls traffic.

B: they have guns, they will shoot the boogieman, but they won't shoot you, because you are good, ok? you are a good mommy, but you need to put BOTH of your hands on the wheels.

m: ok, thank.

B: i want to play video games, i never play star war video games before.

m: but you are sick and your eyes hurt.

B: if i don't play, i am still sick and my eyes still hurt.

m: no video games, if you are so sick, you should go lay down.

B: I laid down yesterday, i laid down today and i am still sick. please video game please.

m: no means no.

B: 1 no means no, 2 nos means yes.

m: (rolling my eyes and sigh!)