Epiphanies

I would have called it dim sum (“name of the Chinese cuisine involving a light meal or brunch served with Chinese tea“) but Dh and I had a long discussion about the meaning of yum cha (“custom of eating small servings of different foods while sipping Chinese tea“) versus dim sum. So I will now call it by the correct name since wikipedia backs up his statement . Interesting translation: “Dim Sum is a Cantonese phrase (點心), literally “touch the heart” (order to your heart’s content) but meaning “morsel/snack”. It may be derived from yat dim sum yi (一點心意), meaning “a little token”.” And the meaning of yum cha is exactly what Dh said, literally means drinking tea. When I asked him why people call it dim sum, he said he thinks it’s because americans probably wouldn’t get “drink tea” so I guess it’s the americanization of a chinese tradition. I try to think of what my parents called it when I was young and I think they did call it yum cha but ironically I always thought that was the mandarin way of calling it versus dim sum which I thought was the cantonese way to say it. How little I knew.

Anyway, we wanted to try out a yum cha place we’ve never been to. I told Dh about Russell’s Seafood Palace which he then recognized as a place his friend Walter had once recommended. I read that this place wasn’t all that crowded compared to China Garden and Sam Woo’s. Those lines can be insane on a Sunday morning so I didn’t want to bother trying for yum cha there. This place opens at 11am and it was more crowded than I thought so it’s not the isolated dive in the wall that I had envisioned. Lots of Asians. I think word of mouth really DOES count for a lot if this place was more crowded than I thought. My in-laws thought the food was pretty decent although they did send back one dish (thought it went bad) and they thought another one was bad too but didn’t send it back. I tried those dishes myself and I thought it was fine. He must have some refined palate. He made the manager try it and they thought it was fine too. I wonder if maybe he’s losing his sense of taste like that father from “Eat, Drink, Man, Woman“. Loved that movie. Anyway, bottom line, this restaurant is a definitely “must come back” place. The lack of long wait time is a huge factor.

Afterwards, we made our way up to Huntington Library. We were taking advantage of the BOA free museum passes in May. These places can get very very pricey. This was a beautiful place, lots of foliage and garden themes. They even had a Japanese garden which included a zen garden and bonsai trees, koi pond and bridges. It was very cool. Anyplace that has a rose named “Jocelyn” rates an “A” in my book

Today was a very nice way to spend Mother’s Day.

I had begun questioning the merits of the Fisher Price Ocean Wonders Aquarium swing but after a couple months of J not liking it all that much, he now falls asleep in it in the morning. Even though it’s only in the morning, it really gives me a much needed break. My baby is not a fan of me putting him down to sleep. As long as I hold him, he’s fine. Once I put him down, he wakes up about 10 minutes later. The only time he’s awesome at sleeping is when he goes to sleep for the night at 9pm (wakes up at about 6-7am). We asked Dr. Abelowitz how many hours he should be sleeping. He told us about 12-15 hours. *Sigh* We seems to raise children who don’t sleep all that much.

C: Mom, have you ever seen a real skeleton?

Me: Er… ( contemplating seriously)

C: I don’t think you’ve seen a real skeleton.

Me: No?

C: No. I’ve seen a real skeleton.

Me: You have?

C: Yeah, on (insert internet game name here). The skeleton took off his head.

Me: Sweetie, that’s not real. That’s a cartoon. (*ignoring the fact that her 4 year old is watching such a gory act* *must investigate that issue later*)

C: Cartoons are on t.v., not on computers.

Me: Um, they’re pretty much cartoons honey. You know what cartoons are, right? They’re many drawings that make it seem like the characters move.

C: Cartoons aren’t drawings.

Me: Yes, they are.

*Silent pause*

C: Well I saw a fake skeleton move. He took off his head.

Me: Ah.

We went to eat at Chick Fil-A. Actually the kids did. They have a kid’s area so I figured the kids could expend some energy while Dh and I could have some time to have adult conversation. So we bought sandwiches at Panera Bread at the Woodbury Town Center and went over to Chick Fil-A to buy kid’s meals. The sandwiches were quite yummy. We must do that again. J gets a bit antsy at real restaurants so I think this is the best method for us now. He was quiet and taking in all the kids’ activities.

I guess life got the best of me. I really meant to post almost every day.

Let’s see, highlights of the past few weeks:

1) B did “Take your kid to work day” and missed school.

2) We registered C for kindergarten (gosh he’s growing so fast!!). The process was a bit tedious because noobies didn’t fill out papers correctly. (It’s not rocket science, not sure why they couldn’t fill it out correctly). Bumped into a bunch of people there (Julia who had kids in swimming too), (Lisa, Stanley’s mom), (Evan’s mom – don’t remember her name), (Mahtab – Niloo’s mom), (Bunnee).

3) C went to Julianna’s bday at Chucky Cheese.

4) We went to Spring family picnic. Al did the strawberry pie eating contest. B did the sack race. B and C did egg hunt and bounce house and some crafts. I met Wendy there, Kirsi and Carol. Also met Windy’s hubby and Sandi’s hubby. Was pretty funny. We ate at California Fish Grill and bumped into someone from Indian guides (forgot name).

5) Went to Tustin to check out Cream Pan. Overrated. It’s good but not a place I would go out of my way to go to because I absolutely craved it.

6) Played Mousetrap for Family Night. It was pretty fun building it. The kids had fun (I think). We also played Littlest Pet Shop Game. That was really up C’s speed and fun also.

7) Dh went to K1 speed with his work buddies. He says he had fun.

8) My grandmother (Dad’s mom) died on May 4th. Supposedly their old caregiver left and they hired a new one and she was feeding her milk, but because she didn’t know what she was doing, my grandmother choked? and died. She was 97 I think. The only thing I can really remember about her was that she would spit out these Binlan aka Betel Nuts onto the floor, leaving all this disgusting red stuff on the floor. It used to scare me when I was a child because I thought it was blood. By the time I met her again later when I was in my twenties, she just didn’t engage me in anyway or even attempt to. I feel sorry for my dad but as for myself, I can’t really say I knew her.

9) We went to Kidspace Museum which turned out to be much cooler than I expected. We took advantage of the free museum admissions on BOA May promotion. I want to take my nephews there when they visit California again. This time we’ll be more prepared and do a picnic at the park afterwards.

10) Zoo Tycoon Complete Collection addiction. I’m addicted – this game rocks so much more than I thought it would. The kids have fun with it too as well as Dh. Fun for the whole family. It’s fun building a zoo and trying to figure out how to draw people, how to redirect traffic so that one area isn’t so congested, how to keep animals happy, what habitats are suitable for them, how best to layout the zoo. It really is challenging.

C: Mommy can you help build some homes for some animals when I’m at school?

Me: Sure. Which ones?

C: Kangaroos, rhinoceros, and cantelopes.

Me: Cantelopes?

C: Yes, cantelopes, the ones that look like deers.

Me: Oh ok, sure. (adorable).

11) Tried out swimming with J at the pool up on the hill. Think the pool is called Valley View. Can’t quite remember. We put him in the Body Glove Infant Water Carrier. It worked great in that it was the right height for the water. J wasn’t happy though. Think he was too cold and he kept crying. Maybe we’ll try it again when we go to Hawaii. Saw Cathy and Duc and the kids there. She told me the am teacher for K is strict. Oh no. Hope C has a good K year. Also met Taras and his mom Julia there. Taras took tennis with B before. We planned for a playdate.

12) Took J for his 4 month check up. He’s about 15 lbs – wow. He’s healthy so no worries so far. He had to get his second set of shots. The few days after that was hellish because he had a fever and was really cranky. I was quite worried. We gave him infant tylenol but it’s still worrisome. Dh went out to dinner too that very night so it was kind of hard.

13) Finally got out of our TKD contract (5/9 – last day) at a monetary loss too but what can we do. It’s the breaks.

14) Fisher Price Kid-Tough Digicam for Boys lasted all of a few hours. Sucked. Just wouldn’t power on. Tried to call Fisher Price but it’s difficult to troubleshoot because J has been cranky cause of the shots. Think they’re going to have me reformat the camera. Hope that works.

15) Went out with my gfs. We ate at Corner Bakery because it was a friday night and the Spectrum was packed as usual. Wasn’t too bad. I had some kind of chicken pesto sandwich. Bought some kind of pitching toy for C and B to practice baseball at Target. C recced it. Hope it works.

16) Met up with Dh to go to the post office to get a passport for J. We needed expedited service (an extra $60) but it’s a 10 week wait now because of the unusually high volume of passports apps this year. She was out to lunch though so we went to eat at Champagne’s Market, near where we used to live at Newport Bluffs. We split our sandwiches. Dh had a salmon one and I had a chicken grilled one. He had it on some kind of squaw bread. In the words of Dora – Delicioso!! Mmmmmh, just thinking of it now make my mouth water.

17) Played Risk for Family Night. 3 letters – UGH.

18) I think we’re going thru some bad karma the last few months. Things have not worked, or are damaged, we’ve gotten hit with a bunch of fees, we’re losing money here and there. Must think of something to get us out of our slump.

19) B walked the dog and he went for a long time so I had to run out there and see what was keeping him. (That’s the overly protective side of me). He was hanging out with the blond kid who lives right by the park. B told me they got bullied by some older kids (12 yo) on bikes. They were taunting the other kid calling him a scaredy cat when he ran away from their bike. They tried to taunt B too but Sammy barked at them and so they left him alone. They were trying to “run them over” according to B. His friend was on a scooter. One of the bullies was brown and one was white, says B. I’m definitely going to say something to them if I ever see them. B says they live in the neighborhood. Anyway, B tried to tell them off about not bullying kids younger than them. He asked them “Do you want someone trying to run you over?” They replied “Yes!” B said they answered like that because they were embarrassed at their behavior. I’m glad B can stand up for himself.

20) Met a new mom Yumi (her kid’s name is Takumi). He’s on second grader in Liam’s class. She seems nice. She also has another son who is 4 but going to turn 5 in Dec so she’s going to hold him back.

Anyway, those are the highlights. Back to your regularly scheduled program…

You can grab things and you try to stuff them in your mouth. You laugh. You look around with real interest in what people are doing. You love looking at your brother B. I think C might be a little too aggressive with you. You tend to turn away from him when he sticks his face so near yours. You love looking in the mirror. You love looking at me. You love being held all the time. You don’t like being put down. It bores you. The swing bores you after 10 minutes. The only time you really sleep is when we hold you or when we drive or when we push you around in the stroller or if we’re at the swimming pool. If we stop, you start to stir. If I put you down, you wake up after about 10 minutes. You sleep through the night though starting at 9-10 pm. You wake up around 6-6:30 am though. I suspect it’s because you have trouble breathing. Your nose is always stuffed up by the morning. Think I will start using a humidifier (that’s what my friends have said will work). They actually think that’s the reason you won’t sleep during the day on your back. Trouble breathing.

We went to Gelson’s today and I had C push around the mini shopping cart. We would have gotten out of there with no problems but then C all of a sudden had to do number 2. That didn’t bode well for me because I had to stop moving the stroller. After a little while, you got bored of looking at me and starting to whine a lot. By the time C came out, you were at a full blown holler. I had to pick you up and you shut up. A lady let me go in front of her at the cashier’s. I actually chose paper and boy was that a mistake. It was hard to carry the groceries with those paper bags without a shopping cart. Being eco friendly is hard. On another note, Gelson’s was soooo neat and organized and had cool stuff. Too bad it’s so expensive. If I had a lot of money, I would definitely shop there more. No wonder they do so well. That’s one classy supermarket. Employees there go out of their way to be helpful and solicitous. Customer service there has always been top notch.

Today was C’s last swimming lesson. I’m going to try hard to take him swimming though. We bought a Body Glove water baby carrier so that I or Dh could hold J in it while in the water. That way C won’t drown since I’ll be in the pool with him. I want Dh to try it first though before I do.

Anyway, J decided to gift me with a poo diaper at the swimming lesson for the first time. I’ve made it these last three months without having to change his diaper so I thought I was home free. Sadly not. And they were fixing the women’s bathroom so I had to change him in the men’s room. The diaper changing station was made for giants (slight exaggeration) but it was seriously hard for me to reach. It was placed way too high for me. Wth is that about? Do men really need the table to be that high? I’m seriously considering buying the diaperbridge except I think it’s for smaller babies and J is getting bigger by the day. It’s a great idea. I don’t know if we’d use it much. I can really just go change him in the car. I think if it worked in a plane, it would be awesome. Planes are a pain and a half for changing diapers.

We made up for Sunday night’s lack of family night by playing cadoo tonight. I also solved the mystery of those random cadoo boxes that were lying around. Apparently we got them as a Burger King kid’s meal promotion. We ended up buying cadoo ($7.99 price cut at Target) since my SIL thought it was a good game. We had fun. C still needs a little help (4 yo) but I think with practice he will get the hang of it. I think he’s not exactly familiar with it and so feels trepidation about doing things. I think it’s not that he can’t do it but that he’s afraid to do the wrong thing for fear of looking stupid. I need to train him out of that. B was nice tonight. He was very helpful in trying to figure out for everyone their best move. He wasn’t a cutthroat about it – hope he stays like that. It’s a good trait to have not to be so hung up on winning. It’s still disappointing to lose but letting it go and moving on leads to inner peace *cough*.

Dh has this thing about leaving the heads on the shrimp. Not sure if he’s trying to divest the kids of their fear of shrimp heads or simply scare the bejesus out of them. Think C didn’t want to have to hurt these little animals that still have heads. Anyway, they’re finally getting used to it and have managed to behead the shrimps all by themselves. Not eat the heads, just behead them. Just goes to show you: tough love works with beheading shrimp heads. They didn’t like the taste of the heads so doubt they’ll ever eat the heads (me included).

I also learned something new. Dh taught me how to eat the meat inside the shelled part next to the shrimp tails. It’s all in the way you hold the tail. You hold one part of the tail (don’t squeeze), and pull it out. It comes out easily.

C: “One day I’ll be a professional.”

Me: “A professional what?”

C: “A professional.”

Me: “Do you know what a professional is?”

C: “A professional is someone who eats mushrooms, shrimp heads and shrimp tails.”

Me: “Ah.” Too cute.