Epiphanies

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.

For about a month, I’ve been losing massive amounts of hair. I kind of ignored it for a bit because I knew it was related to the whole postpartum thing. But after vacuuming today, it really freaked me out as to how much I’ve lost. My poor roomba. I’ve always had thick hair but this was getting ridiculous. Babycenter findings: “During pregnancy, changes in your hormone levels cause your hair to stay in a resting phase for longer, so you lose less hair on a daily basis…After you’ve given birth and your hormones have settled down — usually at about 12 weeks after delivery — more hair shifts into a shedding phase…after delivery, you may be losing about 500 a day. This can be very disturbing, but try not to worry too much — you won’t go bald!… Within another six months or so, your hair should be back to its normal pre-pregnancy thickness…” Phew.

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…

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.

Hung out with C, S, T and J. Had my jungle colada and potato skins. I’m really tempted to go back to drinking martinis but I always feel the martinis more than the colada so I feel guiltier about drinking martinis while nursing. I never really feel the coladas which is funny because J was buzzing with the colada and I was surprised. They seem so weak. Maybe she doesn’t drink as often as I do.

We talked about fertility – 3 of them are trying. It’s not as easy the second time around but they still got time. Talked about in-laws. S’s were in town for the last couple of weeks and I guess it wasn’t going so well. We chatted about potty training. Not looking forward to that whole thing again. And C was thinking of having a sewing lesson MNO. I’m all over it. I’m going to get a cheap but good sewing machine. She said I needed a machine that could do a ‘blind hem stitch” (?) I just think that C’s pants are in constant need of hemming (and sometimes Dh’s) so I might as well learn how to do it. I may try to do a pillow, curtain or other simple stuff too along the way. I doubt I will ever do clothing but I won’t outrule it. I’ll see how handy I am with a sewing machine.

J let Halima play in the car with her car keys.  You see what’s coming right?  Yup.  Her 2 yo locked in the car.  It reminded me of when my nephew also got locked in the car.  Harrowing experience.  Made me think I should have a talk with the kids about what to do in certain situations.  C recommended some dvd’s:  Little Hardhats. That way they won’t get scared if they see firemen in their weird gear.  They will know to run towards the firemen in case of a fire instead of away.  I probably won’t have a problem with firemen but maybe some other types of workers like ambulance workers.  It’s worth looking into.