Counting Christmas Lights

In the spirit of Christmas (and being the typical Chinese parent with the need for her child to excel in math), I started having big sister K count the number of houses she saw that had Christmas lights on during the car ride home.  The first time she did it, this was the conversation that followed:

Big sister K: 1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6...
Me: Wait, wait wait!  You're only supposed to count if you see Christmas lights on the houses!
Big sister K: But mommy, I do see Christmas lights!
Me: You do??  How come I don't see as many as you do?
Big sister K: Mommy, you're driving!  You're busy paying attention to the road!

First Steps

Baby M took his first steps on Sunday!  It was very exciting watching him cautiously move his tiny little feet, one after another.  He collapsed to the ground after 2-3 steps and decided to crawl for the rest of the night, but I am very proud of him nonetheless.  I'm in no rush for him to learn how to walk, but after seeing those first steps taken, I couldn't stop smiling for the rest of the night.

A major milestone reached... now to wean him off the bottle... (it's been so long that I've forgotten how I did it with big sister K!).

Birthdays...

We celebrated both kids' birthdays this past Saturday, first at JerZJump for big sister K, followed by dinner at Sunny Palace for baby M.  It was a busy day, but everything worked out well (for the most part) and more importantly, it seems like everyone had a good time.  With the gas restrictions currently in place, I'm glad all of the New Yorkers who made the trek out here were able to fill up (regardless of license plate number) before heading back home.

Some highlights from the day...

The birthday girl is all smiles as she bounces away.

The birthday boy is stuck to daddy like glue.

The M family (where are my sister-in-law and niece???).

Our feeble attempt at getting all the kids together for a group picture.  We're missing about a quarter of the camera-shy kids here.

Being silly...

Queen for the day!

Cake cutting for big sister K.

Cake cutting for baby M.

Sandy and Athena

One year ago on October 29, 2011, we were suppose to have big sister K’s birthday party at JerZJump (scheduled two and a half weeks early in the anticipation of the arrival of her little brother). Baby M ended up coming out five days early, but it didn’t matter because the birthday party had to be canceled due to a snowstorm that resulted in the loss of power at the bounce place. This year, October 29, 2012 marked the arrival of tropical storm Sandy, causing much havoc across the northeast that will take weeks, if not months, to recover.

The Y household did not completely escape the wrath of the storm, but were very fortunate compared to many others who suffered worse damages. We lost power for four days, so everything in our refrigerator had to be thrown out. Our friends TY and BY regained power after about 12 hours of outage and were kind enough to put us up (us and my freezer chest full of breast milk). Their older daughter Lizzy, is a year younger than big sister K, and the two girls had a blast playing with each other.

As luck would have it, all my babies got sick at some point while we were home-bound. Baby M had a fever on Sunday (before the storm started) into the early week and showed all the symptoms of an ear infection. Unfortunately, with the power outage in our town, we couldn’t reach his pediatrician to be properly diagnosed. He seems to have recovered during the week, but then passed the germs to his big sister and daddy. Big sister K came down with a fever on Thursday and it took all the energy I had (short of quarantining her) to keep her away from Lizzy (and vice versa). Meanwhile, M also caught whatever bug was going around and was feeling miserable, but he still had to go into the office when they regained power Thursday morning. Apparently work didn’t agree with him because he was felt even worse on Friday and ended up taking a sick day.

My office was closed until Friday, so I spent the majority of the week vegetating at TY & BY’s house with the kids. It was nice to spend all that time with them (though I wish it was under better circumstances) but I was not all that disappointed to learn that the office would be open the next day when I called our emergency hotline on Thursday afternoon.

We had electricity restored at our place Friday afternoon. I went back to TY & BY’s house with the kids after work and had dinner with them before heading home (M was already home nursing his illness). M recovered over the weekend and all was well until mid-week, when we got hit with our first nor’easter of the season. Winter storm Athena made the commute home treacherous on Wednesday night. The constant snow piling onto the car coupled with the power outage in our entire town gave me close to zero visibility as I maneuvered our way home. The two kids crying (no, more like screaming) in the backseat also didn’t help. In any case, we made it back in one piece. M had gotten there a few minutes before us and already lit up all the candles (good thing we hadn’t bothered putting them away yet) and the Y family spent another evening enjoying a candlelight dinner.

Busy Weekend

This past weekend was quite a hectic one for us.  We had two banquets to attend on Saturday, one in the early afternoon for my relatives who just adopted a little girl from Korea, and the other for M’s relative who recently got married.  Big sister K had a blast at both.  At the first banquet in Chinatown, there was a kids table set up, equipped with coloring books, crayons, markers, paper, and stickers.  Big sister K’s normal shyness was gone as she sat at the kids table away from mommy and daddy (though she did have her cousins A & A keep her company).  She enjoyed coloring and sticking stickers on random pieces of paper, and would periodically come running to our table to show us her latest masterpiece.

We headed off to Brooklyn in the late afternoon/early evening to congratulate the newlyweds.  We got there a wee bit more than what would’ve been considered fashionably late thanks to construction on the Brooklyn Bridge, and were immediately rushed to the front of the restaurant to partake in the traditional Chinese tea ceremony.  Big sister K met BW, her cousin once removed, and the two of them put on quite a show on the dance floor.  BW kept running after big sister K to hug her.  My little girl, not used to all the affection from a 19 month old, just kept squirming as she tried to pry BW’s tiny fingers off of her.  (I caught a video of big sister K dancing Gangnam style, but had trouble uploading it onto blogger.)

Sunday meant a chance to relax as we went to church at CCOB in Old Bridge instead of trekking out to NY two days in a row.  We took big sister K and baby M for their flu shots in the early afternoon.  Prior to leaving, I gave a pep talk to big sister K so that she’d know what to expect and wouldn’t get scared.  Little did I know what wonders that little pep talk would do; big sister K got so excited about getting the shot that I almost had to calm her down.  At the doctor’s office, she pulled up the sleeve of her shirt and practically shoved her arm into the nurse’s face for her shot, all done with a huge grin on her face.  Afterwards, I asked if it hurt.  Big sister K said no, then immediately asked for a sticker.  Baby M wasn’t as thrilled about getting a needle stuck in his thigh (can’t say I blame him), but stopped complaining by the time we got to the car.

The Y family came over for dinner Sunday night.  It was nice seeing them and meeting the newest addition to their family.  Big sister K enjoyed her play date with LY and everyone ended up going to bed late that night.  It was a busy weekend with not enough sleep, but the time spent with family and friends was well worth it.

Call Me Mama

Baby M said "MAMA" for the first time earlier this week (Wednesday, 9/26/12 to be exact)!  I got just as excited as when he first said "dada," but luckily we were in the confines of our own home this time, so I was spared the embarassment of having strangers hear me shriek with joy.  He continued to say "mama" nonstop throughout the rest of the night.  It seems that he got it all out of his system on that one day (and in hindsight, I should've captured it on video), because I haven't heard him say it since.

Some photos from our mini-golf outing in Branchburg earlier this month:

 

Old Bridge Day

We ventured off to Old Bridge Day on Saturday morning.  Unfortunately, we couldn't find any parking, so M ended up taking baby M home while big sister K and I enjoyed the festivities.  We even made it into the local papers at the Home Depot Kids Workshop table:

Here is my little girl... first time getting face paint:

The highlight of the day for her was probably bouncing and going on the inflatable slides:

Making a card for the troops overseas:

Cookie Monster

Thanks to our generous family and friends, big sister K had accumulated a healthy collection of Sesame Street friends by the time she turned one.  Now at the mature age of three (almost four, as she'd often remind me), she's outgrown most of the stuffed animals.  Obviously we're not letting them go to waste, so they've been passed on to baby M (and naturally, when baby M shows an interest in them, all of a sudden big sister K decides she wants to play with them too).

I remember when big sister K was younger, she'd drag Cookie Monster everywhere she went.  She even preferred him over her talking Elmo (who I thought would be every kid's favorite).  We were playing in big sister K's room recently and presented baby M with the Cookie Monster doll.  It was really to keep him from getting his hands on something more dangerous (he seems partial to power outlets), but his eyes lit up at the sight of the furry blue monster like you wouldn't believe!  I guess like sister, like brother.  Since then, it's served as a good tool to distract him when he's getting fussy.  He also has a Cookie Monster bath book he enjoys reading (or more like eating).  We don't make it a habit of letting baby M sleep with stuffed animals, but here he is during nap time, cuddling with his new best friend.