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Holidays

Mother’s Day and a Dyson

Happy Mother’s Day

Steve and the kids disappeared Sunday morning and reappeared a few hours later with a Dyson Animal vacuum cleaner. The girls were very excited by the purchase, helping Steve assemble and test drive the machine. In virtually no time, we filled the canister with dirt and dog hair. We also used it today to the same effect – where is all this stuff coming from??

Anyway, Grandma Chang came over for a nice brunch. The kids managed to get some rest before a Greek potluck last night. They were delighted with the food and dance, and we really didn’t eat very much for breakfast this morning. All that said, it was a great Mother’s Day. I’ll post some video once we get it into the right format…

An Eating Machine

An Eating Machine

Allison has turned into a mini eating machine. This all started during her birthday dinner at my mom’s house when she ate 4 meatballs, half a jar of carrots, a bunch of noodles, at least six small blocks of tofu and cake! We thought this might have been an anomaly. Since then though, she’s mowed down everything in sight. It’s not uncommon for her to sit in her high chair for over 45 minutes picking through her food, raising her eyebrows and carefully inserting cubes of food to her mouth.

A couple days ago we took the girls to Ruby’s. Allison dutifully ate her avocado, grated cheese, corn and black beans from our salads, while Katherine picked at her mac and cheese. Funnily Katherine insisted on sitting in a high chair next to Allison. Halfway thru the meal, Allison started pulling on Katherine’s high chair, and a very annoyed Katherine moved to sit in the booth. After this hasty departure, and before we could stop her, Allison reached for the mac cheese and stuffed some in her mouth! She loved it and must have had 3-4 more big spoonfuls before we left.

Tonight at dinner she ate an entire avocado (admittedly not a large one), 2 strawberries, at least 6-8 pieces of penne pasta, 4 or 5 pieces of broccoli, several large chunks of sweet potato and some bits of whole wheat bread.

Needless to say we’ve been changing a lot of big diapers. Allison is also starting to fill out which is great.

We’ve been pleasantly surprised at the range of her palate. New additions include edaname, grapes, mango, corn (straight off the cob) and broccoli. Between all four of us, we managed to eat 3 small heads of blanched broccoli tonight, and the girls could have eaten more! Allison is very clear about her preferences, exclaiming “mmm mmm” when she wants more of something. She makes the sound “saw” for strawberries which is also one of her favorite treats. When we go to the fridge and get water, her eyes light up and she says “agua agua!” Sometimes she reaches out with her arms as to say, “I’m really thirsty. Gimme some of your water!”

We started cows milk on her birthday. She’ll take a couple sips but hasn’t acquired a strong liking yet. I’m hoping this happens soon, because we have only 7-8 more weeks to wean her before I go to Napa without the kids!

Twelve Steps

We’re not sure what precipitated this eating interest, but we think it may have to do with her walking. For the most part she still crawls, scoots and cruises. When there’s nothing to hold onto OR she’s really motivated to get something, she’ll take small steps sometimes stopping to regain her balance and then walk again.

Tonight I brought out one of her favorite items…the blue vacuum cleaner. It may be that she heard this a lot in the womb (thanks to a hairy dog), or she may just think it’s fascinating. From clear across the room, she made a beeline to the vacuum. We caught this on video with our new Canon Elph (one of our old ones bit it). She showed us several times tonight that she can take upwards of 12 steps before she collapses to the ground!!

Sibling Issues

Most of the time, the girls enjoy playing together. Other times are just angstful for one or both of them. A couple days ago I had a meeting a Seattle which meant that Steve had the girls for 2 hours. He decided to take them in the Chariot for a ride behind his road bike.

I’m actually sorry I missed this experience because it sounded like a hoot. From Steve’s description, Allison discovered and learned to love the kid Camelback. She loved it so much that she and Katherine fought in the Chariot for it, prompting Steve to stop and figure out what was going on. Katherine told him, “Allison is going to drink all the water in the water backpack!!” Katherine also ate in front of her sister without adequately sharing.

Yesterday I had the kids in the afternoon and spent quite a bit of time with Katherine playing with Steve’s gear set while Allison was napping. Post nap Allison was a little groggy. But as soon as she heard the whirring of the gears and saw them in action, her eyes lit up, she gave us a big smile, flapped her arms, and wiggled her legs. I put her down next to the coffee table and mayhem ensued. Allison would walk around the table grabbing the gears and messing them up. Katherine would get really mad and tell her sister to stop. Finally I intervened and suggested that Katherine find something for Allison to play with. We also started dinner which saved us from further distress.

Happy Birthday Allison!

Happy Birthday Allison!

Allison turns one officially tomorrow, but that hasn’t stopped us from celebrating early. On Saturday, Steve’s parents threw a small family luncheon. The girls really enjoyed eating their sandwiches, chips (Katherine only) and the very cool Disney cake that Grandma ordered from Hoffman’s. Afterwards, their cousins arrived, and the kids played inside and outside – playing with marbles and hunting bugs. Both girls were exhausted, and we took them home for some much needed R&R.

On Sunday we hosted a relatively small birthday party with Katherine and Allison’s friends. I would describe this as relatively small compared to Katherine’s first birthday party which involved a caterer, storyteller and about 40+ people stuffed in our house. In contrast, we had about five families tie-dying t-shirts in the garage. Steve was a bit apprehensive the night before – which resulted in yards of plastic covering all work surfaces in the garage and laundry room. Thankfully everyone managed to emerge unscathed and undyed from our craft project. We have about 20 shirts for friends and us sitting in the garage right now waiting for their rinse and wash cycle. We’ll see how they turn out!! The only bummer was that Allison had a weird allergic reaction to her birthday cake. About 20 minutes after trying the frosting and cake the area around her mouth turned red. I guess she won’t be getting any more birthday cake from Larry’s anymore – although the cake from Hoffman produced no reaction at all. Very puzzling.

Tomorrow we’ll have early dinner at my mom’s house with noodles and any other traditional foods. The first birthday is a BIG deal in Chinese tradition, so we’ll wrap up our festivities tomorrow evening. I still can’t believe it’s been a year since we went to the hospital. Allison is still such a skinny small kid that she really doesn’t look like she’d be one yet.

Finally…she’s walking…really walking

Everyone who’s seen Allison scoot, crawl, roll and cruise around has said, “She’s just days from walking.” They’ve been saying this for about a month. Well….(big drum roll)….we finally saw her really walk today!! I’m not talking about a step or two here or there. This was the real deal.

After dinner tonight, Katherine and Allison were wrestling for the shopping cart in the family room. Katherine predictably took it away from Allison and loaded it up with all of Allison’s new birthday toys. She pulled it away, and Allison let go of the cart. I didn’t realize this until Steve walked by, gasped and pointed – but Allison must have stood by herself for a good five seconds. Then, she took 5 or 6 steps to the grocery cart. Katherine was more than happy to replicate this; she would keep the cart out of reach and Allison would stagger to it taking half a dozen relatively steady steps to it.

I taped it on our big old video camera for posterity. Funny enough, Patty’s been saying that Allison has been taking one or two steps for several weeks, but they happen so quickly that I usually wasn’t sure if / when it happened. Tonight’s incident was unmistakable, and we all cheered for the very happy birthday girl.

Talking Too

Allison’s vocabulary is starting to really take off, and it’s funny which words she’s chosen to learn first…

  1. Mama, Dada
  2. Dog – loves to watch Bisco in the living room from the alcove upstairs
  3. Agua
  4. Ball – (sounds like bawl)
  5. Shoe
  6. Hot – usually when she’s heading straight for her little heater
  7. Up – she said this yesterday at the bottom of the stairs to tell Steve she wanted to crawl up!

I’m still amazed at the rate of growth. I’m going to have to start up the old word spreadsheet again to track her vocabulary (did it for Katherine until we got to 300 words). I swear tonight that she said, “cool.” If she says it again, we’ll just add it to the list. ๐Ÿ™‚

Picking up Mom and Dad’s sayings

Katherine is picking up a lot of sayings from us and from her classroom. Some are funny, some are not and some are just annoying. As Steve said, “I had no idea how much I said that until Katherine starting saying it.” Here are some of her favorite sayings and their origins…

  1. “Alwright” – from me
  2. “I don’t know” – from Steve
  3. “Freeze my patootie” – from me
  4. “Wait…let me think” – where did this come from??
  5. “I guess…” – no idea
  6. “Hey guys! What are you doing?” – from class
  7. “Wait to go Idaho” – from Toy Story

We’ve also had to deal with “stupid” which came from a classmate. She’ll say, “I didn’t say stupid. I said soopid.” Argh. You have to love preschool.

 

Lucky Number Seven

Lucky Number Seven

So, why are the kids holding their hands up? Given the wide age range in our potluck group, the moms decided to ensure a fair distribution of eggs by labeling the eggs. The oldest kid had the hardest to find eggs, and the unlabeled eggs were easier to find. Katherine was #7 and eagerly passed her verbal test with flying colors:

Mom: “Katherine, if you see an egg with this on it (holding up 8), what do you do?”

Katherine: “Put it back!”

Mom: “What if you see this (holding up 7)?”

Katherine: “Put it in my basket!!”

According to Steve, she did well at the hunt – not taking the other eggs and helping scout the remaining unmarked eggs at the end of the hunt.

Sibling …Something

It’s not full blown rivalry yet, but Katherine and Allison have developed their own style of playing together. Katherine sometimes adopts teacher mannerisms telling her baby sister, “That work is not ready for you yet, you can’t touch that yet…hey, you’re not supposed to play with that…”

Other times, they make a beeline for each others toys. Katherine decided to take out some puzzles the other day, which intrigued Allison to no end. She crawled right over and reached for puzzle pieces. Katherine informed her, “La boca no…no eating…Allison, you’re too young for this!!” We then talked about giving Allison other toys to keep her preoccupied. As soon as Allison started playing with plastic keys, Katherine came right over, snatched the keys away and said, “I need these for my Beetle.”

Telling Katherine to ask Allison to take things is a bit dicey. She will say, “Allison, may I take the keys….” and if Allison waves them around, it becomes an implicit yes. We’ll have to work a bit more on taking turns and not grabbing from the baby.

The good news is that Allison has spirit. She gets mad when Katherine takes her toys and works really hard to keep up with Katherine. She also tries so hard to play with her sister, for instance knocking over block towers that Katherine has made. One of Katherine’s favorite activities is to give Allison a checkup with her medical kit – giving a fake shot, listening to her chest with a stethoscope, tweezing out splinters, etc. She says, “I’m Doctor Bush, you’re the nurse and Allison is the patient….No, I’m the nurse, you’re the doctor…” (it just keeps going and going.)

The Globe

The globe in the picture has special meaning – it used to belong to me many years ago, and I’ve given it to the girls for playtime. Katherine latched right on it, telling me that it wasn’t wooden like the one in school and that the globe didn’t come off the base.

She then put the globe on wooden stool and started the birthday circle that they have a school. The song goes like this, “Katherine’s been around the world three times, she’s been around the world three times, she been around the world three times, been around the world three times.” (to the tune of happy birthday). Then she warbles, “…it takes 12 months, 52 weeks and 365 days…”

 

Did the Easter Bunny come yet?

Did the Easter Bunny come yet?

Katherine was so excited for her three egg hunts this weekend. Yesterday’s hunt was with our potluck group of friends, with about a dozen kids in attendance. Allison unfortunately didn’t experience the hunt – she decided to take a 2 hour nap! We’re pretty sure she’s moving to one nap a day. Katherine did a great job, according to Steve, of finding her 12 eggs. She ate 3 pieces of candy at the party and lobbied hard for more.

The second hunt was this morning at 7:30AM. At 5PM, I heard a Lambey rattle and Katherine padding in our room. She asked, “did the Easter bunny come yet?” We told her no and to get in bed and go back to sleep. At 7:30AM, she woke up and said, “The Easter Bunny Came!!” My mom, Steve and Allison, Katherine and I wandered around downstairs trying to find all 41 eggs that had been hidden (ahem) the night before. The hardest location was courtesy of Steve…inside one of his shoes. That was the last egg to be found. Steve thinks there is one more egg still in the house. Hope the dog doesn’t find it first!

Allison really didn’t grasp the concept of putting eggs in the basket. Her inclination was to crawl, grab the egg and then stick it in her mouth. Thankfully, Katherine was generous (??) enough to lug around two baskets and put Allison’s mixed color eggs in the second basket.

The last egg hunt was at Steve’s aunts home this afternoon. The cousins trooped around the house looking for plastic eggs with grapes inside. ๐Ÿ™‚ Katherine made up for lack of candy by spotting Swedish Fish in the bathroom. The interchange went like this…

– As Katherine walks by with her mouth bulging…”Katherine, what’s in your mouth?”

– “Mmgbbbh”

– “Katherine, you have to tell me what’s in your mouth”

– “No” – walking off with her hands behind her back which are holding another Swedish Fish

We’re working hard on truth-telling; Katherine is prone to telling us what she wanted to hear or what we want to hear. It’s time to start increasing consequences.

Perhaps one of the most memorable experiences this weekend was Katherine driving a child sized Gator. (Steve has pics and we’ll post later.) Imagine her cousin Kevin driving the Gator with Katherine beside him. Then imagine Katherine driving, squealing like mad, and heading straight for the house. I had to almost cover my eyes. The good news is that Steve ran besides the Gator and then figured out how to slow it down. Still it was unnerving to see her head down a hill laughing so hard she could barely steer. It got even more interesting after I went inside – she apparently put both hands above her head (while driving) and had a great time.

We’ve got a live one

Steve and I can’t let Allison out of our sight. One of her favorite tricks is to keep an eye on Katherine. Once her big sister opens the gate and heads upstairs, Allison makes a beeline as fast as she can for the stairs. She pulls herself up and heads upstairs. This happens in the blink of an eye – like say less than a minute before she gets up to the third stair.

This afternoon Steve and I were cleaning out the garage. I was busy puttering around when Steve came outside. I asked him where Allison was and he said that he had put Allison in the far corner of the family room with toys. Within 1-2 minutes, I heard a slight thunk-thunk sound, and the door which hadn’t been closed entirely, started to open. Allison wedged her little fingers around the door, pulled it open and stood at the door with a big smile as if to say “So, whatcha doing?”

That all said, she’s a total trooper. I must have lugged her around the garage and house for a couple hours during our cleaning session. She also got to ride the tricycle for the first time today – big smiles from her and Katherine who pushed her.

Birthday Weekend

Birthday Weekend

Two weekends ago, Aunt Sharon and Uncle Jamey flew into town for two whopping nights to wish Grandma happy birthday. The kids had a great time, and Katherine helped them make …. pumpkin pie. She also helped make me upside down apple cake for a birthday celebration. Katherine reveled in the desserts. Allison oogled but was denied. ๐Ÿ™‚

Swinging the Gate

Allison’s favorite past-time is swinging the baby gate at the bottom of the back stairs. We put her down anywhere in the family room and within a few minutes, she’ll cruise her way to the gate. Her greatest joy is opening the gate, walking thru to the stairs, backing up, closing the gate…repeat…repeat…repeat. Allison is very stable these days, falling to her bottom only when Katherine tries to help her not fall.

When in the kitchen, she invariably opens the bottom drawer next to the refrigerator which is full of cups and other various babysafe items. Within minutes, they’ll end up flung to the various corners of the kitchen.