The Im Family

this morning we attended the Tae Kwon Do Super Challenge (at the Northern Va C.C. Cultural Center) where a number of different jhoon rhee schools were represented and competing. boy was it ever loud and overwhelming in that gym! for the earlier part of the time we were in there, mimi spent most of it with her hands over her ears and sort of dazed and confused. she did eventually start to settle in, but the whole experience continued to be pretty overwhelming! mimi's involvement in the tournament was to compete in the 3-4 year old division in the Kamsah where each school competed and in bumper sparring. here's a clip of the school, Lead By Example, that got the gold medal for the Kamsah... then following that is mimi's group (just the two kids from JR Falls Church)...they earned the bronze medal...but i have to note, there were only 3 schools competing in this event. i put the two on here so you have a basis for comparison. rob and i were totally cracking up over mimi...

as the room mom, part of my job this school year was as historian, so the tradition at mimi's preschool is to present the teacher and the teaching assistant, each, with a scrapbook that all the parents of the class contribute to w/their own child's pages and for which i worked on additional pages that showcase more pics of the kids through out the school year. it took me several looong days to complete these books, but it's finally done. (mimi was really hating me for spending so much time on these books and 1. not paying much attention to her and 2. not letting her do the pages with me) here's one of the completed scrapbook (well, almost completed...one family has yet to submit their page). this one was made for mimi's teacher, mrs fitzpatrick. (click on slideshow to open larger from the picasa website)

while at a friend's house for memorial day cook out, i asked mimi what she would like to drink. wanting some cola myself and planning to share a drink with mimi to minimize the mess to our host, i prodded, do you want some soda? mimi says, to me with a small wave of her hand, "no thanks. because dont you know, you told me if i drink soda, it will make my butt turn big."

for the past few weeks now, whenever rob or i ask mimi What did you do today (at home, at school, at tae kwon do?), she answers very matter of factly, "Everything." when asked, What did you have for snack? What did you eat for dinner? she answers in that same way, "Everything." *sigh*.... i'm sure down the road this response will soon change to that age old stand by that is common amongst the youth set...that dreaded response to all your questions about What did you do? ---- "nothing."

had to record how bad i'm feeling at this very moment, just for the record. my feet and ankles are swelling up something awful today. not sure if it's from all the sodium from lunch at Pho Cyclo today. uhhhhh. my stomach feels sooo stretched out and distended, and there's sooo much pressure inside my entire chest and abdominal cavity i just can't feel comfortable. belly is stretched out so much, the line that appears (linea negra) is thrown into sharp relief from sternum to crotch. i remember it from when i was pregnant w/mimi but this time it seems even darker and seems to stretch up further. my back and stomach muscles are so sore and weak i find myself hunched over constantly and achy. every time baby boy moves, i feel my already stretched thin stomach stretch ever more, painfully so, and whenever i stand he sits heavily on my bladder, making the urge to urinate ridiculously urgent. 7 more weeks of this to go!!!!

last night was mimi's first ballet recital. she is dancing with her classmates as a 'rosebud.' i was surprised how much it mattered to her to find her friend, sophie, in the audience. you can hear her stopping the dance to ask where her friend is, and then see her not be quite able to tear her eyes away from her friend sitting in the audience. i'm always struck by just how short mimi is compared to her classmates (she is in the 25 percentile for height at 38.5 inches...most of her friends are between 40-42 inches at age 4). i am not such a tall person myself, so i'm not surprised that mimi is a shortie. i hope she at least clears 5 ft by the time she is an adult for clothing reasons...she will have a miserable time finding anything to fit her length otherwise!

as we left the docs office from my most recent OB appointment (all is well...baby's heartbeat sounds good, i'm gaining weight at a respectable rate, but need to get my heart checked. they hear a murmur and just want to make sure it is pregnancy related, which is pretty common since the mother's heart must circulate enough blood for both herself and the baby, but want to make sure it's nothing serious before i go in for surgery), mimi says to me, mommy, i like your belly doctor better than the kids doctors. you do? why's that? because belly doctors dont give shots.

finally finished the bday cake for rob's mom's bday. rob and mimi will deliver it to the inova fairfax in the morning and i will take a much needed shower. i worked for soooo long today on this cake (12 hours straight!), and also put in many hours on sunday and monday, just making the flowers. i hope the cake is well received...would suck that i put all the hours into a cake that isnt appreciated. i made the top tier with rice krispy treats, the second tier with strawberry cake, and the bottom tier with vanilla cake. i made a really yummy white chocolate cream cheese filling (recipe from The Cake Bible)...i doubled the amount of white chocolate and it turned out sinfully luscious. while working on the cake today, i heard this massive booming sound...a sound that was so loud my brain was flipping through things that could have made such a sound...an airplane crashing nearby? the road breaking? a 18 wheeler overturning? what was even more alarming was immediately after th...

mimi has been asking me every evening when her new high uppy bed was coming. well, today it finally arrived. the guys from Belfort furniture store came and delivered the mirror, seven drawer dresser, and her new canopy bed (a month ago i ordered a modular storage system from The Company Store to store mimi's books and such, so that was already set up in her room). the white canopy bed matched the color of mimi's existing side table and the new storage cubes, but as i feared, the color difference between the dresser and bed is very noticeable. rob says it isnt, but i can really see the difference. i could have bought the dresser that went with the bed (the Isabella collection by Stanley), but i didnt care for the look of it so much. so instead i bought from the Legacy collection (also by Stanley). both said the color was 'white' but there really is no such thing as a simple white. so many variations of white. it's not horrible, but still noticeable. it is a ...