The Im Family

what's inside?

2011-11-14T13:25:00.001-05:00

a couple of weeks ago, the science teacher at ozzy's preschool did a lesson on "what's inside?" and the kids looked inside fruits, vegetables, chicken, and fish and saw the seeds and bones inside. they also talked about the human skeleton. ozzy was very interested in the idea that his body contained all those bones. for several days afterward ozzy would question whether an object had bones. mom? he'd ask, 'does this have bones?" while holding up a dinner roll, or a potato chip, or a toy train, or a stuffed animal, or pointing to a bug. and periodically he'd poke at a protruding bone on his own body and announce, 'yup, that's a bone there." last night, at bedtime, as he snuggled down in bed in his relaxed repose with one hand down the front of his pants (i think that's like a genetic 'guy' thing), he seems to be in a pensive mood, he turns and asks me, "mom, does your pee pee have bones in it?" not sure what he meant, i slowly said, 'um. no." he persists, "well, do KIDS pee pee have bones in it?" still not sure what he was getting at, i say, "no." he pauses a second, and then says, "well, I have a bone in my pee pee." and i realize he's gingerly fingering his little penis and he's got a stiffy. well, i couldnt help but laugh out loud. and had to quickly excuse myself before he started to ask me any more questions about his boner. omg!

yep. she's my daughter!

2011-10-28T14:06:00.002-04:00

while at the mall the other day, mimi says she wants to pop into the american girl store. so we do. she goes in ahead of ozzy and me. when i catch up with her she is standing in front of this beautiful doll closet.

a $350 doll closet.

i told her it would take her awhile to earn something like that. she nods and moves on.

later at home, as she's carefully folding her doll clothes into an old briefcase that Rob gave her (i think it belonged to his dad?), i was putting away some clothes she had outgrown, and was moving around some cardboard boxes, and mimi eyes the box thoughtfully and then says. mom, i bet we could turn that box into a really cute doll closet. then we wouldnt have to spend any money and i'd like it because we made it.

no doubt about it.

she's got my DNA.

(however, i think we might be able to find an unfinished wooden doll closet for a fraction of the cost of this. so that could be an option. it would be sturdier and last longer. we could still paint and decorate it to her liking and add some pretty knobs and baskets.)

Ozzy Says

2011-10-22T11:52:00.002-04:00

yesterday ozzy called me into the bathroom with him, screaming he needed me to stay with him b/c there was a bug in there.
what is it? i asked.

it's a mast! he says.

a math? i ask, confused.

NO! a MAST. he says.

i dont know what a mast is. oh, you mean a MOTH? i say.

NOOO! a MAST. he insists.

ozzy, i dont know what a mast, is. does it look a like an ant? i ask, trying to determine what he was talking about.

yeah, he says. a tiny ant, but it flies.

oh. you mean GNATS!

yeah. that's what i said. mmmmmaaassst!

Ozzy Says

2011-10-07T22:47:00.000-04:00

last night, ozzy woke up at his usual midnight timeslot looking for me, but instead of crying that his usual bad dream about a monster taking mommy away from him made him scared, he said he needed me to stay because he was "too little to sleep by myself." you're not too little. you're a big boy now. i told him. he shook his head and said, "but, i'm really not. i really am too little." dont you wanna be a big boy and do lots of things that big boys do? "no. i wanna stay little and i want you to stay with me."
------------------------------------------------

today at tae kwon do, ozzy earned a green stripe for listening, following directions, and improving his punch technique. his teacher, Master E, tells the mommies watching to give ozzy a hand for his accomplishment so we clap and cheer. then he asks ozzy if he'd like to say a speech. ozzy nods. so master E tells ozzy to turn around, face the mommies, and say his speech. ozzy turns, looks over at us, deep breath in, and says as loud as he can: "speech!" and then stands there looking pretty proud of himself.

ozzy says

2011-09-27T20:11:00.000-04:00

while taking a bath tonight ozzy fills a cup with water and says it full of dictionaries.

me: "dictionaries!? do you know what a dictionary is?"

ozzy: "no"

Mimi: "it's a book that tells you what words mean. and there's another one called a thesaurus. do you know what a thesaurus is?"

ozzy: "a DINOSAUR!"

earthquakes, irene, and delaware

2011-09-05T13:01:00.000-04:00

on tuesday, august 23rd, around 1:50 pm, while the kids and i were home, we began to hear a rumbling sound, like a lawn mower, getting steadily louder and louder. thinking at first there was some nearby construction beginning in our street, i went towards the windows to see, but before i got even a few steps towards the front door, the sound became a loud grinding and the whole house began to shake alarmingly. i could hear things starting to fall off walls and shelves and crash to the floor. mimi ran to me, calling out in a fearful voice, mommy, what's happening?!?

i think it's an earthquake, i said, as matter of factly as i could, trying to be calm while also trying to figure out what we should do next. mimi clung to me, sobbing, "i'm scared. are we going to die?" i start moving towards the door, waiting to see if we needed to bolt out the door immediately or if it was going to stop soon, as all the previous earthquakes in the area had been small and very short lived, and as i debated i realized we were standing under a rattling chandelier in the foyer. oy! i say "no, we're going to be okay." as we back away from the swinging fixture, and preparing to grab ozzy and make a run thru the door before it could fall.

and just like that, it was over. "see, it's done and we're all okay." i tell her. she's still visibly shaken, but clearly relieved that it seemed to be over and we were all okay. the first thing i did was get on facebook, and all the statuses came rolling in that confirmed that it was indeed an earthquake: 5.8! i called rob to make sure he was okay, then i called my parents, then tried to reach other family members in richmond. everyone was fine. there were a couple aftershocks, but the kids didnt notice them. one happened around 8pm while they were in the bathtub, too busy playing to notice, although i felt and heard the rumble, saw the water in the tub sloshing a little, but the kids remained oblivious, concentrating so much on their play. and then another aftershock around 1:30, while the kids were asleep and i was in bed reading.

life returned to normal for a few days, and then the hurricane came.

hurricane Irene, which made landfall in north carolina. (was it friday, august 26th? i can't remember. i think it was.) i was worried that my parents would be hurt by falling trees, so i got them to agree to leave before the hurricane hit, as it was expected to hit their area still as a category 3 hurricane. so they went to richmond to stay with my aunt until the storm passed. when they got back after the storm, they reported that the winds did knock some trees down and it did some damage to my parents house.

Irene was a category 1 by the time it hit here, maybe not even that for the fairfax area, with nothing more serious than a power outage in our neighborhood. (not surprising, 'cuz if you so much as breathe on a wire around here, the power goes out.) so when the winds picked up around 1 am, i was shocked the power stayed on thru 45 minutes of screeching winds, heavy rain, and bowing trees. the power went out at 1:45a.m. with a bright explostion of blue as a transformer behind our house blew out and wasnt back on until just after 3pm, 13 hours later. so we had to ice down all of our perishable food in coolers, which feels like a biannual event with all the outages we usually experience. after this most recent episode, we decided it was time to get a generator to plug in the fridge from here on out.

after we got power, we went to a birthday party across the street. when i got back home with the kids, DH informed me the trip to DE was still on, that traveling restrictions had been lifted and the rental offices were open. so we packed up the car and went to delaware that evening to join several friends and their families for an end of summer beach trip. because of the hurricane, two of the families that intended to join us for the early part of the week had to cancel out, but even without those 4 adults and 3 kids, we were still at a full house with 10 adults and 8 kids! mimi loved having a house full of kids to play with. ozzy had his moments when he enjoyed the company and other moments when he was upset that everything didnt go his way. lol. he still has a lot to learn, but there were some good teachable moments in there that only a gaggle of kids together can provide. compromise being a big one. when he's 3.5-4 y.o. he'll really get it, but in the meantime, it's good for him to approximate the behaviors.

here's some pictures from the trip. we stayed in a beautiful house at The Peninsula, which is a private, gated, golf course community (signature jack nicklaus, which i know nothing about), with lots of nice resort-like amenities.

it didnt take long for the kids to take over the place!

the view from our bedroom window, overlooking the backyard and the neighborhood.


ozzy and natalie enjoying the view and breeze from the screened in patio.

the little kids enjoying one of many pools. ozzy loved being in the water...i was a little nervous about him being in deep water with just that tube, but he did great. he kept trying to do 'tricks' and would do some gyrations and then look at me and say, "did you saw that? did you see what i did?!? did you saw that? mom! watch this!"

wave pool. kids had fun with it. ozzy told me he didnt care for the waves, but he liked it when it stopped (every 15 min).

enjoying a meal poolside.

at the Candy Kitchen on the boardwalk (rehoboth. there's DH in the background.

ice cream with sprinkles!!! YEAH! (i love his expression here. he was trying to give me a wink.)

at Fun Land. ozzy enjoyed all the rides, and cried when he couldnt ride the bumper cars b/c he was too little. i have been using that sad moment as a way to encourage him to eat more, so he can grow taller and ride the bumper cars one day!

looking very comfortable in a boat!

dinner out.

back at the beach. ozzy's favorite past time: digging! he literally spent all day digging.

and digging

still digging.

and sometimes tagging along after mimi.

mimi enjoyed the water! mostly jumping the waves.

the kids got loads of time to play, do activities in the play/activities room, swim in the pools, play at the beach, chase geese, Fun Land, etc. DH got to golf (twice). and i got in some tax free shopping at the outlets. and we came home with two hermit crabs. :)

it was a good trip. and now it's back to reality and the start of school. mimi, who usually looks forward to school, started saying, "i wish i could learn everything and it could stay summer vacation."

i'm thinking, that's a pretty good wish! just throw in some endless cash flow. next to wishing for unlimited wishes, it's probably one of the best wishes you could wish for.

First Im Family Camping Trip

2011-08-22T12:12:00.000-04:00

a little while back DH found a coupon online for a local zoo in maryland and thought it would be fun for the family to go up there, visit the zoo/safari and then camp the night at a local park/KOA. so he bought a huge tent and sort of last minute we decided to go this weekend (b/c we were running out of weekends before the tickets expired).

we started the day at the Catoctin Zoo and safari in Maryland. lots of animals to see and feed. although it was quite hot and ozzy decided 10 minutes into the visit that he would like to go home now (after several hours were spent packing and loading up the car, then driving for an hour to get there). we kept shifting his attention to the animals and food and that seemed to work.

while we waited for our turn on the safari ride, the kids played in the little playground by the outpost and mimi got to ride a camel. after a quick potty break, then it was time for the safari ride. the kids enjoyed getting close to the animals and feeding them. we were given bread and buttered popcorn to feed the animals. yep, you heard right. buttered popcorn. we were given old bread and buttered popcorn to feed the animals. (scratching head) i think some people thought the bread was for the animals and the popcorn was for them, i saw some people open the bag and eat some. ozzy kept demanding some, but i had read online that the popcorn was fed to the animals, so i told him we'd wait for further directions first cuz i was pretty sure it was for feeding the animals. he conceded, but i could tell he still really wanted to eat some.

he loved finally seeing the zebra. this is Delilah. as she came trotting over, you'd think it was a unicorn from ozzy's intake of breathe, then he yells: there's my zebra! that's my zebra! and kept calling her "his zebra" the whole time and even after we got back home the next day. he mentions seeing, "my zebra." so cute!

by the time the safari ride (from 2pm to 3pm) was over and he'd finally gotten to see the zebra (not sure why the zebra in particular, but he said he really really just wanted to see the zebra), ozzy conked out as soon as the safari feeds were over and the truck made its way back to the 'outpost.' we pushed a sleeping ozzy around in the stroller and took in the last of the animal exhibits with mimi before heading out.

after the zoo/safari, we put a sleeping ozzy in the car and headed over to Cunningham Falls state park to see if there were any campsites available, tho we weren't really expecting them to have any, as they book out in advance and there's a two night min stay from Fri-Sun, and it was Saturday. but we went anyway hoping there had been a last minute cancellation and maybe they'd let us in. i thought it would be nice to camp by the lake and waterfall, and it's neat that it's by Camp David (tho the actual location was not disclosed for security reasons). (we didnt book in advance 'cuz like i said, it was kind of pulled together last minute)

well, of course they were full. but not to worry, DH and i had been up late the night before searching our options so we had a Plan B...which is always nice and reassuring. we head to another camp about halfway btwn the zoo and home, at Little Bennett Campgrounds. and with unerring timing, ozzy woke from his nap when we got there. :) the campground was a simple, straight forward camp site, with parking for up to two cars, area to pitch a tent, a fire ring.

our spot was located a few yards from the water pump, a few yards further was the bathhouse and a playground, and a few yards on the other directions were the dumpsters and few yards beyond that was the amphitheater, where later that evening they were scheduled to show the animated family movie "Rio."

we didnt have electrical access there (something to remember next time), but there was electricity in the bathhouse and at the amphitheater. we already had a power outlet in the minivan, but only for the cords with two prongs, not w/the third 'grounding' prong...which DH and i forgot about that when we packed supplies. (i brought along a metal electric kettle and rob brought an extension cord.)

the kids really liked being outdoors and 'roughing' it. such a novel idea in a world that tends to be so far removed from nature so much of the time. they didnt need us to entertain them. they just enjoyed being out in the woods.

digging in the dirt? Oh yeah!

tramping thru the forest? dont mind if i do!

bedding down in a tent? of course!

cooking hotdogs on a stick (albeit, a stainless steel stick w/stay cool handles) over an open flame? awesome! well, at least for the first 20 seconds...then it's an endless litany of is-it-done-yets. ozzy didnt even want to do it. he walks off to the tent to play in it instead with a call-me-when-it's-done attitude and when-can-i-have-marshmallows?

knowing the interest would wane since cooking wieners over a fire takes exponentially longer than nuking them for 55 secs in the microwave, i spread out some foil over the rusty grill attached to the fire ring and DH threw a bunch of hot dogs on it to cook so there wouldnt be a need for someone to be sitting around holding them over the fire.

it was funny to watch mimi with that hotdog on the stick. rob would tell her repeatedly not to drag the hotdog over the rim of the rusty old fire ring or to let it touch the flaming wood inside the ring, but she kept doing it. so in the end, hers was charred black on one end, and probably a little rusty on the other! lol i'm not sure what was more entertaining, mimi's clumsy attempts at roasting a hotdog or DHs consternation at her attempts. ^-^

the one thing i absolutely did NOT let my kids do was potty out in the woods. i had a portable potty w/disposable liners and the bathroom was not a far walk, so really there was no need. yes, it's convenient to just go in the woods, i guess...but i think it's gross and i figured my kids would end up with a tick infected with Lymes disease stuck to their ass, so no, i didnt even let them know that there was such an option.

after dinner we had some yummy campfire s'mores, which ozzy relished so thoroughly it made me laugh.

after eating, the kids played in and around the tent, went digging in the dirt, tramped around pretending fairies had visited where ever the mushrooms sprouted, filled in holes with dirt where ever mosquito larvae were swimming around, and i went around an took pictures of interesting woodsy things, while DH read the paper and tended the fire.

then we went to nearby playground to play for awhile, until it was time for the movie.

around 8:30 we headed over to the amphitheater. the movie was shown on the small stage screen, and there was some popcorn and sodas, too. we took our fold out chairs and settled it. the movie was pretty good and the kids really liked it, and by then the evening temps were quite comfortable. after the movie, we headed back to our tent to sleep. which was the worst part of the whole trip, for me, at least.

i'm not so good at sleeping outside. on the ground. near insects.

of course seeing one stray giant red ant in the tent didnt help. all night i had the creepy crawlies.

and the night air was so thick with all those woodsy night sounds, trying to ignore it proved so impossible, i played songs quietly on our iPad until the kids fell asleep. then i tried to sleep myself, but every little sound put me on edge. add to that, how the night air grew cooler and damp and our sheets were soon so clammy that i shivered most of the night from evaporative heat loss. not a good idea to bunk down w/regular bedding. :(

finally by dawn i sank into some semblance of sleep only to be awoken by a soft pit. pat. pit. then felt a drop of moisture. followed by another. and then another. soon those random drops went from a lazy staccato drum to a roaring din, the leaves and rain in rousing applause. rob and i hurried out to cover the tent w/the rain hood as the rain rapidly crescendo-ed. no sooner had we covered the tent when it abruptly stopped. kind of funny. except it really wasnt.

the kids got a little wet but mimi managed to find a semi-dry part of the blanket to cover with, and sleepily turned over to go back to sleep. ozzy got up soon after, announcing loudly to everyone that it was morning, and that he wanted mimi to get up too so they could get busy digging in the dirt again.

since the little rain shower got us up anyway, we had a quick breakfast of cereal and instant cup of noodles, then i helped the kids wash up outside instead of trekking out to the bathhouse (kids thought it was cool to wash outside while i poured water over their hands), while DH packed up the tent and loaded the car to head home.

as we were leaving, i noticed a bright yellow caterpillar on the side view mirror of the passenger side.

we figured the wind would flick him off as soon as the car picked up speed, but the tenacious little guy held on all the way to the highway, down the interstate, all the way to our house. (there were a few harrowing moments when his back suckers lost their grip and his lower half was flapping in the wind, but he somehow managed to get his grip back each time.) so mimi decided to keep it. she put it in a specimen jar and is hoping it will make its cocoon. i hope the little guy [mimi named it Sunshine] makes it. i would hate for him to have survived that crazy car ride home all for nothing!

mimi and ozzy thanked us for a fun trip several times. when i asked mimi her favorite part, she said, "all of it." when i asked her her least favorite part, she said, "the bugs." i consider it pretty decent that no one got any mosquito bites or ticks the whole time we were there, so i'm really not sure what bugs she was talking about. and now as i sit here typing, with Sunshine burrowed deep under some leaves in his jar nearby, it seems to me that there wasnt really anything 'bad' about our first camping trip.

not even the bugs.

concerns of the young

2011-08-13T23:39:00.000-04:00

mimi asked me today if i missed my mom and was it hard to live away from her. i told her i did, but we got to visit fairly often since she lived just a few hours away, so it wasnt too bad.

mimi said, "i'm really worried about growing up and living away from you, mom. i'm going to miss you so much."

then she asked me who i loved more, my mom or her. well, you, i said. she answers, "that's terrible. you love me more than your MOM!" i said, "you'll understand when you're a mom." and she goes, "wow. that makes me so sad. i dont want to love someone more than i love you."

diy vehicle storage

2011-08-10T10:14:00.001-04:00

DH has been in cali for work for a few days, so what better time to start a building project than now when he wont get stressed over the clutter? :)

yesterday i made three storage units to hold and display ozzy's Pixar Cars and Thomas and Friends. Ozzy has some plastic Trackmaster Thomas and Friends that we house in the family room and store in large bins. for the most part, they are fine in the bins. Upstairs in his bedroom, we keep all of his Take Along and Take n'Play Thomas sets and trains, also stored in bins. these trains are die cast metal. i noticed that the paint on these have a tendancy to chip off, most likely from getting tossed into the bins every day.

so my DIY project du jour was to create a place to store and display his vehicles so they didnt get damaged and he could easily find the characters he wanted (instead of excavating thru large bins), and show off the vehicles he's collected.

the first one i built was storage for his die cast Thomas trains. knowing i'd have to keep the units low enough for ozzy to reach things easily, i settled on the wall space under the window of his bedroom. once i knew how much space i had to work with, we made a quick trip to Home Depot because i wanted to build something sturdy that i could hang on the wall, off the floor. I found some precut wood strips that were the perfect size for the little trains and bought about $20 worth.

after sawing off the right sizes (i ♥ power tools!), sanding down the wood to splinter free ultra smoothness, i nailed all the pieces of the frames together and then slid the slats into the frames. ozzy, mimi and i, put the trains in and ozzy was THRILLED to pieces about it. he kissed me, and said, "mommy, thank you for the shelf for my trains." i melted into a puddle of butter.

then onto storage for his Pixar Cars. Home Depot didnt have thin wood strips wide enough to hold some of the bigger Pixar vehicles (like Mack, Frank, and Crabby), so it was foam core to the rescue! (i ♥ foam core!) so a quick trip to Office Depot and i got started cutting foam core into appropriate sized slats for the shelves. a bottle of glue and 100 straight pins were used to hold it all together. i worked on this one thru the evening, finishing it around midnight. then set all the cars on the shelves and went to bed. when ozzy came downstairs this morning and saw the display, his response was so sweet, i regretted not thinking ahead to record it. after an initial, "wow! mommy! did you finish cutting and gluing everything? i see Mack! and i see Mater! and there's Jeff Gorvette and Raoul ÇaRoule! Thanks, mommy. It's the best shelf i ever wanted."

he was totally like those homeowners on those HGTV shows when they see the big reveal. it was awesome.

The Little ImKids

2011-07-30T22:47:00.002-04:00

ozzy's new favorite show is Disney's Little Einsteins. he watches the dvds in the car every day. while walking to our car from preschool camp, he said he couldnt wait to watch the Little Einsteins. so to be funny i started singing the theme song but changed the words to minivan instead of rocketship and ImKids instead of Einsteins. ozzy thought that was the best thing since trains with faces, and kept singing it over and over.

today, i find him on the keyboard, singing the Disney's Little Einsteins theme song with our adjustments and piano accompaniment.

here's what he's saying:

We're going on a trip in our favorite minivan (instead of rocket ship)
Zooming thru the streets
Little ImKids

We're going on a mission
start the countdown
5...4...3-2-1!

Everyone to minivan
rev it up now
Rrrrrrrrrrrrr!

We're going on a trip in our favorite rocket ship, er, minivan
Zooming thru the street
Little ImKids

Climb aboard
get ready to go home (to explore)
There's so much to find
Little ImKids

Come on! Let's Go!
Little ImKids.

We need you!
Little ImKids

YEAH!

Smooth Operator

2011-07-27T10:49:00.000-04:00

i shake my head when i think about how Ozzy seems to know just what to say to either melt my heart or make me laugh.

when my mom came to visit, ozzy greeted her at the door, throwing his hands up to the sides up his face, and squatting slightly in a repose of delighted surprise, and exclaims, "Grandma! I'm SO happy to see you!"

when i dropped him off at preschool this morning he asks tentatively, "mommy, will you stay with me?" i told him i was very sorry but i had to go clean up the basement, but i'd be back very soon to pick him up. and he answers bracingly, "okay, mommy. i'll be a very good boy until you get back."

and when i come to pick him up from preschool, his sweet face brightens up with a big happy smile and he comes running at me at mach speed, throws himself into my waiting hug and says, "I missed you so much! I love you so much!"

to mimi, when she's ignoring him b/c she's too engrossed in a book or game to notice him, he beseeches so plaintively, his little voice sounding so aggrieved, it makes me want to cry, " mimi! please! pleeeeeaaase play with me! i like you so much! i want you to play with meeeee!"

he'll also quickly turn to a joking mood whenever anyone asks him a question...like his dad, he turns everything into a joke. and of course i love it, even when he's being a little stinker. guess you could say i have a soft spot for funny guys... that's why i married his dad.

Look out! He's a smooth operator!

Ozzy is THREE!!!

2011-07-16T14:54:00.000-04:00

yesterday, as i watched my son, splashing and playing with his friends at the pool, it was hard to believe he was three years old that day. even in the space on one night, from his last day as a two year old, to his first day as a three year old, he seemed to have matured even more. he woke up and assembled a complex train track, then quickly put together a huge floor sized train puzzle that heretofore he needed help with or grew frustrated trying to complete himself, and he corrected his grandpa when he was asked if he was two, saying, "no! i'm THREE!" i love that he is growing into such a big boy, but i'm so sad to see the darling baby boy disappearing. i keep cuddling him as much as i can, feeling these days slipping so quickly away.

Ozzy, two days before his 3rd birthday! we just got back from the grocery store, hence the "thank you" stickers!

originally, i had planned to celebrate ozzy's 3rd birthday with a small party at home, inviting no more than 5-6 friends, but DH thought it would be less stressful for me to have it elsewhere (which was absolutely true, but ozzy's so little, i wasnt sure about a big party at another venue. esp in the summer when everyone had vacation plans and camps and may not be able to come). not wanting to push the point, i agreed to find another location.

so i asked ozzy where he wanted to have his birthday party, offering up options like chuck e cheese and the play gym, he told me he wanted to have his birthday at the swimming "cool." i reserved the day at the local waterpark where we have season passes before we left for our indianapolis trip, sent out the evites while at my sister's house in Indy, and then upon returning, had little over a week to get the party stuff together, which if you know me, is far too little time, thus made me very anxious. but we made do and i resigned myself to letting a lot go, as there was no time to pull it all together. (srsly, i didnt want to be that mom that ends up giving the second child less than the first!!! :( but that's how it keeps on ending up! poor ozzy!)

when i asked ozzy about the party theme and what he wanted he immediately pipes, "Thomas!"(at this point, he's said it so much i think it's like a tic and he just yells it out almost reflexively). and then he adds, "aaaand Chuggington. aaaand Cars." mimi suggested we make cupcakes with little paper toppers with all his favorite characters from all three. wanting to keep it simple b/c of our short time frame, i agreed it was a good idea.

and then i got an email from Williams-Sonoma featuring their new Cars 2 cakelet pans, which ozzy saw when i was checking my email and he got all excited and said he wanted that (he didnt even know they were cakes at first, just saw they were cars). and after i told him they were cakes...well, that just closed the deal for him. i was already feeling kind of bummed about not having had enough time to make and send out cute invitations and make decorations for the party area, i struggled with wanting to keep it simple with cupcakes but at the same time wanting to give him something more special since everything else was so blah. in the end, you know what won out.

DH was taking the kids and his mom to the mall to watch Cars 2 for the second time that weekend, so i asked him to bring home the cakelet pan. he comes home with that, and a track pad from the apple store for my imac that i've been wanting, and a receipt for that beautiful dining table i've been eyeing at pottery barn for the past couple of months for MY birthday present (i should send him to the mall more often in july ;)! ) and he rented a truck and brought it home for me the next day so i wouldnt have to wait for the delivery. (it's more rustic than i usually go for, but i love the size and the legs on this piece. you can have a rectangular table but no legs getting in they way! cant wait to get the bench to go with it! it's gorgeous!!!)

(sorry, i get sidetracked easily. had to brag about my DH a little though, cuz he's my sweetheart and i love him! he does make me crazy sometimes, but then there's times like this, when he knows just the thing to make my day!)

since Ozzy liked the Cars cakelets, i went with more Cars themed decorations for the party (he was okay without Thomas and Chuggington. whew!) i bought some Cars themed table covers and cut outs and some balloons as well as a game (JIC there was any interest). i would have really loved to do a really cute themed tablescape with lots of cold fresh fruit, veggies, and other goodies. i wanted to hang up some colorful pendant flags from all the sun umbrellas, and hang up a handmade birthday banner, racing style, of course, and some big checkered race flags. and how fun would it have been to have some face painting as a nod to Ramone's paint shop? stacks of inflatable black pool tube "tires" for Luigi's leaning tire sculpture? traffic cones for decorations? label the drinks like they came from Flo's V8 Cafe? label some sunscreen as "Rusteeze Medicated Bumper Ointment"? so many cute ideas, but no time to execute! i had to just keep telling myself: keep it simple, stupid! you dont have time. but, i did find some Cars pool toys that ended up being a hit with the kids, so i bought those.

with the party fast approaching, mimi and i got to work on shopping for party supplies and goodies, decorating and filling the goody bags, making the cupcake toppers and sleeves. i found some great toys for the goody bags. i get mildly irritated by all the cheap trinkets that fill up most party goody bags, that come home with the kids, b/c they dont get played with for more than 2 seconds (if at all). once all the candy is eaten, the kids discard the other knickknacks all over the house, like so much flotsom, so i end up throwing all that plastic away. with that in mind, i wanted to give the kids something they would really enjoy and have fun with. i saw a kid at a local spray park playing with a bubble gun several weeks ago, and there were swarms of kids around him wanting to play with it. so i set out to find some to give as favors. i probably could have found a better deal on them online, but there wasnt much time, so i bought them where i could find them. Also bought some Cars 2 themed playing cards, and added in some Cars 2 fruit snacks. if siblings came, i added a toy water rocket that seemed like a cute idea to take to the beach or pool or spray park...or just play in the yard.

mimi begged to be able to help (YES! i love her!!!) and i was only too willing to enlist some free child labor! (isnt that why people have kids? lol.) i printed out images for the goody bags (a big medallion with Lightning McQueen and some text in his race car colors that said, "Thanks for coming to my party. I hope you had a great time!"). i found some curly ribbon at the party store that were the right colors and mimi stuck everything on the bags for me. then she mounted all the images of various race cars onto large plastic toothpicks to be used as cupcake toppers. while she did that i created a template to make my own cupcake 'sleeves' to pop the cupcakes into. you know when you bake cupcakes in predecorated liners, the cute images get all washed out from the oils in the cake. so then you have to put them in another liner to get the full effect of the design/color. so instead, i baked them in basic liners, and then popped them into some colorful sleeves that i made. i printed out a bunch of little Cars logos which mimi glued to the front of each sleeve.

then i got to work on the cakelets in the evening, baking, cooling, icing, and covering w/homemade marshmallow fondant. the next day, was mostly spent working on the cakelets, (here's how they turned out: for those of who havent seen Cars 2, the three new cars on the right are Shu Todoroki (white one), Finn McMissile, and Francesco Bernouli)

and in the midst of that, add to that, making meals, taking the kids to their summer activities (mimi had camp, and both kids had gymnastics in the evening. i'll have to get video of ozzy in gymnastics one day...he is TOO adorable!!!), then afterwards, got some fro-yo and did a quick run to trader joes for some milk and eggs, then hurried home to bake the cupcakes and make frosting. mimi really wanted to help me w/the cupcakes, but it was getting late. i finished those around 1 a.m. only a promise to let her decorate some cakes later this week for my birthday appeased her enough to go to bed. (i think for her 8th bday we'll have a cake decorating party/american girl party. can't wait. it will be SO cute.)

the next morning, rob took mimi to camp while i packed up all the pool gear, beverages in the cooler, and party supplies, loaded the car and headed out to the waterpark at 10:30 a.m. (my parents arrived that morning as well. they stayed at the house to make the traditional birthday seaweed soup for ozzy and me. they would meet us later at the pool).

the weather was GORGEOUS. it was partly sunny and upper 70s...reaching the low 80s by midday/early afternoon. when we arrived at the waterpark, i met DH's mom there (she was going to help by watching ozzy, so i could greet guests as they arrived), and we got to the ticket counter just after no less than 3 bus loads of summer camp kids unloaded! oy! my heart started to beat a little faster as my vision of a fairly empty pool on a friday was completely dashed.

luckily, all of ozzy's friends were 2 and 3 year olds, so we mostly stuck to the kiddie pool which is away from the main pool where the camp kids were, where, i kid you not, they packed into the shallow end of the pool like a bucket teaming with fish, the water seething from so many bodies and the kids basically just bobbing up and down b/c there was hardly any room to move. really?!? you'd think they'd have a system to book camps to prevent overcrowding? yuck. when it's that crowded it feels less like a pool and more like an intimate bath with strangers. ick. thankfully, by lunch time, the camp kids packed up and left and we pretty much had the run of the place afterwards.

i had the party area reserved for 5:00p.m. (i figured that was a more 'work' friendly time for people who had to put in some hours at work, since the party was on a friday), but we were going to spend the whole day there and invited friends to join us whenever they could. people trickled in and out throughout the day. i found it difficult to relax b/c i felt i needed to keep an eye out for the guests as they arrived (that's part of my OCD), although it was fine and there was no trouble getting into the park, and guests were able to spot me in the kiddie pool area before too long. but still, i fretted over it.

ozzy loved having his friends come. each friend he greeted with great enthusiasm. it was so darling, i could cry. and since they were all coming at different times through out the day, he was never overwhelmed, having only about 3 kids to play with at a time, with the greatest concentration happening just before the party time (but even then it was only 9 friends + mimi -- 4 friends came early, had lunch w/us and left early). it was nice for me too, to be able to chat w/mom/dads comfortably, instead of the usual running-around-no-time-for-talking at your typical 1.5 hr bday party situation.

we got lunch w/the first wave of party guests at the waterpark's Beach Break concessions and then saw them off with hugs and goody bags. then at 5:00 the post lunch group gathered in the party area for pizzas, chips, lemonade/punch, cake, and popsicles. it was literally, a Day O' Fun!

the Cars cakelets were a hit, although some children wanted the cakelets but couldnt bring themselves to actually eat them, wanting to keep them intact! :) but my kids had no qualms about biting in! LOL!

the grandparents were so worried that 8 hours at the pool was too long for a 3 year old, but ozzy did great. he loved every minute of it and was sad when it was time to go at 7pm. i had even packed his sippy cup of milk and stroller for his midday nap, but he did little more than lay down for a few minutes to warm up, drank some milk, then asked to go back into the pool. his joy at being there that day for his special day was so obvious, it made me so happy for him. i was worried that having a big pool area would cause everyone to spread out and it wouldnt feel like a special celebration, but most of our guests stayed in the kiddie pool and played with ozzy, which we had mostly to ourselves, so it couldnt have been better!

before leaving the park at 7:00, rob took ozzy to the showers to wash and put on his p.j.s. we got him in the car, and didnt even get to the main road home before he was asleep. i knew he'd be down for the rest of the night. he could open his presents tomorrow. i loved seeing his peaceful little face in my rearview mirror as i drove home. nothing like the look of a child worn out from a day filled with fun!

the next day, i asked ozzy what his favorite part of the day was and he said, "blowing out my candles!" lol. well, shoot...if THAT's all it took...

he later thanked daddy and me for a wonderful birthday party. (anything for our little babies!!!)

it was SO great to have so many friends make the effort to come, even taking time off from work to make it out there! it REALLY made our day!!!! if wealth were measured in friendships, we'd be stinkin' rich!!! love you, guys!!!

i didnt get to take many pictures throughout the day (i hope to get some from friends who did, tho! you know who you are! ;)

my two favorite boys.

Safeway...maybe not so safe!

2011-06-13T11:39:00.000-04:00

while leaving the checkout at Safeway at PanAm shopping center, ozzy catches sight of a train movie "The Little Engine That Could" and begged, please, please, please, can i have it? it was on sale for $9 and i had a lot to do this day...$9 for a 90 min babysitter is a bargain. so i took it to the checkout, the guys chatted with ozzy about trains and there was a moment of quiet confusion btwn the two guys behind the counter, a few presses on some keys, and the purchase went thru. ozzy held the dvd out the store, saying, "I think i can! I think i can! mommy, where's the funny clown from the book?" i put him in the car and he's still holding the dvd and wants to open it while i drive home.

i get home, unload the groceries, and ozzy says, "mommy, this movie has scary people in it."

"what? it does?!? lemme see it." thinking to myself, i shouldnt just trust the title and preschool images on the cover and should have checked to make sure it had a G rating cuz maybe it was PG and had some harrowing moments.

ozzy hands me this:

someone had pulled the Little Engine movie out of the dust sleeve and slid this one in instead. probably b/c it's rated R and they figured that swapping it out could allow a certain underage someone to buy it. i told ozzy that someone must have swapped the movies and he says, "mommy! THAT's. NOT. NICE!"

i immediately got ozzy back in the car and raced back to Safeway in a huff. the guys at the check out said they remembered me and when i showed them the dvd, it was like a light went off and the younger guy says, Ooooohhhhh that's why it kept ringing up as an R rated movie!

the older man with a moustache, went to find the correct movie, but of course they were all out. Ozzy was crushed, so the man, offered to refund us our money and gave Ozzy another dvd for free (Kung Fu Panda). the man asked him if he wanted it, and ozzy said, "we dont have that movie at home. it's very funny when he dances."

So we took the movie home and he's watching it now. glad the people at Safeway came thru and were so helpful. i was worried they would make us keep the dvd b/c Ozzy had already opened the package, but they were totally empathetic and helpful. in the end, Safeway saved the day. and i learned to now add one more thing to my list of things i must do whenever i buy something... check inside the sleeves (if there is one) to make sure we are getting what we think we are!

Scary Mommy

2011-06-08T19:22:00.000-04:00

so today i was loving a peaceful dinner where mimi was getting ozzy to eat his green beans and chicken by pretending they were trains going into the tunnel. after they cleared their plates, they ran from the table to go play and while in their workroom, ozzy pushed a kid's couch on mimi's hand, but he was immediately sorry and ran to fetch her an ice pack from the freezer and gave her a hug, then turned to me and said, "mommy, can you not be scary to little people?" (yep, that's me...scary mommy, scaring the little people)

Where's Chella?

2011-05-24T00:45:00.000-04:00

we've been slowly adding new fish to the tank (as a couple of the original fish died). the first was a Chinese Algae Eater which mimi decided to name Chella (pronounced /Keh lah/) and then a few weeks later a blue Siamese Fighting Fish which she named Sky. chella is the most fun though. as is typical of this type of fish, she prefers to find little caves to hide. the kids like to check the tank every day for a game of Where's Chella? and the days when she decides to reveal herself brings on a great deal of excitement. who wudda thunk.

please please please do not go...

2011-05-04T09:50:00.000-04:00

it's heartbreaking putting little man to bed these days...he finds just the right words to affect me. he's very attached to me and wants me to stay with him all the time these days, most especially at night when it's bedtime. so when it's time for lights out, he's crying, trying to cling to me, and begging for me to stay. i find myself having a harder time leaving ozzy than i did mimi. maybe it's because mimi would give up the fight a lot sooner, whereas ozzy will go on and on until i can actually feel myself teetering on the edge of giving in. i guess the lesson here is that if you persist long enough, you can get what you want. come to think of it, i think it's how i got DH to propose to me. ;)

after washing up, playing with trains, singing songs, and reading books, it's time for lights out. well, putting ozzy to bed, goes something like this:

okay ozzy, time to sleep.

no, mommy, stay with me! (thru sobbing tears) i dont want you to go!

ozzy, lay down and go to sleep.

no!
yes.
no!
yes.
NO!
yes.
NOOOOOooooo!
yes.
waaaaaaaahhhhhhh.

ozzy, i love you. you need your rest. lay down, go to sleep.

mommy, where are you going?

i'm going downstairs.

nooooo! dont go!
i have to.
no!
yes.
NO!
yes.
(repeat for a long time)
waaaaaahhhhhhh

please mommy! PLEASE! let me go downstairs with you. i dont want to stay here. it's scary.

what's scary?
the trees!
i'll close the blinds. better?
mommy, please dont go. i want you to stay with me.
no, mommy has to go.
no!
yes.
no! (and so on)
waaaaaahhhhhhhh

mommy, please, please, please. don't go! i'm going to be so sad! please, hold me!

finally, i sit on the edge of the bed and promise i will stay by until he falls asleep. he agrees, lays down, closes his eyes for a minute, peeks out under his lids to check that i'm still there, i put a hand on his leg and tell him to keep his eyes closed, i'm here, and he says sleepily, okay, mommy, you stay right there. dont go anywhere.

and falls right to sleep.

at first glance he seems to be really down for the night, but he usually will wake up looking for me once he gets thru the first sleep cycle. i think he stays down longer when DH puts him to sleep b/c then he doesnt expect me to come to him and wont keep waking to look for me. there are some nights though when i'm just too tired to deal with his waking and will just stay there with him so i can guarantee myself some solid sleep (though he does jar me awake several times throughout the night from his flopping and flailing...why do little kids move so much in their sleep???). and i do have to admit that it is really really sweet to just cuddle with him. he's growing so fast. already he's too big to gather up into my arms and cradle without a lot of effort...his limbs spilling over every where.

i dont know how many more nights of this we'll have...it's already been many many nights like this. i know he'll eventually outgrow this 'phase' he's in...mimi went thru it and outgrew it. i know he will too. as sad as it is for me to see him like this now, it will also be a sad day when he's past it, and says, go away, mommy.

ozzy napping in his favorite napping spot...the family room couch.

Ozzy's Favorite Knock Knock Joke

2011-05-03T21:16:00.000-04:00

Dear Toothfairy, What do you do with our teeth?

2011-05-02T10:11:00.000-04:00

another tooth fell out yesterday (a canine). this time instead of asking me point blank if i'm the one leaving the money under her pillow for her, mimi decided to write a letter to the tooth fairy instead. i thought about writing a response back, but after thinking about it, i figured the magic was in the elusiveness...once you know how it all works, the magic is gone, right? so i didnt leave a response. was that wrong? not sure what i would have said anyway. internet searches revealed that the teeth were used to build the tooth fairy's castle or they are ground up to be made into fairy dust or they became stars in the sky or they were kept to be given to babies who needed teeth. all the responses seemed kind of creepy to me... but in the end, i guess it's no creepier than mommy keeping her baby teeth and umbilical cord stump. heh heh.

of course, that was the evening that neither rob nor i had anything smaller than a $20 in the house. rob was gonna leave her two dollars that he was able to dig up, but because of that P.S. in her note, he went around and unearthed three Sacagawea dollar coins to add to it. ends up that was the right thing to do. she was THRILLED with the coins.

Ready for Bed

2011-04-30T11:18:00.000-04:00

Mimi getting all her nightly necessaries ready for bed. (mimi: "hurry up and take the picture! i can barely hold it all!")

Mimi Says

2011-04-18T00:03:00.000-04:00

while on the computer this weekend, mimi discovered a new dora golf game online. she comes scurrying over, saying, "mom, this is really funny! there's a new dora golf game and it says (here, she puts her hand over her mouth to contain her giggles), 'move over tiger woods, cuz here comes dora!', (another attempt to control herself from totally cracking up), isn't that funny?!?!" i agree and laugh, but more at her because she's so funny, then she happily trots back to the computer, quietly chuckling to herself at this bit of wit.

i can't wait until the day i can introduce her to my favorite humorist, david sedaris.

We've Moved!

2011-04-17T23:51:00.000-04:00

The aquarium stand arrived on thurs afternoon from petsmart. i assembled it that day, so i could finally move the fish tank to its permanent location, fill up the tank and let the fish finally stretch their fins. mimi was quite thrilled with the stand and helped me move the fish supplies to the cabinets.

and then it was time to move the fish. i thought i'd be able to move the tank myself if i drained out most of the water, but found out quickly that a 20 gallon glass tank, with 5 lbs of gravel, and approx 4 gals of water, and aquarium paraphernalia weigh a LOT. so, no, moving it by myself was probably not going to happen!

hmmm. what to do. what to do. the fish were getting frantic in the few inches of water i had left in the tank in an effort to lighten it. i had to do something quick, either find a way to move it now, or fill it back up and wait four days until DH came home to move it for me. thankfully, Friend Karen came to the rescue (she was coming over anyway to plan out our next pretend room changeover at ozzy's preschool). and together we were able to move the tank and fill it back up with more water. (yay! three cheers for Karen!) but, let me tell you, lifting and pouring several 5 gallon buckets of water into a tall tank is neither an easy task nor is it a pretty one. (make sure the lid is off, first of all...that's one mistake i'll only make once.) so the next day i went online and i ordered a tank water changer from amazon. (it's a beautiful thing...well in theory. i have yet to try it out.)

so now, Orange Blossom, Sun Sparkle and the Rainbow Bros and Sis's seem to be quite happy and well in their new location. the tank is a little too high for the kids to reach the top, so mimi brings over a step stool in the mornings to feed them. but other than that, we're really happy with it.

a pet for mimi

2011-04-13T15:11:00.000-04:00

since kaya passed, mimi has been asking for another pet. another dog, a cat, a rabbit, a hamster...all of which DH and I vetoed (though, if it were just me, i probably would have caved sooner and gotten her a pet, but held strong only because DH was so vehemently opposed to any mammals joining the Im household any time soon).

so a few weeks ago, when mimi came to me to argue a case for why she should be allowed to have fish (and each week since then, brought home books from the library on caring for fish), it was hard for me to say no (funny how she knows which parent to work over to get what she wants). she read up on what it takes to care for fish, took notes, and shared with me random bits of information about different fish and why she liked them.

here's some of her notes (i like the part about when a fish is sick, she wrote, "fish lays at the surface." lol. yeah, that's a clear indication that something's not good with that fish. and the fish exclamation point is a fun design element!)

(the list on the right is a little hard to read. it says: "Fish information. -dont feed it too much because it might cause ammonia. -*always keep your tank clean and fish healthy. -when you dont know if a fish is sick, reasons could be: fins rotting, doesnt eat more than two days, fish lays at the surface, a fish that is active slows down, slow fish go fast. - if there is anything you dont know about fish look in a book. -too much sunlight causes algae (which is bad).

so i went to the pet store and priced the stuff needed to start. then i trolled around craigslist, and on the first look found someone selling their tank, everything you need, and their fish for $50, and jumped on it. we brought the tank home (with most, but not all, of the water drained out of it to ferry the fish home. surprisingly the little fish survived the harrowing ride to our home...it was only a 15-20 min ride, but w/every turn the water would sloosh over to one side and leave the fish flopping on the gravel on the other side for a few seconds before mercifully returning to wash back over them. as soon as they were back in the water, you'd see those little guys swimming madly back and forth, like, OMG! what just happened! why did it do that? 12-21-12!!!

so glad we arrived home and there were no dead fish. not sure about their mental state though.

we had just returned from our weekend in DC (Mandarin Oriental) for our 10th anniversary getaway, and were greeted with a huge chalk message on our driveway, courtesy of mimi and ozzy, wishing us a happy anniversary and welcome back. (LOVED it!) the kids were so happy to see us. and were even more thrilled by the fish! :) mimi ran to Rob after he set the tank down, to give him a big hug and a big thank you for the fish, then gave me hugs and thanks too. ozzy, not to be left out, was also running about hugging and thanking us, although, i think he was just doing it because he copies everything that mimi does. it's super cute, anyway.

so we are now on day 3 with the fish and so far they are doing okay. the kids love to feed the fish and mimi has named them all (there's 4 tetras and 2 mollies). she named the orange molly: orange blossom, the pale yellow and white molly: sun sparkle, and the four colorful tetras are the Rainbow Brothers and Sisters (dont let her hear you refer to them as just the Rainbow Brothers because she'll then stress "AND sisters!").

Mimi has her heart set on getting some goldfish, but i told her they were not good fish to take care of, so she's back to doing some research on good fish to care for. plecos are also on her list (because it will help w/the algae, she said), but i'm not sure they can live well in a 20 gal tank. anyway, once she figures out what she wants, she's going to use her own savings to buy her fish.

here's the current state of the tank right now...still waiting on the tank stand to arrive before i move the tank to its permanent position and pretty up the tank.

From the Desk of Mimi Im

2011-04-09T14:59:00.000-04:00

here's her anniversary card for rob and me. i like the way she drew rob's pants. it's very, er...inventive.

and this is her list of night time To Dos. i was tickled by her "Note" to herself at the end. at least i know she is really listening to me and making an effort, even if she usually forgets this anyway ;)

* the note translated: "notes: make sure you save time to do stuff & do the important things first then see if you have time to play.

The Three Piggy Opera

2011-04-07T23:34:00.002-04:00

the first grade classes had their performance at school tonight. the three piggy opera. mimi was the mama pig (that's mimi in the dress and hat!). i had her perform her part for me at home as practice and she was so cute. she sang the Mother Pig's song so beautifully at home, but at the school production, all the kids sang it while she acted it out. her part comes up at the 2:50 mark. the opening song was really cute, too, so i got footage of that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ91joR4RM0

ozzy reading update

2011-04-07T11:37:00.000-04:00

here's the more recent video of him reading. it's very very hard to get video as he is least willing to read when i'm trying to record him. after appealing to his wishes to stay up later, which i said he could do if he read to me, i was able to get a little bit of footage.

he also likes to play a little game with me where he's the teacher and i'm the student and he'll say, "what sound does buh buh bear begin?" and i say, "B!" and he says, "Good! you did it, mommy!" sometimes i'll pretend i dont know and say the wrong letter, and he tries to help me out, "no. listen, cuh cuh car. what makes cuh cuh cuh. try again, mommy." it's totally adorable.

Ten Years Ago...

2011-04-07T11:31:00.000-04:00

Ten years ago, in a simple church in Fairfax Station, Rob and I promised our lives to each other. I still remember that day as one of the happiest days of my life. it's funny to think back on that day now, ten years later and to realize how young we were still, even tho i remember feeling so dang-on mature that day! and now with the wisdom and experience of ten more years together, to recall how simple and carefree our relationship had been then, but of course we didnt fully appreciate that then! but looking back, it's interesting to see how simple our lives were. we didnt have to work as hard at our relationship then as we did in the years that followed as jobs changed, children entered the picture, lives became that much busier and we had less and less time for each other and more and more responsibilities burdening our backs. and many times there were BIG arguments as we muddled through, trying to keep pace with our changing lives. and sometimes BIG sadnesses as loved ones passed on. there were big joys as well, as with the birth of each of our beautiful children. and of course lots and lots of little moments of happiness as well as a fair share of disgruntled moments too. there were times when i couldnt have imagined my life ever being any more perfect. and there were times when i was truly scared that we couldnt get past our differences and the big D word clung to the tips of our tongues, threatening to roll off and mean it.

despite the downs, or maybe because of them, our relationship has grown and matured in a way i could never have imagined that day i walked down the aisle. oh, i knew going into it, that it would not be easy, that there would be hardships, i wasnt expecting that life would always be strewn with flowers as the aisle i walked upon, but neither could i fully comprehend then, how hard it would be nor how much we would grow in our pursuit to build a life together. there was a lot i didnt know back then, but i did know, with absolute certainty, that i had picked the right person to travel down that path with.

we still have our ups and downs, but it seems the downs are not quite as horrid as they used to be...i think that's good progress. lol. perhaps our saving grace has been our ability to be flexible with one another and with whatever changes come our way. it is the willow that survives the storm not the rigid oak, no? knowing what we know, and having grown as much was we both have, i think that the next ten years will be that much easier. we've learned a few things and are not so new to thing whole marriage thing anymore.

i think we got it all figured out.

mostly.

to my darling husband, happy 10th anniversary.

i love you.

Rainbow Magic Birthday (Mimi's 7th Birthday)

2011-03-29T11:20:00.001-04:00

this year was a particularly difficult year to plan mimi's birthday. after rob's dad became terminally ill, i didnt think it was good time for a party for mimi and her friends, so we decided it was best to skip a party this year and just have a quiet family dinner out. then after dad passed and we slowly started to get back into our routines again, we all began to feel bad about not having a party for mimi, so we decided to have a party after all...although, a much belated party.

mimi said she really wanted to have a party here at the house. she really really really wanted it here, so i told her she could, if she kept it small. since she was turning seven, i allowed her to invite seven friends.

then i tasked her with thinking up a theme, and she finally settled on a favorite book series of hers called Rainbow Magic. how perfect...each of the book sets in the series showcases 7 fairies, whether they be the rainbow fairies, the gem fairies, the party fairies, the pet fairies, fairy fairy yada yada ad nauseum...if it exists, Daisy Meadows has probably assigned a fairy to it. so after discussing it with mimi, we decided it would be fun to make each party guest one of the 7 rainbow fairies (and she would be a special birthday fairy). in keeping with the story (in every book Jack Frost is out to ruin Fairyland in some way or another) we thought it would be fun to plan activities to keep Jack Frost from ruining her party!

THE INVITATIONS

so first things first...we narrowed down the guest list to seven friends (really difficult to do when you want to invite everyone you've ever crossed paths with). finally, Mimi's Seven were selected, and i started making the invitations with images i found online. they started out being fairly simple with two dimensional fairies on the front, but then later evolved into a more complicated design by including the idea of Magic Color (there's a whole book series) where the images are B&W but when you pull the tab they magically fill w/color. (see video demonstration).

(apparently the girls LOVED this when they got their invitations. the parents had lots of nice things to say about them). one parent asked how i did it. the answer of course: FAIRY MAGIC! lol. no, j/k. i used ink jet transparency paper. printed the color image, put a sheet of transparency over the image. traced the lines, then put it in my copier and made copies onto transparency film (two easily fit on one sheet). a sheet of white cardstock sandwiched btwn the transparency image and the color image, divides the two images, so when you pull it out, the color images comes out from behind the white cardstock! i had to create a 'case' to hold the images in, and 'lock' the end so it didnt come out completely.

on the front were the Seven Rainbow Fairies, cut out and attached with foam adhesive so they pop off the paper. (all the images, i grabbed off the internet and fussed w/a bit). inside the left flap, i wrote:

Seven Colors of the Rainbow

Seven Friends to join the Fun

It's Mimi's Seventh Birthday

Her Seventh time around the Sun,

But beware Jack Frost

Who'll turn Fairyland gray!

We need your help

to make it a colorful day!

i lined the envelopes with a colorful floral print paper, and closed them with a golden seal (hot glue, actually, not wax. a bit of PAM on the embosser and wax paper over a cold ice pack sets it up quickly and removes easily) embossed with an M and addressed with labels with a colored dot border that i made up in Word (and return address labels), printed onto sticker sheets and cut. names were also rainbow colored.
*****---------*****
about a week before the party, the weather was warm enough for t-shirts, bright and sunny, and i thought to myself how nice it was to be able to finally have a lovely warm day for mimi's birthday since march 1st, her real birth date, is typically cold, windy, and in our area, usually follows some snow storm. but ironically, the party day arrives and there's a freak snow shower...looks like Jack Frost really IS trying his best to ruin mimi's birthday celebration! luckily by the time the party started in the late afternoon, the sun was shining and the roads were dry and clear.

DECORATIONS:

i am dedicated to decorating properly to set the stage...i'm sure DH thinks it's an illness that i should seek professional treatment for, and he may not be too far off the mark...i literally feel sick inside if things dont look right. a weird dooming sensation. so i'm driven to do it just so, but at the same time if it doesnt all get done by the time the party comes around, i AM able to shrug it off and say, oh well, i know in my heart that i honestly did the best i could, and can move on (or maybe by then i'm just to freaking tired to care!). but up until that moment, i do feel a little sick thinking i wont make it all happen in time!

okay. that's really OCD.

so, anyway, friends, it's a rainbow decor with characters from the book. right off the bat, the obvious answer is: we need to put rainbows everywhere (and there's tons of prefab rainbow decorations out there that would have saved me a lot of time). i know how that looks...it's fine, but it's expected. but more importantly, the colors were NOT right...too primary. mimi really wanted to go with bright, jewel like tones and i had to agree that it was better to do so, especially for a girlish fairy party! so i wanted to find ways to bring the rainbow theme in, but in an unexpected way rather than with the prototypical rainbows dominating.

i found some tissue paper pompoms that were perfect, but they only came in three of the colors that we needed. so i bought more tissue paper, cut them to size and created the rest of the colors. these were hung up with Command hooks (the smallest size) from Target in a arc. strong enough to hold up, but comes off cleanly....LOVE that.

over the table, i hung a rod and draped it w/the same ribbons i put on the girls' tutus. fast, easy, cheap, but still cute.

found some colored medallion decorations in just the right colors to hang over the windows, so that was a great time saver!

for the birthday banner: using some scrapbook paper, i cut out circles. put those on larger handcut scalloped circles in solid colored cardstock. then printed out the letters onto glossy brochure paper in 350 font size, Harrington. cut out and mount onto the scrapbook paper. string together with ribbon. hung it up over a back drop of pink wrapping paper (99 cents a roll at Party City...it took three rolls to cover the wall over the buffet cabinet).

mimi helped me hang up the colored streamers in rainbow color order (with the addition of pink, which we used as sort of the overarching color throughout and for mimi's fairy color, even tho pink wasnt one of the 7 rainbow fairies). we also had some hanging straight down, so it looked like it arcs over and then down to the floor, but instead of letting it brush the floor, i set a black pot (from Halloween!) on the floor and pooled the streamers into the pot. then i hid a bag of crystals and clear colored pony beads inside the pot for the girls to find later (the bag was a large circle of indigo colored felt, filled with the 'jewels' and then gather the ends together and tied closed with gold rope. i added some more pony beads to the ends of the rope to bling it up a bit!).

we hung up pictures of the fairyland castle and jack frost's castle, as well as all the characters from the book and put them around the dining room (all from the internet and printed out large scale..there's a lot of 'artifacts' when enlarged, but i went over the outlines with markers to hide the worst of it). mimi painted several pictures of mushroom houses and mushroom condos (some with spiral staircases, decks for sunning, mailboxes, windows, etc. very cute.) which we put around the house. she also made some signage to put around! (love her!)

i forgot to take a pic of the front door, which turned out adorable. a rainbow over the door and blue streamers streamed from it and swagged the doorframe and were clipped to the two evergreen topiaries with bright yellow butterflies. there were already two small bright yellow hydrangea topiaries in white urns, flanking the door, and a yellow hydrangea wreath hanging on the door, that i had out for spring decorating, so altogether it was really cute.

the snack/dessert table was covered with a colorful table cloth, topped with a pink plastic table cover, a sturdy box draped with green table cover for the cake stand. swagged the front of the pink sheet, then draped assorted ribbons, which i left on the spools and stacked the spools and place items on top of the spools! no waste! i can just roll the ribbons back up after the party and they can be used again! (i love it when i can reuse things!)

the dining table was covered with green paper cover, some moss strips in the center, prefab flower balloon weights, and cut outs of the Rainbow Magic rainbow. i set the table with different colored plates (they dont sell assorted colors in a single pack so i had to buy one of each...grrr. on the bright side, i shouldnt have to buy paper plates for parties for a loooong time!). i let it go with the forks/napkins...i wasnt going to buy one of every color, too! so i went w/pink forks and yellow napkins. i printed out each fairy (and another set of fairies, printed 'flipped horizontal' for the backs) and cut them out and attached them to green cardstock 'stands' as the place cards. (some of the girls liked them enough to take them home with them).

and of course lots of colored balloons with extra long strings.

on the favor table, i just covered it with green paper table cover.

mimi made a little sign to post on a sidetable by the stairs "presents for mimi." that table had some easter decorations on it...er, good enough. truth be told, i wasnt even thinking about the presents, but clearly, Mimi was!

FOOD:

like i did for ozzy's bday last year, i decided to go w/another dessert/snack table instead of putting all my energies into just the cake. i think you get a lot more oomph w/a well decorated table, than an elaborate cake, for the same amount of effort. so i just went w/a simpler designed cake (which still took me until 4:30 am to make and decorate) and did up the table. DH looked at the spread and goes, "HOW many people are coming?" :) a skimpy table is just not attractive!

on the table: fairyland cake (layers of strawberry cake and white cake with rainbow sprinkles, filled with white chocolate cream cheese), 'cupcake' rice krispy treats with vanilla icing, a rainbow fruit/veggie platter (red apples, orange carrots, yellow mangoes, green celery, grapes) accompanied by colorful teacups of ranch dip and caramel dip, rainbow goldfish, brownie pops with rainbow sprinkles, colorful assorted candies in jars, Hershey's kisses topiaries, izze bottled drinks, chips, spinach dip, rainbow straws, napkins, forks, plates, a pair of rainbow pinwheels (that mimi found at joann's fabric store and declared they were perfect for the party)...everything brightly labeled and/or be-ribboned.

for dinner we ordered cheese pizzas.

GOODIES

for each girl i made a different colored tutu out of ribbons and tulle. i bought 2 yds of tulle per tutu, but in retrospect, i think i needed at the very least, 3 yards. they were a little skimpy.

wings in each color...i found them for a decent price online, but not in every color i needed from the same vendor (orange and indigo were missing). so i ordered an extra pink and purple one and used some water based spray on food color to convert the pink to orange and the purple to indigo.

bracelets in rainbow colors from Michael's, one for each girl

clip on colored hair and 'fairy dust' (body glitter) from Claire's (i searched hi and lo to find those itty bitty glass bottles with cork stoppers so i could put a little 'fairy dust' in each, but failed to find them anywhere...they would have been totally cute as fairy dust jars! had to settle for just dusting the girls at the party)

rainbow necklaces with color changing mood pendants (the girls loved those!) from Five Below.

a collection of books 1-4 of the Rainbow Magic rainbow fairies book from Amazon. inside each book, i glued a note i printed out with a starry background (created on Word) with the words:

To my friend so dear and true

A Rainbow Magic wish for you,

Happy times, joy and care,

Shall follow you everywhere.

Fairy giggles, fun and laughter,

And a happy ever after.

May your days be filled with glee,

For you have given these to me.

Thanks for making my birthday magical!

Your Friend,

Mimi

the girls also made and took home fairy wands and suncatchers...supplies which i bought at Michael's and AC Moore, the latter had a lovely assortment of suncatcher crystals.

at the end of the party, the girls picked treats from the dessert table to take home and a balloon.

ACTIVITIES

planning the the activities probably took as much time as making all the decorations! DH saw me on the computer surfing the web A LOT, instead of cleaning the dishes in the sink. that stuff drives him crazy...but i had a deadline, so had to ignore the dirty looks and plow on thru. (we did employ some help with housekeeping, twice a week, which helped a lot, and quite possibly saved my marriage.) it was a lot of researching and planning and thinking about! some science about light/rainbows? appropriate crafts? activities to get them moving? how to tie it in with the books? what? there's a movie? etc.

in the end here's what i had planned and how it all panned out:

i printed out a list of the fairies with a picture and a description of each and put it on the wall. as each girl arrived, they looked over the chart and chose the fairy they wanted to be and donned the corresponding color tutu and wings. as each new girl arrived, all the girls ushered her to the chart and helped her put on her special tutu and wings! srsly?!? SO CUTE!!! each girl arrived one at a time, so it worked out quite seamlessly! and what amazed me was that many of the girls had thought about what color they wanted to be ahead of time and came dressed in that color! i loved that the indigo fairy came in denim! :) (as the party went on, the girls even called each other by their Fairy names instead of their real names, so Lily who chose to be the violet fairy was called "Heather." too funny.

after all the girls had squealed their way into tutus, wings, and all around the house (yes, all three levels and every room! mimi said they needed tours. LOL) i gathered them together to finished their transformation from girl to fairy.

DRESS UP: (pretend/dress up) i set out a silver tray with clip in colored hair, bracelets, color changing mood pendant necklaces, and fairy dust. the girls put on their accessories and i used a silver colored toy wand with some maribou fluff on one end to sprinkle 'Fairy Dust' (body glitter) on their arms. when they were sufficiently made up, i took out the supplies to make wands because every fairy needs her own enchanted wand!

WANDS: (craft) i set out Glo-sticks, assortment of ribbons, stickers, bendaroos, tape, scissors and they set about making their wands to ward off Jack Frost. after their wands were done, i got in a quick picture of the group. then i warned them that Jack Frost was sending his Goblins to turn Fairyland gray to ruin Mimi's birthday and they must stop the Goblins!

STOP THE GOBLINS: (movement) mimi used a balloon pump to pump up several colorful balloons before the party. i printed out three images of JF's goblins and rolled them up and put them into three gray balloons, blew them up and tied them. the other gray balloons i put a roll of blue cloud shaped paper. the girls were tasked to popping all the gray balloons and finding the three goblins to stop them from carrying out JF's dastardly plan. they quite joyfully popped the balloons until all three goblins were 'stopped.' then to add more protection to Fairyland, Mimi read out loud a Fairy spell at the end:

No icy finger,

No frozen stare,

No naughty goblins

anywhere.

All the fairies sing

their song.

Chilly Jack Frost

now be gone!

i should have had the girls stand in a circle and wave their wands...that would have been cuter, but i wasnt thinking fast enough.

after they stopped the goblins from turning Fairyland cold and gray, i alerted them to more trouble from JF! while they were busy fighting off the Goblins, JF had gone to the Fairyland castle and had stolen away all the jewels. without the jewels Fairyland would lose all of its color!

FIND THE MISSING JEWELS!: (movement/hunt) the fairies had to find the missing jewels, and quick!, to restore color to the land and to the party!

i gave them one clue which Mimi read outloud:

To Find The Jewels, You Must Go

To the End of the Rainbow!

In the Dark, You'll Find the Light

So What's Wrong can be Made Right!

so the girls went off, en masse, to find the rainbow and follow it to its end. finally they settled on the rainbow streamers in the dining room, followed it to the black pot at the end of the streamers and found the jewel bag! hooray!

once they found the jewels, i congratulated the fairies on a job well done and told them they had a special job to do. the only way to bring the color back to Fairyland was to make rainbows. (some girls gasped out loud and others had this wide eyed, round O mouthed face...so cute!!! hahaha!

SUNCATCHERS: (craft/science) i asked the kids how to make rainbows and they said raindrops and the sun. i told them how light looks white but when it gets bent by the raindrops you see all the colors that actually make up white light. aaaaaannnd another way to make the rainbows? ...with crystals! so i opened the bag of 'fairyland jewels' they found and spread out the crystals and beads and showed them how to make their own suncatchers to create rainbows. the girls each chose a crystal and strung on some colorful pony beads to make it pretty. we added a bright colored bulldog clip to the end so the beads stayed on and to give it something to hang with. then they put them into their goody bags when they were done.

DINNER & A SHOW

PIZZA/CAKE TIME: and just like that, an hour had passed and it was time for pizza and cake to celebrate all their hard work to restore Fairyland and save Mimi's birthday from Jack Frost!

THE SHOW: (entertainment) after pizza, the happy birthday song, and cake, we gathered to watch the movie, "Rainbow Magic: Return To Rainspell Island." i can't tell you how much GRIEF (yes, with capital letters!) this movie caused for DH and me. first, it only came out in Europe. i ordered it anyway...i dont even know how much it cost me cuz it was in POUNDS. *eye roll. but mimi kept saying she really really really wanted to see this movie. and i thought it would be good for the party, so i did it. i got the movie. and i committed to breaking the region code to try and play it here at home. grrrr. after several failed attempts to do it at home, i had a friend help me out. he was able to burn a region free dvd for me and it played fine on my computer and on my car dvd player, but none of our blu-ray players were agreeable to playing it.

i had envisioned showing the movie downstairs in our movie room, lights out, with popcorn. since that didnt work, we tried to stream it onto our Apple TV (which we were still trying to figure out how to make work...it's Apple! it's not s'posed to be this hard to figure out!). and that was incredibly frustrating...kind of got it going, but then it stopped midstream. in the end, DH finally got the thing running on an old dinky portable polaroid dvd player hooked up to the tv in the family room. it would have to do. so the girls watched the movie (the whole beginning of the movie, as each fairy showed up, the girls would shout, "there's me! that's me! there i am!" omg. so funny.)

all too soon, mommies and daddies came to pick up their fairies and the girls shopped the treat table for goodies before heading out.

OTHER IDEAS THAT I LOVED BUT DIDNT USE:

if we had extra time to kill, i also bought the Twister game since it's got all those colors. i thought it could be fun for the girls. we never got around to playing that game, tho.

other wonderful ideas that i saw were rainbow cakes (each layer a different color), rainbow ice cubes for drinks, rainbow jello...all really cute, but SO much food coloring! i decided it was done enough.

i also liked several rainbow science related activities but when i tried them out at home, they werent that interesting or they didnt quite work out as well as i would have liked. rainbow milk (too slow), mixing colors (eh), making spinners: the idea being if all the colors on the spinner are true, when it spins, it looks white...tried several attempts and none of them looked especially white; sharpie rainbows: color a t-shirt with a sharpie marker and drop rubbing alcohol on it and the colors separate and make a rainbow circle that looks like the underside of a cd (too stinky and didnt seem to relate well to our mission). there was one activity using a glass of water and a mirror to make a rainbow looked promising, but i wasnt sure if we'd have adequate sunlight in the early evening to do it.

CLOSING

Mimi loved the party and gave me lots of hugs and thanks and told me the best part of the party was me. :) (love her!) I am SO glad she had such a wonderful time. makes all that effort worth it! (special thanks to DH for helping out with various tasks, fixing up stuff, picking up meals, and taking little Ozzy out of the house!)

how old are you?

2011-03-04T16:14:00.000-05:00

while at toys r us today (which ozzy didnt want to go to at first, he said he wanted to stay home and watch Chuggington, so i told him they have Chuggington trains at the store, let's go get one!) we were looking over the Chuggington train assortment and i asked ozzy which one he wanted and he says, I waaaaaaannnnnnnt......Action Chugger! it's an orange one and he's fast and he's strong!

k....action chugger, action chugger...here you go, here's action chugger! i say as i hand him a small die cast train labeled "Action Chugger" for $7.

no, not that one. says ozzy.

but it says it's Action Chugger. THIS IS ACTION CHUGGER, i say.

no, not that one. says ozzy. i want THAT Action Chugger. and he points to another one that is twice the size of the one i picked up and costs $15.

well, ozzy, i think this ($7) one is better because it will fit on your take along thomas tracks (and it's cheaper, i think to myself, so if he wants all of Action Chugger's friends it wont be several hundreds of dollars to collect them).

mom, he says, this one will fit. it will fit on my blue tracks. the blue tracks are much bigger. dont worry, mom.

i look at him, and i think, how old are you? you're two. are you supposed to be arguing with me AND making sense at the same time? arent you supposed to just lay down on the floor and tantrum? youre TWO. sheesh. i had a strange feeling like i was in for it...just give him a couple more years. i think i better start taking an online course in Law to get ready!

2011-02-21T01:09:00.000-05:00

Sunday, February 13th, Rob's dad, Mimi and Ozzy's grandfather, PoongHo "Paul" Im, passed away quietly in our home. He was attended that night by Rob; though Rob, his brother Bryan, their uncle who flew out from Korea to be with dad in his final days (the No.5 brother as he was called since dad came from a family of 7 sons of which he was the No. 1 son), and Rob's mom, took turns being with him night and day and had been doing so for three weeks since we learned of his illness.

i wanted to write an account of these events in our family blog to remember what happened, as best as i am able to recall and to memorialize dad. these past three weeks have begun to blur together, the details and days blending into fuzzy color in my mind. hopefully the details will come to me as i write.

that he had cancer, that they found tumors, that they didnt expect he would make it beyond a few weeks, came as a complete shock. they thought it was lung cancer. it made me sit right down to hear the news.

ozzy and i had been at a friend's house for her daughter's first birthday when i first got news that dad had been admitted to Fairfax Inova. Rob had been with Mimi, taking her to Korean school and piano lessons. it was Saturday, January 22nd. at first we didnt know it was so serious. dad had been feeling generally unwell and depressed, but various test revealed nothing new. i guess we thought it was more of the same.

dad had gone to the ER that morning because he was feeling so terrible. it wasnt until they did some xrays that they found some tumors...they thought they were in his lungs. dad had been in a shared room when he first got admitted, but they eventually moved him into a private room on the cancer floor. rob stayed the night in the shared room, sleeping on a small wooden chair that first night, and then a small pull out bed once they moved him into the private room on the 9th floor, taking the night shift (or as much of it as he could) so his mom could get a break, then heading back to work the next day, since he was only just a couple of weeks in at his new job at mark logic.

they biopsied the tumor on monday and by wednesday gave us the diagnosis: AML (acute myeloid leukemia). dad had had leukemia since 2001, the year Rob and I got married, but with ongoing treatment had it in remission. when dad was feeling poorly, all the test results came up 'leukemia' which mom and dad already knew he had, but a distinction was not made clear that this was not the usual sort that he had been dealing with for the past 10 years. and so unable to come up with anything different, his symptoms were treated without a full investigation of what was going on. dad showed me several weeks ago that he was taking tramadol frequently for pain. then later he was prescribed zoloft for depression. in hindsight, i wonder if his body must have known he was dying and the depression was part and parcel of preparing to leave the world.

i took the kids to visit dad that monday evening after Mimi's extracurriculars, we had printed out some photos of dad and the kids to hang up in his room and mimi drew a picture to cheer him up. dad, despite the biopsy that morning and various other tests, seemed to be in good spirits and looked hale and hearty still. he was happy to see us.

the next evening we came by again and brought over some soup for dad, but he wasnt eating much, often vomiting up what he ate as his kidneys became weaker. he was on a water restriction, too. the changes then and in the coming days seemed to be happening so fast. as we left that evening, ozzy turned to him and said, in his sweet little voice, "i weawy, weawy, weawy, wuv you, habuji"

i encouraged mimi to write letters and draw pictures for grandpa and in several she told him how much she would miss him and for him to eat well and get lots of rest. dad told mimi, "my wish is for you to grow up, finish high school, go to college, do great things, get married, experience all the hardships of marriage and learn as we all do, have kids, live a good life."

mimi says with tears dripping down her face, 'i'm gonna miss you so much."

dad starts crying too and says outloud, "what kind of person am i, a 76 year old man, making a 6 year old girl cry." and sobs quietly.

that was the same evening when i held his hand and he told me that he was so blessed to have such a wonderful daughter in law and he thanked me and told me too that he was ready to go. that he wanted a quick and peaceful end, and that he had no regrets. i sat there, holding his hand, tears streaming down my face.

in the next few days, dad had his litany of phrases. that he wanted to go peacefully. that he would hold on just long enough for Bryan and his brother to arrive so he could say his goodbyes to them. and then he would go. but then as talk of trying treatment came up and mom would beseech him to hang on just long enough for his grandson to remember him, he took up a new phrase: 'fight, fight, fight!" mom would say, at least long enough for Ozzy to remember you. then dad would add, and long enough to see Bryan get married and have kids, and to see Mimi graduate.

that following Saturday Bryan flew in from Vegas, and No. 5 (Uncle) flew in from Korea the following day. and they all took turns with dad vigil at the hospital.

some days, i'd hear that dad was grumpy and yelling at people. if he was, he saved it for when the kids and i werent around. one day when we visited, ozzy kept calling him "hubuji" as he usually does since he has a hard time saying the korean word for grandfather correctly. dad, even sick, still tried to correct him as he usually does:

Not "ha BUH jee" say "ha RAH BUH jee"

ozzy: "ha BAH DAH jee"

dad: "HA RAH BUH JEE!"

ozzy: "HA BAH DAH JEE!"

dad, shakes head as if to say, i give up.

we continued to visit dad in the evenings as often as possible. sometimes when the kids visited they were able to get dad to get up and walk around the floor. but all too quickly he could barely make it half way around.

after all the treatments were finished, seven rounds of chemo and three rounds of radiation targeting the tumors, the hospital released him to live out his remaining days. he could go home or to the hospice center. one doc recommended the center saying that he didnt think we were equipped to care for dad in his last days, that it would be a lot of care and that it would not be good for the little kids to be exposed to it. in the end though we decided that home was the best place for dad and we were all ready to do all the hardwork and shield the kids and if it became more than we could bear that we would move him to the center, but only if he lost conciousness.

the day before dad was discharged, med company came with the bed, oxygen, etc. but no IV. i was surprised there was no IV, but mom said they only do that if the patient had a chance of survival. they dont do that when they leave you to die. the next day, Thursday, February 10th, dad was discharged. after he got settled in, he surprised us all by wanting to come upstairs, socialize, eat a meal, etc. he climbed up the stairs with help, ate a big meal (relative to what he had been eating before), seemed almost normal again. it was hard to believe he was dying.

the following day, Friday, February 11th, the tremors started.
the tremors worsened as the day progressed. mom was really worried.
rob called his brother bryan to come back soon. bryan booked a flight for sunday.

visitors continued to come every day, several a day. he was getting tired of them and said he wanted to be left alone to die in peace. tell them not to come. why do they keep coming? dad, i told him, it's your fault. you made too many friends to be left alone. he gave a small barking laugh and closed his eyes while i rubbed his legs.

later, i helped mom hold dad up to empty his bladder and he stood, holding himself up on the walker, trembling and said with tears in his eyes, "i'm shrinking." then in korean he explains that his illness has diminished him to being supported by his daughter in law to relieve himself. i wish i had had the words at that time to let him know that he would always be a great man to me, to his sons, and to countless others, and nothing could diminish that.

Saturday, mom called the pastor to come. dad seemed to be in a constant state of sleep for most of the day, but the moment the pastor arrived, his eyes flew open and it was obvious that he knew who was there and why. he struggled to speak, his mouth barely moving, but words somehow labored out. he struggled in and out of consciousness and finally sank back into deep sleep after the pastor finished his prayer.

after the pastor left, i said a reluctant and quiet goodbye to dad as i left the room to get back to my kids, who were playing upstairs with cousin Jennifer and her girls. it was the last time i saw dad alive.

i woke up early the next morning, Sunday, February 13th, before the kids, and found cousin jennifer already awake. she told me the news as i walked down the stairs. the tears were spilling out before i was even aware i was crying and jennifer and i hugged and cried for several moments before i went to go find rob. i found him sleeping downstairs in the stripped hospital bed where dad had been just the day before-- no blankets, just hugging himself for warmth, and laying there. he scooted over a bit so i climbed up too and we lay on our sides on that tiny bed and he told me how his dad passed in the night. how he'd noticed dad's breathing had changed to a quieter pattern just before rob had fallen asleep sometime after midnight and then was awakened by his mom just an hour later because dad had passed. how hard they had all cried, so loudly he was sure the children would wake up. how the nurse on call was notified but didnt make it out for several hours. how his uncle had to hold dad's mouth closed as they waited for her, and she didnt come and she didnt come and rigor mortis set in. he didnt want to wake me. he didnt want the kids to see as they took dads remains from the house. he was telling me all this and it was strangely surreal, i couldn't make my mind believe it had really happened in that very space, just a few hours ago.

my cousin hae and her husband and my sister nan were coming up that day to take the kids out for the day. it was good that they had...we needed that day w/o the distraction of the children. rob had to go out and pick up bryan from the airport. i went out as well to find a suitable black ensemble for mimi. a gloomy task, but i welcomed something to do, an excuse to get out of the house, which felt dark with grief, suffocating in its heaviness. but it was next to impossible to find anything proper at a time when Easter dresses and jackets in their happy, fresh colors dominated the stores, and i thought, why dont they have a section at the department store for this? grief wear or something.

The church service/viewing was held that Tuesday, February 15th, the day after Valentine's Day. (it was a little odd to have a celebratory day in between. while rob and i didnt even acknowledge it, i still had to bake cookies and make valentines cards for mimi to take to school.)

the service was well attended. the kids stayed home with my sister, Woo, who flew out even though we told her not too. later than evening my other sister, Nancy, also came up from Richmond to help out. rob didnt want to burden friends with it so he kept it relatively quiet, but even so, good friends still came out to the service.

the burial was held the following morning, February 16th. even tho the weather was supposed to be warm and sunny, it was still bone chillingly cold there at the cemetery. maybe it was the openess, that allowed the air to cut thru without buildings to buffer the cold? my aunt said it was because people come with heavy hearts and the blood isnt circulating as well to keep the bodies feeling as warm as usual.
as we sat facing the casket, mimi was solemn for most of the service, but crying by the time she put the rose on dad's casket. and when they lowered the body into the ground she stood and watched and continued to cry. ozzy gazed on with interest. and then even in the car, all the way to the restaurant, mimi continued to cry loudly, my mom and aunt trying to soothe her all the while. after that big long crying session, she seemed to have come to terms with dad's passing and decided that her grandfather was in a better place.

in the coming days, i hope to make a memory book with the kids so they will have something to always remember grandpa by. i regret that i dont know more about dad's history to share it with the kids. i hope that rob will find moments to tell the kids what he knows about his dad and his life.

it is difficult for me to think that my kids are experiencing the loss of a grandparent before i ever did. three of my grandparents passed before i was ever born, and the fourth, my grandmother is still going strong at 95 years of age. i can only imagine what it must be like for my kids, never having known it myself as a child.

the morning after the burial, i guess my mom wanted to check ozzy's understanding of what happened so when he asked where his best friend jah guhn habuji (rob's uncle from korea) was, my mom asked him where was habuji? is he at the hospital? she asked.

ozzy said, "no, habuji flew away. to heaven. his body stopped working so we put him in a box and put him in the ground and everyone gave him flowers because hubuji likes flowers. habuji died. he's dead." his take on the whole thing is so matter-of-fact-here's-the-events; he can't grasp the abstractions of loss and finality, of all the things that will no longer be, because his understanding of time is still so underdeveloped. but he does sense our grief, see our tears, without fully grasping why. it must be making him think there is something to worry about because he has become somewhat clingier to me, waking and crying and looking for me with a greater intensity. last night he had a nightmare that had him yelling out about a white train that was scary and he tried to tell it to go away. later i wondered if he remembered the white hearse that we followed to the burial site, which does look rather white train like.

i dont mean to diminish the support and love of friends and other family members by not detailing it through out this post... all the love and support that came our way these past few weeks has made us feel so truly blessed and thankful. the flowers, the gifts baskets, fruit arrangements, cards, donations, visits, hugs, meals, offers of assistance, help with the kids, help at the service and burial. our friends and family have been a great comfort to us at this most difficult of times. i know i have failed to mention the contributions and support of so many of rob's family members: sean, justina, jae shik, all the aunts and uncles...we are so thankful for your love and support.

after dad passed, i worked on a slideshow for the church service. i marveled once again, at how much dad's sons look like him (especially Rob) and in turn how much my own son resembles him too. i showed the pics of dad's younger days to ozzy and asked who it was and ozzy says, "daddy! that's my fodder!" my imac photo software has a feature called "Faces" that uses face recognition to identify pictures that contain the specific people you are looking for. so i had it search for dad and the computer pulled up several pictures of Rob in addition to pics of dad. that's how similar they look, that even little kids and computers get them confused. and in this small way, dad lives on in them. and not just in appearance, but there's a kindness, a goodness that dad had in spades that also lives on in his boys and i hope in my children too. if there's ever a legacy i hope continues it is dad's kindness and genuine care for others. in the time that i have known him, he was always a gentle, loving, good person. and i am deeply saddened that my children will not know him as they grow up. mimi has some memories of him that she will remember, but i am saddened that ozzy may not long remember his gentleness, his kindness, his sense of humor, his entertaining little stories, his "PMA" (positive mental attitude, he calls it. his code to live by.), endearing quirks, his fondness for words (esp words like "whatchamacalits" and "thingamabobs") and how he was always able to find the good in everyone.

i remember the first time i made a korean meal for dad and set out the traditional dwengjang jiggae, he tasted it and said to mom, 'this is terrible. too salty." mom nudged him and told him quietly that i had made it from scratch for the first time, and he looks up and says, sang you made this? it's DELICIOUS! the best i've ever had. then proceeded to eat every drop. thanked me for the WONderful dinner and told me not to go thru the trouble next time. please.

still brings a smile to my face to think of it.

Ozzy reading

2011-01-05T00:19:00.001-05:00

the other day, ozzy read this little easy reader all by himself. the last page was a bit tricky because the picture had so much going on, he was confused about what it was, but i showed him how to use the first letter of the word, so you see him applying what he learned, sounding out the first letter and remembering that the word was 'farm'.

learning several sight words early on (at 17 months) was helpful in moving him forward, but i find that it's a little more challenging teaching him to look at the individual letters of new words since he learned the sight words as whole words. when mimi first began reading, we didnt do any sight word memorizing, she preferred baby's first words type books and started by reading labels and captions to pictures and relied heavily on letter/sound relationship to figure out words and now she can pretty much read any word she encounters, but needs support with comprehension since she focuses more on phonemes than on meaning and sentence structure.

and recently i found out from a routine eye exam that mimi has "convergence insufficiency," a condition where both eyes dont always focus at the same point all the time. so when she reads, her eyes jump around, or rather one eye doesnt focus on the same place as the other, and she loses her place or she ends up skipping words, lines, and sometimes whole paragraphs or an entire page. without her full attention on meaning and syntax, she is not even aware that she skipped anything! so along with eye exercises with focus beads, we have to really work on amping up her comprehension skills, so she is aware of moments when meaning breaks down when she 'jumps' lines in her reading.

as for ozzy, i'm amazed at how much his language abilities have grown. he picks things up fairly quickly and he seems to understand concepts pretty easily. the tricky part is his very very short attention span. but he's not even 2 and a half yet, so that is as it should be.

happy 2011

2011-01-03T19:20:00.000-05:00

i wanted to write this post on 1-1-11, but as usual, i'm having difficulty carving out the time to write. i resolve in '11 will do a better job as self appointed historian of the IM household. i WILL make time to publish family photos, burn family videos to disks, back up all the photos, and will get back to logging events on the family blog on a more regular basis.

looking back on 2010 i realized i never got around to recording important events like ozzy's 2nd birthday, our vacations to Atlantis and dominican republic, ozzy starting preschool, mimi starting first grade, even christmas!...so much i've missed!

i partly blame facebook for it, realizing i've basically condensed family updates into a couple of status update lines instead of taking the time to post on our blog, a practice i must discontinue in the new year, as our family blog has been quite neglected as a result! (maybe one day Facebook will offer a 'blog' tab! that would be a feature i'd totally go for!).

but mostly life has just been busier than ever and finding the time to write has been really difficult. i also can't help feeling guilty about spending the time to record our life with the kids, even tho i know if i dont i will regret not having done so years from now...but in the back of my head i hear DH nagging me to tidy up the home or complete one of hundreds of other tasks that wait for me to get to, instead.

i also will again resolve to be more fit, and this year, resolve to be more organized and hopefully less forgetful (not sure how i'm gonna swing the 'less forgetful' part yet, but i'm gonna be optimistic.)

i talked to the kids about resolutions too. mimi told me that this year she would like to give more to the needy because it makes her feel kind of sad that she is so lucky to have so much in her life and to know there are kids out there that dont have anything.

"ozzy, what's your new year's resolution?"i asked.

"trains!"

figures.

Stank!

2010-12-14T13:36:00.001-05:00

for some reason ozzy has changed the way he says words beginning with 'th', like thank and think. instead of the usual "dank you!" he says: "stank you" and when i tell him to do something, he says, i can't right now. i'm stankin' (thinking) about sumpin.

i showed him how to place his tongue btwn his teeth to produce the /th/ and the voiced /th/ and told him to try that and say "thank you". he puts his tongue between his teeth and says, "LUHank you"

okay, bubby. nice try. ;)

You better watch out, you better not pout

2010-12-12T01:39:00.000-05:00

so this year, ozzy is really starting to get the whole Santa thing (sometimes he calls him Christmas Claus). i asked ozzy what he'd like santa to bring him for christmas and he immediately pipes up, "i want iphone!" but then other times when i ask him, he says, "trains." (ho hum. really? another one?) last night ozzy stood in his bedroom, dumping out a deluge of trains all over the floor, and lamented, "i dont have enough. i dont have enough trains." i counted 40+ on the floor (and that's just the Take Along Thomas set, not including the geotrax, wooden thomas, and Tomy Thomas trains). how many does he think he needs before he has reached "enough"??? maybe he's trying to fill a void in his life...filling them with trains. i guess better this than drugs, drinking, or a Barney addiction.

ozzy will be 29 months old this week. and you know the stuff that makes Twos so terrible? the self centeredness, difficulty sharing/possessiveness, clearly preferring only one adult (i want mommy. only mommy), easily frustrated, impulsive, pushes/shoves, food jags, insistence on routines, extreme emotional outbursts...well, he's eyeball deep in it now.

of course while rob and i appreciate that these are age-appropriate behaviors, we are keen on teaching him that these are not acceptable behaviors in the long run (with the understanding that nothing will change until he is developmentally ready...which is sometimes hard to keep in mind because he's so verbal for his age, we forget that he is still only two and not able to control his emotions/impulses enough to just use words to get his needs met when he is upset or excited. despite his facility with words at any given time, he still has difficulty 'finding his words', as they say at his preschool, when he's geared up, and he will act very much like a two year old then.)

so lately, when ozzy pulls out one of his terrible two-ness, mainly refusing to follow my directions, i point out that Arthur is watching and is going to report back to Santa. Arthur, btw, is our Elf on the Shelf. he is watching and reporting back to Santa every night. our elf is very calm and easy going. he doesnt get into antics while we are asleep; he is terribly shy. he shows up at different places every morning when he returns from the NP to continue to keep an eye on mimi and ozzy. (mimi says, "i sure hope he doesn't show up in the bathroom. cuz that would make me feel really weird when i'm in there.")

when our elf arrived, he just showed up one evening in front of our fire place when no one was looking. and he came with a book explaining what we were supposed to do. the first step was to name him. ozzy suggested the name "Arthur" and mimi really liked it, so we named him Arthur.

so anyway, the first few times i told him Arthur was watching, it wasnt getting the reaction i was hoping for. so then i get an email from Portable North Pole alerting me that it is back up online again this year and ready for personalized messages. so i set one up for ozzy. he watches it, eyes widening when santa calls him by name and shows him his 'page' in his book (i couldnt get PNP to recognize his name, so i had to go w/Austin, but he didnt notice)

http://www.portablenorthpole.tv/watch/guest/9m6QXNLiOclmXcujjKzsfA

and then santa tells him that he needs to listen to his mommy and daddy, and i assert that Arthur will report back and THEN this look comes over his face...a look that almost looks scared? guilty? i admit that i felt a feeling of bubbling elation from the small victory and with a smile, i gave my boy a hug and sent him on his way, looking slightly confused about what just happened.

Ozzy Potty Trained

2010-11-16T13:47:00.000-05:00

There was once i time when i actually had a bit of time to draft, proofread, edit and then publish each entry. these days, i'm just lucky if i get anything down. so here's a rough entry:

ozzy has had a very successful week of going without diapers entirely during the day and, with help, at night. as long as i remember to wake him up to take him to the potty in the middle of the night, he is able to hold it until the morning when he wakes up. occasionally he wakes up crying for me and it's usually because he has to pee that he wakes. but i can't rely on him to do it consistently just yet. if he's really tired, he'll just pee in his sleep. so i have to make sure to wake him if he doesnt wake himself before midnight.

he has been using the potty to pee w/consistency but still asking for a 'poo poo diaper' for number 2. and though i often offered the toilet to him for pooping, and let him know that poop should go into the potty and that it was cleaner that way and wouldnt irritate his butt, i really didnt expect him to be fully potty trained until he was closer to three. certainly didnt think it would happen before he was 28 months old!

about a month ago, he started asking to use the toilet to poop at very random times, approx once or twice a week. there really didnt seem to be a rhyme or reason to when he would suddenly decide he would want to. then shortly after my cousin's wedding (october 23rd), he developed a stomach virus that gave him diarrhea. so he was going more frequently (5 times a day) and it was very very runny, but somewhat controllable...he could hold it until he had a diaper put on. it was also very irritating to his little bum and his skin was quickly beginning to turn red and painful. i told him how much better it would be to do it on the potty, a lot less mess, and 'your butt wont hurt." so he agreed to do it! after getting 5 opportunities a day to poop in the potty for a week (that's how long that stomach bug lasted!), he became used to using the toilet to poop. and that's how he got trained to do it!

now that his tummy is better, he will occasionally ask for a diaper, but i just remind him how much quicker and neater the toilet is and he'll use it (then when he's finished he'll ask me if he can have some poo poo candy as a reward! the little stinker knows i wont say no to that because i want to keep encouraging him to continue, even though we both know he pooped in the potty regardless of the candy)

i've stocked up on more underwear for ozzy. i dont know why little boys briefs are made with such tight waistbands, but the poor boy can barely get the band up over his (adorable) round tushie! i've even tried to go up a size to size 4-5 and the waist bands are still tiny, but with a fuller seat. i found some ADORABLE little baby boy boxer shorts in a 2T size that are easier to get on and off, but he prefers his Thomas and Friends briefs. he still verbally reminds himself, "Dont pee pee on Thomas!" when he puts them on.

we still have a bunch of diapers and pull ups that i guess we'll hold on to for nighttime insurance and keep some in the car for the portable potty, or give away. i can't believe we are done with this phase of ozzy's life already! what does he have left of his babyhood? he is still very attached to his bottles, even though they have a sippy spout. he enjoys having his milk in them and cuddling with me three times a day. it's the only time he uses a sippy cup, but i know i need to break him of this as well. i will try to do it in the new year. hopefully what is more important than those sippy bottles is cuddle time with mom and i can use that as a way to transition him away from his sippy bottles.

and when those are gone, he'll officially be a big boy! omg!!!

Halloween 2010

2010-11-03T12:22:00.000-04:00

this halloween was a very different one in the im house. whereas in years past, a big part of the fun of the holiday was to dress up kaya, and then take her house to house with mimi for trick or treating, laughing every step of the way as she trotted by us looking so funny in her costume and neighbors laughing (or just shaking their heads), but since she passed last year, halloween had lost a lot of the fun for us (or maybe it's just me?). last halloween was unbearably sad for me without kaya, though i think mimi and ozzy were still excited about all the candy (and it rained that night, so that just added to the depression). so as this halloween approached i felt we needed to do something different to make it fun again. so this year we hosted a small party, decorated the house, invited some of mimi's friends (mostly daisy scouts) for some pizza and candied apples (the mini candied apples were a bit of a flop...but i figured out a few tricks and will try these again!), and then went trick or treating together in our neighborhood, making it a point to hit the halloween house that has gained some infamy in our neighborhood.

as soon as the girls came, i was glad we did it. mimi and the girls had so much fun together. i found myself smiling most of the night from the girls' exuberance and happy screams of excitement as they ran from house to house with little ozzy trotting after them.

it was a lot of fun and definitely something we will try to do every year from now on! :) of course, i still miss our sweet kaya, but i think the kids had a great time and will have happy memories of halloween night even w/o her. despite my best efforts to find ways to make halloween fun for us again, i think i will probably find myself missing kaya every halloween, anyway. it's not a totally bad thing though...she left us with so many fond memories.

ozzy is 26 months

2010-10-03T00:39:00.000-04:00

it has been a long time since i posted last! i have a lot of catching up to do! still havent posted about ozzy's bday party and that was JULY! just a lot going on...what with the flooding and school starting for both kids. (oh the flooding...that will have to be a separate post. )

ozzy is 26 months old now. yesterday, he pooped in the potty. the second time, ever.

later this evening, as i read with the kids in bed...that i noticed a change here too. usually when i read with ozzy, i point out various conventions of print, letter/sound recognition, sight words, etc. if i get too 'teachy' he pushes the book away and wants to read a different book. so it's a fine balance between keeping it interesting but still teaching tidbits here and there without losing his attention. generally he likes books, but it's not always easy to sustain attention. tonight however, i could not make him stop reading. book after book, he wanted to read with me, and not only that, but he was also surprisingly amenable to whatever i asked of him. he read all the sight words (of which he knows 45), and filled in the blanks when i'd trail off in reading, and identified the beginning sounds to words. and i also noticed that he didnt just hand me a book saying, "read this!" or "read Thomas!" "read Biscuit!" , tonight, he handed me books and called them each by the title (rather than the subject!). "mom, let's read "The Red Shed" or "Win The Race" or "Get On The Bus." curious to see if he was just recognizing the covers and remembering the names or really recognizing more words, i pointed to some words that were not part of his repertoire of sight words and he was able to read most of the words that i pointed to. (there was one book where he kept reading "but" instead of "tub"...which made the story quite funny to say everything was happening in the 'but' instead of the 'tub.' so the story goes "the pup is in the tub!" but he would read, "the pup is in the but. ruff. ruff. ruff. the truck is in the but. mud. mud. mud." i couldn't help cracking up. guess you had to be there.)

it's been interesting to see how different ozzy is from mimi at school. whereas mimi stayed neat and generally followed directions, ozzy is kind of everywhere, and thinks it's funny to do the opposite of what he's supposed to. what? it's time to gather? no, thanks, i think i'll lay down in the cozy nook. come gather? no, the rocking chair needs me to rock it furiously.

he seems to enjoy school and doesnt seem worried at all when i leave, unlike mimi who had to be peeled off of me, terrified of being left at school. i just tell him i am going to the store but i'll be back to pick him up at playground time. he dismisses me before i'm even done talking, 'okay, mom. see you waiter (later)!" he says without even looking up from the toys.

he seems to get along with his classmates and hasnt had any issues, so that's a relief. he calls his classmates, "all the children" as in, "mom, i like school. i like to see all the children." or "where are all the children?" it amuses me that he calls his peers "children." not friends or kids. children.

Train Birthday Party

2010-09-15T00:15:00.000-04:00

i am so, so, so late in posting this. the time has really gotten away from me! this is a MUCH belated post about ozzy's birthday party (TWO months ago!!!).
------------------------------------------------
we celebrated ozzy's birthday on the fourth of july weekend, two weeks early, since we'd be out of town on his real birthday. the birthday theme was a no brainer given his obsession with trains. we kept the party small, just family and one little boy (neighbor).

i didnt really plan much by way of entertainment...the boys were under 2 yrs old, so i figured just having lots of trains and toys to play with suffice. i really wanted to rent a trackless train, but i could only find one vendor that had one in our area and the cost would run close to $1000 for a minimum of two hours. (and yes, there's a train at the mall and one at a local park, but i wanted to keep the party at home, so i ruled those out).

for the invitations, i had a plan to do a pop up train card, but never got enough time to begin production on them, so instead it was an Evite that got sent out to everyone in the party colors and an image of Thomas and Friends. for the responses, i customized the wording. for yes: welcome to the island of sodor, for maybe: stalled at the station and for no: derailed. i felt bad not making ozzy's invitations like i did for mimi every year...but, well, you know, the second kid and all that.

also, did not put a lot of effort into the cake...instead i was inspired to do a designer dessert table with a simple cake. because the party happened on fourth of july weekend, i decided to keep with the red, white, blue colors, which worked out well since Thomas the tank engine is red and blue anyway. i labeled the drinks "Chugga Chugga" and the candy "Chew Chew" which i thought was a cute thematic touch.

for the cake topper i made a simple train out of fondant and some fondant ribbons.

around the room we hung up stars that mimi cut out of red, white, and blue paper. then she used some thread and taped the stars onto the thread and i hung them up around the room. (she was such a great helper! she also helped cut out cookies, ice them, put sprinkles on the cupcakes, straighten up the house, and help keep ozzy entertained. while it's not the same as having an adult help, she did a pretty darn good job for a six year old!).

mimi painted two train pictures to decorate the dining room. they turned out so cute! i am going frame them and hang them up in ozzy's bedroom. the paintings work well w/his bedroom colors too.

i did buy up a bunch of thomas partyware as well as some fourth of july party supplies. at first i didnt want to go the route of all that cartoony Thomas character party supplies, but ozzy kept grabbing everything off the shelves, hugging it to himself, and refusing to leave the store without them, so i caved and bought them. on the day of the party, when i spread out the table cloth with all the Thomas and Friends trains on it, he breathes, it's beautiful, ma! (he's taken to calling me "ma' now)

for the party activity, i kept it very low key. the party started around 4pm, shortly after ozzy wakes from his nap. we had trains and other toys set out for the kids to play with while the adults chatted. my mom prepared stuff for vietnamese rolls and we ordered tons of pizzas. (i felt like i ate all evening!!!)

after too much food, ozzy blew out his birthday candles (after several attempts!), and opened his presents...he loved everything, of course. it was all of his favorite things, Thomas, Thomas, Thomas, construction vehicles, Thomas, dinosaur, Thomas, and Thomas.

it was a fun little party. ozzy had a hard time going to sleep after all that excitement (and sugar and company staying the night). he ended up hanging out with me on the couch, late into the evening. whenever i'd ask him if he was ready to go to bed, he'd say, "No. I dont want to go to bed." and "I cant sleep." eventually i got him to sleep, but he woke up several times through out the night. the price to pay for heavy partying!

it was a tiring, but fun filled weekend. i loved having so many family members spend the weekend with us. they braved the 4th of july traffic to make it up here, and i'm so thankful for their support, love, and friendship. we are so lucky to have such a wonderful family.

2 year old boy dreams

2010-08-05T09:03:00.000-04:00

last night i found ozzy thrashing and crying and calling for me in his sleep. he wasnt awake. i went over to him and carefully picked him up saying 'mama's here. what's wrong?" he doesnt open his eyes, he's still sobbing, answers, "ozzy scared!" "what's scary, baby?" ozzy says, "big truck!" and i know what he's dreaming about...the day before we were playing outside when the garbage truck came onto our street. as it got closer it also got louder and because we live at the end of a small cul de sac, it had to pivot into our driveway to turn back around. the massive roaring garbage truck coming onto our driveway completely freaked ozzy out (i think he thought it was going to crush him?). he ran away from the truck, shaking from head to toe, crying that it was scary.

i soothed him and told him it was a dream and the big truck wasnt here and he was safe. and he slipped easily back to a calm sleep again. i layed down on the bed next to him, but i cant fall asleep. i lay there w/my eyes closed anyway and then i hear ozzy moving in his sleep. he's making chuffing noises, and driving something with both arms moving in the air and he's in bliss and i know he's dreaming about his trains.

ozzy says...

2010-07-27T11:46:00.000-04:00

when mimi changes the channel after an episode of thomas and friends ends:

ozzy: NO! I want to watch THOMAS!

me: but it's over and it's mimi's turn to pick a show.

ozzy: (hanging his head in sadness and saying forlornly)
I can't watch Thomas making tracks to great destinations
(and then suddenly his tone turns angry as he finishes with...) any more!!!
(and then he slaps the table for emphasis and then settles down into a pout)

---------------------------------------------------

while helping ozzy put together a puzzle, i fit in a piece and say, see ozzy? it goes in there like that!

he looks at what i did and says, "Oh! Good boy, mama!"

ozzy says the Pledge of Allegiance

2010-07-02T12:00:00.000-04:00

finally! after over a week of trying to catch this on video, ozzy cooperated long enough to give me the full pledge of allegiance. here's ozzy:

and here's when mimi was two and saying the pledge (she was around two and half):

The pledge: take two @ Yahoo! Video

Mimi's piano recital

2010-06-29T00:57:00.000-04:00

Stood Up By The Tooth Fairy

2010-06-27T14:41:00.000-04:00

last night mimi's tooth fell out while she was brushing her teeth. this was the third tooth to fall out. she was so excited. we put it in the sterling silver hippo tooth holder and took it upstairs. lately mimi has taken to piling up a bunch of pillows on her bed (a regular pillow, a sham, her FOM pillow, and her pillow pet unicorn) and sleeping on them, so we placed it at the very bottom of the pile so it didnt accidentally fall as the pillows moved around. then we read together as usual (this night it was Captain Underpants and the Preposterous Plot of the Purple Potty People). by the time it was lights out, i was feeling tired and knew i still had lots to get done, so i headed back downstairs, already having forgotten about the tooth.

the next morning, mimi comes downstairs, sobbing her heart out. i hurry over to the stairs in alarm. "mimi, what's wrong?" "MOM! the tooth fairy never came! WAAAAAH!" she threw herself into me and buried her face into my arm and sobbed. she handed me the hippo case and opened it to reveal the tooth still sitting inside.

mentally i'm kicking myself. i hugged her and stroked her hair and soothed her crying and slowly and calmly said, "oh, mimi. i'm so sorry. i know you were really looking forward to it. but, you know, sometimes that happens. we'll just try again tonight. maybe the tooth fairy was super busy last night with lots of kids losing teeth?" i suggested. it sounded pretty lame even to me. and mimi didnt seem to buy it. so i went on, "OR, i know what probably happened! you had SO many pillows piled up over that tooth maybe she didnt know it was in there, or couldnt get to it. we'll put it on your nightstand tonight so it's easier for her to get to tonight. i just know she will come tonight! no worries, she'll come. sometimes she gets delayed too."

mimi seemed to think this explanation made sense. i distracted her by telling her what i planned for breakfast this morning and got her to dry her eyes and get some orange juice and she seemed to be better.

as i fixed breakfast, i was reminded of the first time i put my tooth under the pillow and woke to find that the toothfairy never came. i remember how sad that made me. and when i announced to my family in a voice that could barely contain the tears threatening to break through, that the tooth fairy didnt visit me last night and didnt leave me any money, i think my older sister laughed at me and was like,"dont you know it's mom and dad? the tooth fairy is made up!" and i dont know if that was supposed to make me feel better, but i remember just feeling even worse, because it's one thing if some strange fairy out there forgot me, but my own parents? sheesh. that was low.

so i felt terrible all morning as i fixed mimi an extra nice breakfast, and the whole time i'm saying in my head, dont forget that tooth! (such a bad mommy!) i tried to get rob to help me remember, and he's all like, get with it, set an alarm on yer iPhone! so i dont forget again tonight, i have my phone set to alert me. twice.

mimi's last soccer game of the season

2010-06-19T21:35:00.000-04:00

just a bit of footage from the soccer fest today. it was hot as blue blazes outside, and i was wilting away fast even in the shade. i can't believe how much these girls ran despite the heat! mimi downed a huge bottle of water in less than half an hour!

mimi scored a goal during the game. i almost missed it while fiddling around with my iphone! she just sort of snuck in there, got the ball, and shot it in!

after the game was over we got a chance to get a few photos, get trophies/medals/goody bags (all the girls get one if the parents paid for 'em. hee hee), and then later we all met up at coach's house for a pool party (which the kids looooooved).

weekend in lancaster while the counter tops got done

2010-06-18T00:17:00.000-04:00

this past weekend, my cousin hae and i took our kids to lancaster county, PA to ride Thomas the Tank Engine at the strasburg railroad and to go to dutch wonderland while rob stayed home to oversee the new granite countertops get installed in our kitchen.

"A Day Out With Thomas" or as i call it "Joy and Pain, Sunshine and Rain"
we left early saturday morning and made it to strasburg without any delay (2.5 hours). but once we got there, it was nutty trying to find the overfill parking lot. i was trying to follow the white signs that read "to Thomas Event Parking" when i should have been following the little yellow arrows that said, "Thomas." after some circling around, we find the satellite parking which appeared to be a giant field in the middle of a farm, with random cows lazing about and several of them sauntering across the dirt path (absolutely amazing to see how many cars were already parked out there by 10 am!!!). there were big yellow school buses shuttling folks from the parking area to the railroad. occasionally a little black horse drawn buggy would pass by with an old amish couple riding inside and all of us in our minivan would start screaming in excitement at the horsey on the road...i had to wonder what the amish must think of us!

along the satellite parking area was the Red Caboose Motel, where guests lodgings are in individual train cars. i tried to get rooms there for the weekend, but they were booked solid. i guess if you want to stay there you have to book well before a month or two in advance, especially if it's during the weekend when Thomas is in town.

we finding a convenient parking space and as we get out of the car, the heat of the day and a good breeze blows the very organic smell of cow manure our way. mimi says, it smells like a donkey out here. my cousin hae, inhales deeply and says, "whew, did someone go poopy?" and starts snorting loudly around jacob's seat. i had to explain to her that i believed the smell to be lancaster county and not her son's diaper because she couldnt seem to tell the difference (this would continue several more times during our weekend stay there...every time we stepped out of the car, i'd hear, "whew! did someone poop?")

from the parking lot we got to see Thomas chuff on by several times. it was very exciting for the kids to see the train and they couldnt wait to ride the train. "Ride Thomas! Mama, i want to ride the train!" ozzy would crow at me. i assured him we would and that we were on our way to do so.

we get on the bus, which is very exciting for ozzy because he sees the school buses in our neighborhood all the time and he keeps saying he wants to ride one. well, he got his wish. of course there's no AC on the bus, and not even 10 minutes out of the cool air conditioned environment of my car, i sweated thru the back of my shirt.

we arrived at the railroad and see a little red train take off, and then a family of five struggling with a hand crank car, and another mini train loaded with kids chug off.
took a moment to take in our surroundings, then made our way to the toy store on the premises which is LOADED with all things Thomas. (there was a tent of Thomas stuff being sold as well, but we didnt have time to check it out) we get in the store and immediately the kids are drawn to all the toys. ozzy is in heaven. we finally settle on getting a motorized Spencer and a Take Along HECTOR (and everything else went back on the shelves). Mimi wanted a large ball, but i refused to buy anything that would not fit in my backpack because i knew i would be stuck holding it for the rest of the day. she settled for a flashlight instead. i tried to get out of the store, but when ozzy realized we were leaving he laid down on the floor flat on his back and said, no. i tried again later and he said, "i dont want to." so i picked him up and carried him out and he started crying because he didnt want to leave all that Thomas goodness behind. see what i mean? joy and pain. sunshine and rain.

i gave him a piece of fruit snack to buoy his blood sugar levels and promised him we'd see more trains if we kept moving. we get to a model train store. go inside and they have some model trains running. he is SO ecstatic about the trains, he's pointing out the characters, and the trains, etc. and he wanted to stay there. forever. every time i tried to walk away from the trains he would cry and demand to go back to see the trains. and the tears would immediately stop when the trains were back in sight. finally, i had enough of the place and dragged him out of there screaming and crying for the trains. joy and pain. sunshine and rain.

we still have some time to kill before they start boarding for the Thomas the Tank Engine ride, so we cross the street to the railroad museum. we only have ten minutes so we dont bother paying the museum admission price and instead go to the museum gift shop where they have a train table set up. ozzy immediately goes to play at the table and he's really enjoying himself. several minutes go by, and i dread having to pull him away from the train table but it time to go board our train. and AGAIN, he's crying for the train. i carry him out, his face press against my shoulder, sobbing, "train. traaaaaaiiiiiiin. traaaaaiiiiiinn." oh, the joy. oh, the pain.

we get some popsicles to eat while waiting in line in the hot sun to board. we finally get on (once the line started moving, boarding was very fast). it's hot on the train, of course, no AC, but the inside of the train car was pretty. the train started moving and eventually a 'conductor' came to collect the tickets. the kids loved looking out the window at the passing fields of corn and farmland. it was fascinating to be able to see so far out over the land when i'm so used to seeing building after building. just 10 minutes into the trip, ozzy, suddenly starts to lean forward and presses his little forehead to his knees. i straighten him back up and ask him if he's tired. he nods and then leans into me and says, "hold me." so i pick him up and immediately he's out. the rest of the train ride, he slept. which was okay because when it was time to exit the train it was done without a single peep of protest from ozzy.

he napped on my shoulder out of the train. napped as we made our way back out of the railroad station and onto the bus to shuttle us back to our car. napped on the bus. and only woke up when i tried to settle him back into his car seat, which jostled him awake. we drove to our hotel, which allowed us to check in a little earlier. by the time we arrived, it was jacob's turn to fall asleep.

we stayed at lancaster host resort and conference center, which was good because we got a huge room with a ton of floor space for the kids to run around and play without trampling on each other. and there was a very nice play area like the ones at the mall and two pools (indoor and outdoor) and it was very conveniently located across the street from dutch wonderland where we went on saturday evening and sunday morning.

the kids enjoyed the park which is perfectly suited for young kids. the kids rode on lots of rides, the boys favorites of course being the rides involving trains and trucks, and each time the rides were over, ozzy cried because he didnt want to get off of the vehicle. (sheesh!)

mimi got on a few rides by herself. one was a frog ride that hoisted them up to the top of a tower and then dropped a bit and bounced and then rose up a bit and dropped and bounced. and continued this way until it reached the bottom. mimi really liked it and laughed and laughed the whole ride long. when she got off, ozzy pointed to the ride and said, i want to try it. try it, mama! i had a feeling it was going to scare him, but he kept insisting so finally we got mimi to sit on it again, put ozzy next to her and jacob next to ozzy and let them ride it together. jacob was unfazed by the ride, neither committing to excitement, fear, nor boredom. just taking it all in. ozzy on the other hand looked like he was going to cry. so hae and i were down there, looking up at him and laughing and cheering him and jacob, and i could see he wanted to laugh but he also wanted to cry. it wasnt looking so good, so the ride was stopped and we got the kids off and ozzy didnt protest at all.

while walking the perimeter of the park we encountered several ducks and their ducklings. we bought some duck feed and the kids fed the birds. they really enjoyed it and it took a lot to get them to leave. (back at home, ozzy would walk around the house feeding imaginary ducks. he told me he was feeding them popsicles and sandwiches. lol.)

before we left the park, i allowed the kids to get one thing from the dutch wonderland gift shop. ozzy chose a train (shocker) and mimi left with a bag of rocks. yes, a bag of rocks.

we werent on the road for very long before all three kids fell fast asleep.

when we came home, the counter tops were finished and everything hooked back up in working order. of course our home was destroyed with a layer of granite dust on everything. after a tiring weekend of not much sleep, it was not easy to come back to all the cleaning that had to be done post installation, but we can now check the counters off our to do list, and that's a good thing. i think my favorite change is the deep, wide, single basin stainless sink and the pull down oil rubbed bronze faucet. i'm not loving the soap dispenser so much, though. this one dribbles out the soap and shoots some of it backwards. not sure if it can be tweaked to dispense more cleanly, but if not, it's not a biggie. i can live with it.

Welcome to the Island of Sodor!

2010-06-17T23:17:00.000-04:00

at the risk of sounding like a parrot with turrets syndrome, let me say again that things continue to be all about trains with ozzy. sometimes buses, construction vehicles, and any type of truck, but morning, noon, and night, it's mostly trains.

his sheer enjoyment of the trains would alone have been enough for me to indulge him in his passion, but there's been other benefits as well.

playing with trains and watching the thomas shows has helped with language, social skills, story sense, color recognition, discrimination, to name a few. he holds conversations with the trains and btwn the trains. when he wakes up in the morning, he wants to go downstairs and 'play with trains." he greets them lovingly, saying, "Hello Thomas. Hello Percy. Welcome to Island of Sodor!"

he serenades his his favorite train, Gordon with the song You Are My Sunshine, but changes it by adding Gordon's name. "you are my Gordon. my only Gordon. you make me happy when skies are Gordon. you never Gordon. how much i Gordon. please dont take my Gordon aWAY!"

he has also learned about feelings and facial expressions from the thomas series. (Emily is happy! Percy is sad! Gordon is angry!)

i'm not sure that he's really learned right from wrong and good vs bad though. one episode where thomas "biffs" (new word i learned from the show...means to punch. see, i've been learning a lot too) a coal truck named HECTOR off the track, and then Thomas feels really bad about it and apologizes and helps HECTOR back on the track. i was hoping ozzy would learn that hitting is not nice and that's why thomas felt sorry, but instead of feeling compassionate, he's all like "HAHAHA!! THAT'S FUNNY!" and shortly thereafter, i see ozzy setting his trains on the track and then swinging his favorite train, Gordon, like a club to punch train after train off the tracks, going "HA HA! THATS FUNNY!" so the lessons might not be the right ones, and i do have to intervene and assign "good" "bad" "mean" "nice" to the trains actions since i dont think the right messages always sinks in!

i like the narrative format of the story, tho. i just bought him some thomas the train books and when we came home i left them on the floor. he goes to them, opens one up at the beginning and says, "Once a tiiiiiime, james on track! oh, hello Thomas! Welcome to Island of Sodor!" flips to the end and says, "End."

so i'm more than happy to keep buying up new trains and track pieces. i see a lot of benefits from them and they really hold his attention like nothing else does. the world of toy trains was a bit daunting though. i had no clue what to get and nor which pieces work together and which do not and only knowing that all those pieces add up and costs a small fortune.

i hadnt really checked out the brio set, but we do have a Geotrax set made by fisher price that was fun at first but ozzy has lost interest in. the set is okay, but the trains are not that interesting to ozzy, and the tracks are very hard for his little hands to assemble.

we also have a train that i bought from lillian vernon last christmas that ozzy really loves. it looks fairly realistic, is a very large scale train, and it really puffs out smoke as it goes. but it's hard to get the train to sit on the track and keep it on the track. and there's nothing extra that goes with it to build up the set.

not that long ago, a friend passed along her sons' old thomas set, consisting of blue plastic tracks and plastic trains which has since been discontinued over the years, and thus beginning my foray into the world of thomas and friends... an unbelievably large and complex world of trains for kids. from what i have gathered, the newer plastic trackmasters series have brown tracks and they come with adapters to connect to the old blue tracks (which you can still buy from ebay and craigslist). both the newer plastic battery powered trains and the remote controlled trains will run on these tracks.

the wooden thomas trains will also run fine on the trackmaster tracks, but they have different couplers (magnetic as opposed to the hook and eye on the plastics). while the wooden trains do run on the plastic rails, the wooden tracks (made by learning curve) do not connect to the trackmaster tracks (made by tomy).

in addition to the wooden train sets (which can get pricey...one wooden Spencer train that ozzy wanted was $40!), and the trackmaster sets, are the plastic Take Along Thomas sets with the die cast metal trains with magnetic couplers. they are scaled quite a bit smaller though and will not work with either the wood or plastic train sets. we do have a few of those sets though because i like the idea of being able to fold it up and take it with you. the plastic rails dont connect very securely though and are always slipping off of each other. i dont know if it's the size or the the feel of them, but ozzy doesnt seem to enjoy playing with them as much as the plastic and wood sets.

of all the trains he has, he really likes the motorized train cars. i thought he would like the remote controlled one and i bought a few of those trains but in the end i think i prefer the regular motorized trains the best, too. those can be pushed around or switched on to run by themselves. the downside is that ozzy likes to switch them all on and then walk away and leave the trains to run and run and run all day.

ozzy does like the remote controlled trains, too, but it can be a pain because they need to be reset every time you leave them off for a little while. that and the sound effects cant be turned off so you have this constant loud chuffing sound to have to endure while the trains keep running. another downside is that these trains are not meant for push play like the regular motorized trains. if you try to push these you encounter some resistance and loud ratchetting. however, these are nicer than the regular motorized ones in that they can run backwards, stop, and go at will and they are equipped with one button to play the thomas theme song and another button to toot the train's horn.

the plastic track set can be a bit flimsy, but ozzy takes care of them so it hasnt been a problem. but the wooden set seems to have way more destinations and cool gadgets and sets. some of the wood trains have train recognition technology. Sir Topham Hat recognizes a train as it passes by a destination and greets the train by name and compliments or commands the train. you need to have both the trains and destinations that have this technology for it to work.

it's definitely a fascinating world and not likely something that ozzy will tire of soon!

ozzy moments

2010-06-17T22:26:00.000-04:00

some old stuff that i never got around to posting:
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ozzy: oh no! Emammy not working, mama! okay, batteries! (he says, as he inspects his train Emily. nevermind that the actual emily train doesnt take batteries, only the coal tender that attaches to the back of the train does) i fix it! he yells. (trots over to the cabinet w/the tool box. rummages around and finds a gigantic screwdriver and starts poking at the tiny toy train with it).

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while eating his snack, he suddenly starts crying. he's frozen in his seat, wailing. i thought he bit his tongue off the way he was carrying on. what's happened? i ask, starting to feel the rising panic that something horribly wrong has occurred. "daddy, fix it! mommy fix it!" he wails. not understanding, i start checking his food not finding anything, start checking his body for injuries. finally he says, "bug, mama. bug!" and then i see this gigantic fly buzzing around the table. he's still wailing his head off, i hurry off to find my awesome electric bug zapper that quickly and cleanly ends that bug problem.

i had no idea the zapper had met it's match.

i catch the fly as it's flying mid air, there's some sparks and the fly drops to the ground, dead. or so i thought. i go over to dispose of it and before i can get to it, it flies off. zap. drop. play dead for a second and then starts to fly again. this continued several more times. the house is starting to smell like burning fly and the thing no longer has legs, but it keeps on flying, MUCH to my consternation and disgust.

and somewhere along the way, ozzy's wails have turned to laughter, paroxysms of giggles, as he's watching his mama prancing around the kitchen, waving the bright yellow zapper like i'm brandishing a wand and waving fairy magic all around. meanwhile, i am feeling ever sicker to my stomach over this unanticipated persecution when i finally got the thing subdued enough to toss it out the door.

ozzy thought that was just the bees knees and talked about that bug for the rest of the day.

Ozzy is 23 months old

2010-06-17T14:44:00.000-04:00

yikes! one more month before he is two! really, i should stop with this count down already. despite the fact that he isnt two yet, he's growing so fast in so many ways, that the number really doesnt mean anything. i should be saying "yikes! he's already talking back!" and "yikes! he's making it thru his daytime naps without accidents!" and "yikes! he said his first bad word!"

yes, he talks A LOT. i thought boys werent suppose to be so verbal! but i guess this is a second kid thing. he speaks amazingly well. probably better than mimi did at this age. oddly, when he cant get his trains on the track, he suddenly seems to lose all ability to speak. then he flops on the floor, buries his face in his arms and cries and cries. i have to remind him to not get so bent out of shape and to just say, "Mama! help me."

this morning while on the playground he suddenly stops what he's doing and pushes down on his left nostril with his finger and yells, "Mama! It's a bug. It put it in my nose!" "a bug flew up your nose?" i asked. "yes!" he says in disbelief. (i checked his nose and there was no bug. i think a gnat must have buzzed around the nostril and flew away. )

his new favorite phrase is to say, "I knew it!" and not in a I'm-so-smart kind of way but as part of expressing his dissatisfaction...'ozzy, we have to go. turn the trains off.' he answers, "UGH! i knew it!" mimi turns on the t.v. and instead of turning on Thomas and Friends she turns on Dinosaur Train and ozzy says, "UGH! i knew it!"

and then later i find out from my cousin that he was playing and said, "shit." and he knew it was a bad word. i dont even say shit. i dont even think i've cursed out loud since mimi was 3 and yelling dammit! when i'd suddenly encounter traffic on the beltway. so where did he pick it up from? i blame rob.

he has lately been making it thru his naps without using his diapers. i have them on as insurance, but instead of peeing in his sleep, he wakes up from his nap and says, "mama, i have to go pee pee" and i take him to use the toilet (he likes the regular toilet these days) and then snuggle with him and he eases back to sleep and stays dry until he wakes up (then we go again to void whatever might be left).

funny thing about him is he wants me to go to the potty with him. every time. mimi NEVER wanted me with her. by the time she was two years old, she would slam the bathroom door in my face, insisting that she do it on her own. i couldnt even stand outside the door, i had to promise to be far away. ozzy, though, wont go to the bathroom unless i come with him. he looooooves his mama. :)

he also still loves his trains. i would love to get this for him, but we have so many different ride ons and power wheels at home that he doesnt ride on, that i honestly dont know where we'd keep this thing, though i think this is one ride on that he would ride on. and since it runs on a track (will also run on the ground) there's no steering skills needed.

ozzy is 22 months old

2010-05-21T00:25:00.000-04:00

ozzy's obsession with trains continues to grow. he loves his trains and plays with them every day. when we leave the house, he tells me he wants to "take Gordon" or "take Emamee (emily)" or some other such train. he demands to watch a train dvd every day. and when it's on he's yelling, "yay! thomas! yay! percy!" he gets mad at me when i get the names of the trains wrong, scolding, "That not Percy! That DUCK!"

it amazes me that he can distinguish them from one another. they look so similar to me. for example, he could tell you the names of each of these trains pictured...i'd get them all mixed up. his capacity for learning so many names dumbfounds me. it's not a skill i've ever been good at. to this day, i have trouble remembering names of people, places, and things!

he loves to make train sounds as he plays with his trains (chuff! chuff! chuff! hooo hooo!). i love listening to his thoughts as he plays with his trains. sometimes he forces a train off the track and tells me that the train-what's-his-face fell off the track and is sad. or the other day, he peers into one of the tiny windows of a toy train, and says, "mama! conductor in there! conductor! look! tickets, please!" it's all quite amusing.

as far as potty training goes this month, there's been some back tracking, which is expected. he has not pooped in the potty again since that first time with rob. he's lately been very insistent about having his diaper on instead of using the potty. today, i tried to get him to pee in the potty and he kept grunting and pushing, and then he backs away and says, "not working. poo poo diaper. pleeeeease!" he ended up with diarrhea. not sure if that was why he couldn't potty?

ozzy knows almost all of the sounds of the alphabet now. i think he's a little confused about the C and K both making the same sounds. i'm concerned about how he makes the L sound. he says "Ow" instead of "luh" i know the L sound is notoriously difficult for young kids and many dont master the sound until they are 4 years old, but i dont want him to keep saying "ow"! so that's one i need to practice w/him until his speech develops enough for him to say it correctly.

ozzy is trying to count things, but he still doesnt have one to one match and will just jab his finger in the general direction of the group of objects as he counts, trying to emulate the way i count with him, but not really pointing at anything, and then announce some random number to tell me how many of something he sees.

really increasing his use of the possessive: grandpa's paper, grandma's chair, mimi's book, ozzy's train, mama's coffee, etc.

he's starting to get good at taking off his pants if they are somewhat loose fitting. this i discovered one day while playing outside, every time i'd look away and then back at ozzy again, i'd find him running around without his pants on. scold him about keeping his pants on outside, put them back on, only to turn around a few minutes later to see his bare ass shining in the sun, again.

sickness is starting to feel normal

2010-05-20T23:39:00.000-04:00

march. that was the last time i remember when everyone was well in the house. since then it's been strep, throat abcess, congestion, diarrhea, fever, rash/chicken pox?, cough, etc. either one or both kids, me, or all of us. SO much strep for a little while that i almost considered one of these at home rapid tests, so i wouldn't have to take the kids in to see the doctor for every issue

but after seeing how hard they have to swab the back of a sensitive throat, i thought better of it. i'd rather have my kids hate the nurses for it than me. (besides, these kits are freakin' expensive and you have to buy them in bulk. and they have a SHORT self life so not likely they'd all be used up in time.)

but i took it all in stride. it was annoying, but i think i handled it without going nutso. or at least i like to think i did. not sure what it looked like from rob's perspective! the only time i started to lose it was a couple of days ago when ozzy spiked a fever of 102.5 and i find out that i had no fever reducers at home because i threw away all the children's motrin and tylenol after the recall. and when i went to the local drug store, the shelves were sadly barren due to the recall. there was one lone children's advil on the shelves, with "EIGHT HOURS OF RELIEF" screaming off the front of the box. i called the pediatrician to make sure i could use it for a 21 month old and if so, to get the proper dosage.

came home and gave it to ozzy. the fever went down to 99 within the half hour. but then not even four hours later, it was quickly climbing back up. and i still had another 4 hours to go before i could give another dose. that was crappy. i had no acetaminophen to switch to. so i just kept wiping his head down with a washcloth and plying him with cool drinks until i could give him another dose. he kept crying and fussing. it's so hard to see your child miserable. standing by and feeling helpless while your child is hurting is one of the worst feelings in the world. luckily his fever broke that evening.

and then it was on to diarrhea.

Wax On. Wax Off.

2010-05-13T22:23:00.000-04:00

i cant say that i ever knew much about cleaning out ear wax. i grew up sticking Qtips in my ear to clean 'em out, despite the general rule that nothing smaller than your elbow should ever be put into your ear. when we were little, my mother often ignored the doctor's warnings and cleaned out my ears with a small black hair pin. she was always careful and never did any harm to our ears, but perhaps some harm to our relationship. rooting around in delicate ears with piece of bent metal...not the kind of act that engenders feelings of warmth and love.
so that's all i know about cleaning out ear wax...basically all the ways how NOT to do it. when i was in college a friend once told me that i should just let water run in my ears while i shower. so to this day, i always do that, but when i get out of the shower, i'm back to shoving Qtips in my ears because i dont think they feel clean.

so when it's time to clean my kids' ears, i know i'm not supposed to swab the inside, so i swab the outside and just the inner rim of the ear canal. i know there's still lots of wax in there because at every doctor's visit the doctor always says, "there's a lot of ear wax in there."

my kids have never had an ear infection, but that doesnt mean that i dont worry that one day they might. or that i dont worry about the ear wax getting impacted in there. i have never had the guts to go in after the wax with a hair pin the way my mom did. i started to think, well maybe if i could see in their ears i could keep abreast of any problems. so i went online and bought an otoscope.

when it arrived i checked their ears and basically all i could see was wax. the wax was blocking my view of their ear drums, so more than ever, i felt it was necessary to learn how to clear out all that wax build up. time to investigate.

i remembered seeing an ad in a magazine for Murine ear wash. it's a canister of saline that sprays the water out backwards to wash out the wax. i bought a canister and tried it out on my own ears. the water was cold and loud and messy. i couldnt see either of my children sitting still for it. and i saw no ear wax exit my ears from having used it. next.

back to the store, i find ear wax removal kits, which is basically carbamide peroxide (to soften the wax) and a small bulb syringe to flush out the softened wax. but the kits say not to use on children under the age of 12 years old. next.

i asked about ozzy's pediatrician about ear wax removal for young kids and she said to try a mixture of watered down hydrogen peroxide (about half/half). a few drops in each ear and flush. later i read online that peroxide could be irritating to the ears. so i didnt bother. next.

not long after, at mimi's well check i asked the doctor (different doctor) about ear wax removal and he said to just put a few drops of glycerin in each ear once a week at bedtime. the wax would soften and come out on its own. after checking online, this seemed to be one treatment that i was comfortable with. so onto amazon.com to order some glycerin and lo and behold the arsenal of ear wax removal tools on the market!

i start reading reviews and loading up my cart. along with the glycerin, i found a lighted ear wax removal tool which is a long handle instrument with attachments: two sized scoops and one tweezer (yes, i know you're not supposed to put anything in the ear, but it really looks handy), and a special ear syringe for flushing out the ears that has several openings not at the end of the tip but along the sides of the tip to spray down the ear walls not blast the ear drums directly.

as soon as they arrive, i get to work on mimi's ears. the lighted tool was amazing. it's like entering a mine shaft with ultra bright lamp on your hat. i could see every bit of wax in her ears! and they were pretty large. i made mimi sit very still (i didnt want a sudden movement that might cause the instrument to jab her in her ear) when i nudge the lump of wax with the scoop mimi said it hurt and i realized that mammoth piece was hanging onto all those ear hairs. she didnt like the scoop at all. i tried it again with the tweezer attachment and hauled out one of these from each ear:

after i swallowed the vomit back down, i assured mimi that we would not have to go thru this again. i am going to use the glycerin drop every week to keep one of these suckers from building up ever again!

Train Day at Union Station

2010-05-10T14:25:00.000-04:00

this past saturday, rob and i took the kids to union station for Train Day. mimi and ozzy were both very excited about getting on a real train. unfortunately, the real train didnt move, but i'm also planning a trip to strasburg railroad next month and there they will get a chance to ride a real train that moves, and not just any train, but THOMAS. news on that to come.

train day was fun, albeit crazy crowded. we even got there early and there were still a lot of people. rob and the kids watched the model trains while i stood in line for the goody bags, but now that i know, i think, were we to do this again, i would go straight to what ever attraction the kids wanted to see and stand in line instead. as it was by the time we made it to the tracks, there was already a very, very long line to get on the trains (apparently, you could also reserve tickets online prior to coming that would allow you view the trains at designated times without having to stand in line), rob took the kids to the AmtraKids Depot while i stood in line and mimi got a pretty butterfly painted on her arm. there was supposed to be more going on with a show by the Ringling Bros and Barnum and Bailey's, train toys to play with, etc, but i dont think they were able to get to very much with so many people there. as the line got closer to the trains, i called rob to bring the kids. we stood in line for a few more minutes and then we got to board a couple of trains. it was slow going though. rob and ozzy were asked to give an interview, and then it was already lunch time and nearing ozzy's naptime, so we headed over to the food court, ate lunch, saw Rocknoceros play live, then headed home.

ozzy was fast asleep soon after we left.

later, i framed a Train Day poster that came in our goody bag to hang in ozzy's bedroom. when ozzy saw it, he sucked in his breath and says, "it's byooful! byooful, mama!" "do you like it?" i smile. "Ya!" he says.

can't wait to take him to see Thomas. he's going to crap his pants.

Big Truck Day in herndon

2010-05-07T21:46:00.000-04:00

took the kids to big truck day in herndon. there were TONS of little kids there (even preschool groups!) and not that many trucks...maybe 12? the parking was a nightmare...i circled around forever, the whole while mimi moaning behind me, "oh, we're never going to get there. this is taking so long. when will we be there?" and luckily before i voluntarily drove into a wall to make it stop, i spied a small stretch of parking on a gravelly shoulder, one street over. we made it in, stood in line to sign in and get little yellow 'hard hats' made of thin plastic and not really hard at all, but still cute. also some stickers.

at first, kids were just climbing inside the vehicles and cramming themselves into the cabs of the vehicles, high up barely out of reach, and starting to cry because they all wanted to sit in the drivers seat, so the mom's took charge and started forming lines and taking turns, one kid at a time. the lines for each truck were about 5-6 kids long, each child taking about 5 minutes to play. when it was finally our turn, mimi and ozzy just wanted to stay on and play. i had to drag ozzy off of each truck, crying and yelling "no! don't want to!" each time.

we made it into a small excavator, 2 different dump trucks, a bulldozer, and a roller in a little over an hour. ozzy was starting to tire of standing in line and it was lunch time anyway, so we left at that point. not the most exciting thing, but the kids enjoyed the experience. though not likely we'll do that again. definitely just a one time thing. hopefully tomorrow's Train Day at Union Station will be more fun.

ozzy this week

2010-05-06T09:56:00.000-04:00

ozzy pooped in the toilet last night.

he tells me he wants his "poopoo diaper on". i'm in the middle of cleaning, so i send him to daddy. i hear rob ask him if he wants to try the toilet. i didnt hear ozzy's response, but he usually answers 'yes' to everything, except for the things that he knows he absolutely does not want. then he'll say, "no, denchu" (no thank you).

a minute goes by in silence and then suddenly i hear rob cheering and telling ozzy what a great job he did. so i go quickly over to the bathroom and ozzy is on the toilet and there's poop inside. this after he pooped in his underwear earlier that morning and i spent the morning washing him, his clothes, and the floor. but he didnt pee in his underwear so that's progress! sure, i was glad rob had this "first" with ozzy, since i'm usually the one that gets to experience them being at home with the kids all day, but still, i would have gladly traded that morning's poop episode w/yesterday evening's poop achievement.

i found some thomas the train, toy story, Cars, and mickey undies at marshalls (along w/some great deals on some take along thomas and friends sets that you know i snapped up immediately!). so now i have an arsenal of undies to make it thru a day of accidents. ozzy still cant pull his undies up over his behind. he can get them up to the tops of his legs and then he just stops. and he can't pull them down either without help. the band just gets hung up on his round, fat baby butt and wont come down. it's totally cute.

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this week ozzy and mimi have been on antibiotics for strep. they are both asymptomatic, so i had no idea they even had strep until i got sick. i thought i had bad allergies, then the sore throat and sinus pain hit. the doc gave me antibiotics. 12 days later, the entire left side of my head/ear/throat is in so much pain, i called the doc again. i can barely swallow. got more antibiotics and the doc says, 'is there someone at home who also has strep that you picked up back up from?" always had a niggling suspicion that my kids might be asymptomatic. i took ozzy to the ped's first...oh yes, definitely strep, the swab test confirmed. so i took mimi in the next day. again, no doubt about it, definitely strep. so, i have to make sure i test them every time they are exposed to anyone w/strep because they could have it and i would never know.

so, now both kids and i have been on antibiotics. about 8 days into treatment, ozzy breaks out into a rash. red bumps everywhere, face, neck, ears, hands, torso, legs, w/the worst ones forming on his legs. went back to the ped's for the millionth time this month (been there so much, i started to feel like i should pay them rent). the doc checked him over and concluded:
1. viral rash (if sores in mouth appear, could be coxsackie virus)
2. reaction to penicillin. he might be allergic.
3. chicken pox, but since he's already immunized against it, it's showing as a milder outbreak.

in any of the cases, no treatment at this time. and we were sent home.
but me, i'm feeling terrible again. back of neck is unbelievably stiff, head hurts if i move too quickly, throat is scratchy and painful again, but not as bad as last week.

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last weekend we took ozzy to the fairfax station train museum to see some model train exhibits and then to burke lake park to ride the train there. he really enjoyed it all and of course he cried EVERY TIME he got off the train ride. i can't get over how obsessed he's become with trains especially Thomas the tank engine! i love that he enjoys them so much and i am just as obsessed now with finding train related things for him because it makes me happy to see him so happy. i dont remember mimi ever being this crazy about any one thing. she just liked everything.

we are at 21 months...in three more months we will be TWO

2010-04-24T11:48:00.000-04:00

i say this every time, i can't believe ozzy is going to be two this year. it's just a few months away. he'll be in preschool this fall. i know i sound like a broken record, but i just can't comprehend how this can be happening so fast! now he is 21 months old. such a big boy. and yet, to me, he's still my baby. i remind myself to really look at him whenever i have a chance to cuddle him or change him. to see every bit of him so i dont forget it. i take in every delectable bit of baby fat and try to remember every line and curve on him. i know it will start to fade next year. when he sleeps i stare at the round fullness of the chub of his cherubic cheeks and like any mom looking at her sleeping child, i cant help but mentally sing, 'he is perfection."

today, he told me he was going to poop in the potty. he drags out the insert from his bjorn potty seat and plops himself down (still wearing a diaper), sits for a spell, then gets up, puts the insert back in. "did you poop?" i asked him. "yes!" he says. when i check his diaper, sure enough, there's poop. not sure if he pooped while he was sitting on the potty or if he had pooped first and then decided to sit on the potty after the fact. the world may never know.

on sunday, rob and i took the kids to see Nick Jr Storytime Live at the warner theater. mimi loved it and ozzy only seemed to like the opening parts of each show, since he recognized the theme songs to the nick jr shows (backyardigans, dora, wonder pets, kai-lan). when the show started he kept fighting me to run towards the stage...i think he wanted to get up close to kai-lan, toh-lee, rin-too, and ho-ho. after 45 min of the show he was done and could only bear to watch small parts, like when swiper the fox enters the stage. he liked that part. he loves to say, "swiper no swiping!" any time he sees any picture of a fox in any book, he'll say, "swiper! no swiping! oh, man!"

since taking ozzy to the national zoo about a month ago, he has been so in love with seeing the animals that we have been going to the zoo at least once a week (yes, we are now FONZ members). his favorite seems to be the meerkats. who knew meerkats were so darn cute! there's one large glass enclosure that has three meerkats in it. two are pretty tame, one of which almost looks sedated, it seems to sleep all the time and rarely moves. and the third one is like an ADHD meerkat on red bull (gives you wiiiiiings!). ozzy ADORES that one. he'll run around the glass chasing him and pretending to grab him, yelling, "I got you!" we'll spend a long time there with ozzy yelling out, "Meerkats! Meerkats!" over and over. i think part of the appeal is they get so close to us. so many of the animals hang out so far away from where the people are, but that meerkat gets right up to the glass and is right at ozzy's height. but if you ask him what his favorite animal at the zoo is, he'll say elephants.

this is the month that ozzy got addicted to Thomas the Train. he demands the show over and over. (*sigh). a friend gave me some of the thomas train things her sons outgrew and ozzy loves it all so much that he would not be parted from it. i set out all the train toys in the basement and when it's time to go back upstairs, he cries. every morning he wakes up and asks to go downstairs to play with the trains...this after he's watched several episodes of the show in the morning after waking up at the most uncivilized hour of 6 a.m. so i'm only too happy to turn on the "Babysitter" and put it on "play all"...and even then grumble that there's no "Repeat Play All" as i give him some milk, cuddle him next to me, and promptly fall into a light snooze while he watches his show.

i think my favorite area of development is his speech. he's now saying short sentences. for example, today, while eating his frozen Gogurt, a piece broke off and fell on the floor. he comes running over to me and says, "oh no! mama, yogurt fall down!" "it did? show me!" i say. and he goes scurrying over to where the yogurt is sitting on the floor. he's saying so many words now, that i can't keep up with all the new things he's saying and it often takes me awhile to decipher it. some of them i can't figure out. like he keeps saying what sounds like "opentruck" not sure what that is.

another day, he knocked on the closet door and says, "mama. grandpa crying inside." ???? hunh????

the newest development this month is that we began wearing underwear. if he werent starting preschool in the fall, i could go indefinitely with him running around the house half naked, peeing in the potty whenever he feels like going, but since he cant do that in preschool, i've got to teach him to pull down and pull up his pants so he can do it himself at school during potty breaks and to break him of the habit of going in his diapers.

so i bought up whatever undies i could find that depicted any kind of vehicle on them (planes, trains, motorcycles, etc) and he was quite thrilled with them (now if i can find Thomas undies...shooo...he might think twice about wetting those!) i put the new undies on ozzy and tell him not to pee in his undies. of course he does...he thinks he's wearing diapers.

since the weather has been nice, i've been able to practice outside, so that minimizes the mess inside when the accidents happen and i dont bother with the plastic training covers. we went thru two pairs of undies the first day. another two pairs the second day. (each of these episodes happen in less than an hour). and day three, he only wet one pair and kept the second pair dry for the hour. i think it helped that we took more frequent bathroom breaks. the previous accidents were partly my fault because i think i spaced the potty breaks a bit too far out. he holds better when the diapers are off, but it seems that when they are on he must be going more frequently, so i have to remember to take more frequent potty breaks with him to prevent accidents.

as perfect as i think he is, i know he's become the "baby BOTHER" to mimi. today, as he drowned one of her puppets in the toilet, she sighs and says to me, "why dont we just give him away?" when pressed for why he should go and not her, she says, "because i dont do bad things!" i had to remind of of all the walls she colored with markers as a child and all the ways she made messes when she was little. she used to turn the t.v. off whenever rob or i was watching it. constantly tore down all the cds off the shelves every day. tore apart her pop up books when i wasnt looking. threw forks and spoons and balls down the air vents. turned on the oven at my parents house to "CLEAN" while there were pans in there. the list goes on! the only difference is, there was no siblings around for her to inconvenience when she did it.

Mimi Rides

2010-04-15T15:14:00.000-04:00

rob took mimi out one day to teach her to ride without training wheels. she was able to do it on her own in just five minutes!

honestly, i think all the steering work she did on her scooter over the past several months must have helped her figure out how to steer her bike. she's been practicing trying to stay on her scooter as long possible without putting her feet on the ground. so if you count the scooter, she's actually been on a two wheeler since christmas.

when rob brought home this video, i sat and watched it after he left for work and seriously, i started crying. it was such a big girl moment...no training wheels? all the ways she becomes that much more independent makes me cry. she might as well be leaving for college...that's how it feels every time she she's done with needing any help or support. no more bottles, no more diapers, no more training wheels...on one hand i am glad they're done and on the other hand, so sad that it's over.

nothing in life is ever as bittersweet as raising a child.

Easter with the Kim Grandparents

2010-04-15T14:59:00.000-04:00

this was probably one of the most exhausting spring breaks i've ever had. i agreed to do a cake without realizing it was going to be over spring break and that it would interfere with my plans to the kids to my parents house in hampton for the week.

after assessing the situation, i thought i'd drive down to hampton on monday and return wednesday, bringing my mom back w/me to help me with house/kids/meals while i worked on the cake, and then driving back to hampton on saturday after the cake was done and returning sunday evening. but then allergies and exhaustion from working so many late nights on the cake finally took its toll on me and i woke up monday morning unable to stand up straight, the room spinning. worried about trying to drive in this condition, and wierdly enough, maybe my subconscious self knew i was worried about driving like this because i woke up that morning to an awful dream where i fall asleep while driving and crash the car, glass flying everywhere and my first and only thought before i wake up is how can i save my kids. so with this sense of doom, i tried to catch a bit more zz's on the couch that morning but with two kids yelling at me, climbing on me, and demanding food, it was not to be.

in an odd coincidence (or was it?), my mom calls me not long after i wake up, and she says, dont come down here. apparently she had had a bad dream as well, where i crash the car while driving with the kids. i almost got goosebumps when she told me, but i know where her fear comes from. ever since dad's car accident last november and her accident earlier that fall, she has had this lingering fear of car accidents being inevitable. she can't even get into someone's car without being gripped by a certainty that a crash will happen. in any case, i was glad for an out. i really wasnt feeling well and it made me feel less guilty about not going to have my mom agree on that point. she decided to take a train up to my house instead so she could still help me out.

once the cake was done and picked up, we drove to hampton, and i'm glad it worked out this way, because ozzy doesnt travel well so it was really helpful having my mom there to tend to his MANY needs so i could just focus on driving us there. (we are planning a trip to the bahamas and i'm dreading the challenge of traveling with ozzy there. it will take a lot of patience and help, that's for sure. and it will totally help if Rob can figure out how to read my mind by then, so i dont get snappy with him during the whole ordeal.)

it was a short visit, but it was nice to be home with my parents for a short bit. ozzy and mimi enjoyed the egg hunt at my parents church. but before i knew it, back in the car and tons of traffic heading back to nova on sunday evening. again, my mom rode up with me to make sure i had help with ozzy in the car. gotta love mom!

i'm growing up, so you better get this potty started!

2010-03-26T17:11:00.000-04:00

ozzy (1 yr 8 mos 1 wk) has been doing incredibly well with potty training. i had heard from some people that boys are notoriously slower to train. but i also read that kids who are early walkers also tend to be early talkers and early to potty train...something to do with how fast their muscles develop...leg muscles, oral muscles, pee muscles... rob's mom told me rob potty trained by two, so maybe ozzy is following in his footsteps!

today, ozzy had his diapers off for most of the day and every time he needed to pee he'd tell me 'mommy, pee pee' and would go pee in either the bjorn sit down potty or the peter potty standy uppy potty or use the regular toilet while standing on a step stool (whatever happens to be closer to where we are at the time). he seems to love that i give him complete and absolute attention during these times. i dont know if that is why he goes so frequently (to get that guaranteed attention from me), or if he still lacks the muscle control to go for longer spells between...maybe a combination of both?

he's getting so used to using the potty now that he doesnt even demand that i give him water to flush down several times or a treat. at one point, i let him have a gummy bear as an incentive for using the potty instead of peeing on the floor. after the second day of gummy bears, he stopped asking for them and seemed perfectly happy with hugs and kisses from mommy for going potty instead. and of course when he didnt ask, i didnt offer or remind him of his treat.

later, tho, he did ask me for some 'tandy' (candy) just randomly, and i gave him one gummy bear and when he walked away with it, i dumped the rest of them out of the bag and hid them. a few minutes later he came back and asked for "more tandy?" and i showed him the empty bag and said, "all gone! you ate the last one. no more. sorry." and he repeats, "all gone!" and walks away to go play with toys. he hasnt asked for any 'tandy' since then. heh heh. see? i'm smarter than the average bear.

today he showed me that he can recognize the urge to poop as well. he had had a couple of poop accidents in the beginning, but today, he told me, "mom, change diaper? please?" even though he wasnt wearing any diapers.

so i said, do you want mommy put a diaper on you?

"uh-huh." he says. "poo poo."

so i put a diaper on him and within the next few minutes he poops into his diaper and then comes back to me and says again, 'mom. change diaper. poo poo." and sure enough, he's pooped in his diaper. and he doesnt want a new diaper after i've cleaned him. he just wiggles away from me bare-assed and happy to be nekkid.

later when he asked for a diaper to poop in, i tried to see if he would like to try and sit on the sit down potty to poop, but he told me no and did not want to sit on it and kept telling me he wanted a diaper, so i didnt push it and gave him the diaper.

so he's doing well with the pee training while he can go diaperless. when we are out and about, he is just fine with using the diapers, and doesnt tell me he's gotta pee/poop. transitioning from diapers to underwear will be tricky since they forget they are not wearing diapers. he is doing pretty well with day time pee training at home, so i might start giving the training pants a try with him in the next month and see how he does.

ozzy is still co-sleeping with me and i think i will continue to do this for a while longer, until he gets night time pee trained. it will make getting up in the middle of the night to rush him to the bathroom that much easier if we're in the same room. maybe ozzy and i will move into his bedroom next month...he can get in and out of his bed easier than mine.

as i write this, i am remembering the nights when mimi used to run into my room crying that she had to pee, and me, bleary eyed at 3 a.m. in the morning, staggering to escourt a wailing mimi to the bathroom because she would only use the real toilet, no potties ever, and then basically laying on the bathroom floor trying to catch another minute of sleep while she did her business.

i am a little worried about him waking from his sleep to pee. he hates to be woken up. gets really ornery. might have to start moving his pre-sleep milk to an hour before sleep time to make sure he gets a chance to pee it out before sleeping if it's a problem.

2010-03-20T23:14:00.000-04:00

i wasnt expecting another burst of language growth so i was surprised these past 2 days to hear ozzy say longer words like the korean word for hello (AHN-young-HA-seh-yo) with such clarity and ease and bows too!

much more 2 word phrases and some 3 word phrases. increase in new words. (i.e. turns on the lights. mom! bright wites? bright is a word i havent heard him use before.) today, he threw a toy on the floor, which i really dont like, i gave him a thunderous look, and before i could say anything he supplies it himself, saying, "OH! OZZY, mommy?" trying to reach something on the shelf he says, "Weach it! high!" trying to lug something heavy, he says, "heavy! mommy! help!"
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day 4 of potty watch: ozzy peed in the potty twice, once in the morning and once at night. all other times he did in the diaper. both times he's alerted me by saying, "mommy? pee pee?" or "potty?" sometimes i'll take him over to the potty at various times during the day to see if he'll use it but whenever i initiate it he balks and pushes me away. it seems he wants to tell me when he's ready and if i pay attention and do it on his signals he'll pee on his own in the potty. since he is making an effort i am okay w/ backing off, but if he stops altogether, i go back to taking him periodically thru-out the day.

mimi is fascinated by ozzy's potty use. every time he goes, she HAS to drop everything to come and watch too. but if ozzy wants to come in to the bathroom when she goes, she says, "ozzy, you have to get out because i need privacy."
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day 5 of potty watch...no potty use today. we spent so much of the day out of the house that he didnt get a 'pants off' opportunity to need to use the potty and just happily peed in his diaper all day. and when we finally did come inside i was too busy to let him go without diapers on. maybe tomorrow evening, when we're home, he'll try to use it.

it's really hard to develop much consistency when there's not much time spent inside the house with diapers off.

always tell the truth sometimes

2010-03-19T10:31:00.000-04:00

when i think about my relationship with mimi, my biggest fear is that she will lie to me one day about something big. or rather keep the truth from me. so when i found out mimi learned about george washington and abraham lincoln at school in february (around president's day), i lept on the chance to talk about how important it is to tell the truth.

i read somewhere where kids who were told a story of kids getting REWARDED for telling the truth and not in trouble were later more likely to tell the truth. so i went on and on about how george washington's dad was so happy and proud of george for bravely telling the truth about cutting down the apple tree. and that it was the right thing to do and that george's dad could always trust george because george wouldnt lie to him. so basically made this whole to do about how important it is to tell the truth.

about a month later, rob decides to take mimi skiing on a school day. a one day trip, go in the morning and leave by dinner time. mimi had been sick (throwing up) anyway, so i didnt feel too bad about her not going to school that day, but i did tell her, mimi, dont go to school and tell everyone you were out skiing instead of at school. why? she wants to know. i dont think your teacher will be happy about it and i dont want to upset her.

but didnt you tell me i should always tell the truth?

what could i say? you can lie to everyone else but you should always tell me the truth? that you should lie to spare people hurt feelings? i was completely stumped at this point. i wasnt sure how to explain this to her, so i said, well, just dont talk about going skiing to your teacher when you get to school. if she asks just tell her you were sick, that's the truth, you really were sick. she nodded quietly.

when i picked her up from school, just to check i asked her if anyone asked her where she was? she said yes, the teacher's aide asked her and she told her she went skiing, but then she adds, "but dont worry, mom. i told her not to tell my teacher."

tidbits

2010-03-18T22:45:00.000-04:00

on tuesday evening ozzy peed in the potty.
on wednesday, he had no interest whatsoever in the potty. all i got was pee on the floor.
today (thurs), as i am scurrying to get myself and two children washed, dressed, fed, and ready to leave the house in a matter of 50 minutes, i hear ozzy (who is running around diaperless) say: "uh oh! mommy! potty!" which immediately catches my attention, and without hesitation i snatch him up and start hauling ass to the bathroom, holding him in front of me, facing out (so he doesnt accidentally pee on me in transit), screeching as i'm running, "what? potty? ozzy, potty? do you have to pee pee?" he's just hanging from my hands like a wet noodle, nodding slowly and calmly says, "yesh." (meanwhile i'm thinking, why's the potty so frickin' far? can't i keep it in the kitchen?)

i park him in front of the potty, takes him a second to get started, and then he pees in the potty. meanwhile, i'm gently cheering him from the sidelines, but mimi, who had immediately jumped and came tearing after me when i started running, is also cheering him, while standing at the doorway, jumping up and down and energetically screaming, "yay! ozzy! good boy! you're doing it!" srsly? every body should have such a cheerleader in their lives.

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yesterday was st patty's day. as usual, when i picked mimi up from school, i asked her how her day was. she says, it was the best day ever! why's that? i ask. she said they had green cupcakes and everyone got chocolate gold coins except her, she got some toy gold coins because the chocolate one might not be safe (peanut contamination), but that was okay with her because she liked the toy ones better. and they got to play outside TWICE. and when we got home she was going to look for the leprechaun's gold.

hmmm. how do you know it's at our house? i asked her. my teacher told me, she says. (i was not able to get any more info from her on this). i told her there wasnt any gold in our house. it's at the end of the rainbow. when i tell her this, her frown at hearing there was no gold, dissipated like clouds breaking on a sunny day. and she smiles broadly and says, "i know just where to find the rainbow, mom." we get inside and she goes running upstairs. i hear some tinkling noises and when i go to investigate, i find her reaching thru the bannister rails, to get to the crystals hanging on the foyer chandelier, her fingertips just barely brushing them. "mimi, leave those crystals alone!" i tell her sternly. still trying to reach the crystals, she says "but mom! i need them to make a rainbow! you know if the light goes through it the rainbow comes out on the other side. and then i'll find the gold!"

Ozzy Went Potty!

2010-03-17T00:44:00.000-04:00

got one of these Peter Potties for ozzy not too long ago. he loves to flush it. after a few days of showing him the potty and asking him if he'd like to pee pee like dad does standing up, he'd say yes, and i'd take him to the potty, and he'd work his tummy muscles, and then say he was done after a few seconds of trying (but not producing anything), then would want to flush it and then wash hands.

tonight, i asked him if he wanted to try the standy uppy potty and as usual he says yes, but immediately he demands that i fill the tank up with water so he can flush it. no, i tell him. if you try to pee pee in the potty mommy will fill it with water and you can flush. he tried. nothing. that's okay, i say, do you want to try again next time? he doesnt want to leave the bathroom without getting a chance to flush it and keeps insisting that i fill the tank up with water so he can flush the toilet saying, "water! water! water!"

so again, i tell him, no, when you go potty you get water. do you want to try it again? he nods, so i stand him by the potty again and unbelievably, he starts to pee right into the potty. it took a bit of effort to get it all out. it wasnt a continuous stream, but he worked on it and worked on it until he voided every last drop he had in him! i cheered him the whole time and mimi ran into the bathroom to cheer him too. and then when he was done, i filled it with water so he could flush it, but before we could celebrate much more, we could hear the garage door opening, heralding Rob's arrival home. immediately, ozzy is off and running to the stairs to go downstairs to meet rob at the garage door, yelling, "yay! daddy home!"

i tried to keep the excitement and momentum going with the whole pottying thing by cheering him in front of Rob and telling daddy about what great thing ozzy did, but i think he'd already forgotten about it.

i hope he remembers his success tomorrow and is willing to do a repeat performance!

Ozzy is 20 months old

2010-03-15T12:09:00.000-04:00

OH MY GOD...TWENTY MONTHS OLD...he's officially in his twenties now. wow. that's only four months from being TWO OH MY GOD YEARS OLD. i knew this day would come and i was bracing myself for it, but it's too soon...TOO SOON!!!! (in my head, i'm saying this as i'm on the floor, grasping at my hair, and rocking back and forth...that's how this makes me feel). he's growing up so fast, everytime i see him doing something that a big boy does it makes my eyes sting with tears and i get so welled up with emotion i can barely breathe.

i just brought home a little standy uppy potty for boys just a few days ago and every day i take ozzy to it if he says he wants to try, and he'll stand there, and i can feel his tummy muscles flexing as he tries to go (so far nothing, but that's expected) and i find myself pressing my lips tight together because i'm fighting to the urge to laugh out loud and cry at the same time. laugh because his big boy efforts are so cute and sweet; and cry because he's trying to be a big boy and i'm really not ready for him to be yet, but i know i can't stop him.

i'm slowly packing away his 12-18 month old clothes and looking at his much bigger 18-24 month old stuff, i can't believe he can actually fit any of the new stuff...they just look so big! and i gotta ask myself, is he really this grown? when did he get so big when every time i look at him i can only see how tiny he is? his tiny chubby legs, his tiny round bottom, his tiny full belly, his tiny fingers too chubby on the bottom making them splay out. his tiny toes. he still asks me to hold him when he drinks his milk (albeit from a sippy cup, not a bottle).

ozzy's speaking in two word phrases a little less than half of the time now. (mom, see?; shoes on!; yay eat!; no swiping! oh man!; see haytoter! (helicopter); down stairs!; have it?; me turn!; 'kay mom; bad luck!; wash hands; change channel; change diaper; all aboard!; happy to you!; gotta go!; oh so pretty!; uh oh mess!;brush teeth (bwush teef! he says); open door; help pweeeeeeze!; ow-know! (i dont know); wike it (which means he doesnt like it); hold me; onjen juice (orange juice); chockit nalk (chocolate milk); baff tub! (bath tub); OH GOD (sharp intake of breath) BROKEN!; pwatiss piano (this he tells mimi to practice piano); here, mom; etc)

he can identify his numbers 0-10 and count them in order.

he can identify all but one (letter K, which he calls L, in addition to calling the L an L) of the letters of the alphabet (both lower case and upper case), but saying them in order is still patchy.

he can identify basic shapes (circle, oval, octagon, diamond, star, rectangle, triangle, square)

he can identify basic colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, white)

he is generally able to articulate most sounds in his speech, but still has difficulty with "L" (usually not mastered until the age of 3 years or later, so i expect this one to be hard for a long time. mimi didnt master it until two and half), so an airplane is an hairpane, and look is said "wook". he can make the "K" sound when saying "car" but it is not present when he says "cat" (tat) or "candy" (tandy). he still calls milk "nalk" but i'll sometimes hear him practicing the correct way even tho he still misses the mark ("mmmmmmmuhhhhhhh....nalk"). the 'sn' words he leaves off the "s". he says "shemmen" when he says "seven." and he calls Blues Clues "coos coos" even tho he can say "blues" when he says it by itself. still calls the vacuum "dappum".

he loves to tell knock knock jokes with no punch lines. he's content to just say "knock knock!" and have someone say, "who's there?" and then he looks around him for some inspiration, and says whatever he spies, like "shoes" or "marker", etc. and then i say, "shoes who?" and then he just peters out and then starts all over again with "knock knock."

he continues to move easily, now he even jumps off the last step of the stairs. he tries to do it from higher up but i go into a screaming conniption whenever he tries so he thinks better of it. i probably terrify him.

he loves the gummy vitamins that mimi takes, so i allow him one a day (mimi gets two). but he thinks it's candy and wants more than one and i tell him repeatedly, "no! medicine!" so sometimes he'll point and say, "medicine! have it?" but he knows they are called "vitamins" so every day, he'll press me for a one, saying, "mama! vie-da-din? pweeeeeze?!"

mimi has a toy robot. ozzy likes to turn it on and say, "wobawut! wobawut! denjer! denjer!" (red alert! red alert! danger! danger!), which is what a robot on the the show Max and Ruby says.

he loves to color and he knows he's only supposed to color on paper, but sometimes he will toe the line and color on the table and make a big deal about showing me. just like he knows he's not supposed to put small toys in his mouth but will put it in there anyway and then walk to me and say, "mom! mouth!" and then open his mouth and let a marble or some tiny toy part fall out! (URGH!!!)

of course he still loves vehicles of all kinds. while driving, if he sees any construction vehicle, he'll name it and i'll hear him say, "Mixer!" or "Digger!" or " 'porter!" (transporter).

he still enjoys playing with the baby doll...feeding it, holding it, walking around the house with it, etc. he's so caring and nurturing. it's totally sweet.

he's interested in playdough and scissors and i know i have to make more time to work with him on handling both, but have not been so good about making time for it lately. i will do better this month.

he loves animals. i've also got to make more time to give him chances to see animals and explore nature.

he loves to play in the pretend kitchen and make food and pour 'coffee'.

he continues to love to play in water and still asks every day for "water" play time.

he copies the exasperated sound that i make whenever he makes a mess.

when he passes gas he thinks it's pretty funny and laughs and says, "farted!"

his favorite part in the story Oh! David! is when David has a PU diaper. whenever i sense a smelly diaper and say, "something stinks!", ozzy goes, "David!"

*big sigh* i write this, not only to document ozzy's progress/growth, but in some way to try to slow down time, to appreciate where ozzy is in this moment in his life, and to relish in it before it's irretrievably gone.

Mimi is 6 years old

2010-03-11T13:58:00.000-05:00

it really does go by fast. you hear it all the time from parents because it really is true. i heard someone else say that the days go by slowly but the years fly by. that mimi is now 6 years old...? SIX! i can only say that it is too much for me to comprehend right now and i dont know that i will even be close to wrapping my mind around this until she is 7 at which point my head will explode from trying to get THAT to sink in.

we had her birthday party on a sunday afternoon a week after her real birth date because i needed that extra week, that extra weekend day, that extra morning time in order to prepare, esp since it was to be hosted in my home...you know it's not as simple as sweep the floors and blow up balloons and serve cake. i have to say that the party was better run in my head than i was able to make happen in real life, but no one knew what was in my head, so i hope it came across as being a good party anyway. there was a lot going on at the party and i am sad that there's hardly any pictures of all the stuff that went on. ah well. i'll do my best to put on all the details in writing for posterity, as this will have to suffice.

for mimi's 6th birthday, she wanted to have a science themed party. so we made science-y invitations and sent them out a couple of weeks before the party. click here to see all about those. i hung up a large LABORATORY sign and an WARNING: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY sign on our front door to greet our special scientists guests on the day of the party.

we hired a scientist from Mad Science to come and do a show. the show was lots of fun...i didnt catch it all, as i was running around, but what i did see was very good. at one point she was showing the kids electricity and talking about conductivity. another time i saw her making fun colors in fire by burning different elements. she also let the kids wear diffraction glasses, which break up light into the different colors. mimi got to keep a pair as the birthday girl. i'm sure more went on and wished i could have seen the whole show. i told rob to video it for me, but for some reason he only captured the first few minutes of the show. :( additionally, i should have delegated picture taking to someone. :(

live and learn.

when the show was over, Dr Jamie had the kids make color changing UV keychains. when they finished with this, the kids said goodbye to the scientist and came upstairs (we ran the show in the lower level rec room, where it could be darkened enough for the light show) to do some more experiments that i had planned in the kitchen. in my head, we had time to do 3-4 experiments, but it was already going on an hour and a half when the show finally ended, so we barely managed to eek in one experiment.

we decided to make elephant toothpaste for our experiment. i gave the kids little baggies filled with vinyl gloves, thick glasses, an ID badge, a faux pocket protector, goofy origami bowtie that mimi and i made, and a face mask (rob's mom got them for me from the hospital) to get into the scientist role. mimi wore her dad's old white button front shirt that i shortened the sleeves on as her lab coat. i had extra paper coats from the hospital for the kids who didnt wear a 'lab coat' but it was such a mad rush to get thru the experiment that i forgot all about it.

since time was short, we had to get the kids set up very quickly, and luckily the mommies present mobilized faster than i could even yelp for help to make it happen. the kids were set up in no time! it was a fun little activity...mixing peroxide with dish soap and then add some activated yeast. when it works well, you get oozing foam from the mouth of a plastic water bottle. i found out that red/pink food coloring gave the best display. the blue ones just crept up the bottle.

we didnt have time to make lava lamps, blow up sandwich bags, or make colors dance in milk. (eh, i'm the worst at realizing what the limitations are). i'm just glad the kids wanted to do the elephant toothpaste, since i made rob drive all over town to pick up several bottles of high volume peroxide. i would hate for it to have all been for nothing! i'm sure i wouldve gotten an earful from rob if we had 100 oz of that junk still sitting around. (i found all these experiments at sciencebob, stevespanglerscience, and zoom websites)

after making elephant toothpaste, we hurried into the dining room for food. the room was decorated with a variety of bright colors, since there's no 'science' themed party supplies out there. i thought it worked really well and think i like it better than commercially produced themed stuff.

the tablescape on the buffet table were an assortment of cylinders, and flasks filled with colored water that we'd put dry ice into to make it bubbly and foggy. and in some very large beakers and flasks i had blue hawaiian punch, cranapple, and apple juice in to serve (it would have been fun to put dry ice in there as well, but i didnt want to run the risk of having a small chunk of it get into someone drink). i put some bbq sauce and honey mustard in petri dishes to serve with chicken nuggets. and we had twisted balloons into a double helix and molecular-esque shapes and regular helium-filled latex balloons throughout the room in a variety of bright colors. i made a birthday banner by printing out different colored blocks with letters from the Periodic Table of Elements to spell out HAPPY BIrThDAY and labeled each with its atomic number and name. there's no A on the table, but i fudge it a little and called it Aluminum (Al), and no one called me out on it. heh heh.

for food we had chicken nuggets, some Mad Mac and Cheese (a very delicious one made by a friend a la barefoot contessa), Molecular Melons (balls of cantaloupes and honeydew, some of which we created some molecules with toothpicks and the rest we left loose to be scooped up. if they were in season, watermelons would have been a great addition), Biomass Bites (cold veggie pizza), i bought potato chips, some green chips (guacamole), and bright orange cheese puffs.

as the kids ate, i called them by twos to the ice cream making 'lab' so they could concoct their own sundaes at the Ice Cream Invention Lab. there's a chalkboard hanging over the table so i drew a bunch of science stuff on there: molecules, chemical formulas, etc. on the table i set out a variety of sprinkles in small test tubes and different sauces in small flasks, gummy worms and cherries in petri dishes with hospital tweezers to pick them up with. i bought small ice cream cups to make it easier to get the children thru, this way i wasnt scooping up ice cream, too. and they come with fun little wooden spoons to eat with...the kids love those which is another plus! i manned the whipped cream since the kids needed help with that. this went quite smoothly and easily.

then we lit the candles on mimi's cake and sang happy birthday, etc. i forgot to put dry ice inside the little cup i put into the top tier of the cake, but my sister, nan remembered afterwards. and my friend tina remembered about the dry ice in the colored flasks on the buffet. so with their help some of my plans got put into play. i served the cupcakes, jello jigglers, and sugar cookies, but didnt get around to serving the birthday cake as well. the cake was an orange strawberry cake, which i had hoped would look vibrant orange, but it was more pink than orange when it was done.

i made the sugar cookies a week prior to the party and froze them. this would lighten my load on the day before the party. i didnt have science cutters and they are hard to come by, so i just cut out each shape by hand with a sharp knife. it definitely takes longer, but i didnt want to go thru the trouble to trying to make my own cookie cutters with flashing when it was likely that i'd never make more of these again.

the yellow cupcakes with the biohazard symbols were lemon cake with green colored lemon curd. when you bite into it, you see a bright green nuclear slime ooze out.

the chocolate cupcakes were egg free for our egg allergic guests. they were filled with a white chocolate mousse and the tops were dipped in a semisweet chocolate ganache and then iced with a large atom with fondant electrons on the orbits.

i also made the cupcake stands out of cardboard rounds and scrapbook paper. they turned out cute and i could take it apart, nest the pieces and definitely reuse these.

the jello jigglers in the petri dishes were iced with some white chocolate icing and dotted with some nonpareil "cultures". luckily i had a scientist, my cousin jean, here to ice them realistically for me!

soon after the candles were out, people were starting to pack up their kids and i had to scramble to do the final part of the party which was to explode some diet coke as the grand finale. it was a BEAUTIFUL day outside, which was perfect for this. we got everyone outside, i set a stool in the middle of the road, using a special device to quickly drop in some mentos into the bottle of diet coke and make a quick get away, i pulled the pin which dropped the mentos into the bottle in one quick motion and before i even got a step away, it was starting to shoot out. the cola shot up 25 feet into the air and i barely got away by the time it hit the ground. the reaction is FAST, esp when the diet coke is warm.

then it was hurry, hurry, hurry (i felt like i was hurrying thru the whole party!) to pass out the goody bags which i tagged with a little thank you note and some website links for more science fun. in the bag i put in "Magic Snow" a powder solution that when mixed w/water turns into what looks and feels like snow (not that they didnt get enough snow this past month!), test tube filled with bubble solution, more vinyl gloves, a clean petri dish, and of course they got to take home the UV keychains they made and their glasses, etc. if we had time to make the lava lamps they could have taken that home too and more alka seltzer tablets to make it go again at home. SO much i wanted to do, and not enough time!

later when i asked mimi what she thought about the soda explosion, she goes, what soda explosion? it turns out she never made it outside. she had to use the bathroom. of course. (eye roll). as it looked like she was about to cry because she missed the grand finale to her party (i cant believe i didnt check to make sure she had made it outside!!!), i promised her we'd do it again another day.

mimi said she really enjoyed her party. she esp liked the mad science show when Dr Jamie made the cool colors in the fire. usually the scientist makes the birthday girl the helper, but mimi specifically asked that all of her friends get a chance to help that day. so everyone had some involvement and i think they all had a great time. i hope mimi has lots of good memories of this day.

happy sixth birthday, my sweetest girl. we love you SO much!

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big thanks to rob for helping with the kids, driving all over town picking up supplies/food, and helping with clean up, and for allowing me to carry on with my party plans. thanks to my cousin jean for driving up here from richmond and bringing all those lab supplies with her for the party and then coming early to help out with the party stuff. thanks to my sister nan aka "mimi" for driving up from richmond to celebrate and helping out, too. and rob's parents for picking up the last minute emergency balloon order from party city when we realized 90 minutes before the start of the party that there was only enough helium in the tank to blow up 6 balloons.

yes, honey, we'll do a chuck e cheese party next year...i may still make a cake though....

Ozzy is 19 months old today

2010-02-16T02:25:00.000-05:00

the time goes by so fast. i can't believe my baby boy is already 19 months and that much closer to being two. he's officially past the 1.5 mark now.

as of less than a week ago, we stopped giving him his bottle. he now drinks entirely from sippy cups, straws, or open cups. there's been a dramatic decrease in his milk consumption since that has happened, but i'm hoping it will go back up once he gets comfortable with it. he's at a decent weight and eating enough solids for me to feel comfortable taking the bottle away. so far he's been falling asleep just fine without it, which is the part that i worried most about. i've been giving him lots of cuddles when he drinks from his sippy cup to make that transition a little bit easier. he seems to like that. he says, "hold you" and backs into me to be held while he drinks from his cups.

ozzy has lately been trying to sing more. sometimes i'll hear him rattle off random letters but can hear a slight resemblance to the ABC song. when he sings row row row your boat he says, row row dream. he loves for me to sing I've been working on the railroad and he calls that song, "blow" because of the part that goes, "dinah blow your horn! dinah wont you blow, dinah wont you blow, dinah wont you blow your horn?" he'll also try to sing twinkle twinkle. he says, "twinkle. star. wonder. are. wike uh. diamond. sky." while he doesnt say all the words, the words he does say he sings them kind of on key... enough for me to recognize it.

he's getting a leeeetle bit better about not hitting mimi. most of the time he lashes out because he wants to be left alone but she's not heeding the signals and out of his inability to really get her to understand this he hits. so i've been trying to give him the words to tell her "stop" or "no more" instead. and i've also been working with mimi to understand how frustrating it is for him to try to have some personal space and to not be able to get it. my hope is that she will understand that by respecting his personal space he will in turn learn to respect hers. i hope. in theory it sounds good. i've never walked this path before, so i can only surmise that this is the right way to go about it.

in any case, i dont ever let him get away with hitting her and i dont let mimi get away with ignoring his requests for peace. not that she's being mean, just a bit too, ummm, insistent. (oh geez, i had to look up that last word because i forgot how to spell it. my brain is MUSH, i tell you) she'll try to teach ozzy new words, "ozzy, say truck!" and he obediently repeats. "ozzy, say --" and he repeats. after several rounds of this he doesnt want to do it any more, but she will insist and insist and finally he gets fed up. one day i saw him do this coordinated series of well choreographed moves where he smacks her on the head and immediately follows it up with a head butt and then gets into position to smack her again. where do little boys learn this from?!? and mimi, she just sits there and gets beat up without enough wherewithal to know how to evade him. i better get her back into tae kwon do so she can at least figure out how to block some of those punches. (nobody bodders me! *wink)

it took me 19 months to figure out that mommies of boys should never leave the house without cars. i have learned to make sure my diaper bag always has diapers, wipes, and CARS. lots of CARS. we will not survive long out of the house without CARS. must have CARS. i can't stress enough how important CARS are.

he's a lot of fun. i am thoroughly enjoying this age with him. i love the new words he says. the other day, i ordered some pizza. when it arrived at our door, ozzy is jumping up and down and yelling, "yay! teepah!" (pizza) a few days later i gave him some quesadillas cut up into triangles, and he gets all excited and yells, "yay! teepah!" guess it all looks the same!

i love his moments of tender sweetness, when he'll come up to me, for no special reason, give me a little kiss and say, "Lubboo" (love you) to me. that totally makes my day. sometimes he says funny things, and i think he's doing it on purpose, the way we try to be a bit silly and point to a dog and say, is that a horse? nooooo! is that a cow? noooo! it's a dog! ozzy pointed to a picture of kaya the other day and says, "horse?" "neigh. neigh." then later says, "dog. woof woof." another day when rob pointed to himself, touching his finger to his chest and asks who am i? ozzy says, 'shirt.' and when he pointed his finger at ozzy and asked "who's this?" ozzy answers, "finger."

he loves his t.v. shows. he says go go for go diego go. he knows dora. he knows all the characters on kai lan by name (tolee, rintoo, hoho, kai lan, yehyeh). he yells out Yo! at just the right time on the yo gabba gabba intro. he loves wubbzy and asks for it every day. he gets upset if the t.v. is on any other channel but nick jr and will bring me the remote and ask, "happen?" (what happened?) when the t.v. isnt on nick jr. he loves to pat pat pat with rocket on little einsteins and yell "blast off" and since watching that show is all about having his seat belt buckled on his high chair. he loves his videos, esp the ones that show babies and asks me to turn on "babies?" for him to watch.

this past month and half, he's ALL personality. it's been a lot of fun.

popickles

2010-02-16T01:02:00.001-05:00

his favorite daily treat. he asks for it every day and every day when he gets one, he's jumping up and down with joy.

the second tooth

2010-02-16T00:11:00.000-05:00

mimi's second tooth fell out tonight. her bottom front/right incisor. her top left incisor is also quite loose. when that one falls out she will look like a little jack o' lantern. :) she was playing at a friend's house, roughhousing a bit and she banged her mouth and shortly afterwards came to me and said that she bumped her tooth, which had been extremely wiggly these past few days and very close to falling out, while she was playing and it felt funny. i said, well give it a little tug and see what happens. she grabbed it and gave it a little pull and out it popped without any resistance.

we carefully packed it away and put it in her tooth holder when we got home and she ever so precisely, set it under her pillow. she had a lot more questions about the tooth fairy this time around. how does she get in? how does she know that my tooth fell out? what does she look like? and on and on. of course i dont know any of these answers, so i just say, "i dont know. no one has seen her before. what do you think...?" and of course she has an answer for everything.

i waited for her to sleep before i went in to make the exchange. as i sneak in to switch out the tooth for money, i have to chuckle at myself at how simple it is to hoodwink a five year old. and i kind of wished someone would do something like that for adults. like how nice would it be to be visited by the shoe fairy whenever a new gray hair pops up on my head and i just have to go to bed and in the morning when i wake up, i'd find a pair of new ugg boots under my pillow. that would be really really cool.

SNOW MORE! ...er...wait...that's not what i meant to say. no more, snow more...oh, forget it!

2010-02-11T23:17:00.000-05:00

the blizzard of '10 had more names than eskimos have for 'snow', some of my favorites being:
snowmaggedon, snowtorious B.I.G. aka biggie snows, snOMG!, snoWTF?, snowpocalypse, kaiser snowze, snowbliteration, snowbowl, and the lesser popular but still funny because it's so true, "SnowmygodimnotshovelinganymoreofthiswhitecrapimmovingtoFLA." call it what you will, it was an unreal amount of snow. the storm (part one) dumped easily two feet of snow around our home. usually, i like living here at the end of the court, but after the snow plow came through, pushing all that snow down to the end of our cul-de-sac, i realized there is definitely one downside. (but hey, at least the snow plow came thru! wooo hooo!)

on day two of the blizzard, we finally ventured out, the snow was so high, i had to tamp down a path for the kids to be able to walk over it and snowblowers became the new must have gadget of husbands struggling to shovel up FEET of snow. ozzy would have fallen completely through otherwise and then we'd have to dive into the crevasse after him with a search party in spelunking gear led by a sherpa to rescue him. as it was, it was up over my knees and so there i was flailing in a very uncoordinated way trying to trudge a path for the kids towards to center of the yard. making myself publicly awkward is only something i started to do after i had kids. if the old me could see the me that i am today, she would probably run from the scene screaming and need some serious therapy for years afterwards. and there's my husband nodding his agreement. i think he misses the old me. often.

so, in that little patch of somewhat tamped down front lawn, mimi and i started to build a fortress with plans to make it an igloo but it was slow going. we used a large squarish plastic tub to make bricks and mimi used a toy shovel to 'mortar' the spaces with more snow. we managed to lay a few layers of bricks that day.

the next day, we got dressed to go outside and play in the snow and mimi says, "mom, can we NOT make the igloo today?" i asked her why not? wasn't it fun? and she says, "it doesnt feel like play, it feels more like work." but when we got out there she plugged away at it anyway. (later, after the second blizzard hit, this is what it looked like:
(kind of looks like a moon crater to me)
so, rob just dug out a little cave inside one of the many snow heaps the size of a small mountains around our cul de sac.

these crazy heaps of snow deserve another look see, doncha think?

ozzy came out periodically. can't really say that he played, it was too hard for him to do that because he could barely move in his snow boots, snow bib, and all that snow everywhere. he did enjoy sledding down the small embankment at the end of our street though.

anyway, that was monday when we built the fort. tuesday we braced ourselves for blizzard part 2, calling for an additional 10-20 inches to hit our area (and again the names for phase two start getting tossed around: snowtal recall, snowver it!, snowverkill)

blizzard phase two (call it what you will) came with strong winds, blowing at up to 55 mph, blowing the snow around so hard and fast that there were moments with white outs so complete that when i looked out my back window i could not see anything much further past my deck, leaving me with a very strange unsettling feeling of isolation, of our home perched on the edge of nothingness, or like those illustrations in the Caillou cartoon where only part of the scene is drawn out with lots of white edges that fade into nothingness. the houses and trees that were usually visible from our back deck suddenly obliterated, erased. i was keeping my fingers and toes crossed that we did not lose power as so many homes had from the storms.

rob's parents came back from their cruise the day after the first storm and were not able to get home since their streets had not been plowed. they tried and got stuck not even a few yards into their neighborhood. someone in a big lexus suv got stuck trying to push them out and then two more stuck suvs later, everyone managed to dig themselves back out with shovels and his parents came back to our house to wait until their streets were plowed. which didnt happen until tuesday, when a snow plow from upstate new york came to plow, and apparently got stuck as well. but they got it somewhat cleared, only to have more snow fall the next day, effectively nullifying those efforts. so his parents have been staying with us since sunday. i think they were going crazy not being able to be home. i think that's part of the reason why they cleaned my house for me. if they had to stay any later, i think they would have started to organize all my junk drawers.

i know they were hopeful that they would be able to go home before the end of day 4 with us, but the winds were too strong and the streets were buried under several new inches of snow, enough that rob's dad's rav4 couldnt even make it out of the drive way. while not ideal, it has been better for rob's mom to be here since it's right around the corner from the hospital where she works, otherwise she would have had to stay over night at the hospital (they were told that if they couldnt drive in to work, they had to stay at the hospital). sheesh. remind me to never get in that line of work... teaching may not pay much, but atleast teachers dont have to report to work on snowy days!

except for being stuck at home, with dwindling food supplies, one tree in the front yard down, and patchy satellite t.v., we'd been weathering this storm quite well. even the kids handled it without any issues.

i am very thankful to have made it through without any roof cave-ins (the deck is holding strong), power outtages (there were scary moments, but it held!), trees fallen on houses or cars. and we've luckily had plenty of fresh food here to sustain us (we didnt have to break open any ramen noodles, so i think we were doing well). so all in all, not too bad. i am a little worried about the flooding that will ensue when the snow begins to melt, but we'll deal with that day if and when it comes.

Mimi Says

2010-02-09T11:05:00.001-05:00

mimi says: mom, why can't dad's be bosses.
me: what do you mean?
mimi: you know! why can't dad be boss of the house?
me: he's not?
mimi: Nooooo! you are!

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mimi says: mom, do you know what i love more than candy, more than toys, and more than money?
me: what?
mimi: YOU!

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while mimi was describing a book character, i asked her how old she thought the character was and she answers, "i think she is 5 and a half. or maybe 5 and three quarters. or she could be 5 and three pennies.”

Mad Science party invitations

2010-02-03T02:43:00.000-05:00

mimi wanted to have a science birthday party. given that the party will be 1. here at the house and 2. pricier than previous birthday parties (it's the same price for 9 kids as it was for 20-24 at our previous parties), we had to keep the numbers down to 9 kids. it was hard to tell her only 9-- so many kids she wanted to include/didnt want to leave out. one boy she wanted to invite JUST FOR EYE CANDY because even though they never play together [at school], she told me one night during our prebedtime chats that she "liked the way he looked." i managed to talk her out of inviting him...you can look at him all you want for free, all day at school, chica, but mama's not paying for you to look at him at your party. i have to draw the line there.

we did eventually get the list pared down and the invitations made. this is as far as i have gotten with her party planning... seriously, the days seem to just go by so fast!!! i drop mimi off at school, and then before i know it, it's time to pick her up, eat dinner, go to class, get ready for bed! why do i remember the days dragging on when i was stay at home with mimi? i dont know if it's ozzy that makes my day speed by, or the short winter days, or maybe i've gotten so slow that everything else seems that much faster??? or maybe i'm just spending way too much time on facebook.

sorry, i digress. the invitations were as far as i've gotten.

there's not too many options out there if you're planning a science party. i did find a couple of invitations, but they were not that cute. i wanted something science related, but fun, maybe even a tad bit girly. after perusing everything related to kids and science online, i came upon the idea of making flask shaped shaker cards, watched a "shaker" tutorial on youtube, and then set about making mimi's party invitations. (here's the shaker in action)

the gas coming out the flask was an important part of the design, but i couldnt really decide how i wanted to make that happen. i tried drawing a cloud; decoupaging torn tissue paper; gluing down cotton. none of them looked 'right.' so then i started to doodle with a white marker and found the design pleasing and stuck with it. i drew out the swirls on one sheet of colored paper and then photocopied it so i would not have to hand draw it on each one. there was the added bonus of also not having to hunt down more of the same green paper, too. (there wasnt really any rhyme or reason for why i chose this green paper.
mostly i used it because i had it -- i didnt want to go out and buy more scrapbook paper when i had so many sheets of it coming out of every orifice in my house.
it was the least distracting design.
it was kind of girly.
and the flower print and green color were about as sciency as my paper stash got).

for the back paper, i searched all over to find a bubbly design, and not being able to find the right one, i just created one using the draw tools on Word. (i have all this stuff saved on my computer, so if you want the images for your own science party without having to redo it yourself, let me know)

for the wording, i found some inkjet transparency paper on clearance at amazon and printed out the wording on the transparency film. made up a rhyme (i can't help it, i must rhyme when i make cards. so take note, people, if i ever make invitations for you, it WILL rhyme), aligned the text to fit the flask shape. i was able to fit 4 on each sheet.

when the general structure was prepped/glued, mimi scooped in about a teaspoon of colored seed beads and a small cut-out of an atom (also drawn on Word and printed on transparency film. she cut them all out for me, as well) and then i sealed them shut. when the glue dried, mimi added the pretty little gems and shimmery dots to the cloud. not sure which set to use, i bought both the blue green gems and the shimmery colored dots at a craft store, and when i asked mimi which set she preferred, she said, why dont we use both? and so we did. the gems give it sparkle and the dots give it color. smart girl! (as an afterthought, maybe even a smattering of glitter in the cloud and inside the shaker might be cute too). i also thought about putting on some embossing powder on the cloud to give it a bit more dimension, but then realized that that was more work than i was willing to do. (gasp! yes, you heard it here.)

i finished the fronts off with a simple dot border cut with scallop scissors. for the backs, i had printed out the party info with little blocks that i made on Word to resemble the table of elements, spelling out the word FUN. i carefully aligned and glued the bubble dot back paper to the reverse side of this sheet. [if i were to do this over again, instead of cutting out the paper and gluing it, i would have made a doc w/them prealigned and then printed out the sheets front and back, with the bubble dots on one side and the party info on the other, thereby eliminating the gluing step.]

mimi wrote out her friends names on the envelopes and colored them in with bright colors.

and they are now ready to go!

ozzy im boy genius

2010-01-31T08:07:00.000-05:00

when ozzy was 15 mos old i signed him up as a participant in some research done by Georgetown University to determine how media is able to teach babies. it's not paid, we just did it for fun. the first test ozzy was shown a box that looked like a bus front. if you pressed a red button it made a honking sound. then he was shown that same bus front on a computer touch screen and we waited to see if he would try to touch the button on the screen. he didnt do it. none of the babies at this age do. so it wasnt until after we showed him that he kept pushing it over and over.

then 3 months later they came back to our house to do two more tests. the first one was to see if a baby could learn to do a complex task by looking at it in a book. they showed him a book, literally just flipping thru the pages without stopping. i saw the pictures in the book but none of what was in there really registered in my head. i saw hands and some blue object. we saw three pages in the book. then they left. the next day they returned with the object that was in the book. apparently the book showed a wooden rattle being put together (they had to explain this to me, because i honestly had no idea what i had been looking at the day before). the lady tells me not to worry if ozzy can't do it, they expect that the babies can't do it. she sets the three pieces of the rattle in front of ozzy and without ANY hesitation, ozzy picks up the ball, drops it into the cup, and then snaps on the lidded handle ontop of the cup, then picks up the rattle and shakes it. the researcher pursed her lips, says 'hmph', and then says, "well, that was unexpected!" and she started talking about what was supposed to happen and then laughs at ozzy and thanks him for skewing her research. of course i dont believe ozzy put that rattle together just from looking at the book, i think he would have done it without the book...i know that i had no idea what that book showed the day before so i doubt that he did either. but when he sped thru that task with such ease, i had to resist the urge to jump up and start shouting out that my son is a genius.

the next task they showed ozzy a short video of a woman assembling three blocks on a magnetic board to make a sailboat. she did it three times. then they showed ozzy that same board with blocks to see what he would do. he touched the shapes and named them. then he took the pieces off the board and put them on the floor. then he put them back on the board back where they were at the beginning.

the researcher then put them together in person and then took it apart and asked him what it was and ozzy said, "boat". she took the pieces back apart and ozzy then assembled the boat himself quickly.

so even tho he saw a video of a woman put it together and saw it three times, he didnt know how to piece it together. when he was shown by a live person just once, he was able to do it quickly. so now i know that the videos that i thought taught my kids were never effective by themselves, it was because i was there repeating and supporting what was taught that they were able to learn from them.

anyway, even tho he was probably par for the course on the last task, after i saw the researchers out the door, i was still thinking, my boy's a genius!

fun indoors

2010-01-30T23:25:00.000-05:00

when ozzy plays with mimi...

more fun playing with water...

when it's too damn cold to go outside and play in the snow, bring the snow inside!

Mimi's First Piano Recital

2010-01-25T20:59:00.000-05:00

tonight was mimi's first piano recital. here's some video clips of her playing. the first one is a piece from the start of the fall semester. the second is piece from the end of the fall semester. and the third one is an ensemble piece that she played with two other classmates. (by the way, she did GREAT! i was so proud of her i wanted to cry. she was so proud of herself that she could not help cheesin' big afterwards!)

The Adventures of a Kneehigh Neanderthal

2010-01-25T11:35:00.000-05:00

18 months is such a fun age. what they understand, how they communicate, what they find interesting, the connections they make, 18 month olds have such a wonderful way about that them that i find so endearing and endlessly fascinating.

Ha Fied!
like jane goodall observing the chimps, i watch my own charming chip for clues to understand what he tries to communicate day to day in his toddlerese.

a couple of days ago, i observed him gently hugging a baby doll and happily playing with it, when suddenly he yells out "Ha Fied!" and then slaps the baby. again, "Ha Fied" and then slap the baby. this happened a few more times before i noticed that he was aiming at the same spot, right at the baby's hand which sort of lay across the dolls chest. high five. oh. so i put out my hand and he says, "Ha Fied" and smacks my hand. ah-ha.

Are you being served?
mimi really likes those chewy fruit snacks, so i bought some for her to have as a sometime treat. ozzy adores them (of course). one day, when he was tantrumming over wanting candy, i went to the pantry and looked in saying, "How abouuuuuuut....crackers?" to which he says, "no!" and a vehement head shake. "Hmmmm. How abouuuuuut...cereal?" again, no. "How abouuuut...applesauce?" this time he answers, "how'booooouuuuuuuut?" as he grabs a bag of fruit chews out of mimi's snack basket and hands it to me.

Nahhhhhhssssss!
ozzy still likes to hit everything. whenever he hits me or mimi or rob and we admonish him, he immediately follows it with a gentle stroking petting and says, "nahhhhhsssss" (nice), as if saying nice and being gentle makes it okay that he beat up on us.

Waddoo?
ozzy's new favorite past time is water play. one day he wanted to play and play and play at the bathroom sink and kept demanding "Waddoo! on!" (water! on!). not wanting to run water all day, i put some in a plastic tub and put some towels on the kitchen floor and let him have at it. now he asks every day Waddoo? and brings me any empty plastic tub to fill up with water so he can play. the kitchen floor is getting washed more often, so i guess it's a good thing.

of course during the course of water exploration, this was coming:

after which, it's a no-brainer that this was coming next:

bowl of fruit by mimi im

2010-01-20T10:36:00.000-05:00

mimi made this picture over the holiday weekend. she wanted me to help her color the bowl, but she did the rest. i really want to get mimi into an art class. she says her favorite subjects at school are art and writing. she reminds me so much of myself as a kid. the difference is, my parents didnt value those things and rather than encouraging my passion, they tried their best to squelch it...my dad wanted me to use my time studying math and science instead. while i understand their motivations, i still wonder where my life would have led me had my parents supported my interests.

1.5

2010-01-20T07:17:00.000-05:00

ozzy is now a year and a half! noooooo! i'm so conflicted! i am so sad that he's already 18 months old, but so thrilled by all the ways he is growing. these top two pictures were taken a month ago. the one below was taken a week ago...can you see how much he's changed even in the course of this past month? (yes, that is a doll stroller that he's sitting in...he loves to climb into it. it's amazingly sturdy for a toy made to hold dolls.)

he's looking more like a little boy and less like a baby and it makes me so sad. he still likes me to hold him while he takes his bottle and i do, gladly, hold him, almost hoping that by doing so, i can keep him a baby for a little while longer. it's a terrible shame how with my first child i was in such an all fired hurry to have her grow up and then one day i see that she's all grown up and i realize sadly that i didnt enjoy the moments and now they are gone, so i vow that i WILL slow down and enjoy it with the second child, but the cruel joke is that the second child grows so much faster. i dont even remember much about ozzy's crawling days! it seemed such a brief moment in time. i'm not ready for him to start preschool in the fall. i'm not ready for him to be TWO this summer. i'm not ready for him to give up his bottle this month. but i know it will all happen and it makes me sad.

GeoTrax

2010-01-16T19:06:00.000-05:00

this little train, a set i saw on a friend's facebook wall and KNEW when i saw it that ozzy had to have it, has been such a hit with ozzy. the first day, he hugged the train and refused to be parted with it for two days, saying 'train' over and again, keeping a death grip on it even when his coat was being put on/taken off. when the track was set up, mimi and ozzy played with it all afternoon. i finally got around to putting batteries in it today, and the excitement over it mounts. *sigh* when i was little i had to make my own train out of notebook paper and scotch tape. it was pathetic.

love it!

2010-01-14T10:26:00.000-05:00

some of the stuff i ordered for mimi's Mad Science birthday party arrived in the mail yesterday. mimi, ozzy and i had fun playing around with it. it's so freakin' cyooooote! can't wait for the party!

look!

2010-01-12T23:36:00.000-05:00

when ozzy wants me to look at something, usually him or what he did to the t.v., he says to me, mama, wook (look). last week i heard him saying "see. see. see." over and again. when i finally went to investigate, i see him holding this in his hand. C.

obligatory videos of the kids

2010-01-08T12:32:00.000-05:00

my family keeps requesting to see videos of the kids, so i'm dutifully complying. the first is mimi at ballet. the camera shake is because i'm trying to hold a wiggly ozzy at the same time. the second is ozzy trying to ride a tricycle. he's getting the mechanics of it, but his legs are still a little short. the last is ozzy riding his Tot Rod. i love how he takes the time to carefully buckle up before he drives.

child's play

2010-01-07T22:30:00.000-05:00

i bought two new games for mimi. they are really fun and a WELCOME departure from mindnumbing candyland and coma inducing chutes and ladders. i am embarrassed to admit that she has been beating me fair and square in both games.

one game is called Blokus. it's a spatial strategic thinking game. from school tests, i know my spatial skills are pretty good so i'm thinking that i'm going to totally rock this game, only to find out, i have no strategy! durrrr. so while we play, mimi is like, "oooh! i'm going to block you here. ha! ha! i'm coming after you, mom!" and before i know it, i've lost to a 5 year old. i totally have to build up that killer instinct.

the other game is Gobblet Gobblers. we just got it today. i told mimi when i picked her up from school that i bought her a new game. she's asks me, how do you play it? i said, it's like tic tac toe except you get to gobble up your opponents. she responds perplexed, i dont get it. is it like chest?

no, it's not like chess, i say, holding back a laugh. i'll show you when we get home, i answer rather indulgently to the ignorant child.

so we played when we got home and i thought, it's as simple as tic tac toe, so here's where i redeem myself or atleast we can tie at each game. HA! i am shocked at how dull witted i am because i LOST to her several times. what's WRONG with me!!!