Let's see... the last entry I did I collected some poop. I am still waiting to hear back from the doctor's office as to the results. The final test will take place Wednesday morning and it's a doozy. It's a sweat chloride test to check for cystic fibrosis. I had to take notes for this test: no lotions or soaps the day before and day of; well hydrate Malia 2 days prior; and come with extra jackets, pants, etc. They stick a couple of electrodes on her arm for 3 minutes for... something. I forgot what the nurse told me. I was too busy thinking "how in the hell am I going to keep the electrodes on Malia for 3 minutes?!" Next they slap some pads on her to collect her sweat and then I bundle her up and take her outside for 20 minutes. I'm supposed to do something with her to work up a sweat so they can measure how much salt chemical her sweat contains. What I'm supposed to do - I don't know as she's only 15 months. It's not as if I can take her jogging or make her do jumping jacks. All in all the test should take about 90 minutes. I'm betting all the screaming I know Malia will be doing will really work up a good sweat without having to bundle her up. Maybe we can even finish early.
But the day doesn't end for poor little Malia. We have swim class on Wednesdays. It's lesson #4 and while she's not screaming the entire 15 minute lesson, she's still screaming as though she's being fed to a pool of piranhas or getting dunked in a vat of acid. I'm still hedging my bets on it being lesson #6 or #7 before she starts enjoying the lesson - or at least keep the shrieking down to a minimum. Well, after all the testing she's been doing, I think I'll have to revise that and maybe bump it back to lesson #8 or #9 as her stranger anxiety is at an all-time high.
And then after a full day at the dreaded doctor's office and the hated swim lesson, she gets stuck in a car seat for 7 hours as we leave for Northern California Wednesday night after dinner. Poor Malia... Wednesday is really going to suck.
We had a full weekend with visiting uncles from Santa Cruz and cousins from France and a company beach party and a birthday party on Sunday -- I didn't have time to do much else.
BEACH PARTY
At the company party Truong had Malia duty on the beach. This entailed him watching her (the baby) to make sure she didn't wander off, eat sand, fall in the water, eat seaweed, get kidnapped, eat bird poop, walk through people's camp, eat trash... etc. So, being a typical mom, I watch Truong watch Malia first before completely trusting him with the task. To give him credit, he's looking in the right direction and if Malia's hot pink clad body were to suddenly disappear from his line of vision, he'd (probably) notice it. However, he's totally ogling the bikini clad girls behind our daughter and in the meantime I'm watching Malia eat fistfuls of sand, pop some seaweed in her mouth and stick a straw from who knows where it came from in her mouth. I calmly tell Truong that he needs to pay attention to his daughter and he tells me "I see her, honey." Then I let him in on my watching-the-baby secret: you need to see her FACE if you are going to watch her properly. He poos-poos me and says "don't worry - she's fine." So I tell him to look at her and tell me what you see. He looks down at Malia, under her hat, and her face is rimmed in sand, it's in her mouth, in her nose, in her eyes, she spits out some seaweed and she's got the random straw clutched in her hands. Boy, Truong sure jumped to attention then -- and actually exclaimed (in astonishment, no less!) how did she become such a mess. I just shake my head, roll my eyes and think boys never grow up -- ever.
COUSINS FROM FRANCE
Kids are amazing. No matter where they go, no matter what language they speak, kids will always find a way to play. Kael had a great time playing with Zoe and Maxim, who spoke not a lick of English. We brought presents for the kids and poor Kael was so dying for Maxim's gift: a dinosaur dress-up costume. Zoe is totally into the whole princess thing and let me tell you: it was really hard buying it for her as it went against everything I believed in. I had to ask a couple of ladies at Toys R Us for princess advice. They assured me that the princess skirt, tiara, earring, necklace, bracelets, purse, shoes and princess wand-thingy gift pack was the perfect gift for a 5 year old. They were right - Zoe loved it. She walked around the house all decked out in her jewelery and heels. Maxim loved his dinosaur costume too, but Kael loved it more. He was very good at leaving it with Maxim and didn't ask to take it home even though it was painfully obvious that he really wanted to snatch it and run for the hills. I'm going to have to find another one and get it for him for his birthday.
Here are some pictures of Kael swimming with his uncles.
Kael getting ready for the launch.
Blast off!
A 3-point landing.
Robert is a pretty good rocket launcher.
Trieu - he's not so good.
At first the launch looked promising: good lift.
But something happens - is it the trajectory? The landing looks off.
And the inevitable BELLY-FLOP. See the resulting splash?
So no more rocket launches. Kael requested dolphin dives instead.
No comments:
Post a Comment