Happy Birthday Kael!

Yesterday was Kael's birthday and it was... an interesting day. Kael does not like being the center of attention so having his birthday "celebrated" at school was quite an ordeal for him. However, he managed to survive with some help in the form of cupcakes I brought in for snacktime.

Truong came home at 5:00pm and we took the kids to dinner at the Rainforest Cafe at Downtown Disney. By the time we finished dinner, it was pretty late (past 8:00pm) and quite dark. As we walked back to the car, Malia was looking around with her eyes wide open. That's when I realized that I've never taken Malia anywhere at night before as her bedtime is between 7:00pm and 7:30pm. Add to that the fact that Downtown Disney was lit up like Christmas, her eyeballs practically popped out of her head. It was a really late night for both kids. Malia didn't go down until 8:45pm and Kael at 10:00pm as he insisted on opening his presents AND playing with them too.

All in all it was a nice, quiet, low-key birthday. I still can't believe my boy's FOUR years old. As I look back at his baby pictures, I can see how much he's grown but seeing it and believing it are two separate things.

What made the day really special were all the phone calls from friends and family. Our first birthday phone call was from Josh at 7:15am, wishing Kael a Happy Birthday. That was followed by Ryan at 7:30am (Ryan, by the way, tried to get Kael in joining him to "let's put your birthday cake on fire and then eat it!" -- that kid really cracks me up) . All through the day he got phone calls from everyone. It was great. We are extremely lucky to have a huge family and many friends in our lives to share every milestone with us, no matter how close or how far they are.

Next weekend is his birthday party. We've decided to combine parties with Josh this year since the boys' birthdays are only 2.5 weeks apart, and they know all the same friends. The boys are very excited as they are having a Bowling Party. So imagine this: 15 preschoolers going bumper bowling. Kael is beyond excited - he's talked of nothing else the past 2.5 months and tells everyone he meets at the post office, the grocery store, Costco, etc. about this bowling party. My predominant thought: please don't drop the ball... PLEASE don't drop that ball!



Here is Kael's class waiting to go to snacktime and recess. My kid, of course, is wearing tie-dye. Of course. He's either naked, or he's in tie-dye!
















I was very proud of myself for not snitching a cupcake the night before. They looked really REALLY good.





I love that face, dirty and all.

Are you all wondering "What happened?"





Do you see Kael in the front, right corner? Do you see how he doesn't like using his hands to hold the cupcake? He doesn't like getting his hands dirty.

That's what happened.


At the Rainforest Cafe. Malia did NOT want to sit next to the gorilla. It was pretty funny. She kept giving it very cautious looks.




Malia paying more attention to the antics of her big brother than she is to the camera.







The look on Kael's face as he got this Birthday Cake Volcano was priceless.

Compare his look of "Holy cow that's ginormous" to Truong's look of "ohh, yummy - where's my spoon!"



He's still in awe.

I have to admit it was a pretty huge dessert. I think it was 4-5 scoops of ice cream with 2 scoops of whipping cream surrounded by 3 huge chocolate brownie slabs, and smothered in fudge sauce. (Erin, are you drooling?)



"I want that piece right there!"













Happy Birthday Kael!

I love you, buddy.

The best book. Ever.

Every year Jimmy and Crystal send Kael a gift for his birthday and every year it's a great gift. But I have to say: this year they really outdid themselves. It's going to be hard to top this one.

When I opened the box, saw the book and read the title, I starting laughing and wondered if they got birthday dates mixed up and it was supposed to be a gift for ME. But I read the address label and saw that it indeed was for Kael.

"It's just a book" you might say... but it's no ordinary book.

It's titled: "WHY? The best ever question and answer book about nature, science and the world around you."

I can't tell you how perfect this book is (for me) and how well it suits Kael. I immediately thumbed through it so I could get an idea of what the book covered, and I will admit that I felt pretty good about having "a back-up system," so to speak, to field some of Kael's Deep Thoughts. (If you've read my past posts, you know how much help I need in that department.)

There were a few answers in there though that required some... censoring. Take for example: "What's Under My Bed?" on page 86. The book says: Some toys, a shoe, a book, a sock... and dust mites ("...you'd see dust mites under there, munching away."). Oh hell no am I telling Kael that he's got dust mites under his bed. I'm already having to tell him that the spooky eyes that live in his closet won't come out to get him for fear of getting hit with Mommy's Big Spooky Eye Stick. No way is he to ever know about any dust mites living under his bed or in his room or heck, even the existence of such things. As far as he's concerned, the only things that live under his bed are some orphaned balls, a couple of Mr. Potato Head parts and a few Matchbox cars.

As long as I read ahead before reading it to Kael, I'm golden.

It's a great book and thank you very much Jimmy and Crystal for the gift!

Mom, where are the dinosaurs?

Life with a 4 year old is life on the edge - you never know what's going to happen and you certainly can never anticipate what's going to come out of their mouths. Kael has lots of deep thoughts and they usually come out when we're in the car, when I'm unable to think on my feet as I'm concentrating on getting from point A to point B in a safe manner.

Yesterday on the way home from school he said he wanted to go to the zoo to see dinosaurs. I said we can go to the museum to see dinosaur bones.

Kael: No, mom, I don't want to see dinosaur bones. I want to see real dinosaurs.
Me: You can't see real dinosaurs, honey. They aren't around anymore.

I hear a warning bell ringing faintly in my head but I'm driving so I don't give it much heed.

Kael: Why not, mom? Why can't I see them?

The bell is ringing louder now; I'm starting to pay attention to his questions, but still not fully realizing where this is headed.

Me: Dinosaurs lived a long time ago but they... they just aren't around anymore. They... umm, they all died. But you can see their bones and pictures, and imagine what they looked like it. It's really cool!

There is a definite blaring in my ears now, complete with flashing red lights: Warning! Warning! Danger ahead! Danger ahead!

Kael: Mom, where are the dinosaurs? What happened to them? Why did they all die?

You know that pitiful sound of a fading bell, that kind of sounds like a balloon deflating? That's what I hear now. Along with the thoughts: Oh geez. Why me? WHY ME?

Me (taking a deep breath): Well, a long long time ago, dinosaurs lived on Earth but a large asteroi....

OH. CRAP. How do I tell him this?? It's going to give him nightmares!

Kael: A large what, mom? A large what?? Why did the dinosaurs all die?
Me (taking another deep breath): This happened a really really REALLY long time ago, Kael. A large asteroid hit the Earth and made such a big hole and mess that all the dirt flew in the air and blocked out the sun and it got so cold that the dinosaurs couldn't find anything to eat and they died. But remember: it was a really really REALLY long time ago so you have absolutely NOTHING to worry about, OK?

I'm holding my breath, looking in the rear mirror, watching him stare out the window as I'm driving and I can see him absorbing all this, with a pensive look on his face. I can tell he's trying to work it out in his head and I'm waiting to see what the outcome is.

But all he says is: "Oh."

And he says nothing more on this topic. That tells me he's still mulling it over and it's going to come out later so I better prepare myself for Round 2 of the "Where Did the Dinosaurs Go?" conversation.

Johnny Appleseed

On Sunday we had our 2nd Annual Mai-DiDodo Apple Picking Trip at Oak Glen. It was a pretty busy weekend for us and I actually wasn't even sure if we'd make it. We missed a party on Saturday due to possible colds with the kids and I feared that it was going to be a miserable week with 2 sick kids and Truong traveling out of town. So we lazed around the house Saturday to rest up.

We left for Oak Glen at noon, hoping the kids would nap on the hour long ride. Kael just came from a birthday party at Pump It Up so he should have been pretty tired. Malia as usual didn't nap in the morning and she should have been pretty tired too. Yeah, sure. Kael didn't nap and Malia finally fell asleep about 20 minutes from our destination.

We pull up and try to find parking in this dirt lot that's almost completely filled. We get out, unload the wagon and load up the kids. So far so good. The weather's nice and the kids are in a pretty good mood despite not napping. Patrick didn't go apple picking with us last year and he's looking around... a little baffled. Baffled like "this is IT?" I think he was imagining acres and acres of lush, leafy green Valley of Eden apple orchards where the branches are so heavily endowed with apples that they touch the ground.

Instead he saw a dusty orchard with people all over the place carrying plastic bags, short stubby somewhat leafy trees with apples on it but also a lot of apples on the ground. We walk up the hill to the Red Delicious Apple orchard and he tells me he feels bad for the apple trees so he doesn't want to pick apples off the trees because there are thousands of apples on the ground and why aren't people getting the apples on the ground? What a waste! I start laughing when he tells Ryan to not pick the apples from the tree and instead to start getting apples off the ground. And then he starts to eat the apples off the ground. It was pretty funny. I seriously thought he was going to try and eat as many apples as he could off the ground so it wouldn't be wasted.

We were early in the season so we only had 3 apples varieties to pick: Granny Smith, Red Delicious and Rome. The Rome apples were gorgeous and very tasty (Kael's words). I let Malia pick a few apples and she really enjoyed it. She managed to eat an entire small apple that she picked herself.

Then we went raspberry picking. Well, it was more like "raspberry searching" since the bushes were picked very clean. I was kind of glad we couldn't find any as raspberry bushes are extremely thorny and I could just imagine all the blood and gore from having the boys try to pick berries.

Unfortunately the pumpkin patch wasn't in season so the kids weren't able to do apples and pumpkins like last year.

Arrival time: 1:30pm
Departure time: 2:30pm
Total time apple picking: 1 hour, including raspberry searching

On the walk back to the car, Shana asked Patrick "So, honey, what do you think? Did you have fun?" She apparently got a look, and a "I can now say I've gone apple picking" reply. I'm guessing Patrick's not coming next year and will probably try to get Truong to ditch the women and children in favor of a round of golf.

We decide to eat at Law's which I've heard is the place to eat at Oak Glen. Whenever we've driven by the place it's always very crowded with a line of people stretching way back. This can support the notion that it indeed is the place to eat. However, I personally feel that it's due to the lemming mentality: you mindlessly go with the crowd simply because there goes the crowd. It wasn't the worst place I've ever eaten but I've certainly eaten at better places. The fact that the girls were so squirrely probably played a large role in that thought.

Gina ate but couldn't sit still and would very loudly tell you that she didn't want to sit still.
Malia sat still but didn't want to eat. Unfortunately she's had a lot of experience in throwing food and can probably nail a cockroach at 6 paces. Shana spent some time playing dodge ball from across the table.

We finally leave the restaurant, much I'm sure to the relief of the other patrons. As we motor off I remember seeing a pumpkin patch at the freeway on-ramp. I call Shana and we (the women) decide to stop by. For the kids. It's always for the kids.

The pumpkin patch is huge. H-U-G-E! It was so nice. It smelled like citronella candles. Even with a petting zoo. We walk in and we're greeted by a very nice lady who takes our picture. (Can we be a little more touristy?) Each family grabs a wheel barrel and off we go hunting for the perfect pumpkin.

And we walk.

And we walk.

And we walk some more.

We pass a corn field. Then a Christmas tree lot. Then we get to a pumpkin patch. Except we can't access this patch (it's roped off) because the pumpkins are still too young. So we walk some more and finally get to the patch of pumpkins that we can harvest. Patrick is all about size and goes looking for a big one. Truong and Kael go off looking for something Kael can carry. That left Shana and I to look after the little girls. The sweet little girls. The sweet little girls who almost came to blows over Gina's kiki (her lovey). It was hilarious. Wars have been fought with less vigor and intensity.

Finally (finally!) we gather our pumpkins, pay, and head back to the cars. Shana's car is loaded up with their wagon so she used our trunk space to change Gina's diaper. The boys are playing and Patrick is putting away their pumpkin. I'm putting Malia in her car seat and in the background I hear Shana undoing the velcro to Gina's diaper. Then I hear a surprised "Oh!" from Shana and a few seconds later a "Catch it! Catch it!" from Truong. Sometime between the "oh!" and the "Catch it! Catch it!" I surmise that Gina's done a #2 and it was going someplace other than the diaper. This is confirmed with a "Geez, Shana! I can't believe you're cleaning a poopy diaper in our friends' car!" from Patrick. We're all laughing -- well, all except Patrick. He's mortified that his wife changed a diaper full of poop in the trunk of our car. "Why didn't you use our car? Our poop should be in our car!! Geez!"

It was a perfect ending to a perfect day.

(Check out the pictures!)

Say CHEESE!

I feel as though I've neglected the blog and for that I apologize. I've been having one of those really hectic everything's going to pot week but yet I can't really tell you what I've been doing. Actually it's been like this for 2 weeks and I've not caught up yet. Truong's been working really late and the kids have hardly seen him. They probably see the barista at the Starbuck's down the street more than they see dear ol' Dad.

Malia has decided that her 6:00am wake up isn't doing it for her -- there's just too much to see and do, and there's not enough time in the day to do it all. To make up for lost time, she's now waking up at 4:00am. Yes, that's four o'clock in the morning. I try to ignore her but she just talks louder. I'm starting to get the feeling that she's hungry because when Truong brings her into bed with us, she comes to me with a huge smile, points at her breastaurant and says "want that, want that." So much for self-weaning. If she'd actually EAT her food instead of THROW her food, she'd probably not wake up hungry every morning.

Kael is doing very well in school. He continues to be the slowest eater in his group and sometimes I see a group of boys hanging around Kael trying to get him to eat faster so they can all play. Lately whenever I ask Kael if he ate his lunch, he tells me yes, he ate half his sandwich. I think half isn't bad. Until I get home and clean out his lunch bag, only to find that he's actually not really eaten half. He's eaten half of a half. So really he ate a quarter. But really it's even less than that because I cut off the crust. So really he's eaten maybe a fifth of a sandwich.

Really!

But it's hard to make him eat because they only have 30 minutes for lunch and playtime so I let it slide so he can play with his friends and have him finish up at home.

Our plans for the big family vacation to Maui this Christmas has fallen to the wayside. We have a large group: 18 people (10 of which are kids ranging from 18 years old Jackie to 16 months old Malia). So we're looking at at least 3 timeshares, with the same dates, for the same island, at the same resort. Near impossible! Add to that airfare alone is about $800 per person... We've decided to instead move the vacation to Spring Break 2008 so we can at least get the timeshare in order and just worry about airfare.

Truong suggested that we all go to Costa Rica in the spring so that's a possibility too. I'm excited about going as I've heard so many great things about it from Truong. I just need to get our passports in order. Even if we don't go there this spring, it'll be nice to have all our passports ready in case we decide to go to Mexico.

My passport still has my maiden name on it and the kids don't have any at all so we needed to get 3 sets of pictures and 3 applications turned in. I decided that I'd get our pictures taken today so we can get this process started. Who knows how long it will take to get the passports so the sooner the better.

I should have gotten an idea of how the day was going to be when Malia once again woke up at 4:00am (she's been doing this over a week). What's that saying about kids? Something about if they do something 3 times in a row, it becomes a habit? All I have to say is... well, OK, I won't type it down. But you all know what I said. So she's up at 4:00am and you know I'm not looking my best because I'm dog tired. Get Kael to school and come home, positive that she'd nap. How can she not - she's been up since 4:00am! Well, she didn't and she can. I get myself ready so I can look somewhat decent in the passport photo. My passport will be with me for 10 years and I'll be darned if I look like crapola for 10 years. I still don't see why I can't use my old passport photo from 1998 when I got plenty of sleep, when my hair was actually styled, when I wore make-up, when I didn't have that "hurry up take the picture before my kids run off!" anxious smile.

We pick up Kael and head over to Costco to take the pictures. I'm told that it will be hard to take a picture of Malia as she's going to have to stand against the white background. And that "they" (I'm guessing "they" to mean the "passport people") don't like when there are hands in the photos. Well, since they now require that everyone including infants get a passport, how in the world do they expect us to get a picture of babies without hands supporting said infants up?! OK whatever, fine. Let's do Kael first.

But Kael doesn't want to take a picture. What do you mean you don't want to take a picture? All you have to do is stand there and smile! It'll take less than 30 seconds!! You just took school pictures!! He starts to cry. Oh geez. Then Malia starts to cry because I'm over here and she's over there, and she thinks she's missing out on the action. I take a huge breath to settle myself. OK fine. I'll do it first. So I take my picture and he shows it to me and I kind of look at it but not really because I've got 2 crying kids in the middle of Costco. He walks away to help another customer.

I talk to Kael and tell him that the pictures are so we can go on a trip as a family. If you don't take the picture, then we can't go. He asks if we're going some place scary. As I sigh, I'm mentally counting to 10.
Me: No, of course not. (Would I take you someplace scary?!)
Kael: Where are we going?
Me: Someplace fun! With monkeys!
Kael: I don't like monkeys. They bite.
Me (gritting my teeth): These monkeys don't bite. How about the beach! You love to beach!
Kael: I don't want to go to the beach. It's too cold.
Me (counting to 10 again): OK. Listen, we can go wherever you want but we need to have a picture of you. Otherwise we can't go.

Kael thinks about it, then agrees. I think he can sense the tension practically emanating from me. He reluctantly shuffles over to the white background and asks that I hold his hand. The problem is I can't hold his hand AND hold Malia's hand too. So I let her go, she starts to freak out and I'm telling the guy to take the picture, take the picture. First Kael looks at the guy with his chin down on his chest. Then I get him to smile, except he smiles with his mouth wide open, as if he's in the dentist's office. Then I tell him to smile just like you did for school pictures. And this is what we got:



Great.

Is this really what he looked like for the school picture?!













So we're done with Kael and it's Malia's turn. The guy tells me to try sitting on the chair and hold Malia at an angle with my hands really low. I try that but she's trying to hold me so I have to pry her hands off my shoulders. So she's bobbling on my lap, off balance as I'm trying to stay out of the picture. Plus she's not napped so she's really tired.


Poor baby. She looks really pooped.


















We are finally done and I'm sure the guy is thinking I'm not going where they are going! We head home and I'm trying to decide if I should take the pictures again.

Oh wait, you didn't get to see my picture:























So what do you think? Should I retake the pictures??

Pop Quiz

Question 1:
What's the worst thing that can happen at dinner (that doesn't involve regurgitation)?

Answer:
Food throwing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Question 2:
What's the worse food you can eat for dinner when involved in food throwing?

Answer:
Rice.

Because it's got enough substance to get lift and distance, sticky enough to stick wherever it lands, small enough to get into crevices and buckles, and soft enough to smear when you try to wipe it up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Question 3:
What's the worse side dish you can eat with rice when involved in food throwing?

Answer:
Fish. In this case salmon.

Enough said.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I give her a spoon. I give her a fork. I even give her a specially shaped plate for easy scooping. And what is her preferred method of food delivery?

Her hands. And she does it with such glee that I can't really get irritated at her.

Until I look at the mess on the floor (in a 3 foot radius), on her chair, tossed across the table and worked into her hair.

And I find that YES, I can get irritated after all. So I take away dinner and give her avocado spears for dessert.

Bad move, mom. Bad move.

The Magazine Drive

I had several people mention to me that they wished there was a way to order some magazines from Kael's magazine drive at school since it's a great deal. So, being the helpful soul that I am, I'll post the on-line ordering system.

All orders are due WEDNESDAY, September 19. I probably should have done this earlier, but hey! I have my own pet project - the Box Tops.

You can place your orders at www.QSP.com
School/Organization #: 710316997
Organization: FAIRMONT PRIVATE SCHOOL
Student's name: KAEL MAI
QSP Student ID#: Mai1
Classroom: P4

When you check out, you can enter in Kael's name and QSP # so he can get credit for your purchase. Credit for what, I don't know -- but you know us overachievers: we'll take credit for anything we can!

This is a pretty good fundraiser. The school gets about 40% back and last year, we made about $80,000. Not too shabby. It was enough to purchase another huge playground structure for the preschoolers so I was pretty happy about that since Kael's benefiting from it this year. I figure it's time for our family to pay it forward.

There's no pressure to order anything - unless you're family. In that case, blood is thicker than money so whip out the credit card! You can never have enough bathroom reading materials.

What happens when Dad dresses the kids

Truong hates it when I re-dress the kids after he gets them dressed.

Absolutely hates it.

He tells me if there are clothes that I don't want the kids to wear, then I should take them out of the closet. But that's not my issue. It's how Truong puts the articles of clothing together to make the final picture that bothers me. We're going outside. In public. Where people can see us.

A picture is worth a 1,000 words so here's what I'm talking about:








And Truong tells me he sees nothing wrong with this picture.

My response: I can't help him if he can't see it.

Golden Rule #132 to a Good Marriage

Rule #132: Thou shalt not eat the last -- of anything.

Especially when it's in your wife's office, on her desk, by her computer.

~~ Hello ~~ Do you want a death wish??

This whole Box Tops thing is taking over my life. Well, maybe not my entire life but certainly a good portion of what little free time I have. I have trimmed Tops sitting in a bag, untrimmed Tops strewn in a pile, empty baggies waiting to be filled, collection buckets to pretty up and bucket signs to cut, all mixed in with Kael's preschool work that I haven't filed yet and his birthday stuff I need to go through and Malia's Halloween costume hanging on the cabinet and coupons I need to look over and catalogs I need to flip through.

And in the middle of it all, snacks that I hoarded from downstairs.

Do. Not. Eat. The. LAST. Snack.

And if you do, don't leave the incriminating empty bag in the office trash can where I can find it. At least hide the bag and pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about when I send you a nasty email. I'm tired enough from running on so little sleep that I just may believe you. At the very least you've planted a big enough seed of doubt in my head so that you're not completely in the dog house.

There's nothing worse than having a craving and not being able to satisfy that craving and then on top of that, finding the empty bag and not having enough crumbs to even get a good lick.

Sheesh, some people...

Can you get any luckier??

Let me tell you about my college friend Crystal. She and her husband Jimmy have this... special touch about them. It's almost like they are descendants of Midas. Everything they touch turns into, well, not gold, but I think something ever better, given this day and age.

What is their special touch you ask? They have what you call "contestia winningitis" where they win every single friggin contest there is out there to win.

I'm serious.

To date between Crystal and Jimmy, they have won:
- A Nissan Xterra SUV
- A Mini Cooper that they call Penelope
- A washer and dryer
- A ton of baby gear (they don't have children)
- Electronic equipment
- Lots of cold hard cash
- Trips to Mexico and Seattle
- Various other gadgets, do-dads and appliances

And these are only the prizes I remember -- I know there are a million more they've won. I just found out Crystal won a trip to Hawaii that they are going to take in February. Who the heck wins a trip to Hawaii and TWO cars?!!

Jimmy and Crystal - that's who.

I don't know why they continue to work. I think they should turn in their employee ID badge, win an RV and motor across America winning prizes as their new profession.

Kael's Deep Thoughts

Things that make you go hmmm.....

Lately Kael's been very into space and planets and meteors -- especially after our failed attempt to view the Perseids meteor shower. He's been asking to go again with Ms. Shana... apparently he thinks we can only go meteor shower viewing with Ms. Shana.

Anyway, we purchased a couple of cool books on space and planets from Costco and while they are way too advanced for his age, he's totally immersed in them and actually remembers facts that we ad-lib from the book. He knows 6-7 of the planets in order (Uranus and Neptune throw him for a loop because they are very similar looking), he knows how the rings of Saturn and the Earth's moon were formed, what a galaxy is, what a black hole is -- just really neat stuff that I wouldn't think a 4 year old would know. I'm surprised that he remembers this stuff and it's pretty funny when he corrects Mom and Dad according to what the other said. If Dad says something that's different from what I say, he'll tell Dad: No, that's wrong and proceed to educate Dad. Apparently I have the final say and that's pretty scary.

According to one of the books, the Earth's moon was created a long time ago by a small planet crashing into Earth and breaking into a lot of little pieces. Most of the little pieces either burned up or "got tossed away" (I haven't explained to Kael about gravity yet - I'll leave that to Dad). What was left was a huge piece of the planet that stayed and became the moon. It was too big to burn up and too big to get tossed so it just stayed there. That's why you see it every night.

That's the Sonya version, ad-libbing from the pictures and captions.

Evidently Kael's been thinking this over for some time because in the car today, coming back from swim lesson, he suddenly asks me: "Mom, where would we live if we couldn't live on Earth?"

Me: Huh?
K: Where would we go if we couldn't live on Earth?
Me: Honey, what are you talking about? We wouldn't live anywhere but Earth.
K: But if a big planet came and hit Earth and cracked it in half... where would we go?
Me (thinking to myself): Oh geez. Why me? Why do I get all the hard questions?
Me (to Kael): That wouldn't happen, Kael. Don't worry about it.
K: But if a big meteor hit us and broke the Earth in half, where would we go? Would we live on another planet?
Me (to myself again): Note to self: No more meteor showers. At least he didn't ask if we would all die like his silk worms.
Me (to Kael): Which planet would you want to live on?
K: I would want to live on Saturn. With all the cool rings.
Me: Yeah, me too.

From there it moved onto whether or not Saturn had space aliens and if they were friendly and what they ate. Definitely one of our more interesting conversations.

Happy Birthday Crystal!

!! HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!

Don't think I forgot about you. I would have posted this last night but I got caught up counting and cutting up Box Tops.

I hope you had a great one yesterday!

Box Tops for Education

You've all heard of Box Tops for Education, right? It's a program by General Mills where certain products have this little coupon that's worth $0.10 to schools. You get a coordinator at the school to rally up the students and parents to collect these Box Tops, clip them out, turn them into the school and the coordinator then submits them to General Mills and the school gets a check. It's basically free money because you're already buying these products and all you really need is a pair of scissors.

Shana was contacted to head the program and was told while it's an easy program, it can get big so maybe she could join in with another with another mom to split the duties. And she said "I know just the person!"

Turns out that person is ME.

Which is fine because I would like to get involved in Kael's school and meet other parents. Plus this seemed like an easy program - just collect, cut and mail, right? And fundraising for prizes and event promotion was something I did BC (Before Children).

Well, we've sort of jumped in head first, without our bikinis, so to speak. Or maybe we have our bikinis on, but the top's all tangled up at our neck, strangling us a bit. Anyway, we've decided to turn this into a competition amongst the classes with prizes and parties to the class with the most Box Tops. Which means we needed to make fliers, go to each classroom to talk up the program, talk with parents to promote the program, find prizes (hopefully donated by local businesses), and keep the enthusiasm up for the entire year. That's in addition to collecting the Tops every week, counting them and keeping a tally for a school of about 675 students.

THEN Shana tells me the Tops need to be cut "right" (they come in all different sizes with the majority of them being teeny tiny rectangles). In other words, after we collect all the Tops, we need to then go through each and every one and trim the coupons along the dotted lines. We're getting coupons that have been torn off, or entire lids are being turned it, or coupons from other programs are being submitted... so we need to do a final check to make sure they are ready for submission. But wait, we're not ready for submission yet. We still need to bundle them before we can ship them. I figured we'd put them all in a big bag and mail them off.

No, I would be wrong. Evidently I didn't read the Box Top Coordinator Handbook (and yes, there really is one). We need to count out 100 coupons and put them in a baggie for submission. That's one way of doing it. That would have been my choice: the fast and easy way.

This is Shana's way: Shana (aka Ms. Anal Retentive to the Nth degree) called me yesterday, as proud as can be, and tells me that she's got all her Box Tops in neat little piles according to size. I'm thinking: (1) she's totally lost it and (2) she's got way too much time on her hands. I ask her (very cautiously because she's quite pleased with herself) "why?" And she tells me so that it's easy for her to bundle it in stacks. I'm thinking you're tossing them in bags, who cares if they are all the same size? To which she tells me that we're stacking them. Literally. That means we count out 50, stack them in little piles, and tie them with string.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!!

I knew then that she was a goner and it was my duty to drag her back to reality (and maybe slap some sense into her, just for kicks). We are NOT stacking them! We are counting out 100 (regardless of size) and dumping them in baggies and mailing them off! We are going to be drowning in these little coupons and the last thing I want to do is to stay up all night cutting, stacking them and then trying to string up a stack of 50 little tiny coupons. As it was, I was up until 12:30am last night cutting the leftover coupons collected from the end of last year. And last year wasn't as highly promoted as what we have planned for this year.

Clearly a saner mind must take control before she's got me using a ruler and X-acto knife to trim the coupons.

(Oh, and if any of you have Box Tops, feel free to mail them to me. Thanks!)

The Circle of Life

Remember those silk worms that turned into moths that mated like crazy and laid about a gazillion eggs? Enough eggs to line the walls and bottom of a huge box? I had real fears of the eggs hatching one morning and we'd have a gazillion little silk worms to feed. I needed to get rid of the box before they hatched because once they hatched I'd feel a responsibility to care for the little buggars. However, Kael was talking about his moths every day so I couldn't get rid of them until his interested waned.

Unfortunately, it never did. Eventually fear of the eggs hatching propelled me to secretly toss the box out one night. And sure enough, the next morning Kael asked what happened to all his moths.

OK so this would have been a prime moment to explain to him about the circle of life, about life and death, and how everything comes around full circle, blah blah blah. BUT how could I explain death caused by me throwing away the eggs in the garbage?? It's not as if they all died a natural death.

Instead I told him that they went home. That they missed their mommies and they all went home to their families. (I know - I can hear you all groaning "Sonya Sonya Sonya.")

I know it's a cop-out but I just wasn't ready to explain the D-words (Died and Dead). So all this time he's gone on with the notion that his silk moths went home. He still talks about them and will tell people he meets in the elevator, the grocery store, the mall, people everywhere about his silk moths and worms.

This morning he wanted to talk to Shana and Ryan. I call them up and first he chats with Shana. Then he chats with Ryan. Somehow the topic of silk worms came up and he asked where are Ryan's silk moths. (I'm a little alarmed because I know that Shana threw them away and didn't tell Ryan the same warm and fuzzy story I told Kael.) Ryan tells him they died. (At this point I'm trying to get Kael to steer the topic to something else: "Ask Ryan what he's eating for breakfast! Ask him what he's wearing! Ask him what he's watching on TV!") Instead Kael gets a concerned look on his face and tells Ryan that his moths (Kael's) went home. And Ryan tells Kael (very matter of factly): "No Kael, your moths died too."

Omigod. The look on Kael's face. I can't even begin to find the words to describe it. He gave me a wide eyed look of... Confusion? Dismay? No it can't be true? He tells Ryan again: "No, Ryan, my moths went home with their mommies." To which Ryan replies: "No Kael! They all died! They're all DEAD."

At this point I've got my head in my hands, with the image of my son's crushed look seared forever onto my retinas, desperately screaming in my head "SHANA TAKE THE PHONE AWAY FROM RYAN!", hoping that she'll get my ESP message. But no, the DiDodo's were probably laughing their asses off, knowing what was going on on this end of the phone call, and did not get my ESP signal.

I manage to get the boys to say good bye and the first thing Kael asks me "Mom, where are my moths? They aren't dead, are they? Are they, mom? Are they DEAD?" I distract him by telling him that I'm on the phone with Ms. Shana and gave him some Matchbox cars to play with. Shana gets on the phone and sure enough, she's laughing her ass off. She tells Patrick that I haven't told Kael about the moths dying and that I told him they went home to their families. Patrick is astonished that I haven't told Kael the truth. He takes the phone away from Shana and tells me he wants to talk to Kael. I ask him why. He tells me that he wants to explain the circle of life to Kael and how everything dies in the end. But I tell him I'm not ready to talk to Kael about that stuff yet so Patrick (who knows me so well and already anticipates the years ahead) gives me an option: "Sonya, you have a choice. Either let me talk to him about the circle of life or I will talk to him about the other circle of life."

Great, that's just what I need: the Italian Stallion telling Kael about the birds and the bees.

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth

Woo-hoo! Christmas came early to the Mai house and with it came not one... not two... but FOUR teeth!!

All I can say is: finally. Maybe now we can get some sleep and perhaps squeeze in a meal (or two or three). Malia's top two molars cut through Monday and Tuesday. I noticed that her bottom tooth was starting to push up and thought to myself: "great, another month of agony." But surprisingly it cut through within a few days. And even more surprising was another bottom tooth on the other side cut through last night without any of her typical signs of teething (no red gums, no bruising).

Unfortunately with her new teeth making an appearance, also comes biting. She's like a little piranha - biting all exposed areas within reach. My arm, my shoulder, my fingers... Kael. He is not thrilled about this new development in her personality and in fact I'm waiting for him to bite back. I know it's coming, the writing's on the wall -- or in this case, his face, that look in his eyes -- so it's just a matter of when.

Trix are for kids

Just a few more weeks and Kael will be FOUR! Crikey, time flies fast. He's of an age now where he has definite preferences, likes and dislikes. I recognize the benefit of giving him opportunities to make choices -- to both help with his decision making abilities and to get him involved in his day-to-day life.

Take for example: cereal. It seems so silly that choosing a cereal would be such a big step. But look at it from a 4 year old's point of view: the endless aisle of colorful boxes, the pretty pictures, the cool shapes, the neat toys. Do I want the pirate cereal or the tiger cereal? Wow - marshmallows! The choices are mind boggling.

The last time I let Kael choose his cereal he picked Peanut Butter Captain Crunch. Not the best but certainly not the worst. He actually ate the entire box. By himself. Malia wasn't too keen on the Captain and stuck by her trusted Cheerios. On Wednesday I decided to pick out his cereal myself so I can be assured of a certain level of nutrition. Kael won't eat Cheerios as he's deemed it a "baby cereal", Raisin Bran is out due to the raisins, Kellogg's Corn Flakes look so boring, and Grape Nuts -- we used to feed it to the ducks at the duck pond. Plus I had to pick a cereal from General Mills for the Box Top. So I picked Chex and, keeping in mind that he's 4 and will want something with a little more oompf to it, Chocolate Chex (made with real cocoa powder) was the ultimate winner.

Thursday morning he was thrilled at the new cereal and ate it quickly at first. We were running late to get to preschool so I was really hurrying him. And true to Murphy's Law, the later it became, the slower he ate. Finally it was a pretty soggy mess and even I couldn't in good conscience encourage him to finish. I threw some in a snack trap for Malia to eat on the way and off we went. We were super late and the whole way there Kael kept telling me: "I can't believe you made me late for school, Mom! I can't believe we're late! Mom, we're really late!" I park the car and I hear the school bell ring -- crap!! I throw open Malia's door to get her out.... and she's covered in chocolate powder. Covered. Her face. Her hair. Her ears. Her chest. She's a total mess. I stand there and stare at her, not knowing where to begin, what to do. Kael snaps me out of my dumbfoundment with a "MOM GET ME OUT OF HERE! I'M LATE FOR SCHOOL!" I take her, grab a wipe, run around to let Kael out and we start speed walking to the gates with me trying to clean Malia who's perched on my hip and she trying to avoid the wipe. Of course the classroom door was closed and circle time had already started. Everyone stared at us as we entered the classroom and I can only imagine what a sight we made: slightly out of breath with a pissed off Malia who only had half her face clean because she kept turning her face away. Poor Kael - he was mortified as he tried to get to his spot on the circle without attracting further notice. I felt awful. He's not even 4 and I've already embarrassed him in front of his friends.

After school we went to the market and this time I allowed Kael to pick his cereal. I managed to steer him away from Lucky Charms and Coco Puffs. I couldn't get him to go for the healthier flake cereals because he wanted a "ball cereal that is crunchy." We settled on.... Trix.

I know. Trix. I know! I don't remember the colors being so.... so.... vibrant. Shana was floored that I had Trix in my home. No surprise here, but Gina and Malia loved it. Gina could not get enough of the colorful little balls. I have yet to read the ingredients list and I don't think I will. Ignorance is bliss. Hey, at least Malia is eating something, right??

"I've been working on the rainbow..."

On a typical day, we run errands after Kael is picked up from school at noon. Today we headed over to Costco. As I load the kids up in the shopping cart and head over to the entrance, I notice Kael's singing something but I don't pay much attention because it's a couple hundred degrees outside (seriously!) and Malia's determined to chuck her sippy cup onto the ground (3 attempts, one successful). As I enter into the cool air conditioned oasis that is Costco, I finally take note of the words of Kael's song:

I've been working on the rainbow, all the dah-dah day!
I've been working on the rainbow, all the long day gone!

I start to laugh and I ask him, What's wrong with the rainbow that you have to work on it? He replies, it's broken and it's taking me a really long time to fix it. Then he sings:

I've been working on the rainbow, all on Saturday!
I've been working on the rainbow, all two Saturdays long!

It was hilarious. He clearly gets his singing ability from me as I can't remember words to songs to save my life. But I tend to lah-lah-lah my way through songs so he's a couple of steps above me.

At Costco we got Malia a little Winnie the Pooh ride-on toy. She always gets on Gina's so I figured it was time to get her her own ride. At home both she and Kael wanted to ride on it and I had to intervene before there was blood shed. I need to take a picture of Kael while he's on it, with his knees practically up to his ears because he's all leg. So Malia's on it and Kael's pushing her which she does not like. I think she realized this was her toy as she didn't even want him touching it. After a few minutes, she figured out how to propel it with her feet and within 15 minutes, she was able to go in an intentional direction. The funny part is as she rolled past, she'd wave and say "bye!" It was hilarious. Maybe more so for me as I'm her mom than for the rest of you...

We didn't do much this Labor Day weekend. We couldn't - it was too hot! It wasn't just hot or really hot or even really REALLY hot. It was "I can't believe how f****ing hot it is" hot. Yesterday it reached 111 degrees. On Sunday is a little cooler at 108 degrees. I knew all of Southern California would be at the beach so I definitely did not want to head there. And we couldn't head to California Adventure to the water park because of the Disney marathon. So instead we set up the slip and slide in the front yard.


Just add water.












Thai getting a little help from Robert. He's never been on a slip-n-slide before (Thai, not Robert). Robert was telling me he used to make SnS with trash bags. In Fresno. Go figure.















I love the look of concentration on Kael's face as he takes his running start.























Perfect take off - right in the middle...



























and into the puddle of water...



























for a perfect landing!



























This is what summer looks like.











Thai wasn't into the SnS so we moved the activities to the backyard and set up the kiddie pools. Clearly he needs to spend some summer time in Fresno with Robert.


And from there the kids moved to the sand table.
























And while the kids were playing, Dad cooled off. Hmm... maybe we ARE in Fresno.

Test Results are In!

Well, actually they've been in for a week or so but I keep forgetting to post them. Thank you to everyone who asked.

So here are the results from Malia's tests:

Blood - Negative for celiac's disease
Poop - Negative for malabsorption
Sweat - Negative for CF

What does that all mean?? It means she's perfectly normal. Her thyroid test done earlier was within normal ranges too. Soo, she's just a little peanut. A really REALLY little peanut.

She's been on a food and milk strike the past few weeks and I can tell she's lost weight. The pants that she used to fit are saggy and she's back to wearing some things in size 3-6 months. I can count on her to eat at least 2-3 spoons of whatever I'm feeding her before she refuses. Interestingly though, she has no problems eating pretzels and mint chocolate chip ice cream. Yesterday Truong was giving her some of his mint ice cream and I placed a piece of real food on top (I can't remember what it was). She ate it but had a look on her face like "What the heck?!" We did it again and she gave me an evil eye but ate it. The third time Truong put the real food on first then scooped a bit of ice cream with the tip of the spoon -- and she just ate the ice cream and use her tongue to push back the food. Smart girl. So next Truong got ice cream first and put food on top, in front. She used her lips and sucked the ice cream from underneath the food and left the food on the spoon. Again.

So do you think we're going to have any eating issues with her?

This morning we went to dim sum and she seemed to like it. She certainly ate more that she's been eating, and she ate a lot of the pluot I gave her for dessert. I think there's something about holding the fruit in her hands and taking a bite out of it that's getting her to eat the fruit. Maybe I should make a giant meatball the size of a baseball and let her have a go at it... At this point I'm willing to try anything!