The merits of fiber

I've been dying to take the kids to Disneyland but for one reason or another, I haven't been able to in months. We have the Southern California pass so it's only good on the weekdays plus Sunday, pending major holidays and breaks like winter, spring and summer. This past Sunday started off to be a miserable rainy morning so I was pretty bummed. By afternoon, however, it cleared up enough so that we were comfortable taking the kids after Malia's nap. I was very excited and so were the kids.

Thinking that the rain scared away most people, I was surprised to see that was not the case. There was a lot more people there than I expected. We find parking and start hauling out the stroller, snacks and water bottles. I go to get Kael and open the door to see him sort of hunched over in his seat with a very pained look on his face. I asked him "What's wrong?" He replied that he had a tummy ache.

My kid hardly ever gets stomachaches. Ever. I can't even remember the last time he had one so for him to say that he had one, shot off warning bells in my head. In fact, only 2 words were flashing in my head:
Diarrhea? Vomit?
Diarrhea? Vomit?
Which one is it going to be??

I didn't know what to do. We were 20 minutes away from home, too far from a bathroom since we were in the middle of the parking lot in Downtown Disney and I had nothing in the car that we could have used to catch any... bodily fluids. So I asked him very carefully (as if the volume of my voice could tip the control he had over his bodily functions) "Do you need to use the bathroom?"

In my mind, I was torn: I hoped he wanted to use the bathroom to get rid of the "poison" so we could enjoy the trip but at the same time, if he did indeed need to use the bathroom, how much time did we have before things started flowing? He thought it over and decided that he didn't need to use the bathroom but still wanted to go to DLand. So we tucked him into the stroller and headed off.

We managed to get on 2 rides before he said he had enough. Poor little guy walked hunched over like he was 94 years old. He looked awful. I knew he so wanted to stay and enjoy the trip but just couldn't. As we headed out, I asked him if he wanted to eat at the Rainforest Cafe. He always loves that place and it was time for dinner anyway. He weakly nodded his head and though I had some misgivings, we decided to stay for dinner, figuring maybe he'd eat more at a place that he really liked than eating at home.

We get a table and things went downhill from there. Kael was fine - he was just quiet from the tummy ache. Truong tried to take him to the bathroom but it was an unsuccessful trip. Malia, in the meantime was a holy terror. Given how much we eat out as a family I don't know where we went wrong with her. The girl cannot sit still to save her life. She's got this thing where she wants to walk on the table. When does she ever walk on tables? She's not allowed to do that. Ever. So I don't know how and why she would think that's OK. When Truong gets mad at her for jumping from chair to chair and scolds her, she cries and whines to "Sit with mama." So she gets passed to me. Until I get mad at her for jumping across chairs and trying to climb on table then she cries and whines to "Sit with Daddy." Back and forth.


See her leg? She'd give the Energizer Bunny a run for his money.


"Look at me! I'm so cute!" If I had a staple gun handy....


So between Kael looking like he wanted to die and Malia's butt not touching the chair once during dinner, let's just say it wasn't one of our better dinners and I'll leave it at that.

Towards the end, Kael asked to use the bathroom and I hustled him in. Once he was on the toilet, he decided that he couldn't poop there and wanted to go home to poop. I tried everything to convince him to seize the moment (carpe diem!) and do it now, but it was a fruitless plea. We then hustled back to the table where I told Truong we had to leave. Now. Kael was like a ticking time bomb and I didn't know when he was going to blow.

We speed home, plop him on the toilet where he proceeded to poop. According to Truong, it was just one, uh, log but it was a big one. (Thanks for the update, hon.) Anyway, after his tour of duty in the bathroom, Kael was back to his normal hyper self. Evidently, that was the only thing holding him back.

So, yes, we're going back to eating oatmeal every other day.

Oreo, no more!

I can take Oreo's off my list of Home Appropriate Cookies.

I still like the taste. I still think it's the go-to cookie when it comes to milk dunk-ability. But it's got to go.

Kael's preferred post-"nap" (hah! what a joke that moniker is) snack is a few cookies and a glass of milk. This week's cookie is the Oreo. Last week was the chocolate chip and the week before the oatmeal raisin. We like variety. Anyway he left an Oreo and I saw Malia trying to reach for it. I thought she was reaching for the milk as that's what she likes after her nap.

Oh no.

She spied the Oreo and wanted it. Forget the milk, I want the cookie. I gave it to her and went about my business. I would check on her periodically and could see that she was eating it quite slowly, turning it around and around in her hands. After taking 2 bites, she placed the Oreo on the table and looked at it carefully. I thought: what the heck is she doing?!

She finally picks up the Oreo and starts trying to break it apart. I guess the Oreo is more cemented together (for lack of a better description) than the French cookies my mom sent us. She couldn't figure out how to pry it apart but knew after taking several bites that there was a cream filling to be had. She breaks the top cookie layer in multiple pieces and starts to eat the cream. By this time I'm a little grossed out, not so much because of the mess, but because of the vast amounts of filling being ingested. I bought Double Stuffed Oreo's (it was on sale at Target) so there was a lot of filling.

I walk away -- big mistake, by the way -- and let her go at it. I return to give her milk and see her licking the cookie parts clean.

I mean it was CLEAN. Not a smear of filling could be found. It was a chocolate cookie, not an Oreo layer. I was amazed. A little shocked and, OK, I confess, more than a little impressed. I look at her face it's totally shiny from the filling. I take her to the bathroom to clean her off and this is where I decide that the Oreo will not be purchased for consumption in the Mai Household in the future.

Have you ever tried to wash Oreo filling off your hands? That shi-- that stuff doesn't come off! It's like water repellent. Water simply beaded on her face and hands. No matter how much I rubbed and scrubbed, I felt that crap just moving around on her face, like thick lotion. It was as if I was rubbing it into her skin rather than washing it off. Even with soap. Anyway, after a while, she got tired of getting vigorously scrubbed and started struggling, demanding "cookie, more cookie mama!" So I gave up with the soap and water bit and moved onto toweling her off. I think I got most of it off onto the towel and I figure by the time it's bathtime, maybe the filling will harden on her face and make for easier washing.

So, after dealing with a minor tantrum because I wouldn't give her anymore Oreo's, she was satisfied with some blueberries.

Which she proceeded to smash with her fingers like fat ants.

HE'S NOT NAPPING!!

HE'S NOT NAPPING ANYMORE! WHAT DO I DO?? WHAT DO I DO???

It's official: Kael's outgrown the nap. The kid went from a superb napper of 2-3 hours in the afternoon to zero... zilch... no hours. It's killing me. The afternoon is MY time to do MY things, to veg in front of the TV to watch MY shows. And now I've got Kael hanging around my neck: what are you doing, Mom? Can I watch TV? Can I play on the computer? Can you take me to the park? Can I eat some of that?

Don't get me wrong. I love Kael to death. I love spending time with him. I love playing with him. I love talking to him.

Just not from 6:30am when he wakes up until 8:30pm when he goes to bed. OK, sure he's in school from 8:30am - 12:00pm. But then I have Malia. Again, like Kael, I love her to death, love spending time with her, etc., etc...

But come on! It's as if the kids are tag teaming me: he's in school, I have her. She naps, he's wide awake, bouncing off the walls. She wakes up, and he's grouchy because he's tired. Ack! Kill me now!

Right now I've got him in his room for at least an hour. If luck is with me, he'll get bored and fall asleep. Usually though, my luck is in the crapper and he's just biding his time before he opens his door and searches for me. About 50% of the time, I'll send him back to his room to play with the door closed because I've spent all my precious kid-free afternoon time cleaning up the house and making my lunch. I've had no Sonya Time. So I send him back in for 30 minutes so I can check email and surf the web for a bit before the guilt kicks in and I set him free.

It's a new time adjustment for me -- one that I seem to be struggling with more than when he went from 3 to 2 to 1 nap a day as he grew up. Knowing what I know now, my kids will be participating in many after school activities.

I plan on having them letter in every sport offered.

Cream filled cookies

I love cream filled cookies, like Oreos. Oh man, they are so good with milk. I don't buy them often but when I get a craving, I'll go through a bag in about a week. By myself.

For New Year's my mom sent up some French style creme filled cookies that the kids absolutely love. They are pretty darn good and I'm bummed that we're down to one package. Malia in particular really likes these cookies and will take her time eating them. Because of this, she's discovered the creme layer in between the cookie sandwich. She's become quite adept at separating the cookie to get to the creme:


The filling is all over the place: on the table, on all five fingers, on her clothes. Somehow (miraculously) she didn't get any on her hair. Go figure...


She uses her thumb to carefully scrape off filling. She's pretty good at it.


Jackpot!


Oh yeah, baby. Come to mama!


The only time you'll see her sucking her fingers.

I guess this is what I get for giving into my sweet cravings while I was pregnant with her. At the time I didn't see anything wrong with buying a whole a cake and eating it by myself.


Wait. That's not considered weird now, is it?

A Visit with Cousin Ronan

We had a very busy weekend as my brother-in-law and his family came for a visit from Sacramento. We hadn't seen them since Ronan was just a couple of months old (he's now 6 months old) so I was looking forward to seeing the Little Buddha.

At 6 months old, he's already 17 lbs.
Malia, at 20 months old, weighed in at 17.12 lbs.
Ronan's head is bigger than her head.
His wrist and arms are bigger than her wrist and arms!

The only thing I could say that Malia has more of than Ronan, is hair. And if you've seen Malia, that's not saying much. Quite honestly, it's really not so much that she has more hair, it's more that he doesn't have any hair. Yet.

Kael spent 2 nights over at G'ma's house and had the time of his life with Uncle Thien and Aunt Maureen. So much that taking him home for naps was a battle and a half. After extensive negotiations, promises to come back for dinner and finally threats of no contact for non-compliance, he grudgingly went home (with his family, mind you!) for naps. We pretty much spent all weekend at G'ma's and only came home to nap and sleep.

I (once again as is my habit when exposed to family events) gorged myself to the point of having stomach aches. There's something wrong with the neural connections between my stomach and my brain. They're just not connecting. You know how some people are compulsive gamblers? I'm a compulsive eater. Truong (after witnessing my unsnapping of the top buttons on my jeans on more occasions than I want to mention in a public blog) said that he was going to start calling me "150". As in that's how much I'm going to weigh. My response: if I get to 150, I'm going to squash his ass so he better be nice to me now... so pass me the dessert, please.

Malia (I was happy to notice) ate a ton this weekend. A ton! Was it a coincidence that I didn't cook a single meal at all? Perhaps... Well, it's probably more than likely! If I could get away with not having to cook at all, I'm down for it 100%. For Malia's sake, of course...

She was very comfortable with her Aunt and Uncle and I don't think had an opinion of her young cousin. Unless Truong or I tried to hold him, then she freaked out. Otherwise she looked at him as though he were some kind of science experiment. She started trying to play with him tonight which was very cute. We stuck him in her old Jumperoo and he was content to simply sit in there and look at Kael and Malia run around. Once in a while she'd try to get him to jump by grabbing onto the edge of the seat and bouncing him herself. Luckily they are about the same size so she didn't get too much lift. I did see her touch his head on several occasions -- and she did it very gently, not bomping him so I was pleased that she could be gentle despite her occasional feelings of jealousy. There was some discussion amongst the adults as to whether or not she was petting him as a loving gesture or was actually wiping her hands on his head as she was eating a Vietnamese ham at the time. We'll never know. Doesn't matter. It was done gently!

All in all it was a great weekend. Everyone's leaving tomorrow evening so tomorrow will be my last opportunity to pack on some pounds before I have to eat my own cooking. I better make the most of it.

The Big Boy Playdate

The Big Boys have a playdate.

Truong, Dennis and Patrick are all taking the day off from work and hopping on a plane to fly to San Francisco to golf at the Olympic Club. The Olympic Club has the distinction of being the oldest, the most exclusive athletic club in America. The wait list to be a member is about 7-10 years. That's assuming you can afford the initiation fee (around the several $100k range) and the monthly fees. And that you got nominated by several existing members in good standing at the Club.

They've had several US Opens there so it's a great course. But just because you're a member of the Club doesn't mean you get golf privileges. You basically have to wait for someone to drop dead to take their spot since no one ever drops. Ever. And then you have to pay an absurd amount of money to be able to play, after making a reservation months in advance.

Anyway, the boys are going there February 21.

Nice playdate, huh? Erin, Shana and I are going to have to plan a trip somewhere too. And I'm not talking about 2 hour trip in between naps to the mall or a fast trip to get a pedicure. Oh no. I'm talking about a trip that involves a hotel stay and some kind of transportation where we're not behind the wheel.

Oh yeahhhh.

The Naked Resistance

Kael has gotten a taste of not napping and he really likes it. He likes it a lot. Unfortunately, on the days that he wakes up early (6:00am) he need that nap.

Today was such a day. Friday he woke up at 7:15am (an awesome time compared to his usual 5:30am-6:00am wake-up), went to school, had a park play date and then went to Grandma's for a sleepover. According to Grandma, he did not nap. I told her that was fine, but make sure he went to bed early.

This morning he woke up at 6:00am, went to swim class and then to a New Year's lunch at Great Grandma's condo where he played with his cousins until 1:30pm. Today was a perfect nap day.

I went to put Malia down while Dad took care of Kael. Before I closed Malia's door, Kael made sure to let me know that he wasn't going to close his eyes. Talk about a premonition for troubles ahead...

Upon leaving Malia's room, I saw that Kael's door was opened so I closed it. He freaked out because that meant he would have to nap. Rather than calmly talking to me, he ranted and raved and threw a huge fit, causing me to loose my temper and in the end, I told him he was to stay in his room for at least one hour with the door closed. Not negotiable.

I walked away and heard him yelling in his room. I turned on the monitor to see him tearing off all his bed sheets and all his blankets off his bed. He then chucked his animals and his pillows across the room. I thought OK, now he's got a naked bed, there's nothing left to throw off. Maybe he'll rest a little.

I was wrong. He proceeded to take off all his clothes including his underwear and stand on top of his bed in protest. Naked as a jay bird. Eventually he got tired of standing and sat down (still upright, of course). Then he'd stand up, get tired, and sit down. Up and down he went. It was really funny to watch.

Well, it's funny unless he decides to also include a pee-protest, then I'll have to open a can of whoop-ass and make sure he never does that again.

I turned off the monitor and cleaned up the house a bit. About 30 minutes later, I checked on him again and.... couldn't find him. I did see a bunch of his blankets back on the bed. So maybe he got cold and pulled up the blankets and then fell asleep. I won't know until I "release my prisoner" at 4:30pm.

Wish me luck.

Malia, the Two-Timer

Shana and I have always joked that Ryan and Malia are destined to at least date, if not marry each other. Ryan gets so goo-goo eyed over her and she's all about her "Ry DoDo." It's really cute.

On Saturday I invited Erin, Kaitlyn and Josh over for dinner. Dennis was traveling for work and poor Erin was solo parenting for 10 days. No one should have to solo parent for ten days. Even worse: they don't have any family near-by to help out. No Mom, Dad, Sister, Brother or Step-anything of any kind -- heck, not even a three-times removed cousin to mooch an hour for a mental health break. So I made some dinner and had the kids come over to give Erin a much needed break.

The kids had a great time. Not one fight, not one mean word, not one battle to break up over a period of 2.5 hours. It was a really good time for both sets of parents and kids involved. We only requested one thing of the boys: to please play downstairs since Malia was following them everywhere. Kaitlyn was content to hang out downstairs and play with all the stuff there but Malia only wanted to play with the boys. I was worried that in their play, the boys would accidentally crash into Malia or bump her down the stairs.

At first I thought she wanted to play with the boys (plural). But eventually I figured she really wanted just Josh. Everywhere he went, she was hot on his tail. If he got too far ahead of her, she would yell out "Josh! Josh! Josh!" Even when he was right there next to her, she'd still call out "Josh! Josh! Josh!" as if to say: Look at me! Notice me! I'm right here!

It was really funny. I mentioned to Erin that if Ryan gets wind of this he's going to be really jealous. We both laughed as Malia once again, called out to Josh to wait for her.

Truong is a very smart man. However, he's not the most observant person in the world. This can be said of most men, as you ladies will agree. Because he can sometimes be pretty dense when it comes to human behavior, I was really surprised when he made this comment: "If Ryan ever finds out about Malia and Josh, he's going to kick Josh's butt!" Malia's fixation on Josh must have bordered on stalking for Truong to take notice.

So I called Shana and told her that Ryan's got some competition: Malia's got a little crush on Josh.

She's quiet and then she says: "Well, it sounds like your daughter's a little easy!"

I probably should have taken offense... but instead, I busted out laughing. I still laugh today when I think about that comment. Malia just spent a few hours with Ryan earlier on Thursday when Shana watched her while I had a dentist appointment. Ryan, I'm told, tried to lure the girls into Gina's bed with him. Malia didn't even notice that I left the house and she's never been babysat by anyone outside of Grandma and her Dad. Shana contributes her complete ease to having Ryan there.

So fast forward a mere 2 days later and Malia's goo-goo eyed over Josh.

OK OK, if she were a little older (and her last name was Hilton, not Mai), I'd have to admit, it is a little hinky.

It will be interesting to see who she trails after when both Ryan and Josh are around.