Seattle Pics & Casualty of Toddlerdom

Here are two pictures of Mia taken by Cindy Yen before we left Seattle. I like these because they show how exuberant Mia is about everything. I'll have to post more later. Go to Cindy's blog to see a few more.

Yesterday I made the mistake of putting my glasses on the edge of the bathtub while I showered. These are my old Kenneth Cole ones that I got right before we left SF in 2004 and I LOVE them. Anyway, as I was shampooing my hair I had a feeling, call it mother's intuition, that Mia was up to no good. She had been playing with her Leapfrog school bus just a few seconds ago. But as I opened my left eye and peered through the soap stinging it, I saw that she broke my beloved glasses. She was of course saying, "Uh-oh, uh-oh," in her sing-song voice. I got over it quick though. Now that I am a mother, my personal possessions do not have as much value as they once held in my eyes.

Mia Speak

It can be a challenge to decipher Mia's utterings. It's not all gibberish. For a couple of days Mia has been saying "an-mo". I thought Mia was saying Elmo and each time, I told her to go get any of her Elmo items or I would hand one to her and she always looked confused. I finally figured out that "an-mo" means "animals". Duh!!!

A few weeks ago, Mia also kept saying "ai-na" each time a hat was in view or about to be put on her. It also took me a long time to figure out she meant hat. My conjecture is that each time I put a hat on her, I said, "wo ai ne" which means "I love you" in Mandarin. We have tried to correct her. It's "mao zi" in Mandarin, but she's being stubborn as usual. Whenever she sees a hat, whether in books or for sale in stores she shouts out, "ai na".

Big Girl Now & Cracka Peese!

On our way back from LA, we moved Mia to be forward-facing and behind the passenger seat. Lots more for her to see now including us. Now Mia has more leg room, her poor long legs were always bent before. The bad thing is that she is super alert and it takes her longer to fall asleep. Being able to see us has also increased her demands. At least when Mia could not see us she did not really ask for stuff. This segues into her demands for crackers and to get up for most of her moments awake on Tuesday which amounted to about 4.5 hours.

Our Missy has not been much of a fruits and veggies girl. She also does not like milk or eggs must to my dismay, but in the last couple of weeks she has decided to try some fruits. Before this she would only really eat apples. Even then she would spit out the pulp after sucking out the juice. Lately she eats raisins, grapes, strawberries, peaches and watermelon when she feels like it. But her all time favorite food is and will always be crackers. She is very demanding about it and can scream, "Craka Peese!" at the top of her lungs. Luckily we've tricked her into believing that certain cereals are also crackers so she eats Quaker Oat Squares and Cheerios believing they are indeed crackers. For a special treat she will get Asian Seaweed wrapped crackers or Earth's Best Big Bird and Elmo face crackers. But somehow I am not sure I want her to think she's eating Big Bird and Elmo. Seems wrong, plus we are trying to keep a lid on the whole Elmo and Sesame Street obsession.

I have found a great source of FAT for her. She likes peanut butter and thank the Lord she is not allergic. It's something she rarely turns down. Whereas it's hit or miss with cheese. One day she will love cheese and the next she'll squeeze it into bits and offer it to Kona. Trader Joes sells pretzels with peanut butter inside. These are great snacks for Mia.

Grandpa Update
Just got a call while writing. Well, less than a year after my Pua Pua passed away, my Gong-Gong is gone too. Grandpa died this morning around 10ish. I am sad, but thankful for the chance to say good-bye and spend time with him. He had a great life, was 93 and most of his family members were around in his final days. Please pray for God's comfort for my family members.

A Young Life & End of Life

We made it down to LA last Thursday the 12th. Lots of road tripping for us. Mia again developed a little diaper rash from being holed up in the Britax, but all in all, it wasn't a terrible road trip. We left around naptime and Mia slept for two hours. We made it to Agoura Hills in time to have dinner with Papa's sister Sophia who was there on business. It was a special treat to see her since the last time was last October. Aunty Sophia spoiled Mia Elmo toys. She was in heaven.

After dinner, we headed into the LA traffic to see my Gong-Gong or grandpa who is in the hospital. He enjoyed seeing Mia who was shy and anxious at first. Now that she has seen him for three days in a row, she happily blows kisses, waves and "performs" for him. Gong-Gong is amazingly alert, but his lung cancer has spread and the pneumonia is no longer the primary reason for his labored breathing. It's the cancer. He looked pretty weak, but the following day, he looked even worse and was put on a Bipap machine instead of a regular O2 mask. This machine pumps O2 with pressure so that even with shallow breaths that he takes, he will get enough O2. Not a long-term solution, so the family had a meeting to decide how to proceed. Our family like most Asian American families does not handle such end-of-life issues very openly and it is customary to not let the dying elderly in on what's going on. After some discussion, everyone agreed that it was best to let my grandpa know that the cancer had spread and that he was not going to improve. Up until today, no one had told him that his cancer had spread. Not a way to die with dignity. But I realize that I have a very Western perspective on death and dying that rubs against the "old ways." Some family members felt that protecting him from suffering also means protecting him from the truth--knowing that he is going to die. But everyone dies. It's not to be feared. But some of my familyl members are not Christians and they fear death.

Anyhow, Gong Gong did not want a feeding tube (can't eat with the Bipap) or intubation, he agreed to be made comfortable. Then he asked to be baptized which is an amazing testimony to the power of prayer and God's ability to change people's hearts. Around the time of my Pua Pua's death, Gong Gong had already accepted Christ. My mom's pastor came this evening an the whole lot of us were around his bedside as he received his baptism. It was a just a lovely scene and I believe my grandpa was filled with joy that only comes from the Lord. We took some photos of his baptism, but I didn't bring my ScanDisk on the trip so I'll have to post them later. We are not sure how much longer my gramps has, but I think everyone is relieved that the truth is out and that he was able to make his own decision about the end of his life. It seemed that a weight had been lifted. I am glad he can die with dignity though it sounds cliche. In our family, a lot of "truth hiding", a euphemism for lying, goes on when it comes to the elderly. My paternal grandmother never was told that my father died even though she outlived him for more than 10 years. My grandmother was not told that her brother died. While it was all done with the best intentions, it's not a way to treat people with respect. I could go on, but I'll stop here.

Update on Wa-Wa
Sadly, I did not get a chance to repair her before our trip to LA. When I finally located my sewing materials, Wa-Wa's arm went missing. I last left it on the couch next to Wa-Wa, but the next time I looked over it was gone! I think Kona took it and hid it somewhere. We were in a rush to leave for LA, so I will have to do a search and rescue operation when we return. We did find back-up Wa-Wa so Mia's asleep with her now.

Casualties of Toddler-dom

Mia's beloved Wa-Wa has suffered a tremendous tragedy today. A few days ago, I noticed that her right arm was rotated in an unusual manner. Turned out some stitching had come apart. With the hectic time settling in and unpacking I put off Wa-Wa's surgery. Bad move. This morning, Wa-Wa woke up an amputee. I promptly hid Wa-Wa or sent her off to recover so that Mia would not pick apart her stuffing.

You see, based on prior experience, I knew of Mia's penchant for removing stuffing. One of Mia's pink puppies was disemboweled by her a few weeks ago. A hole developed in the tummy and the next thing I knew there was white fuzz or filling all over the car. I never fixed Pink Pup either because we have two of them.

Tonight when it was bedtime, Mia came across Wa-Wa's arm and asked for Wa-Wa. She kept asking, but we just kind of ignored her since we could not find back-up Wa-Wa either. She is not exactly the same as Wa-Wa, but pretty darn close. She sports a different muu muu and her hair is a different variety of yarn. Thankfully I found back-up Wa-Wa after Mia went to bed. I snuck her into the crib. I wonder if Mia will think about where she came from.

We plan on the surgery tonight. I'll report back on how it goes.

And if anyone happens to be in Hawaii and comes across Wa-Wa's doppleganger, please purchase her for Mia. I will reimburse you. Though she's a Hawaiian doll, she's made in the Philippines under Regency Toys.

New Keys

Our Sunnyvale home closed today and we promptly had the carpets cleaned as we expect our belongings tomorrow! Not too dirty as the previous owners hardly lived there. Mia loved roaming the new house and climbing all the steps. Kona has been acting very anxious and is totally confused. She does not like it when we leave her. I think her little brain thinks we won't return for her. Truthfully, I think Mia is confused too. She probably wonders when we are going to return to our home in Seattle.

The townhouse seems smaller than we remembered. I guess when all furniture is removed a place tends to appear smaller. We hope when our furniture is placed that the place will appear bigger to us.

We met three of our new neighbors. They all have toddlers a bit older than Mia, so that's a great sign. Hopefully Mia will get a chance to play with them one of these days, but I think she really misses Poppy and Maddie. She says both their names randomly ; (.

Part 2 of Catch Up

With the car packed to the brim and Mia and Kona snug we tearfully left Seattle this morning. We enjoyed breakfast at UVillage with the Hwangbo's who saw us off. Mia got the playground all to herself and Kona got one last Seattle walk in. I can't believe that our time in Seattle has come to an end.

Here's another catch-up post and I think that's about all the stuff worth blogging about.

Memorial Day Trip-Sadly we had to miss Pam's 4oth birthday bash to search for a new home in the Bay Area. After a couple of days of looking we had to choose between a single family home in a great community, Foster City or a larger townhome for less in Sunnyvale. We opted for the latter and are currently bound for our new home. The townhome has four bedrooms and plenty of room for us to grow into. I have grand plans for Mia's room. We are leaving behind the puppy theme and going for dragonflies and butterflies.

First Love-Mia fell in love with Elmo. We read an Elmo book at a bookstore and she would not stop asking for Elmo. Nowadays she gets to watch a couple of Elmo clips on youtube each day. Her favorites are of Elmo and Norah Jones and Elmo and the Goo Goo Dolls. We try not to indulge her Elmo obsession too much, but we bought her a stuffed Elmo that we hoped would replace Wa-Wa as her lovey, but Elmo still plays second fiddle when it is time to sleep. Below is a pic of Mia wearing an Elmo t-shirt her Aunty Sarah bought her. She also happened to be caught red-handed playing with toilet paper.
On Two Feet-Mia has been growing more and more steady on her feet in the last month. She is quite proficient at walking and it is only a matter of time before my baby girl is running. This developmental milestone has not gone by without incident. Mia still has a knot on her forehead from a fall that happened three weeks ago. A day did not go by without some accident and it took me a while to stop worrying over all her bumps and bruises. Usually Mia cries for about a minute and then is back at it. It has been so much fun watching her and her friend Poppy walking around.

A Sad Day, Booty Recalled-Oh no! No more Veggie Booty for Mia. Our picky eater rarely eats veggies and fruits and now we can't give her any Booty. Now that I have a picky eater on my hands, I understand how parents wind up letting their kids an unbalanced diet. But we've had our small victories as Mia recently began eating grapes, raisins, and watermelon--all fruits she had previously rejected numerous times.

Busy with Good-byes-We basically spent the month of June with good friends and being treated to lovely farewell meals. Our move did not quite hit me until the last week of June. I guess I was busy trying to get the house in order and maintaining Mia's regular routine to come to grips with leaving Seattle. Thank you to all of our dear friends for making our time in Seattle so special. Our time in Seattle was short, but we feel that we made friendships that will last a lifetime. We will keep all of you in our prayers.

Sour Note-The worst thing that happened just before we left Seattle had to do with our crazy neighbors. From the day we moved in we knew they were odd about parking as they told us that people only mark in front of their own home. We had never heard of this phenomenon coming from San Francisco where we circled our neighborhood for at least ten minutes looking for parking each day. We were lucky to end up within two blocks of our building. Over the last three years, I've witnessed how obsessed they are with parking. They get mad at others for parking in front of their house and the house next door (they have claimed those spots too!). Whenever a new or different car shows up on the street, neighbor lady goes around asking who it belongs to, she used to use cones to save her spots until the police told her she could not do that. They love to play musical cars and are constantly moving their cars to position all of them right in front of their home. Anyhow we never had a problem with them over parking and in general I tried to avoid them as much as possible due to her drama-loving ways and her odd perspective on others. (I've got more stories about them that have nothing to do with parking).

Well, our moving company applied for a permit to close off parking spots on our street so that the moving truck could get through and park while still allowing traffic to run through our street. We told our neighbors who would be affected, but our parking hog neighbors who have SIX vehicles for their household of only THREE gave us such a hard time. When I first informed them they were somewhat fine, but they did question why it was necessary. Neighbor man, asked if they could just park across the street so that our side of the street could still park. Can you believe they would even ask? Dudes, we need to move and you are only inconvenienced just for one or two days. I should have known I would have problems. Once the barricades were placed, they were upset that both sides of the street were cordoned off leaving them no option but to park down the street. Neighbor lady told me that the whole street was "LIVID at us". A complete lie and I should have known it based on the last three years of knowing her drama-loving ways, but I went around apologizing to the neighbors who were home. Turned out none of them cared one iota. Most people are at work from 8 AM-5 PM and most people do not have SIX cars to move.

Neighbor Lady called the police to ask if it was legal for us to have the spots labeled "tow-away". They told her it was a public street. She still gave Ken an earful about the inconvenience to her. What got to me the most was that she actually threatened to sue us if her trees were damaged and if her cars were vandalized while parked down the street. It makes it so hard for me to be a Christian in situations like these. First of all her cars are not that nice and who would vandalize them anyway? She thinks they are is some kind of safety zone in front of her house and if parked just a few homes away they will get damaged? And why would her perfectly manicured trees get damaged unless the moving truck had wings? This woman had a handicapped sign put up in front of her home for the sole purpose of making sure no one parks in front of her house. She has no handicap as she mows her lawn and carries her toddler grandson as well as groceries into her home. I was so tempted to report her for this. When it came time to say good-bye to our neighbors (everyone else on 24th Ave NE is really nice) they were out to dinner so we just said bye to their son who is not as crazy. Leaving that unreasonable family is the only good thing about leaving Seattle.

Oh it turned out they were only inconvenienced for 6.5 hours as our pack and load took only that long! We were supposed to get packed on Thursday the 28th and loaded on Friday the 30th. Instead we were inconvenienced as we had to find a place to stay one night earlier.