By Request: Mia Feeding Kona

Here's clip of Mia feeding Kona. She also asks to give Kona, cheets (treats) which she gives very liberally. Kona still needs to shed her extra pounds from the food throwing days. We are happy to report that food throwing has been eliminated from Mia's daily routine.

Christmas Already!

The day after Thanksgiving, we took out our tree and other Christmas decorations and started decorating the house in anticipation of Christ's birth. Papa and I have been purchasing one ornament together with some special meaning (usually from places we traveled to) since we started dating so we have ornaments dating back to 1994 with one year missing, 1998, the year of the longest break-up. Papa doesn't like to be reminded of his foolhardy days, but it will definitely tell a story in years to come when we go in order as we decorate our tree and our kiddos wonder what's up with the missing year.

Even though we didn't get around buying our ornaments for 2007 yet, Mia enjoyed putting up our existing collection. Some actually made it up on the tree by her hands alone. We finally had time to take Mia ornament shopping today. We learned from the shoe incident a the rack and had her take an initial look at all the ornaments at the shop we went to. There were a TON, it was a massive Hallmark store. We really thought Mia would like a fire truck, but she wasn't interested. We had her look at the entire display for a few minutes. After Mia got the lay of the land, we picked out a few that we thought she would enjoy, then we lined them up and told her to choose ONE! Like the shoe incident, she kept repeating the word one as she reviewed her options. The line up included, two different ornaments from the Pixar Cars movie, an Eskimo girl with a bear, a Chinese girl and pagoda, a Christmas tree shape made with cell phones, and a blonde doll figure. Mia squatted there in front of the boxes and thought about it. She kept going back to a blue car from the Cars movie. I so wish I brought my camera to this event. Anyhow, then she put it back and picked up another ornament that was a doll, a blonde doll. Thankfully she put that one down, and picked up the other Cars ornament. Back down that one went. In the end she choose the blue car, I think it's Lightning McQueen or something like that. Have not seen the movie myself.

At the store Mia was also found of a wreath MP3 ornament (sign of our times huh) that played music. She kept asking for the music so I must have pressed the button on it a dozen times while we were there. We did a second line up to confirm that the car was really it. We included the MP3 wreath in the line up, but Mia went back to the blue car. We looked around some more, but when Mia said, "Mama, hold it" and gave me the ornament box, we knew that it was a keeper for her. Now if Mia said, "Mama, want it" it would have meant she didn't want it. Mia uses that phrase when she tries to give us food she does not want to eat.

We also bought her first Christmas present at a toy shop in Los Altos today. It's a basket to go on the handlebars of her Kettler bike. We know she'll enjoy putting mail in it when we go check out box. I can't wait until Christmas to give it to her. We are also contemplating a pink kitchen set that we saw on Costco.com, but we are not sure we want such a big toy in our house. We decided to do the whole Santa thing. It's part of the wonderment of being a kid and I really want Mia to have that experience along with learning about Christ's humble birth. I've been talking to Mia about Santa and hope that she will cooperate when we go take pictures with Santa. She was great last year, but she was also not really aware of much.

Happy Little Hostess

Mia loves a crowd like her dad. She has a grand old time entertaining friends and family. When her uncles and aunt arrived from Orange County, she was so happy to see them and Watson, my younger brother and sister-in-law's dog. She wanted to share everything and brought out her toys one by one to share with them. She also poured make-believe tea into her tea cups and offered it to everyone. Mia also made soup with her cool pots and pans for her guests. It was so cute to see her enjoying visitors, but she was too excited for a long nap and only slept 30 minutes on Thanksgiving Day. Silly Mia!

Mia loved watching her Papa and Uncles playing the Wii. She would say "Hooray" and pretend to play herself. We made a Mii of Mia and she enjoys watching herself in the Olympics. Mia also found Da Jiu's (Big Uncle) flashlight and started using it as a microphone. Not sure where she got the idea from! Still scratching our heads about that one. I fear that she will have no fear and will be the girl who gets up and dances on the stage at concerts. Oh boy! Anyhow, she entertained us by singing "up a ba ba ba", translation is, "up above". Those are the only words from Twinkle Twinkle she can sing. The video clip also shows Mia singing a hello song to the tune of Row Row Your Boat.

Our Thanksgiving meal turned out well. Mia kept busy with the guests and playing with her new favorite toy, her old Fisher Price booster seat. She kept getting in and out of it and asking for the tray to be put on and taken off. While I worried that she would get hurt with the tray snapping on and off, it did keep her busy. With my mom's help we made a feast for about thirteen folks. I made a honey soy glazed turkey, sweet potato casserole, roasted beet and goat cheese salad, green beans and carrots, mashed potatoes, sausage stuffing, artichoke crab dip, and panna cotta for dessert. Our friends brought some desserts and a fabulous quiche to share. Here are some pics of the food.

Mia @ 19 Months

Mia turned 19 months today, so I looked back at her photos from last November when Mia wore her Turkey outfit and could only enjoy pureed sweet potatoes. I can't quite believe that the year went by so fast. This time last year, we had no inkling that we could possibly move back to California and here we are in sunny California.
Amen!
At 19 months Mia likes to "sing" small parts of songs she knows. She also spontaneously does things she has learned from music class like tapping beats on her legs. Mia also loves stickers of all kinds and stamps she gets after classes. We are noticing that Mia has been enjoying pretend play on her own and without my initiating. She likes to make phone calls to Papa, pour tea, pretend to get water from the fridge, feed her many Elmos, make soups on her make-shift stove top (looks like a camping stove, i made it from a box, a Sharpie, tape, and some brown paper), and loves to pretend to wash her hands. One day I looked over while I was in the kitchen because I thought I heard her say, Amen. It turned out she was saying grace before a pretend meal.

Master Manipulator of Mama
Mia has been sick for a couple of days resulting in night waking and she is still waking between 5-6 in the morning. Not fun! One night as soon as I stood from the rocker to put her down after I thought she fell back asleep in my arms, she woke up and said, "Mama zuo!" or "Mama sit!" in English. Oh boy, I thought, we have got to stop this on so many levels. Being sick is one thing, but she was milking it! Papa got stern with Mia. My heart just melts because she is sick and I do feel sorry for her, so Papa was the mean one.

Papa very sternly tells Mia to lie back down and go to sleep. He refuses to pick her up when she gets up after he puts her down for the night. Sometimes he holds her down until she gives up. Poor baby! When she wakes at night, he goes in, but does not pick her up. He just tells her to lie back down. Mia seems to understand that she needs to sleep in her crib by herself even though she does not like it one bit. She has been going to sleep without being held, but she does need someone in the room for a little bit. One night Papa kept moving away from her crib until he was in the doorway, but as soon as he was out of sight, Mia started to get up or cry. The next night was better. I stayed on her floor for a few minutes after she lay down before leaving and though she was still awake when I left, she did not cry. Now we have to work on the early morning waking!

Daylight Saving, Saves No Sleep

It's been a tough couple of weeks over here in the Song Household. After the time change, Mia has been having a hard time staying asleep for more than 10 hours. Little Miss Mia has been waking around the five o'clock hour. We think she's overtired as a result of sleeping a whole hour later. Seems counterintuitive, but the later most kids sleep, the less they will sleep because they are overtired and overstimulated. Since she starts out on a deficit she has a hard time napping long too. So we started to put her down a bit earlier. Tonight she was asleep by 7 pm, we'll see if it helps.

Other news is that Mia is now in charge of feeding Kona and she won't let us forget her "chore" as she wants to feed her all day long. We figured since Mia has been putting her dirty clothes in her hamper before her bath for some time now, she was ready for a new job. So after Kona's evening walk, Mia gets a scoop of dog food from one of us and walks it over to Kona's bowl which is roughly three feet away. It took a couple of days for her to figure out how to hold it so she would not spill. It took another day or two for her to figure out that she had to bend down and get close to the bowl before she poured the food out. Before she got the mechanics down, we were hearing lots of "Uh Oh" and "Oh No" and "Sorry". Pretty soon, we'll have her cooking our dinner.

Lastly we are happy to report that the Putt Putt Cars are up and running at Happy Hollow. Mia had a ball there with her Papa and Grandma last Saturday while Mama went out to tea and had her toes done with the other moms in our small group. She went on the ride four times before they closed it for the day. Darn those budget cuts!

Shoe Shopping

Mia needed a new pair of shoes so we went to Nordstorm Rack and had her try on a few pairs of shoes. She kept gravitating towards a pair of green and patent fuchsia Stride Rites, but we wanted to get her a pair of more athletic shoes since she's been climbing and running a lot more. After choosing the same Stride Rites twice from a line-up, we removed them from the selection process and made her choose a third time. Mia acted like she was tired of the process and could not understand why she had to choose again when she already chose the exact pair she wanted. In the video she says, "All done" and later after picking up a pair of shoes, she puts them down and says, "No". Man, our kid must think we're dumb for not understanding her.

We found her insistence on the Stride Rites so amusing. I whipped out our camera, but Mia was done with the game. In the end she went back to the green and fuchsia Stride Rites that Ken put on the bench. Mia did not get her way, we got the white K-Swiss sneakers with light blue stripes. We're such cruel parents! But the next day, Mia danced when we put on her new K-Swiss sneakers. I am contemplating going back to the Rack and getting her those Stride Rites in a 6.5, a half size bigger, if they are still around because I feel so terrible for ignoring her wishes, it's not like she wanted stilettos.