Parents ...they crack me up!

This could very well be the title of g's favorite new game. I think everyone knows the tower of babel that is the c household. There is no one common language that everyone (family members and caregivers) speak. The one common thread though is g and she is having a blast. Added to this, she still has the typical toddler "mispronunciation" for English, Mandarin and Cantonese. This results in rib-tickling fun for my toddler.

In the good ole days (when there were only 2 languages spoken in our house), g would say something and if it does not sound like English, I would ask G to translate. Nowadays it could be a mispronunciation/variation of the three that she speaks. She gets a kick out of her parents scratching their heads trying to understand her and would usually crack up laughing. She had also begun to add "baby talk" to the roster.

Kidding aside...I do have to start watching a new "bad" habit emerging...CHINGLISH. She has begun to mix languages especially when she is talking to me or her dad. She would say, "look, so many woo-teeps (butterfly, Cantonese)" or "I want to go kai-kai (go out, cantonese)". However I have to say that she doesn't do that with Gmom (who only speaks to her in Cantonese or her nanny (who only understands Mandarin). It is funny though that her Cantonese tends to sound like a middle aged Chinese woman's manner of speaking. She sprinkles her sentences with "AI-YAA".

Standardized Testing for Parenthood

I am really curious what goes on in these people's minds. There is a news story on CNN about a woman putting up her infant son as a down payment for a Dodge Intrepid.... A DODGE INTREPID with a blue book value of about $11-13K. A car that has been discontinued in 2004. So this is not even a brand new car.

Some people shouldn't be allowed to be parents. The poor baby is now in a foster home but what people would do to their own children never fails to astound me. An evidence that fact is more screwed up than fiction.

When I am finally made queen, there will be a standard intelligence and psychological competency test for people who would like to be parents....SHEESH.

Rearing its ugly head

I was hoping that we had escaped the whole jealousy issue with g. She had been very good with s, always wanting to help. She is also very affectionate. However I am beginning to notice little things that might be a precursor to trouble ahead. Last weekend in the midst of play, g took her boppy pillow and put it around my waist. Till now she had always used her boppy as a regular pillow. Since we stopped breastfeeding years ago, I don't think she had a memory of it being used as a nursing tool. This time though she had placed her boppy on my waist and position herself as if to nurse. I know she has seen me do this for s and she had been imitating me, feeding her dolls with bottles or from her "chest". This is the first time that she took the position of baby rather than mommy.

I also noticed that she is starting to imitate s's "speech" which consists largely of grunts and noises.

Today after I had put s to sleep, g took her boppy again and asked to be put to sleep on the couch while she "grunted". I am not sure how to handle this now. I tried going the route of telling her that she is big girl now and s is just a baby. s grunts because she doesn't know how to talk yet, etc, etc. I don't know if that got through to her though.

Anyone out there with any suggestions?

Gung Hei Fat Choy!!!

Happy New year!

The Family C had a great albeit tiring New Year's celebration. It kicked off with a bountiful dinner on New Year's eve. Bountiful meaning more food than 2 adults and a child could ever imagine eating. Yes I went a little overboard. I'll post some good recipes later and tell you about one really HORRIBLE one later.

On Sunday, we went to chinatown to see a firecracker and cultural festival. The event was supposed to start at 11:00 AM. Like any Chinese wedding, the thing didn't start until after noon. At one point there were so many people crowded on to the stage mysteriously, posing for pictures that people around us were thinking that somehow that was the opening ceremony. Well it turned out to be a massive photo op. We also say G's friend, E up on the stage taking pictures. I am probably going to hit him up for a couple of pictures for g's photo scrap book since most of my pictures included too many "backs of heads" to be visually appealing.

Thankfully the firecracker stuff was scheduled for the beginning of the festival. So g sat on G's shoulder, watching the lion/dragon/unicorn dance while dignitaries dangled heads of lettuce and red envelopes off a stick. Then the fireworks started. We thought that g would freak out because it was really loud. She just sat on G's shoulders and took it all in. I freaked out because in the midst of the fireworks, a strong gust of wind must have kicked up all soot from the firework residue and blew it straight at us. I had s with me, so I turned away from it but I still felt little bits fly straight into my eye. s started to cry. I was worried that she got some in hers also. I think she freaked when I freaked. I looked up at g thinking that she must also be distressed. She was watching all this, calm as can be.

On Monday, we had the C family reunion. Last year was a truly sad affair when we sat at a table with rotating family members. There were never more than 6 people at that table and that included G, g, Ggrandmom and me. As one or 2 new family members came, someone else left. Expectations for this year was very low. So we sat at a smallish table (probably meant to accommodate 6). The family member rotation persisted, but a core group of 7-8 people actually stayed the whole time. Even G's cousin showed up unexpectedly. So unexpected that they had to be "banished" to a separate table at the other side of restaurant since the reservation didn't include them. Very odd kind of family reunion indeed. Red envelopes, candies and fruits were exchanged. Ggrandmom gave g some candy which she gladly accepted, thinking that they were toys for her to take apart. At some point during the meal, g managed to peel the foil off a chocolate easter egg. I thought that since it was a special occasion, I would just peel the rest and give it to her to try when G's cousin whispered to me that all of the cousins knew better than to eat the chocolate that Ggrandmom gave them. Well, sort of made sense when it dawned on me that ash wednesday is a few days away and I am peeling an easter egg. In that handful of candy that she got was a mix of easter eggs and christmas bells. Not knowing really what candy was, I told g that the egg was broken and it was dirty since she got it all over her hands. She looked at her hands and agreed. Left it and went on to eat some more rice noodles.

Acceptance

I have been challenged in the last 3 months by this little wonder. She continues to confound me. For some time now, I have been g's mom. I have come to know her and mother her appropriately. Now comes s and I thought that somehow since I have "mastered" g, that s would react the same way. s soon disabused me of that notion. I have fought the obvious for these last 3 months, reverting to many of the things that have worked for g. The latest issue has been s's eating (or lack of eating to be more precise). Aside from spitting up almost every time she eats, she is a challenge to feed with a bottle. She takes an average of 2 oz each time. Her daily average (the time that I am away at work ~ 10 hours) is between 5-8 oz. g's daily average at this age was around 12 oz. g never spits up. Whatever she ate always stayed in. No such thing for s, who spits up as part of her daily routine. Like a worrywort that I am, I brought her to the doctor last week to get weighed, fully expecting that they would tell me to start trying to feed her slabs of bacon. But no, she was fine. She gained about 1 1/2 lbs in the last month, bringing her up to a weighty 11.5 lbs.

Something happened then as I was trying to wrestle her back into her clothes. Her sister was already 12 lbs by this time, maybe even a little more. But she was not her sister. s will be her own person, a thin person but her own person nonetheless. There are some small benefits to being her own baby. She loves to sleep during the day when her sister hated all sleep at any time. She prefers to nurse and has become a champion nurser. Nursing in a record 10 minutes was enough for her.

So a note to all the mommies thinking of the second - mothering the second is much like mothering the first. For the first few weeks, there will be floundering and much confusion, but the clouds will one day part and it'll finally become a little clearer. Though like the weather, clouds are always gathering. Nothing is certain. We sort of make it as we go along.

s

 

What my kids really need is a "dimmer" switch. Here's a picture of s just seconds away from a total meltdown. g is not that different. I would really like it if they could go from this picture of joy to slight discomfort to dissatisfied and then move to utter and catastrophic fallout. Oh well...treasure every fleeting moment, right?

Cabin Fever!!!

 

Today turned out to be an awesome day for the family c. Although the day didn't start off as desired, s was awake on and off from 3:00 AM. All I could think of was the report that I still had to finish and the burning need to have a little fun. All I could think of as the clock finally touched 8:30 AM and I have barely slept was that I needed coffee and lots of it...the never-ending coffee pot at IHOP. So I dragged myself out of bed, woke up my percoset-laden husband and told him that we are going to IHOP. Dressed, pumped and ready to go, we pulled up to IHOP around 9:30 AM and the parking lot was full. I thought that for sure we would be there earlier than the church crowd which usually dawdled in around 10:30-11:00. Apparently these are the sinners who were pulling in before the crowd that I was hoping to avoid. Happily we were still able to secure both a space in the lot and inside the restaurant.

G, g and I enjoyed a meal of pancakes, eggs and greasy mystery meat. Off to do some shopping.

In the afternoon, we were slated to the go to Hoboken Cabin Fever Festival. It turned out to be fabulous party. Lots of people with kids. The Elks lodge was full to brim and their whole facade was littered with parked strollers. g had a ball despite missing her nap. She got a fire fighter helmet and a balloon. She got her picture taken in the polaroid booth. s and I were taking some baby yoga. s found the moves quite simple since she touches her nose with her toes with typical baby ease. The yoga class would have probably set me back $20. I am glad it was free today.

The crowning moment of the trip was g's first balloon hat. I did line up for about 30 minutes to get one and when the balloon artist handed it to her, she ran and hid between her daddy's leg, but seeing her dancing in a cooky pink and green flower balloon hat was priceless.



Heard they do this every year too. Sign me up!

S "talking"

warning a bit too long. Should have been edited.

Poor g

 

g got an accidental hit from a ski goggle last Saturday. She cried a little but survived. G thinks we are going to get in trouble with Gmom for "letting" this happen. Oh well...

An Addendum:
Maybe that's why kids don't make the best witnesses....today, g was telling him about her many hurts. She fell running around yesterday. So she was telling me about that. She then switched to how she hurt her eye. In her words, "hurt eye. JK did it." Now, JK has already left when that happened. Amazingly it's the first time also that she has ever referred to any of her dad's friends by their names. Regretfully in this instance, it's to wrongly accuse an innocent man.

Vietnamese pork chops (er...no, wings)

There is a Vietnamese restaurant around the corner from where I live. It's one of those down home places that one expects to find hidden in a Chinatown somewhere, but lo and behold, it's found its way my neighborhood. One of favorite dishes is pho with grilled pork chops or chicken breast. I had a craving the other week and decided to surf the web for a recipe and found this one

I decided to use chicken wings instead of the traditional pork chops or chicken breast since g loves to chomp on them and usually wouldn't touch white meat.

F comment:
Pretty good. There is a little something missing though. Perhaps the MSG which I don't have. It's pretty close to the taste of the restaurant. g ate an average of 4 pieces at every meal until we ran out.

A cheap thrill

I did not expect to be one of "those" mothers who would be thrilled at the sound of their kids' voices. Really, I hear it all the time. Believe me with the way g makes herself heard, there is no way I could not hear her when I am at home. Today though is different. G had called me at work for some rudimentary question concerning where something was in the kithen. We were about to hang up when he asked, "do you want to speak to g?" Usually "speaking to g" really means a couple of seconds of my talking in a typical sing-song mommy voice into the receiver while receiving dead air as a response. Oddly since g has known how to "use" a phone for months now and knows how to talk into one, she always seemed genuinely surprised when she hears something other than nothing on the receiver. She would typically just look at the phone incredelously with a "what's going on here?" expression on her little face. When asked to say hello or goodbye, she would wave at the phone, remaining mum. However today little g got on the phone and said "he-yo" like a wannabe immigrant receptionist. I was beside myself. It was definite "awww" moment. Definitely made the workday a little brighter.

Rock and Roll

s did the roll herself today. This is the first legitimate roll since the previous times she did it, it always seems like she started sort of lopsided already. So here it is....enjoy.

The special for this evening is ----- Chicken Francese

The recipe that I used is this one from foodtv.com.


F comments:

I am a fan of Chicken Francese, but generally speaking this recipe was way too lemony, very sour. Now I am not sure if the cheap wine we used had anything to do with it, but this recipe elicited a pucker on the first taste. So I tried to save it by counteracting the sour with a little more salt. I had intended to simmer some pasta in the sauce but decided not to because of the taste. However I have found that putting in on pasta in small doses wasn't bad at all. The dish turned out ok but strictly following the recipe would have made the sauce inedible.

I am sure I will make this again but more adjustments (scale back on the lemon, purchase some decent wine) are needed for it to rate a thumbs-up.


G's comments:
MORE WINE.
Cutlet may be a bit overcooked (cook's issue, not the recipe)

s sleep - an update

I have posted this in response to some of the posters to my previous post on s' sleep:

"Thanks for all the posts. As I have mentioned s was really good last night at letting me co-sleep. I had a good night's sleep which is something I really needed since I had a client meeting this morning. So thefamilyc is actually relatively well-rested today."

Now is this the proverbial "turning of the corner"? I don't know but I most definitely don't want to get my hopes up. She has been alternately a good and bad sleeper depending on what week it is. I am trying though not to be too pessimistic. I am hoping that the co-sleeping works out for us. I will worry about weaning when that time comes. For now, I am enjoying my small doses of sleep.

g von trapp

Here's another dose of g. This time in a rendition of a timeless classic. Next time we'll try to work in some choreography.

Now what do I do?

Well, it's official. s has gotten much much worst. For the last 3 nights, she does a good job of sleeping early in the evening, but around the 2-6 AM hours, she can only sleep if she stays in my arms. I have tried it all now, it seems. I have swaddled tight, swaddled loosely, swung, shushed, white noise, putting rolled up blankets on either side of her, kept her warm, kept her cool, co-slept, burped her, suctioned her nose, massaged her belly ad nauseum. There doesn't seem to be anything that I can do to make her sleep a little better.

The only thing that seems to consistently works for her to for me to nurse her. She would then fall asleep in my arms. I am then not to move so that she can remain asleep. If I tried to put her down, she would be awake within minutes.

Now what do I do?

Now...a comment for Commenters

I am not sure exactly what the blog etiquette is, but here's what I was thinking of doing. I make sure to read all comments, but am not quite sure how to respond. Do I respond with a private email? Do I add a new post about the comment? Or do I just comment below the comment?

I think I will take the third option of commenting below the comment. So from here on out, if you want to see a response to your comment, it will be found underneath your comment filed with the original post.

Thanks to everyone who has been following along and commenting especially Auntie K, Jac, JW and a's mommy

Cooking...A new segment

A new year is upon us, so resolutions abound. One of mine is to be more experimental with my cooking and to make time for it. I have always loved to cook but lately I have been sticking with the tried and true stuff that frankly has been getting kind of stale. So I blew the dust off my many cookbooks and restarted my search on foodtv.com. With all the changes in our lives, I really need to be more organized with our meals. In addition, with my impending full-time return-to-work, I have to plan meals ahead of time. This will have to include preparing easy-to-heat meals on the weekends and maybe a few new fast-prep dishes for the weeknights and lunches. This weekend was a bit of a success. We made Steamed mussels (reviewed below), rolled a massive amount of spring rolls and made a cauldron of chicken soup.

Steamed mussels - recipe found here -

It was a roaring success, if I don't say so myself.

F's Comments on the recipe:
1) A minor thing but pretty obvious to most cooks - please add salt and pepper to taste.
2) Rather than just serving a separate plate of pasta, I incorporated the pasta into the dish at the same time as the tomato was added to give the pasta time to absorb all the tasty sauce. Not enough time. Next time, I would probably remove the mussels and let the pasta just simmer in the sauce for a few minutes. Another thought is the use bean thread noodles (for the Filipinos, sotanghon). This kind of noodles absorb lots of water (sauce) and would be ideal here. YUM.

G's comments:
1) MORE WINE.
2) More crushed red pepper - of course, do this to taste.

CALLING ALL RECIPES - since I will be cooking a lot more, I would love to get recipes from anyone who is willing to share his/her favorites. I have a stack of cookbooks and a decent listing of online recipe sites, but nothing beats a good home recipe.

g on her "cell"

Wanted to share this video of g.

New leaf turned or an anamoly

I took the first shift last night so that F could get some rest. We put baby s down to bed at 11:30 pm after a bottle of milk. I went to bed shortly after that. Aside from her usual grunts and noises she slept until 4:30 am last night. While for many regular folk being awakened at 4:30 in the morning sucks, that's considered a steep improvement for s. Her grunts at 3:30 am actually woke me up. I thought for sure she'd be hungry by then but she kept sleeping for another hour while I laid in a light sleep expecting the inevitable. At 4:30 am I feed s and then woke up F to feed her some more. According to F, after another 15 minutes of feeding, baby s feel back asleep til 9 am this morning.

Was last night a fluke or is a the inflection point I have been hoping for? In the eyes of baby s, she did have a traumatic day. In the morning we took her to the doctor and she got 4 shots in her legs for various disease preventions. Maybe she was so stressed out by the experience that she was left exhausted. We'll see how tonight goes.