Tea Party

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Simon is slowly getting the hang of independent play. He finished his breakfast before us this morning and wanted one of us to play with him in his kitchen but since we both were still eating, Ron suggested he have a tea party with his animals. Sitting with him are Foxy, Ziggy, and Kitty Kitty.

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He is also been wanting to help around the house recently. One day he helped me fold laundry. Another day he helped me to dust. Today he helped to vacuum. Next will be mopping the floor (he has his own mini mop) and loading the dishwasher!

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As a special treat, Simon went to watch Turbo with Ron and the neighbor’s grandson. Simon loves popcorn!

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Iris is constantly trying to suck on her thumb. I know you’re not supposed to suppress their desire to suck as it is comforting to babies but I prefer she suck on a pacifier because at least that is removable whereas your thumb is always accessible so will be hard to wean off later. I was unsuccessful in transitioning her to a pacifier today. She keeps on pushing it out with her tongue. So far, she hasn’t quite got the hang of putting her entire thumb in her mouth but just enough to satisfy her for comfort to rest.

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While Ron and Simon went out to the movie, Iris and I met up with Tiffany and Zoey for shopping and lunch. We ate at Boudin in Broadway Plaza Walnut Creek and I had their soup and salad combo: clam chowder in a bread bowl and BBQ chicken salad.

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Adorable little Zoey pretending to cradle a baby by putting her hands on top of one another. Iris looks like she has a little Mohawk. She was mistaken for a boy two times today 🙁 maybe because of the hair? But thank you Tiffany for the “tooth” consult. She confirmed that little white spot in Iris’ mouth is likely a dental lamina cyst and should fall out on its own. It’s in the wrong position to be her first tooth but she could be teething except you can’t see anything coming out yet. Might be time to start wearing bibs to combat the drooling.

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Today was a good outing with Iris. She didn’t fuss as much as she usually does in her carseat. She drank from the bottle without much protest. Her tummy seemed better today with no accidents while we were out and about. She quickly fell asleep in the car without crying. But I think she did not get enough sleep as she kept on waking up as I transferred her from car to stroller or car to home. She is a light sleeper during the day. Probably because she gets a pretty good night’s sleep. I can’t believe how big she is getting.

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Build Your Own Pizza

Saturday, July 27, 2013

This morning we went to Lowe’s for their kids Build and Grow clinic. Today was the Toy Story RC car and Ron said there was a really long line for people who did not register. The event starts at 10am but after 10:15am, they start giving out kits to those who did not register. It looked like they might not have enough extras to give out since they also have a clinic tomorrow. Good thing we registered! But there wasn’t enough workspace for everyone so we picked up the kit to-go and make it at home. So instead, we dropped by Simon’s favorite place in Lowe’s, the water fountain and ponds in the garden center. He was excited to see this clean, new pond.

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Iris was less excited…

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For lunch, we met up with friends at Piatti Ristorante in Danville. They were really kid friendly with a “make your own pizza” choice on the kids menu. They give you the dough, sauce, cheese, and pepperoni to let the kids put it together then bake it for you. Pretty neat.

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I had the tagliatelle with bolognese sauce. The sauce was a bit too salty but the pasta was ok. Hard to get excited after our delicious lunch at Bottega in Napa.

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Iris has had a rough day. Very fussy with a bit of upset stomach. Poor girl seems constipated since she has been straining to poop and it’s been greenish in color. Not sure what is going on with her but she still has her happy moments. Here she is enjoying her rattles. Mommy is brainwashing her to like Hello Kitty!

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Having a short nap while we have dinner.

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Grandpa Tam brought over this delicious sashimi platter from Kansai in Oakland. Delicious! Thank you grandpa Tam.

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After some loud crying, a little bit of thrashing, and sucking on my shoulder, Iris is asleep again and I don’t have the heart to put her down right now while she is finally peaceful. I hope whatever is bothering her resolves soon. I thought maybe she was having tummy trouble due to food intolerance so a few days ago, I cut out some new things I’ve added back into my diet recently: coffee, milk, almond milk. Our friend Tiff (Simon’s dentist) says the white spot on her gums is not a tooth but a classical dental lamina cyst which will go away on its own but *might* potentially be bothering her. So we will just have to wait and see when she will return to her cheerful and happy little self.

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Our 9-year Wedding Anniversary

Friday, July 26, 2013

We celebrated our 9-year wedding anniversary this week and 15-years of being together. Wow, how time flies and what an amazing time it has been!

Tuesday, July 23
Iris and I went out for an afternoon walk and took a break for some Jamba Juice (another one off my list).

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Then a short nap in the Ergo. I love this carrier but she’s not quite big enough for it yet. We have the infant insert which is too bulky and hot for summer and she always seems uncomfortable while in it. Soon she should be able to fit into this which will make going out easier since she does not like being in her car seat.

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Simon tired himself out playing with the neighbors’ grand kids. They are older so usually help to teach him stuff. This day they helped him with his batting.

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Wednesday, July 24
I’m number one! Yes, you are 🙂

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I love Iris’ cheerful awakening.

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Today was our anniversary and we spent the morning in Walnut Creek to have Simon go to his camp and spend part of the day with Iris. On the way back from camp, Simon brought me some flowers. Simon presented me with the pink roses and Ron gave me the white long stem rose.

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The roses went in a vase right away.

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Nine years as husband and wife!

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Ron’s parents came to take Simon out for the day while Iris stayed home with our nanny. Imagine, a free afternoon just for ourselves so we headed to our favorite local destination: Napa! We made late lunch reservations at Bottega. If you haven’t discovered Opentable, I say go try it now. They surprisingly have a good selection of restaurants with good availability.

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We were seated outside which was perfect for the lovely warm day.

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Everything on the menu sounded so delicious that we had a hard time deciding but I think we made good choices. After we ordered, they started out with fresh bread with some sort of hard cheese dipping sauce. There were lots of chunks of cheese in the sauce, a nice saltiness.

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Our appetizers were the octopus and short rib meatballs. The octopus was so amazingly tender and the oil drizzled on top gave it a little kick.

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The meatballs were a good size and the house made ricotta on top made the dish for me. It made the dish smooth, creamy, and light.

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We shared the lobster cavatelli for our pasta dish. The sauce had nice large pieces of lobster and there was only one piece of uni but you could definitely taste uni with every bite. I loved this pasta dish, buttery rich sauce with these little chewy pasta pieces (that remind me of the shape of silkworms).

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We also had the Sonoma Duck. While nothing to rave about, I still liked it. Had a crispy skin and the meat tender.

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We also ordered a side of their truffle fries which were pretty delicious. There was fried sage and parmagiano cheese on top as well. I think sage chips could be the next rage, I could’ve eaten just that.

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We skipped dessert at the restaurant because we were too stuffed so just took a quick walk around the marketplace nearby. We found Kollar Chocolates.

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At ~$2 per piece, they are expensive but beautifully crafted. We chose a selection of 9 pieces to take home plus a poppy seed and saffron bar and a small bag of their pop rock bars. Looking forward to digging in! In the box are kahlua chocolate (center piece), lavender (purple), passion fruit (coral pink), earl grey (gray with orange) and cardamom (gray with green).

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We then drove to one of our favorite wineries, Peju, for a tasting. It was wonderful as always.

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Then for some outlet shopping before heading home. These sunglasses matched my outfit but were too outrageous for me to buy, some sort of hot pink leopard print.

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During the afternoon, Simon visited the San Francisco zoo and looked like he had a good time.

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We had a wonderful day out together. Thank you to my hubby for the fun day out and about. It’s been a wonderful nine years and I know we will have many more wonderful years together to share with our beautiful children. 143

Thanks also to our parents and nanny for babysitting so that we could have our day together.

To top off our memorable day, guess what? Our car ran out of gas. :(. As many of you know, we have a natural gas vehicle that requires a special fueling station that aren’t always easily accessible. Ron thought we would have enough gas to go back and forth to Napa but he was off by a few miles. Thank goodness for AAA! We luckily stopped near an apartment complex so weren’t in danger so just had to wait until the tow truck came which took about 20 minutes.

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It took less than 10 minutes to get to the station to fuel up (less than 2 miles away!) then we went on our way home to rest. Simon was supposed to spend the night with the grandparents but they eventually brought him home since he couldn’t easily fall asleep and they didn’t want to over stress him.

An exhausting day for all.

Thursday, July 25
Good morning mommy!

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Daddy propping Iris to sit up position.

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Simon ready for “wacky day” at camp. Super Simon!

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Iris discovering the comfort of sucking her fingers. Wait until she finds her thumb! Aiya!

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Our little guy has had a rough two days with injuries. He scraped his knee and elbow yesterday while running around. Today he tripped on a bump on the ground and landed on his face so scraped his nose and had a bloody nose to go along with it. It looks worse than it is apparently since he doesn’t seem too bothered.

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Friday, July 26
Oh no! She found her thumb!

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But she couldn’t really get a good hold on it so I tried switching in a pacifier but she didn’t like that much. What she did like was seeing herself in the mirror. She kept on laughing and smiling at herself.

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Crouching Tiger, Little Simon.

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Today we went to Civic Park in Walnut Creek. Simon seemed to have a good time except that there were some girls he wanted to play with that didn’t want to play with him. I didn’t think girls formed cliques so young (they were probably 5-6 years old). But he tried to play with them anyways, oblivious to them not really wanting him to follow them around. I hope Iris will grow up to be kinder than those girls.

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And yes, he is wearing a bandage on his nose. Our nanny put some antibiotic ointment on his scrapes this morning and Simon requested a bandage too. We thought he would take it off after a few minutes but he ended up wearing it all day. He loves his band aids!

Iris got a little nap at the park but was pretty fussy the whole time. She looks so peaceful here.

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I discovered the possible reason for her fussiness, the recent sucking on her hands, the recent drooling, and the recent green poop… I think she is getting her first tooth! There is this little hard, white spot on her lower gum line.
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She seems so young to be getting her first tooth so I guess we will just have to wait and see.

What’s Up?

Monday, July 22, 2013

So our little sleeping beauty woke up at 11:15pm requesting a diaper change. Five hours of sleep was pretty good for her. After a change and nursing, she slept another five hours. Good for me!

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Iris had a good night’s sleep and had energy for tummy time.

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Poor little girl seemed to have some tummy trouble today as her poop went from light brown to yellow to green then back to yellow and a bit more watery than normal. Must have been something I ate in the last day or two that didn’t agree with her. She also had three outfit changes due to poop and pee. I hope whatever it is will pass soon.

My little guy’s cool shirt. It is made by David and Goliath which makes cute tees. I saw this and I knew Simon would like it because he loves giraffes and turtles. The turtle says “What’s up?” to the giraffe. Simon doesn’t look thrilled in this picture but he does really like the shirt.

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Post-swim class tonight wearing his bear robe. It was overcast today so a bit cold. Tomorrow it’s supposed to rain! They will cancel swim class if there is lightning… Now that would be frightening!

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Pretty Little Lady in Blue

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Busy busy weekend! I’m exhausted and so is Iris. She’s been knocked out since 6:15pm and it’s 8:55pm right now. I wonder if she will still sleep tonight? Simon, on the other hand, is still full of energy and doesn’t want to go to bed. He has camp and swimming tomorrow though so needs to get some rest.

So what have we been doing all weekend?

On Friday, we went to visit Grandma Tam and went back to Emerald Glen park in Dublin. At first, Simon was excited to go into the water but only played for 2 minutes before wanting to go play in the sandbox. I bought him these dinosaur bone sand molds and he was super excited to piece together a dinosaur.

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After we finished, he shouted “Hooray! We made a dinosaur!”

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My pretty little lady wasn’t so happy because it was warm out and she wasn’t into drinking cold milk from a bottle. Next time I will need to bring a thermos of hot water when I know we won’t be able to warm milk easily. She was happy to get home.

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On Saturday, we had a date with Auntie Betty and Uncle Henry at Build-a-Bear at Hillsdale Mall in San Mateo for Simon’s belated birthday gift. But first, Simon had to get all spiffied up with a haircut. He did great and didn’t cry or fuss one bit! So proud of my little guy.

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His reward was a chocolate lollipop.

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Then he went to Build-a-Bear for him to make his own plushie. He chose a white cat. He got to press the pedal to fill her with stuffing.

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Then “wash” her.

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Iris watched on as Simon went to pick an outfit and make the birth certificate. Her name is Kitty Kitty. It was so fun to watch him enjoy himself. I look forward to bringing Iris here one day.

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After lunch, we went to hang out at Auntie Betty and Uncle Henry’s place. We overtook their living room for family nap time. Thanks B&H for letting us crash!

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Later Grandpa and Grandma Chung came over so we could go out for dinner. Three Mrs. Chungs and one Miss Chung.

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Today was more relaxing. I slept in since Iris slept in. She woke up smiling.

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She is happiest in the morning I think. She gets frustrated and cranky after we try to use the bottle to feed her. She’s really good about it somedays but today was not one of those days… But she’s so cute that I’m not upset or frustrated with her for long.

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Simon had a few good days without too many tantrums but I knew it couldn’t last. He got really upset after waking up from his nap. We had gone to brunch at a friends’ house where he played with two other little boys. I think he may have been stressed out by that and woke up a bit off kilter. He also needed to pee really badly and ended up peeing in his pants a little bit which probably made him even more upset. He just needed some time to calm down quietly in his room then he was back to his normal self. Love this little dude.

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Iris is still sleeping… 9:40pm. They say never to wake a sleeping baby so I will just have to wait and see.

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