stocking stuffer

This year we're not sure what to get Aaron for Christmas. We have a lot of ideas, but it's hard to narrow things down. We have limited space, so we don't want giant toys, we know that he enjoys trucks, but we want to expand his horizons, and we're both sick of toys with lots of little pieces because he loves to dump out all his toys and pretend they're construction materials.


So I don't know. I'm sure we'll have to compromise in one of those areas. Maybe we'll just get him a lump of coal.


We're pretty sure he'd love it!

from the archives

Heard around the house

It's hard to video Aaron these days. He's developed a bit of self consciousness and is very aware of cameras. Sometimes when he recounts bits of his day, he'll tell us, "I cried" with a big whimper. We tried to tape him doing this once and he actually started crying and yelling, I don't want you the video! So we don't record him as often anymore.

He talks A LOT though. It's fun to have conversations with him and he's really into pretend play. He'll pretend to be a construction worker, or more often, an actual truck.

"It's daytime! Time to wake up!"
- Said 2 inches from my face in the pale light of morning

"I'll do it...at night-time" (or "tomorrow")
"It's too...late" (or early)
"I forgot to brush my teeth/kick the ball/say thank you for the airplane/finish my dinner/cut my nails/clean up[insert any activity mentioned earlier in the day] "
- Anytime he doesn't want to do something, usually used when avoiding the potty or bedtime. He's all about excuses. Already.

"I need my Mommy"
"Mommy, I need my Daddy" (while Isaac is standing right next to me)
- Anytime

"What today is it?" ...followed by "What's [insert name of day] mean?"
- In the morning and at night as he reinforces his schedule


"I'm demolishing the house!"
"I drive this truck. You drive this truck!"
"We're going over there..there's a fire! Now the fire is out and now there's water on top. There's ANOTHER FIRE!"
"I'm a grab excavator. I'm a crane..lifting up the wood frames"
"The stabilizers are down!"
"You go first" or "You do it" or "I want YOU to do it"
"Here's some sugar..and some butter. Let's make pancakes!"
"I need you...I need you to fill up my dump truck [or front loader]!"
"Let's get rolling!"
- During playtime

"Milk and cookies go together PERFECTLY. That's what Puo-Puo says!"
- Cookie time

"I cleaned up! Where's my bitamin?"
- After cleanup time

"My little hands look like raisins!"
- After bath time

"I need a story" followed by "My turn to tell a story!" followed by something like this:
"Once upon a time..I went to get an egg, then we made pancakes...and [mumbles]..somethingelse...and then..[mumbles..something else..we did puzzles..THE END. Your turn!"
-During his bedtime routine

"Ok, Mommy [or Daddy] go work"
- Last thing he says before he falls asleep at night - It's his way of dismissing us and letting us know that he won't be doing his jack-in-the-box routine out of bed anymore.


Here's a video I did catch:

backseat driver

Isaac was driving us out of the city the other day when suddenly we heard

"Ohmigoss! Ohmigoss! OHMYGOSS! Slow down Daddy! SLOW DOWN!" in a very panicked voice.

I guess we hadn't been in a car in a while, because he really wasn't driving fast, just maneuvering around light traffic in the city.

our doorbell is not loud enough

The other day I ordered groceries from our local delivery service. I picked a morning delivery slot - from 8am to 10am, figuring that Aaron would wake up early and in turn wake me up.* But that morning, he slept in until 9am. (Yes!) And we got up and I waited and waited for the groceries to come. When they didn't show, I went downstairs to see if they got dropped off with our package room, but the doorman informed me that they had come and gone. In fact, he said they had called all our phones, and that he had escorted the delivery man upstairs and that they rang our doorbell and knocked several times, but no one answered, so they assumed we weren't home.

I find this disturbing. How deeply do we all sleep? I mean, I guess the walls are pretty soundproof in our apartment - I can only faintly hear the tv when the bedroom door is closed even though it's right next to the door. And I hardly ever hear our neighbors except through the vents in the bathroom. But I was kinda freaked out! What if there's a fire in our building and we don't find out until it's too late because we were sleeping too deeply??

Eh. I guess the big lesson is...we're not morning people.

*We don't use alarms anymore. We hate waking Aaron up earlier than he plans to, and he usually wakes us up these days. Unlike a clock or phone alarm though, he's not always reliable. Obviously.

**Full disclosure - I looked at the original date on this post and apparently this happened last October. As in October 2009. We started using morning alarms again when Aaron started school in September. These actually wake us up now because we turn them up to max volume and leave them in our room. Plus Aaron is much more excited for "daytime!" than he was a year ago.

ill at ease

I've never been good with kids. Some people are naturally at ease with kids, able to banter and interact with them comfortably, but not me. I think they're cute and all (if they're cute), but I never really know how to talk to or play with them. But for some reason, they seem to like to talk to me!

Case in point: Earlier this week, Aaron and I went to the playground, and we brought a bucket of sidewalk chalk with us. We went during the early afternoon, when it tends to be emptier, and as soon as we got settled with the chalk, the other 4 kids (probably ranging in ages from 5-10) that were at the playground came over, asking if they could play with the chalk too. Of course we shared with them, but soon they wanted me to actively play with them.

"Do you want to play hopscotch? What are you drawing?"

"I'm drawing a road, because he (Aaron) likes to drive his truck in the lines"

"Oh, can I draw too?"

"I can draw a cat. Wanna see?"

"Look! I'm drawing waves! And this is the sun!"

"Look! I drew a bridge!"

"I finished my cat!"

"Look at my shapes! Can you tell what they are?"

(They looked like circles with crosses in them)

And so on and so forth.

I looked around in vain for their caregivers who might be able to give these kids the attention they seemed to crave, but they were all just off in their own corners on their phones or just wandering aimlessly around.

Later one of the other adults came over to me with her kid's coat, "Did you let her borrow your chalk? Look! She got it all over her sleeve!" I thought, "If you're going to have a problem with chalk on your kid's clothing, watch her more closely yourself!" I said, "Oh, ok" and turned around.

This kind of thing has happened in the past at the playground, where kids will ask me to play tag or house with them, and I'll be slightly friendly, and they'll keep coming back and asking me to play more. I'm fine interacting with them, but I'm not there to play with them- I'm there to watch my kid and make sure he's safe.

Today I went to the library with Aaron, and we usually sit and read there for a good 30 minutes or so. We have rounds where we each pick a book, and then I sit down to read them both aloud. This allows him to get his fill of truck books and I get to try and broaden his horizons a little. He's pretty good about sitting for the non-truck book because he knows it's "Mommy's pick" and he has his turn too. So we were into our 2nd round of books when this little girl who was probably around 6 started hovering near us, listening as I was reading. When I finished reading for the round she handed me another book to read. I smiled at her and just told her we were going to get more books to read. So Aaron and I pick our books and start on round 3 and she takes a seat on the other side of me. When I finished reading our books, she handed me the same book again, and I felt bad, so I read it. Of course, reading that one book was the tipping point. After that, she probably read 12 more books with us, of which 4 of them were books she chose.

Keep in mind, the children's section of the library we go to is TINY. It's about 10x12 feet and enclosed by bookshelves. So her nanny/mom was probably at most 10 feet away. I glanced up at her caregiver who was absorbed in her blackberry. She looked up twice and weakly called her over, but didn't bother to get up and intervene or try to read to her instead of letting me do it when I obviously had my own kid to read to. By the end of our reading session, this little girl had made herself comfortable! She was leaning on me, holding onto my arm, trying to hold my hand, and putting her head on my shoulder while I read. I didn't really mind, it was just weird.

BUT, not as weird as this other time I was reading to Aaron in the library and another little girl stood in the corner next to us as we read in the mostly empty room. Suddenly, while we were in the middle of a book, she emerged from the corner, stood 2 feet in front of us, facing us, and started whispering in Chinese while staring at the floor. My Chinese is not very good, and I was trying to pretend nothing weird was happening, so I kept reading. She was whispering very quickly and it sounded like she was repeating an argument. When I finished the story, she whispered, "I'm going to kill you." And then she walked away. Umm. Yea. That was really creepy. I felt like I was living the first act of a horror movie.

Hoot! Hoot!

Happy Halloween!

Aaron was an owl this year. He first started talking about owls in August, when we went to Asia on a family vacation. He would say that "Ma-Ma, Yie-Yie" (and then go on to name everyone in Isaac's family) "is a night owl. I'm a day-time owl!" So when September rolled around and we started talking about Halloween costumes, he told us he wanted to be an owl. So I looked online for a few costumes, and found these:

Too Girly.

Kinda weird and not as cute as we would hope.

So I thought about making him a costume, but I don't know how to sew, so we asked Isaac's mom to make his costume. She did a great job!!



This was the first year we went trick or treating in our neighborhood, and it was CRAZY. Apparently the area is pretty well known for trick or treating, and the neighborhood association gives out a list of participating houses and glowsticks (and free donuts!) at sunset. The streets were blocked off and hundreds of people were wandering around trick or treating. There were lines to receive candy at each house. The people who participated were very generous to do so - they stood outside in the cold and must have handed out hundreds of dollars worth of candy. There were some scary decorations too.

This is not a great picture, but the guy in the coffin would sit up every now and then. Isaac and I were wondering where they got the coffin, and if they just have it lying around their house all the time!

Truly Scary.

We're gonna need a bigger bed

The Situation:
Aaron first started climbing out of his crib last October. Isaac's family was visiting, and his sister and I were trying to nap in the living room while Aaron was in his crib in the bedroom, crying because he was overtired and wanted to play more. We were both lying down with our eyes closed when we suddenly heard little footsteps and the door burst open. He repeated this feat several times that same night, but then forgot about it for a few months. Recently he started doing it again.



On top of that, he got sick for a while and while he was sick, he refused to sleep alone, so he started bunking with us. Unfortunately his favorite sleeping position is in the middle of Isaac and me, perpendicular to us, sweaty head digging into one person's shoulder, legs on top of or digging into the other person's back or side.

Solution, Part 1:
Once he recovered, he continued to insist on sleeping in our bed. So we thought, "Maybe he prefers the freedom of getting in and out of bed at will. "












Result: This proved to be unsuccessful.

Solution, Part 2:
In an effort to lure him back to his own bed, we bought some new bedding that we knew he would like...

Result:
He loves playing in his bed.


But we are still dealing with this.

Every night.

an afternoon in pictures

time to try some new foods

A snippet of from a reading of a book about animals and the sounds they make:

Q: Who says "Moo"?
Aaron: Cow!

Q: Who says "Peep"?
Aaron: Chicken Nugget!
(Correct Answer: A Chick)

Aaron at 2

Aaron has started speaking a lot. A few months ago I was able to have pretty basic conversations with him. And now all of a sudden he can count to ten. In English and Cantonese/Mandarin (he mixes up the two sometimes).

And he can "sing" a bunch of songs that I never knew he remembered the words to. Like, he can sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" in Mandarin and English. I just barely learned it in Mandarin! And Isaac is still trying to catch up on that front. And he loves to sing "The Wheels on the Bus," but he's constantly asking for variations, like "Mommy! The Wheels on the Tow Truck! Airplane Goes Up and Down!" Some days it seems like I spend the entire day singing a variation of this song to him. He's also become quite bossy:
"Mommy - Sit!"
"Sit HERE! No Couch!"
"Hair DOOOOWN!"
"Turn Around!"
"Mommy! MOMMY! MOOOMMMMMYYYYY! GET UP! NO LIE DOWN!! GET UP!"
"No 'puter, Mommy! No 'puter!"
(You can guess what that last one means...)
I guess when I'm not singing a version of "Wheels on the Bus" I'm reminding him to say "Please."

He's also showing a sense of humor. He tends not to like meat and most proteins, but he does eat a lot of beans, so one day Isaac was teasing, him, "Should I call you 'Beano'?" In reply, Aaron looked at Isaac, and then pointed at himself and shouted gleefully, "Beano!" His first joke?

What else.. we've noticed over the past few months that he is really clean. I think most kids go through this phase, but I'm not sure if he's in the normal range. He loves to "xi shou" or wash hands, and he always needs to have everything cleaned up. In fact, he really enjoys cleaning up, and he freaks out, "Cleamup! CLEAMUP! CLEAMUP!" if there's s tiny crumb on his hand or a drop of milk on the table. He was pretty unhappy when we didn't clean up his party decorations right away:

I'm wondering if this is a reaction to Isaac and I. We're not dirty, per se, but we definitely have a cluttered home. Or we did. Aaron's got an eagle eye, and when he sees a crumb on the ground or paper lying around, he brings it to me, states "Gah-bage" and then when I confirm, he throws it away. It's like having a tiny housekeeper who only throws away tiny crumbs and clean wipes.
I don't think he's OCD though, because he still thinks it's hilarious to knock down a tower of blocks or throw a full container of grapes onto the ground, causing them to roll ALL OVER the apartment to who knows where.

Which leads me to discipline. We're not quite sure what to do here. I can definitely tell that he's testing his boundaries, and he doesn't always listen to us. Hence the grape incident. We've tried timeouts, but he seems to enjoy them. The last few times I said threateningly, "Aaron, Timeout!", he replied excitedly, "Timeout! Want Timeout!" and scrambled to get out of his chair. So...I don't think that's really working. Any ideas out there?

Catch Up

Aaron's 2nd birthday has come and gone. I wish I've been more diligent about blogging so that I would have something to look back on to remember when he hit milestones or started saying certain phrases or whatnot, but instead I have fuzzy memories. Sadly, I don't remember a lot of milestones. I don't know exactly when he said his first word, or when he got his first tooth. So I'd like to try and post more often to preserve our memories of what he's like right now, but we'll see how that goes.

So let's see..I can't believe I never posted about Halloween! I guess I have a lot of catching up to do. Aaron was a lion, and he HATED HATED HATED his costume. Or more precisely, he hated the hood because the mane felt funny around his face. So he basically looked like some kind of animal from the neck down, but we never got a picture of the full effect. He did enjoy the trick or treating though. And definitely the candy afterwards. He loves "chock-lit".

We spent Christmas in NJ with my family, followed by a vacation with Isaac's family in Portugal and Madrid, where I got sick again. I always seem to get sick on vacation - I don't think I travel well. Luckily, Aaron loooves his grandparents and his aunt and uncles, so he was happy to hang out with them while I laid in bed. Portugal was okay; Madrid was more fun. I wish we had been able to spend more time there - seems like the people there really know how to enjoy life. They had a huge celebration on the Eve of New Year's Eve and another on New Year's Eve. I gotta say, if you ever fly out there, don't fly TAP Portugal. We were on 4 flights, and every single flight had terrible turbulence. Like throw up inducing to I better pray right now turbulence. So anyway, it was a fun trip; it felt too short as always, but it was nice to come home too.

All this was soon followed by Aaron's 2nd birthday! Isaac and I took him to the Children's Museum of Manhattan, then Shake Shack for lunch, and then Curry-Ya for dinner. It's too bad Aaron's a picky eater - he only ate the fries at Shake Shack and dried onion flakes and white rice at Curry-Ya. He doesn't know what he's missing! The next day my family came over and we took his cousins to the Holiday Train Show at Grand Central. It's just a model train display in a room - nothing huge, but Aaron loved it. He's really into tunnels at the moment, so he loved seeing the trains go in and out of them. We had a lot of fun with his cousins, and he got lots and lots of trucks and toys from everyone. He still loves his trucks.