Reunions

Thanksgiving is a time of reunions and family, and that has been equally true for G and I; but personally for me this has been extra special -- I am riding the Caltrain as I am typing this, returning from the 20th Reunion of my San Fran elementary school. That's how long i haven't seen them. These guys remember so much - my Chinese name, all of our teachers, and even the ones whom had only been there for a year together remember me. They say I look the same. Most of them are recognizable as well. To say that they are strangers since I haven't seen them in 20 years would be a mistake. Nothing could be farther from the truth, it was like family. They remember my parents first names, playdates, etc etc. I met my math teacher and my English teacher who brought Apple IIs into our classrooms and defended our playing the game of pong against parents. That same teacher is probably partially responsible for the fact that I am a software developer today.

It's funny that I'm the only one in high tech. A lot are in finance; two live in Hong Kong now; one is a tattoo artist and another a Hollywood director. Anyways I'm very thankful to the Wo's for babysitting tonight.

Thanksgiving was a day full of yummy food thanks to the generosity of my sister-in-law's family. That was a reunion in many ways too since I've barely seen them since our wedding and I haven't spent any time with my brother lately. G was the star, they kept saying how well behaved she is and how cute. She would climb into her chair by herself and start eating food on her own G managed to sleep 3.5 hours in her tent - which amazed me as she really only sleeps well in her crib these days. She got comfortable after a while:




She also had fun playing with rocks in the backyard:


Today my cousin and her daughter A came over to play with G. They love her and even follow this blog! Sorry I don't have any photos but it was a fun time for everyone.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Broom broom

G helps daddy sweep up the leaves! Actually more like daddy trying to
sweep, and G bitterly saying "NO!" and wanting the broom to herself. :)

Doing everything herself

So, G is really becoming independent. She wants to do everything herself. Some of that is really good: she can almost use a spoon by herself now. If I hold her yogurt right next to her, so there's no spillage, she can spoon feed herself a little bit at a time. I also taught her (OK maybe she knew already?) to use her finger to help push food into her spoon, so she can spoon feed herself ramen. She asks for a napkin so she can "cha cha" -- clean her own hands. She then uses it to clean her area of the table in front of her. She also always gets her plate for breakfast and wanted to carry my laundry basket in for me. The problem is that she _insists_ on this and won't do anything unless you let her. She won't let me spoon feed her. She won't let me clean her hands. She keeps coming back to the dishwashing rack and taking additional spoons out and I have to stop her. She even complained about me putting a diaper on her -- she wants to close it herself.

Sometimes I combat this by letting her discover that she can't do it herself, but I have to be really patient. Sometimes I get impatient and say, "Daddy bang," and then tries to help her but she then gets frustrated.

Speaking of eating, I've decided that bribing is really bad and to put an end to the practice. It's hard though. Really really hard, not to bribe. However today I did not bribe her with hardly anything, definitely not crackers (but I did say, "Do you want a cracker?" once). It just teaches the wrong habits and teaches G to hold stuff in her mouth rather than eat things.

G continues to say "sock" with an F at the beginning. Ai-ya! So, I'm teaching her the Cantonese for sock. She says it like "Mutt". Much better. :) Also, I'm teaching G to turn her pages in a gentle way, instead of smashing and crinkling pages when she turns her books.

Our day in reverse order (iPhone apparently mails photos in reverse sometimes -- or maybe I selected them in reverse, who knows). Went over to G's favorite friends house to hang out and have dinner and apple pie. G kept yelling "PIE! PIE!" as soon as she saw it on the table. I don't even know how she picked up that word. Anyways this is C, G's favorite friend, pushing her in a cart.

We all have such an abundance of food now, thanks to all our wonderful friends. S may not have to cook for a while when she gets back.

Earlier in the day I took G to the park and went in the swing. While she enjoyed it, she gets tired of it and wants out much quicker than in the past. She then played with the sand, but I cleaned her hands afterwards well.. I've been cleaning her hands before and after every meal.

In the morning she caught sight of squirrels on the backyard fence and got so excited she kept yelling "WATCH! WATCH!" She also dragged her two little chairs to the back door, and asked me to sit with her to watch the squirrel. I thought it was so sweet and cute of her that I had to take a photo. These are the moments I really savor.

Finally, G pulled my jacket over her on the way to the park in the stroller, to hide from the shade, but then decided she only wanted to shade her forehead :)

Locked out and blacked out

So, the first 24-hours of my parenting Gabi alone ended at 1pm today. Yesterday, S's mom left for the airport after church. The 24 hours seemed to begin ominously: as we left for church, getting a ride with a friend, I forgot to take the key and so was locked out when coming home. I won't share here how I got back in, but suffice to say that I've learned my lesson. Then today, the City of Santa Clara shut off electrical power on our street to do repairs. Plans to go to the zoo and backup plans to hang out at a friend's all fell through, but it was a great opportunity for me to learn that I could still take a warm shower when the power was off; to walk around the neighborhood with G and look at the big trucks doing repairs and talk to neighbors who had been here since the 1950's; and to stroll to the local Domino's to get hot pizza (since I can't use the microwave, ovens or stove, and didn't really want to open the fridge). BTW I really didn't care to go out and eat since we have lots of leftovers.

BTW, G loves pizza. She ate two slices of my personal pizza. She especially likes mushrooms and the crust. I tried to get her to eat the peperroni as well but she didn't really take to them. Olives she's fine with. It was really good for me to see her eating well; one of my nightmare scenarios of single parenting really just involves struggling to feed her and getting in power battles all the time. That would be extremely draining.

She also loves oranges. These are more like tiny mandarins, which friends had brought for me. I think it's great timing too since over the weekend she seemed slightly constipated, Sat no poo, Sunday only a tiny bit, but I think the fiber helped.

G is getting into doors. She said "pee pee" today, and I took her to the bathroom, but all she wanted was to play hide-and-seek with the bathroom door. I thought she was just faking it to play hide-and-seek, but minutes later she repeated 'pee pee' and then 'poo poo' and started for the bathroom, this time for real. With some patience, out came an adult-sized piece, still a little dry but getting better.

I would say despite the power outage and lockout and everything that the first 24 hours of true single parenting have been going well.

G is waking up from her nap, so it's time to go.

-Evan

Ramen

So G loves ramen noodles. I went shopping at Whole Foods and had lunch
with a friend whose wife is also overseas. Feeding her ramen is easy
and she loves the soup as well. Problem is there aren't veggies to
feed her. At night she played Chinese checkers with her great-
grandpa. Ok not really, I mean cmon she's only 21 mos!!!!

Friday fun

Tonight we headed over to G's favorite friends house to hang out. G is
totally into food and play cooking. She served me four plastic potato
chips and took her time to use a fork pretending to put some dip on
each one. She even served them to me on a plate. Then she decided to
share my chips with others. :). Here she is jamming herself into a toy
pack and play! That thing is dangerously unstable.

Can't believe S has been gone for 6 days. She's called me every night,
even said goodnight to G together.

Playing airplane

The first photo shows G being helpful and putting her potato head toys
back; she's been pretty wild today though. The second one was where I
made a Lego plane for her and played airplane with her, making
wonnnnnn nnnnnnn diving and swooshing sounds. She loved it, grabbed
the plane and proceeded to run around, making her own noises.

G is doing well in general but really wanted to see Mommy, and got a
chance today when we were able to video Skype! It's amazing that S
has been in Thailand every day and we've been able to talk every day.

G has woken up past midnight these last few nights but gone back to
sleep. Not sure why.

Finally we have been just blessed by so much food, between the Wu's
giant ham and all the curry and other food S left behind, that we are
still eatin leftovers. Tonight I made fried rice with bell peppers,
carrots, ham, and other Chinese leftovers. Probably not as good as the
fried rice S makes.

Second day

Today I went back to work. Awesome to have Grandma watching G at home. I was talking to my friend whose wife is also gone to Thailand. He is working from home, and even though his aunt came over to help, he still had a hard time trying to feed his baby and work at the same time. Anyways an anonymous friend came over and brought this awesome huge roast ham. What awesome friends we have!

G had to be bribed again during dinner to eat her veggies. She loved her rice and ham. She played a lot, and while putting her to bed, really loved to play with me and push my head around like her new toy.

I redid yesterday's post. It got messed up when posting from my iPhone. Learned my lesson - sending in an email post while mixing text and photos doesn't work.

The first 24 hours without Mommy

In the morning I started hearing "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" uh-oh, she knows now I thought. Turned out to be her normal cry for attention. As usual she had thrown everything out of her crib during the night, and I was too tired last night to pick it back up. It's Sunday morning and I went in to get her up. I put a long sleeve with snow pattern blue (can see it in the first photo, where G is feeding grandma a cheerio), warm brown pants, and tied her hair into two ponytails with blue hair thingies. I fed her yogurt - breakfast is the easiest meal of the day.

At church I dropped her off at Nursery without a cry. In fact she didn't even look back! This pix is actually from Saturday when we were at church for Operation Christmas Child.

We went home for lunch to have leftovers. I must say it's such a blessing to have grandma here. She fed her noodles for lunch and has really taken care of the hardest thing - feeding her. And much more. Grandma is doing all the driving since I can't drive.

G was tired and we had to wake her from her nap to drive over to tai-gong and tai-pos house. She was very shy, refused to let them hold her (even in exhange for a cracker) and kept hugging my leg.

G kept wanting to "mo mo" (feel) their dog and said "kai" - wanting me to open the door, but whenever I did she would get scared!

We went out to dinner and G had a hard time. Very fuzzy and clingy, making a big mess. Grandma did most of the feeding.

Overall G seems well adjusted and herself mostly. I think Mommy is the one who has it hard for these first 24 hrs, sitting in a cramped plane seat for 13/18 hrs, then arriving in 90deg humidity.

Two weeks without Mommy

So Mommy just left for two weeks on her missions trip to Thailand. This is going to be interesting. G has been more clingy lately, and friends ask me if she knows. I reply that she sorta does, but they think she has no idea. We just came back from the airport sending the whole group off (it's an entire team from my church) and G dozed off on the way home. She could just as well be thinking, like some other nights when Mommy has dinner with friends, that Mommy wasn't around when she fell asleep, but she still expects to see Mommy the next morning. The real test will thus come in the morning. When I left for China back in April, G cried every morning for a few days.

So begins two weeks of single parenting -- well I have it pretty good actually. Grandma came this week to help out for a week. The following week my company happens to have a shut-down, just when Grandma will be leaving, so I can take care of G during the day. My church is doing a "meals for dads" program so I won't even have to cook some meals. Not that I mind cooking when I don't have to work - it might even be fun. There will be other dads around who are single parenting - our wives all went on the trip -- I've made plans with one to visit the zoo.

Let the adventure begin. In the meantime, it's off to bed for me. It's been a long week with lots of late nights.

long overdue update...

I don't even know if anyone is checking this anymore... the quick update is that G is now 20.5 months. She knows about 15 words in sign language, about double that in Chinese, and double that in English! She continues to amaze us every day by how much she is absorbing! She has also started potty training herself, telling us when she wants to sit on the toilet. G continues to go to Little Gym class, where she is now learning how to rotate around the high bar, as well as swing/hang on it by herself. Her balance on the balance beam is also getting really good, where she can walk with very little support.

In other news, G is going to be a big sister in January, just shy of her 2nd birthday. We do not know whether it will be a didi or meimei. Also, I will be heading to Thailand for a short term missions trip in a week, where I will be working with women and children who have been or are at risk for being sex-trafficked. I'm excited but also a little sad to leave G and Evan behind for 2 weeks, but I know they will be well takedo itn care of, by G's Wai Po who will be helping us the first week, and also by all the church family we have supporting us.

Here she is as an octopus for Halloween.

This is from the summer, from our church youth group picnic. She was a bit young, but enjoyed playing with the leftover water buckets and water balloons.

This was from we wedding we went to in Santa Barbara in the beginning of October. She preferred walking around the lawn rather than sitting through the beautiful outdoor ceremony.