Great News!!

DD's dentist confirmed that the"bumped" tooth was pushed into the gum, but it did not break. In addition it did not damage the root of the permanent tooth when it was pushed up...(phew~~) It also means that we might not need a surgery right away!

Looking forward to March

We have finally recovered from a cold that lasted almost one month!! To make matter worse, DD had a freak accident in his crib and (sort of) lost his first tooth. I would have never thought that the safest place, his crib, could be the most dangerous place! He bump his upper front tooth against the railing and the tooth is now stuck in the gum. Now that the swelling in gone, the dentist should be able to better diagnose the damage and decide if DD needs a surgery to extract the tooth.

Other than the sickness and accident, life goes on pretty much as usual. Recently, I had been pleasantly surprised by DD's progress. He has come a long way from the early onset of the terrible-two stage (starting at 18 months:) to this mature-thoughtful-little-boy stage. The other day while I was video taping him doing this 46-piece puzzles and was just amazed by his patience, independence and problem solving skills. Of course, he still has his moments of thrwoing temper tantrums and being hyper active, but those moments are just as precious to me.

A big shock came the other day when the day care director told me that she will start moving DD to the preschool class from the two's room. :( I told her I was NOT ready for him to go to the preschool class yet, but she just laughed and said that HE is ready regardless!! He is getting bored in the two's room and I finally noticed that he is now the biggest kid in the two's room... :(

This is part I of a loooong video of DD working patiently on his puzzles.



Part II of a loooong video of DD finishing up his puzzles

Raising your quarter-million dollar baby

Children are priceless, but raising them is probably the most expensive thing you'll ever do. Here are some strategies and tips that may help.

http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/CollegeandFamily/Raisekids/P37245.asp

From corner office to sweeping floors in Starbucks

Having had the job of mopping the floor at Burger King for a few months, I can't honestly say that mopping floor is the most satisfying job, but his man's new outlook on life does resonate with me. :)

Probably can't give up my corporate job anytime soon, but I totally LOVE a story like this!

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CNN reported a segment this morning on Michael Gates Gill, a former ad exec and self-described "Master of the Universe," who lost his job and is now working at a Starbucks in New York. Life, according to Gill, couldn't be more blissful. Once married to his career, he now enjoys the easy banter with customers while sweeping floors and re-filling the milk.
Life is what you make of it, is Gill's lesson, and it will soon be coming to theaters in a movie being developed by Good Will Hunting and Milk director, Gus Van Sant. Tom Hanks is said to star. The movie will be based on Gill's memoir, How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else. As my French friend, who's currently in New York, said after watching Gill on CNN, "Only in America, that's what makes this country so great."

Embedded video from CNN Video

Update

DD and I are settling into our new life now. We have been sick for two weeks, but over all we are doing ok on our own.

Here's our daily routine (for daddy's leisure reading):
1) DD wakes mommy up at 6:00AM for his bottle, then falls back to sleep while listening to the "The Ugly Duckling" (醜小鴨) story on Chinese CD. It's so cute to hear him "reciting" the story with his broken Chinese through the baby monitor. I think he already knows more Chinese than I give him credit for! :) He wakes up again at 7:30 and we get ready to go to his daycare.
2) DD goes to day care from 8:00AM to 6:00PM. He is now very aware of what is going on at the daycare and would try to "tell" me what he learned during the day with his broken English.:) I am just so excited that he is learning and talking more that I am not too concerned about hearing perfect Chinese or English pronunciations right now~
3) After we get home, DD would happily eat the dinner that mommy prepares for him. DD can tell mommy's cooking is not as good as A-ma's with this confused look, but he eats it anyway (never been a picky eater.)
4) After dinner, we play together. Recently, DD started getting into puzzles... Not the difficult/tiny puzzles that mommy can't do at all. One of his Christmas gift from uncle D was a 24-piece "Dora the Explorer" puzzles (super easy for mommy:). DD was hooked, so mommy bought some more of the 12-piece wooden ones through Amazon. Now he loves them all!
5) After DD eats his fruits at 7:10PM mommy gives him a bath. DD loves playing his trains and cars in the bath for a good 20 minutes.
6) After his bath and all ready for bed, DD likes to snuggle with mommy for 5 minutes while drinking his bottle of milk, then Mommy will put him into his crib with his Elmo. Usually he asks for the Ugly Duckling" CD, but mommy prefers to playing the mono-tone Buddhist chanting for him. The boring chanting puts him to sleep in 5 minutes, so he is usually asleep by 8:00PM.
7) Sometimes DD wakes up for another bottle at 1:00Am, and mommy happily obliges, because he is growing and needs all the nutrient that he can get! :)
8) On the weekends, we do more activities such as attending the Kinder music classes, watching an hour of Elmo or Thomas, and going to the park. I am trying to start taking DD to some play dates, but weekends are usually not good play-dates time for other family. We will work on that.

The old me would have thought this routine life is so boring, but now I really enjoy watching my baby grow and be here for him when he needs me the most. I have heard that nowadays boys stops hanging out with their mommy as young as age 5!

Here are videos of DD putting together his puzzles. He looks like a serious old man when he does his puzzles, but he is so cute!!

(Dora the Explorer puzzles)

(On-the-Go wooden puzzle)

Just You and Me....

This is the song that I have been singing in my head over and over after both S and my aunt left U.S.

I was bummed when S went back to London on Jan 9, but totally went into a panic mode when my aunt went back to Taiwan!! Di-di and I (esp. I) were totally spoiled by my aunt in the past 4 months. My aunt was in charge of my house and Di-di. There was always food on the table; Di-di was always well fed and clean; my house was always clean; toys were always put back to the storage area... Mommy got to focus on her work as well as spending "quality" time with Di-di instead of being stressed out and not able to enjoy Di-di's cuteness and crazy 2-year-old antics. Life was great. Oh well, that is life. All good times have to end...

The house became messy as soon as my aunt left. I had a fever on the morning when my brother drove my aunt to the airport, so I left Di-di playing while I took a cat nap on the coach next to him. Not sure how Di-di sneaked around and did this without waking mommy.... This was what I saw when I woke up:

(Right there~~ all over the kitchen floor was what used to be a $100USD bottle worth of Ginseng powder that I bought in S. Korea. I have no idea where those tooth picks came from!!)

Di-di sure misses his daddy

This was Di-di searching for his baba on the morning when S went back to London. So sad to watch, because he kept looking for his baba for the next few days....

Happy Chinese 牛 Year!!!

P.S. It will be the Year of Ox. The Chinese word for ox is 牛 which also sounds very similar to New, so some creative guys came up with the Happy Chinese 牛 Year phrase.

Is this a real job?

Australia offers 'best job in world' on paradise island

Mon Jan 12, 10:16 pm ET
AFP/File – An Australian state is offering internationally what it calls "the best job in the world" -- …
SYDNEY (AFP) – An Australian state is offering internationally what it calls "the best job in the world" -- earning a top salary for lazing around a beautiful tropical island for six months.
The job pays 150,000 Australian dollars (105,000 US dollars) and includes free airfares from the winner's home country to Hamilton Island on the Great Barrier Reef, Queensland's state government announced on Tuesday.
(Continue...)

Flight from S.F. to London

Fortunately or unfortunately, each of the last three flights between S.F. & London have been eventful.

S.F. to London (August 2008)
First up is my flight from S.F. to London in last August. I flew on Aer Lingus. You could tell it was an Irish carrier because the flight attendants all had very Irish sounding names and my meal contained no less than 4 milk products. Also interesting was that the baby bassinet was a cardboard box. I don't know if there are FAA regulations regarding bassinets but it seems to me that a cardboard box is not a very safe option. It is funny how you notice things when you have children. Here is an old pic of Shaun in a bassinet on EVA air.

Now for the eventful part of the flight...Halfway through the flight, the baby in the aforementioned bassinet (aka-cardboard box) threw up 'mulitple times' in the aisle just a few feet away from me. I could not believe the baby held that much liquid inside of him. He threw up 3 or 4 times and a lot of liquid came up each time. The flight attendants did a good job cleaning up by the faint smell lingered for the rest of the flight.

London to S.F. (December 2008)
My second flight back to S.F. this December started out bad. As I was in my seat waiting for the plane to take off, I said to the person next to me, "As long as we have some good movies or TV shows I won't mind the long flight." Shortly afterwards, the flight safety recording comes on but I can't see anything on my screen. The pilot gets on the intercom and says " some of you seem to be having trouble with your video screens, I'll try to reset it". He tries a couple of times but no luck. So now I am thinking "Great! no entertainment for the entire 10.5 hour flight."

Then, an hour or so later, the pilot gets on the intercom again "We have a problem, there is no water in the bathrooms." The person next to me said "I thought he was going to say something worse". Me being a positive soul muttered, "We still have about 9 hours to go".

Thankfully the rest of the flight was much better as the entertainment system started working soon after. I spent the next 6 hours watching 2 movies and a couple shows.

S.F. to London (January 2009)
Thankfully this flight was less eventful than the last flight. I sat next to a mother and her 14 month old daughter. The BA bassinets are much better than the cardboard box on Aer Lingus and the baby slept pretty well in the bassinet. I got a few hours rest even though the baby wimpered/cried every hour or so. The last hour and a half was very turbulent and we weren't allowed to go to the restroom. Thankfully I wasn't like some of the passengers next to me who drank wine and multiple bottles of vodka and sprite. (P.S.-Alcohol on BA flights are free, even for the cheap seats.) I don't indulge on airplanes because it is already very dehydrating but for those of you who do....

Shaun loves German cars!

Over the last three weeks I drove Shaun to daycare. Every morning, he would walk up to the Mercedes, point at the car and say "THIS car".

Once, I had to drive the Lexus and he threw a fit! He cried and struggled as I pushed him into the Lexus. It took a couple minutes for him to calm down. I wish I had video of that....