Apr 2007

The birthday girl
What's the plan for April's 3rd birthday? Everyone was asking Mommy. Easy! Mommy got the idea from Aunti Yihsin. April would celebrate it with all her new friends at school. Mommy talked to her class teacher, she said just bring the cake in during snack time. Yet, Mommy and Daddy was late for snack time. Mommy had a really bad cough, and got a last minute doctor appointment and it overlapped with the snack time by a 10 minutes. And that's the amount of time for snack. Darn! So Ms. Tina put the cake into the fridge and told Mommy to come back the following day. Mommy also prepared party flavor for her classmates, but was rejected by Ms. Tina. Not sure if there had been accident before, or they've received complaints from other parents. Mommy didn't get the warning early enough, so April got to have all the party flavor. Mommy hided it in the downstairs closet, she goes there once in a while to dig out the stickers or happy birthday crowns.

Easter egg hunt
Probably the first school activity that required Mommy's attendance. It's at a nearby park in Palo Alto. The whole school gathered around a plain green lawn in the park, and the teacher scattered the eggs all over the lawn. Lots of kids wanted to grab the eggs when the teachers was placing them. It was a bit chaotic. Meanwhile, April was chasing after a black girl, whose name is Kyana(Mommy's not sure the actual spelling) She has the same purple jacket as April's. For some reason, April was really attached to her that day. She's in the pre-K class, probably 2-3 years older than April. Kyana was busy playing some kind of turn based running game with her classmates and got really annoyed at April following her. Mommy pulled April aside to explain to her, it's some bigger kids' game, we should watch from the side. April was very upset. Thankfully, it didn't last long, the lawn was ready for egg hunt. April got a few eggs, each contained either toys or candies. She was then all happy again and completely forgot about Kyana.

Anzel's birthday party
Yay! Anzel's first birthday party. It took place at the nearby park of Anzel's house. For some reason Mommy thought everyone will gather at their house before heading to the park. We were very puzzled at their door, ringing the bell and no one opened the door. It was a casual gathering. The most memorable part is the comical photo of Anzel, April and Maggie.



First dentist appointment
We had the Dora the explorer's dentist story book, we read to her before her first appointment. What actually happened in the dentist office was exactly like in the book. And since both Daddy and Mommy were there with her, she's not scared at all. Only she got nervous when the assistant doing the cleaning. It was really brief, much shorter than adults'. Mommy told the assistant that April's still lacking 4 molars. She said it's very normal at this age. They will have the complete set much later. April got goodies at the end, new toothbrush and stickers.

Trike-a-thorn
This is a fund raising activity at the school. Each parent bid a certain amount of money per round, or 1 lump sum for the whole race. April's average in her class, she did 10 rounds with her trike. Mommy wrote down $2 per round, so totally $20. This event was to raise extra money for extra material fee for art work for the summer school.

New trick
Chewing gum - she remembers not to swallow and spits it out to trash can when she's done chewing.

Dialogue of the month
On the way to school, Mommy pointed at a gas station and asked April, what's that?
April: 那是加油站。
Mommy: 对啦。
April: 当车车不能走的时候，要来这里的。他们要加油，要交钱的。
Mommy: 对啦。
April: April有钱。
Mommy: 那么April长大帮妈妈加油哦。
April: April没钱， April有卡。卡是在钱包里的。 April还有图书卡。
(hmm...when did she realized those cards from Mommy's purse could be used as money?!?)

Video of the month
April singing morning song and pretending she's Ms. Tina

Mar 2007

Tahoe trip

爸爸说再不去Tahoe，就要来不及了。雪都快要没了，April要等明年才可以玩雪。好吧！我们家也是临时起义的，说走就走。因为是临时的， 所以酒店也定的贵。不过Tahoe下雪的时候没有便宜的。爸爸也有心思，酒店定的是个独立的小木屋，有厨房，就在湖的旁边。说好早上9点出发，东西没准备好，一拖就到中午。开车要3-4小时，到了都快天黑。半路上还停下来买大雪天衣服给April，还买了两双一样的雪鞋，分红色的，妈妈一双， 她一双。April是多么的兴奋，到了小木屋，就在房子里东跑西跑的。那么小的木屋，没什么空间，跑快两下就摔倒了，还是头撞到冰箱，大哭了一场，又不肯吃东西，拖了很久才出门走走。

这些是出门走走的录像，妈妈衣服靴子都买了，就忘了手套。April就戴上妈妈的手套，第一次走雪地。




爸爸教April扔雪球，戴着妈妈的手套是不可能的！


因为April玩的太累了，她是在喧闹的餐馆里睡过了晚饭，爸妈难得有一个2人晚餐。倒是回到小木屋后，要叫醒我们的小公主，因为她整天没怎么吃过东西，好好的再给她煮晚饭。

第二天起晚了，弄了半天才离开小木屋。给April买好手套，就带她去sliding，妈妈也从来没玩过。以为1小时很短不够玩，我们还想加钱加时，给气圈的老头说你们先试一试再说。果然1小时还不到，爸妈就不行了。下坡是很爽，上坡是累死了。来回几次，把身上的衣服都脱剩一层，还汗流夹背，双腿是再也走不动的啦！April倒是一点不累，因为她是爸爸背着她上坡的。

交完气圈时间已晚了，只好找个湖边走走。以下是April在湖边的历险记。





最后，来了一群鸭子，April抓着雪块要分给鸭子吃，鸭子是给她吓得鸡飞走狗。


爷爷奶奶来了

爷爷奶奶来了是因为爸爸又要出差了，这次要去3周。本来奶奶来就可以了，但是下月是April的生日，爷爷只来一个周末，是来送礼物的。礼物包括玩具和衣服。妈妈忘了从什么时候开始不买玩具，大概是发现托儿所有太多太多的玩具后吧。妈妈怎么买也比不上，所以索性不买。妈妈不买，但是April的玩具还是在增加，亲戚朋友会送，还有爸爸每次出差都会给她买，所以家里还是七国那么乱！

火车慢游湾区半岛4小镇

奶奶来了，生活很稳定。有个星期六我们决定带April来个火车慢游。我们家离火车站只要步行15分钟，可是出门还是晚了，周末火车的班次是1小时1班，我们就晚了5分钟，在火车站白等了1小时才上车。先到Menlo Park downtown，有条优美的小街，小店卖的都是精美的小商品，那里是比较高尚的住宅区，货品都比较贵，仲看不仲买。下一站时Redwood City downtown，我们可能走错路，市政府办公庭附近的店都关门，我们就找了一家泰国餐馆吃中饭。April又是吃饭时来睡午觉，我们吃完她再吃。弄了半天，怕下一班车又晚了，奶奶和妈妈推着April的stroller连走带跑的赶到车站。下一站是San Mateo downtown，妈妈以前在这里住过，所以比较了解。不过还是找到一两家新店，有一家日本$1店，有很多日常用品，妈妈就买了一些家里和April可用的。然后，又是赶火车，最后一站是Mountain View downtown去吃晚饭，晚饭后三个女的累得不行了，打道会府。


April 本月金句

When Daddy was about to check out the 小木屋 in Tahoe...
Daddy: 爸爸去退房間
April: 爸爸把房間推倒了
(this come from the 3 little pigs story, the second pig build a wooden house, the wolf pushed down the house. Since ours is a wooden house, she thought what Daddy is going to do is to tear down the house. Doh')

April learnt "¿Cómo es usted?" meaning "How are you?" in Spanish. When Mommy asked her who teach her that word...
April: 肥肥!
(good thing, Ms. Mercedes doesn't know Chinese and not there to hear this, if not, she would be pissed)

At a playground, we saw a bunch of birds flying by, Mommy told her those are 烏鴉
April: 我要學烏鴉飛。我要有翅膀就可以飛啦!

April sings 菊花台

Finally I caught her singing it herself. I doubt she knows what those words mean. Her notes are flying everywhere, but at least a rough tone there.

April counting in different languages

This is for Uncle Q and Aunti Laura, per their request.
I finally get April to do it, not very willingly though.
She started with Spanish (rusty now, since the school stopped languages class in the summer), then in Mandarin and English. As a bonus, I had her repeat after me for 福州话 and Japanese. She has no clue. Last I want her to count in Cantonese, she ran away :P

Feb 2007

Gloomy winter accompanied with cough and sneezes, it wasn't a good feeling. On top, with more doctor visits and yucky medicine made April a rather dull kid. Feb was quite an uneventful month.

Quotes of the month:

Taking the yucky medicine, April pointed to the white liquid said, "April 很勇敢﹐有一粒粒的"

After watching Dora the Explorer too much...
April: 童年在那裡呢?
Mommy: 童年是時間﹐不是地方
April(Completely ignoring Mommy): 童年不知道在那裡要問誰呢? 要去找map!
(Mommy has been singing 童年 to April and April can sing along with Mommy, about 70% accuracy to the lyrics, but she can't sing this one alone, too long... that day she suddenly want to find 童年)

Driving home after dinner, we passed by some cop cars, there was an accident probably...
April: 警察叔叔不會來抓 April﹐April 挺乖的
(Whenever April is not behaving in the car or not willing to put on the seat belt, we will be threatening her that the cop will come get her.)

On the lunar new year eve, we made a day trip to SF. Before getting onto the highway, we stopped at a gas station to get gas. Daddy didn't notice a curb, so the car jumped up and down with a loud sound. When we stopped the car,
April:什么事吗?
Mommy: 爸爸弄壞了媽媽的車
Mommy helped April get out of the car
April: 爸爸你要說對不起﹐Sorry
Daddy: Sorry

Same day after dinner, we drove by Chinatown. We saw some stores put on fireworks before closing. It's really noisy, and the road was very congested. We told April, that's called, "放便炮"
April: 我喜歡放便炮﹐但我害怕放便炮

Jan 2007

April is 2 years 9 months old. Mommy started keeping a jounel this month. April is still not eating well at school. Mommy was trying to make her sleep by herself and in her own room, since we moved and she has her room now. But it wasn't successful. She was sick (see the sickness record in previous post) and has been seeing doctor and taking antibiotics. We were cleaning up our San Jose house, preparing for sell. Daddy left for Shanghai end of the month, so Mommy has to "handle" her for a week.

April 名言:

CASE 1
Mommy was going to take April to Target for a walk, too cold and wet to walk outside. Daddy helped April getting onto the car.
April:我跟妈妈去Target.
Daddy:我也去
April:No, 妈妈跟我去Target, 爸爸去Wal-mart (April prefer Target over Wal-mart)
Daddy:爸爸不去Wal-mart, 爸爸去IKEA
April(getting all excited):我们三个人一起去IKEA
We still went to Target, she's not very happy about it.

CASE 2
We were in a restaurant, Mommy ordered grapefruit juice. April tried one sip, she said: 这果汁是生的，还没熟。

Leaving the restuarant, Mommy was helping her pushing the heavy front door, she turned her head and said, "Be careful!" (你要小心，还是妈妈要小心呢?)

CASE 3
Preparing to leave home...
Mommy:外套，那个呢? 厚的还是薄的?
Daddy:厚的吧
Mommy:在那里呢?
April:在楼上
And it was upstairs.

CASE 4
Daddy's cooking in the kitchen, Mommy's not home yet.
Daddy:爸爸在切什么?
April:牛肉
(Daddy was a little surprised, how did she know that raw meat is beef?)
Daddy:牛肉最好陪芹菜
April:我去买芹菜，你等我哦！
April then went riding her trike(She just picked this up from preschool, in the past, Mommy tried to teach her that but never succeeded) The garage door is opened, she rode a small circle back. Then she took a piece of junk paper in the garage and handed to Daddy
April:这是你的芹菜哦。
(爸爸晕倒!)
Later on, Mommy came home, after Mommy parked her car, April ran to ask Mommy...
April:你买了芹菜吗?
(妈妈觉得莫名奇妙！?！)

CASE 5 (Lost in translation)
April was crying in the car for something, while Mommy drove her to daycare.
Mommy: April 是乖孩子哦
April got angrier, and cried more. Then she tried to hold her breath for a little bit and explained...
April: April 不是乖孩子﹐April 是女孩子
(doh')
Mommy: April 是乖的女孩子
Then April nodded and stopped crying.

April 新歌:
菊花台
Mommy and Daddy just heard about this song. Mommy really the lyrics and started to sing this when she drive April to school, but did not intend to teach her. Then one day, she sings the chorus part herself:

菊花殘滿地傷 你的笑容已泛黃
花落人段腸 我心事 靜靜悵
北風吹 夜未央 你的影子剪不段
徒留我孤單在湖面成雙

That night, Mommy pulled Daddy to her room and had her sang it in front of him, he was quite amazed. Then again it's a sad song.

Here's the MV on youtube


Five Little Ducks from Wiggles
April sings along with Wiggles when we played the DVD, but we never hear she sing it without the DVD. One day Daddy called Mommy on cellphone in the morning, that rarely happened, only if there is an urgent matter. He was sending April to the daycare near his work. He told Mommy, he finally realized the song April has been singing. April has been singing that unrecognizable song called "one dao one dei" for a long time. Daddy asked her what else is in the that song? She said, "Quack quack quack", then Daddy had a revelation.

April sings "one dao one dei", which is "went out one day", which is part of the 5 little ducks lyrics. 妈妈晕倒! Mommy had the clip in previous posts, not going to repeat it here.

Other songs she already knows:
ABC song
O'McDonald had a farm
Itsy bitsy spider
Twinkle Twinkle little star (both chinese and English version)
Head shoulder knees and toes
Row row row your boat, gently down the stream (don't know the name of the song)

April made a scene in the library
Mommy brought her to Los Altos' public library the weekend Daddy's in Shanghai. For some reason she thought that little elephant stuff'ed animal dress in a pink dress was hers. And there was another kid want to have it, she got into this fight with the other kid and cried loudly for sufficiently long time. The librarian gave Mommy warning on taking her away from the children's room. It was quite embarrassing.

Trike riding clip
Notice she said, "It's a bitch!" She really meant to say, "It's a bridge!"

A milestone!

Finally I reached Jan, 2007, so far all the posts are before 2007 with some overlapped to current time. Since the beginning of 2007, I started keeping a journel for April. From now on, I will compiled summary of each month's journel, hopefully I will get to DateTime.UtcNow by end of this year :D

Princess April Dietary

面粉类:
porridge
white or brown rice, with or without ori
freshly made noodle
butterfly pasta (only because Anzel eats it)
葱油饼
dumpling skin(only eat skin, not the content)
包子皮 (only eat the skin, not the content)
white toast with butter
cheese pizza (no other typy of pizza, we've tried, if there is any meat/veggie on the pizza, those items will need to be removed before she will eat it)
*** you can call her 饭桶

肉类:
baked chicken wing or drumsticks (no other form of chicken meat she will eat, and recently she only eat the skin)
碎肉蒸蛋 and pork chop (no other form of pork meat she will take)
grilled ribs (no other form of beef she will eat)
eel (only if we spoon feed her)
salmon (only a few bites)
cheese string (for protein, couple times a week, more she won't eat)
boiled egg (for protein, once a week, more she won't eat)

菜类
cucumber (raw, with or without skin, any other treatment she won't eat it)
organic cauliflower cooked with organic chicken stock
sweet corn
菜心 (boiled, and mixed with oil and some soy sauce)
chinese broccoli stem only (same treatment as 菜心)
毛豆 (boiled)
豆芽 (boiled mixed with sesame oil, green/yellow head has to be removed, she only eat the non-nutritious part)
sweet pea (from baby food to now, on and off, needs to be super fresh and crisp)
白萝卜 (only if heavily cooked with bone soup)
空心菜 (a few bites, if only you feed her)

Veggies she won't eat at all:
No spring onion, if any food has it, those chopped spring onion needs to be removed
No spinach
No celery
No broccoli
No carrot
No tofu
No mushroom (any kind)
No cabbage
No onion
No tomatoes
No potatos (only if that's fries)
No avocado
No bell pepper
No asparagus (doesn't matter chinese or western style)
No 大白菜
No 小白菜
No 丝瓜
No 冬瓜
No 韭菜
No 芥菜
No 茄子

水果类:
pear
peaches (fresh, it needs to have that smell, from farmers market, if you get it from supermarket, she won't eat it)
seedless watermelon
seedless green/red grape
organic fuji apple
fresh cantaloup
fresh green melon

Note: any food that's dark color she won't eat

Mommy's tale - Lunch returned!

So far has I mentioned that April is a picky eater? Well, she IS even she appears chubby all along. After failing on finding out the reason why she wouldn't eat this and that, I blame it on her allergic body. Then again, yesterday I just heard a case, a boy whose skin is super allergic to fabric, eats well and not picky.

April was fed well by Candy, the daycare lady. Since the daycare provided dinner, other than giving her milk in the morning we don't need to cook for her unless it's a weekend. Maybe she grew to like the taste of Candy's food, but our cooking is similar to what Candy prepared, I went smell and look at the food she made. April will only swallow about 10% of what we cooked for her. There are only a limited variety of food she will eat, being nutritionally balanced is a far far away tale. We had tried to talk some sense to her, give her toys, scold her, timeout on her during dinner to make her understand she needs to eat. Nothing works! Since her's weight has been steady on 50%, we sort of just let it go at the end.

Preschool doesn't provide lunch. I have to make her lunch then, it's a challenge to guess what she likes to eat. Again variety is not in her dictionary. Also timing is an issue. The school has about >80 kids, but only 1 kitchen, so with rotation, each kid has 20 mins to eat. It usually took us HOURS to feed April a considerate amount of food that we can call a meal. 20 mins is probably for 2 bites. And that's what I got when I collected her lunch box at the end of the day when she started preschool. On top of variety and timing issue, there is the manner issue. She's been fed in both daycare, she knows how to feed herself with spoon but there is always someone to feed her, it was never her responsibility to do the scooping for an entire meal.

Lunch returned last for a FEW months. I was really worried at the beginning. I asked the teacher, if I can come to feed April during lunch, since it's just 5 mins drive for me. The teacher said "No, kids need to learn to do it themselves, and kids eat very little. Don't worry." Well, I think the main reason is not to have bad influence to other kids, if one parent does that, other kid will ask their parent to come. Then the room will be exploded. But she only had 2 snack, 1 in the morning, 1 in the afternoon and 2 bites for lunch, April will have a stomach damage before I know it's too late.

I guess at some point she realized how anxious I am on this lunch disaster. After returning from our Asia trip, she started to eat much better, finishing about half of the lunch, sometimes more, if it's towards her liking. She told her teacher, "My mommy gonna be mad at me, if I don't finish my lunch." That's a surprise to the teacher and me. It's the first complete sentence she said in English since she started preschool. Now, variety is still not on the table, but she will return quantity to me. It's bizarre that a kid barely eat anything can hold up this amount of weight, maybe she's just not active enough.

Taking off shoes

One funny thing about starting preschool is the taking off shoes habit. Since April stayed in Chinese daycare, she has learnt to take off shoes at the front door. We do that at home, which is a good habit. For her 2.5 years since birth, that's all she's experienced. Therefore, she did the same thing at preschool, probably also the first couple weeks. Mommy was wondering why her socks are all black when she picked her up. Then realized she was wearing socks in the room the whole day while everyone wears shoes! Mommy had to do another consultation to get her understand the western rule.

Chinese to English or Spanish?

As Mommy mentioned before, April had a rough start in preschool. She speaked all Mandarin in her daycare. The daycare lady won't even say a single English word unless the kid can't respond to her. It was a pure Chinese nourishment. Then the preschool is 180 degree change. Everyone there speaks English. The first couple weeks was tough for both April and her class teacher. The Chinese teacher got called a few times per day to do translation upon critical situations, like she's agitated about something, or she needs to do #1 or #2. After first couple weeks, she started to speak Chinese to her classmates, treating them like they can understand Chinese. Once Mommy asked her teacher, "How is she communicating with her classmates?" The answer is FINE. Kid has their own language or the body language is good enough for communication. That reminds Mommy of the Colorado trip to visit Yihsin and Rex. April spoke Chinese to Kyle who responded in English, and they understood each other well enough when combating each other.

The second stage of the language development is that she fully accepted it's an English institution, she hasn't started talking in English yet but she resent during Chinese language class. Her teacher told Mommy, she couldn't understand why April wouldn't join the class. Seems like, to her it's now all English, nobody should speak Chinese. It's wrong to have a Chinese class in school! Then Mommy had to talk to her to help her understand.

Then April started saying some English words, no sentence yet, but more obviously, she started to count in Spanish. She would rather count in Spanish than Chinese or English, we will have to force her to repeat the counting in Chinese or English.

Now's she's balanced on either languages and we had to control her speaking less English. She will only translate her English to Chinese if she's in a good mood though.

April 唱送别 - 城南旧事

Mommy has been singing to April when she's very young. This is one of the songs. For some reason it registerd more in her and we found out she can sing it by herself one day.



A video of the song in the movie itself and the lyrics:

长亭外古道边
芳草碧连天
晚风扶柳笛声残
夕阳山外山
天之涯地之角
知交半零落
一壶浊酒尽余欢
今宵别梦寒



Here's another song April likes, Mommy got a customed CD from Auntie Ada (Correction: Ada 姊姊) maybe when April's 1ish. Mommy played the song in the car and not realizing April's been absorbing the song. Then one day Mommy played the song again and heard her sing along with it. It's quite an amazing experience. Then Mommy told Ada 姊姊, she was like, "Nooo!!! That's a very sad sad song. Not good for kids." Mommy has never watched the music video until Ada 姊姊 sent her the link. The lyric itself wasn't that sad if you hear the music without the video. But anyway, we had so far never shown April the video and April like ot sing the chorus part:

我愿变成童话里
你爱的那个天使
张开双手
变成翅膀守护你
你要相信
相信我们会像童话故事里
幸福和快乐是结局

The original 童话 music video is here.

First time April using chopsticks

It's her own interest that day to take on this challenge. She probably has been wondering why Mommy and Daddy kept using chopsticks instead of spoons and forks.

We moved and April started preschool

One month after we got Mazda 5, lots of other things happened. We had started looking for preschool for a while, Mommy feel April's ready for more formal school than just daycare which focuses on feeding, sleeping, safety and of course the most important one - speaking Chinese. It's a chance for April to learn English, but Mommy doesn't want her to forget Chinese. It's hard to find bilingual school. They are either international school that charges insane price or the waiting list is 2 years long. We visited a few but couldn't make a decision. It was a coincidence that Mommy talked to her coworker during a Friday social. She sent her daughter to a Challenger school, yet she really like the other one she visited, it's her husband's decision overruled her choice. Mommy went to visit her choice and really liked it, it's mainly an English speaking preschool, but provides Chinese and Spanish language classes. And most important, they will have an opening in 1 month!!! And the best of all, it's 5 minutes drive from Mommy's workplace! The only issue, April will start with 2 days a week, there is no slot for full time student yet. So other 3 days April still stays in daycare. It would be a slow English pick up, but that's okay.

After Mommy enrolled April, Daddy left for his b-trip. It was one Saturday afternoon, April was napping upstair, Mommy's on instant messenger with Daddy in Shanghai. We started talking about #2. At that time, we have 2 tenants, we need to send them out, it's already very crowded. Mommy initially thought with April's loud crying voice, it will naturally push them away. But their ears seem to be plugable or what? They didn't make a single complain on the noises. They stayed in our household as normal as can be. It's unbelievable! But we do need a change other than claiming back more space. The area around us is not that safe and not that good. Mommy went on to mlslisting and search for single family houses. In any desirable location in the bayarea, a single family will cost >1 Million. Mommy made the search criteria so stringent, only 4 houses returned back. And the square footage is way smaller than our townhouse. Fine, so Mommy made the search criteria broader, including townhouse and condo. There was one stand out. After April woke up from her nap, we went on a mission to look for that house. The townhouse is similar to our current one at that time, but the agent didn't care about us at all. He told us, there is already a buyer and just need to wait for the next day confirmation. The following day, Mommy called just to make sure it's sold, but it's not, the buyer needed 1 more day to think. Then everything happened in lighting speed. When Daddy came back from Shanghai 5 days later, the townhouse is already ours. Since then Mommy is a famous person in Daddy's office, he told all his coworkers, "My wife bought a house without me."

Now let Mommy draw you the triangle. The townhouse we bought is 10 minutes drive to April's preschool, and also 10 minutes drive to Mommy's office. Between the preschool and Mommy's office it's about 5 minutes drive. Location did make our lives much easier, but also we had been pushing our laziness to the limit. April is always 1 minute early to school and almost always the last one to leave school without paying a fine :P And since the triangle involves Mommy's office, therefore, Mommy is the sole school driver. Sometime if Mommy needs to be away (rarely) then Daddy will have to endure the traffic nightmare to avoid paying a fine.

With multiple changes happening at the same time, April seems to handle it okay, Mommy thinks her personality help in some way. We felt bad to leave her alone during weekends when we need to fix up the house, but we couldn't help it. One person doing the fixing would be too slow, we sacrificed her both unintentionally and intentionally. She's still with us, just our attention was not on her. She's surrounded with dangerous tools, we kept warning her not to touch this and that. But there was nothing for her to play with, she would pick up anything that we didn't tell her "No!" and play with her imagination.

School started rough since she couldn't communicate with anyone there, thankfully there is this Chinese teacher who can help translate her needs to the teacher. She almost never ate the lunch Mommy prepared (Mommy will have another post on this later, daycare provides all meals, this was new to April and Mommy) Mommy found her a temporary daycare that's closer to Daddy's workplace. That's also new to her, new daycare lady, new location, new kids. This half and half transition period last about 4 months before she turned full time in her preschool.

Mazda 5

Any European car after warranty period will turn into a terrible repairment nightmare. Same thing happened to Mommy's VW Golf. April 2006 marked the end of the 5 years warranty for Mommy's Golf. And right after that, one repair after another, each one costed hundreds of dollars. End of that summer, Mommy told Daddy, that's the end of it. We sold it the last week of August, at the time we gave out our car in exchange for a check, Mommy kept wondering why would anyone in this world want to own such a high maintenance car? Is that why men doesn't mind demanding girlfriend?

Mommy's instruction to Daddy is "A car that's good maintenance track record and a big enough car for a family but cannot be a SVU or mini van and it has to be cheap. Too much money has been wasted on car." With these requirement, the car consultant of the house started searching feverishly on the web. His report is either Mazda 5 or Rav 4. Mommy went tested both, Rav4 is not bad, but too tall for Mommy's height and it's more demanding to put April onto the car seat, it does has more power and gas mileage is not bad compare to Mazda 5. Then again Mazda 5 is way cheaper. What really draw Mommy's interest is Mazda 5's sliding door, plenty of room to get April in and out and don't need to worry about angle issue. Also the height is perfect for a 5ft person to load and unload a kid, Mommy don't need to bend her waist. It's a great relief. Therefore, Labor Day weekend, we got the Mazda 5.

星岛工展会

April俩岁多的夏天里的某一个星期六，我们带她去星岛报纸举办的工展会。这是一个给湾区的中国商家推广商品的展览会， 一年一次。在那里我们看了东方舞蹈学院的小妹妹小姐姐们跳舞，APRIL在大气球房子里风狂乱跳，妈妈谗了某餐馆的咖哩鱼丸(跟香港的比差的太运了)，拿了一些杂七杂八的广告。

随后的星期一,晚饭是在靠家的一家中国小餐馆吃的。我们的餐桌隔俩桌有一位中年男士在一边吃饭一边看报纸。April已经吃过晚餐了(我们的托儿所提供晚饭的)，我们就让她站在餐桌旁边玩，没什么好玩的，就站站跳跳。不一回儿，April指着报纸的方向说:"我去过那里的" 妈妈看看那报纸，花花禄禄的像是照片。好像很多人头，可能是工展会的吧。妈妈就对爸爸说April认的那是工展会的照片。

爸爸头一扬说:"不可能。如果她是记得，我要开心死了。"
然后妈妈就问April:"你记得在那里做什么啦?"
April用怀疑的眼光看着我们说:"看姐姐跳舞。"
妈妈问:"还有呢?"
April说:"在好大好大的房子里跳跳跳。"

妈妈看看爸爸，爸爸还是不大相信的样子。

Bossy April

Before I forgot, Berenice just reminded me on IM, and I need to write this down...

After getting herself familiar in daycare, and when the daycare has a few more kids to interact with. April's bossy personality started to surface. There is this rocking horse in the play room. The rule went like this:

1. If April is on the horse, no one can get on it until she's done
2. When April is not rocking it, no one can play it either. That's HER horse.

After the daycare lady told us, we both worked on her. Telling her what's "SHARING". That's when she was about 1 - 1.5 years old.

After enough counselling, her rule got modified...

1. Rule #1 above stays true
2. New rule: if you want to get onto the horse, you need a permission nod from April
3. New rule: sometime April will point to the lucky kid, who will ride the horse at the point she tell him/her to, not any time later or sooner, nor does it matter whether the lucky kid wants to rock the horse or not at that point (that's probably her definition to SHARING, sign...)

Also noted, April hasn't started talking yet at this age, so all the rules are carried out in action sequences.

This behavior persist for a while before she get bored of this game of herself. Mommy will have more bossy incidents to report in the future. Stay tuned.

Mommy's tale - DVD/TV watching

This is a very controversial topic. It's at the back of my head when I was expecting April, that there is research result about no TV until age 2, but it never really ring a bell until I learnt from other Mommies recently. We got DVD gifts from friends and families. It was around 6 months old, if my memory serves me well, that I attempted using DVD to gain myself sometime to feed myself (since once I didn't aware I missed lunch while taking care of April and I had a terrible diahrrea and vomit at night) or to cook/do housework/actual work. April will space out with Baby Einstein, it's safe to be in the kitchen while she's in the living room zooming out. It was especially helpful when I was doing the crazy schedule with Will, saved me on some conference calls. Now that I think about it, it may contribute to why April doesn't like to talk and she started talking late. Then again, another part of me is arguing, since her personality is like Daddy, would it really help that much if we completely excluded TV? Maybe marginal, it's hard to measure. Even I ain't a chatty person. Also with such a big time couch potato in the household, it's not that easy to completely exclude TV, though April ignore actual TV most of the time, she will look away and play with her toys. Probably she can't make any sense out of it. Slowly, since DVDs seems to help our schedule (excuses, excuses) we started buying more DVDs, secretly hoping it might help in someway. To adults like us, it "seems" like some of them are tailored nicely for babies. Now that April is way past age 2. Looking back, there is something I noticed. There were a few instances that April reminds us she saw certain toys or objects from Baby Einstein. When I bought a set of Baby Einstein flash card later on, she also mentioned she saw it before. And when I played my old piano pieces, "The Beautiful Blue Danube", she described to me where she had heard it from, with what toys she saw it with. I wondered, if DVDs delay a kid's speech ability, did anyone do a research on visual impression? Also we got a DVD from our friend Song and Ted, who brought Wiggles to April and to us, we as parents have never heard of Wiggles before. It's probably when April is 1ish, I can't remember the exact timing. After repeatively playing the DVD numerous times, April could pretty much sing/dance along with the video. I will throw a few clips here, though don't get me wrong. I am planning to exclude as much TV as possible with my #2, and I will report back how I do it. For now, I am still not 100% confident that I can follow it through myself :P









Now that she's 3, we've shown her a few Miyazaki's movies, her favorites is Kiki Delivery and Totoro and she also watched Cinderella from school. She could pretty much describe to us how the story goes and if anything in particular made stronger impression on her.