Nobody!

Lately, my sweet Sora has been testing the boundaries of my patience; her default response to any question is, "no!" or "nobody!" It's a little amusing, because usually she'll backtrack once she realizes of the content of the question. For example:

Baba: Who wants a cookie?

Sora: Nobody!

[Sora pauses for a moment while she ponders the question and looks up]

Sora: Me! [while nodding emphatically]

This happens numerous times a day and gets old fast. Sora is not even 2.5 yet, but I've heard of the dreaded "threenager" and I wonder if that's where we're headed with her.

The cute smile belies her true nature

Perhaps I'm just being optimistic, but I think that Kai is getting easier the manage these days. He will usually do something if I ask him to do it (although it may take him forever or it may only happen after threat of punishment). And even though his clothes may end up on him backwards, he even dresses himself nowadays!

Rewarded with an egg tart for finishing his dinner

With all the rain that we've had, we've had to figure out good indoor activities for the kids. We took the kids out to the mall the other day just for fun; the kids loved the candy store.

Kai and Sora also helped me make banana bread the other day.

Those oven mitts on Sora though

Fortunately, it hasn't rained continuously, and Nik and Grandma Udom took the kids out to see the swollen creek.

I also took the kids out to the playground.. something that we haven't done in a long time since it's been dark, cold and wet. The kids loved it and Kai went down the big slide a number of times on his own.

Starting slow with the little slide..

.. and on to the big one!

Also, popsicles and backpacks are now a "thing." Kai talks about bringing the backpacks camping.. I guess the kids are gearing up for warmer weather.

My Mom read to the kids while we were visiting last weekend. I was impressed that the kids were mostly enthralled by her reading in spite of the perpetually on TV at my parents' house.

Nik and I went on a lunch date at San Pedro Square yesterday. I think we're going to try to do some more new and novel activities--just to mix things up.

Poke and pizza

Happy 2017!

It's been exhausting with protracted bouts of illness, having both kids at home while their respective schools were closed and hosting out-of-town guests. Fortunately, the kids are finally well and Kai returned to school last week. Kai's still adjusting to returning to school and is jealous of Sora, whose daycare remained closed until today. He had been out of school since mid-December since he'd been ill for so long. Lately, he's been waking up in the middle of the night and trying to get him to go back to sleep has been a painful process for me and Nik. We presume that the sleep disruption is due to the fact that when Kai was ill, we frequently went into his room to comfort him and after Kai was well, we had him sleep in our bedroom so we could use his bedroom as a guest room. We took down our Christmas tree this afternoon and Nik strung up some Christmas lights in Kai's room, hoping that they would reassure him through the night. Fingers crossed that it does the trick!

Since Sora's break from daycare was two weeks long, we decided to take the opportunity to try to potty train her. She's a quick study and has the peeing part down; as long as we take her to the toilet at regular intervals, she hardly has an accident. On the other hand, getting her to do #2 in the toilet is still a struggle and Nik has had to hose down a number of soiled underpants. We finally caved in a bought a pack of pull-ups. With Sora at home, Nik and I decided to bring her out on a ramen lunch date last week. Sora loved the noodles and tonkatsu broth, and cried so hard when they took away her plate. The other day, I brought Sora with me when I dropped Kai off for preschool and Sora sat in for some of his lessons. I think she misses daycare, she attentively listened to everything the teachers had to say and was a model student. She threw a fit when we had to go.

Dipping her noodles like a pro

As I had mentioned, our holidays were mostly spent caring for sick children. Sora got sick first and was coughing and spiking high fevers. For her, it lasted a little less than a week but eventually she recovered on her own. Undoubtedly, Kai then got sick from her and had a similar course of coughing and high fevers. However, he didn't seem to be getting any better, so we ended up taking him to the pediatrician after a week. Turns out that he had pneumonia and required a 10-day course of antibiotics. Poor kiddo. Fortunately, within a few days of starting antibiotics he started to perk up.

Sick at home means he gets to go grocery shopping with Mama. Kai insisted that we buy "monkey cereal."

We managed to go on few excursions in spite of the kids being ill. We attempted a trip up to SF to visit Siavosh and Karen, the car ride up was disrupted by Sora vomiting in the car right before we arrived at their place (I suppose I should be grateful that this happened at the end of the car trip). It was great to catch up and finally meet Kamron. However we had to abort our visit when Kai complained about not feeling well.

Kai's preschool had a holiday party and I could tell that he had been looking forward to it, so even though he was sick, I tried to take him to the party. Kai was feeling so horrible, that even when I presented a cookie covered with frosting and sprinkles, he refused to eat it. Needless to say, we didn't stay very long. The next day, we took him to mall since we still needed to purchase the kids' Christmas gifts. Kai enjoyed looking at everything and we took him on an overpriced train ride around the mall (I felt like spoiling him a little bit since by then, we found out he had pneumonia).

After a couple of days of antibiotics, Kai was well enough to return preschool, which fortunately gave us an opportunity to have a childfree lunch with Suzanne and Tom.

Happy Kai at school..

.. equals happy Mama.

However, by the time the kids were well, it was already winter holiday so even though we were already exhausted from having to care for sick kids at home for what felt like forever, we were stuck at home with them again since their respective schools were closed. Nik and I worked on Christmas eve, but that didn't stop us from trying to thoroughly enjoy our Christmas. We used our fireplace for the very first time on Christmas eve and the next morning we attended church service at David's church, where he performed a rousing rendition of "All I Want for Christmas is You." After service, we had brunch with David and Matthew. We then had Christmas dinner at the Huang house, a low-key affair with Chinese takeout since no one wanted to cook, followed by karaoke and Sora bustin' a move.

It's practically impossible to get a good picture with Kai and Sora..

.. so usually we don't even bother trying.

Grandparent karaoke!

We hosted Harsha at our home after Christmas. Kai graciously gave up his room and bed for Uncle Harsha while he camped out in our room. The kids loved playing with Uncle Harsha as he taught them the virtues of being a yes man (or woman) and the bear necessities. Kai had wanted to visit an aquarium over the holiday, so we managed a short trip up to the California Academy of Sciences, which was packed by families and children who were off from school. The kids enjoyed the penguins and aquarium, and there was even a bear sighting!

Kai was freaked out about the snake behind him

Bear sighting!

There was lots of time for low-key hanging out since Nik was off from work. With the holidays, not only Harsha was in town, but Matthew was back from school and my relatives from Vancouver were visiting as well.

Triplets!

Bedtime stories with Uncle Harsha

We spent the last day of 2016 visiting Half Moon Bay. We wanted to check out the tide pools but ended up arriving during high tide, so perhaps we'll visit another time. However, we did see a large group of seals sunning themselves out on the beach; the kids liked them, but we had to keep our distance. We rang in 2017 with hanging out around the kitchen table and going to bed early (at least we cracked open the champagne!).

A day at the coast.. not a bad way to spend NYE

Behind Nik and Kai is a large group of seals on the beach

We also arranged a couple of playdates with the Shaws and Lais over the holiday. Ansel and Yukari had to meet someone, so we ended up babysitting the Shaw kids for an hour. Even for just one hour, managing four toddlers without TV was insane (that was by choice, I decided to pick the hard route).

They always start playing together just before they're about to leave

But the holidays are now officially over and we're back to the old routines. Costco and Target are always favorite destinations, the kids love a good Costco meal complete with a very berry smoothie and churro.

"So soft!"

Hopefully the kids will steer clear of illness in this new year and almost a month after its release, Nik and I will finally get to watch Rogue One this week. Happy 2017!