We're nearing the end of the school year now with June nearly upon us. I'm planning to have both Kai and Sora at home with me for the summer. I had thought of enrolling the kids in camp, but there aren't any camps which will accept Sora since she's still too young. So I figured, if I'm going to have one at home, I might as well have the other at home too. Jad will remain in daycare through the summer and thank goodness for that, I wouldn't be able to manage having all three at home during the summer.
Spring Break was almost three weeks ago. It was a crazy time since both Kai and Sora were home for the week and it was also the week of my ACL repair surgery. Nik was able to get nearly 2 1/2 weeks off from work, but he had a lot to manage at home between caring for the kids and me. Fortunately Chris was in town for the week--perfect timing, since I don't know how we would've managed to get through the week without him. The surgery seems to have been a success thus far, I'm getting around much more easily than I was the first week out. I will need to keep up with PT through the summer, but I'm eagerly anticipating being able to be more active again. Since I tore my ACL 3 1/2 years ago, I haven't been active because of my bum knee and I'm looking forward to not having to worry about it anymore.
Last family excursion before my knee surgery. Ikea!
Spent a week like this while binging on Korean dramas. Don't judge me :P
Thank goodness for Uncle Chris
Nik cared for the kids during spring break. As usual, he didn't hunker down at home and took the kids to Happy Hollow and then on a "field trip" to the Oakland Zoo with our neighbors later that week.
Gotta make sure we get our money's worth out of our annual pass before it expires!
We love our neighborhood!
Since Chris was staying over with us and we needed the extra room, we figured that it would be an ideal time to move Sora back into Kai's room (we had tried for a few months last year but eventually threw in the towel). They've been sharing a room since Spring Break with Sora on the bottom bunk and Kai on the top and so far, so good. Sora really doesn't want to go back to her own room so the threat of moving her back is a strong motivator.
Bunkmates
As if there wasn't enough going on during Spring Break, our long time tenants moved out of our house in Campbell that week and we needed to find new tenants. We held an open house while I had my foot propped up and with Jad wandering around the house (luckily Mom and Matt babysat Kai and Sora), but we managed to find tenants and they'll move in at the end of this month.
Quick lunch before the open house. Yes, he's eating chicken nuggets and fries for lunch. 3rd child privileges -_-
And that was our Spring Break. Not much of a break, really.. we were so relieved when the kids went back to school. :P
As the kids get older it's interesting to see their personalities emerge. Kai is undoubtedly my jokester. See this artwork that Kai drew at afterschool care:
If it's unclear. Kai said that the person is in the picture is in jail and on fire, all the while, smiling and saying, "oh no."
In spite of the fact that Cupcake's reign as favorite stuffie may have ended, Sora is still drawing Cupcake pictures. Her best friend at school is Evan.. today, Sora said she wanted to marry Evan (much to Nik's chagrin). On the other hand, Kai said he doesn't want to marry anyone because he doesn't want any babies since babies are too much trouble.
Just a random note to myself about something funny Kai did.
Kai stayed at home with me and Jad for a few days before we left for Maui in February. While Jad was napping and while I was doing the laundry, I asked Kai if he would like a snack. He did, so I gathered everything together for him. He proceeded to start moving the small table and chair to face the washing machine and said to himself, "this is gonna be great." Then he set his food down and sat in front of the washing machine to watch it go while he ate his snack. What an odd child I have.
Sora's favorite stuffed animal friend right now is a stuffed pegasus named Cupcake. Cupcake has a mommy named Shelita. Cupcake and Shelita come from the planet Ventoya, a heart-shaped planet with rings around it that changes color. This is all Sora, none of this came from any prompting from Nik or me. This girl...
Sora's classmates so happen to have the exact same stuffed animal, so she enjoys taking Cupcake to school. Taking Cupcake away is a frequent threat or punishment.
Sora recently acquired a narwhal Beanie Baby from McDonald's. She took "Narly" to school today instead of Cupcake, so perhaps Cupcake's reign as favorite stuffie has ended? For some reason, I'm a little sad...
I've been quite horrible at updating the blog. While I love synthesizing and writing my thoughts and memories out, sleep (or time-wasting) often trumps blogging and I haven't felt up to it lately. There are a few recent milestones that I want to make note of: Jad finally has more than eight teeth. His molars popped out first in the back, and right now he has a gap between his front teeth and said molars. I see the start of more teeth coming in to fill in the gaps so yay more teeth. But in consequence, less sleep for me. He's been waking up up to two times in the middle of the night, and I've been nursing his back to sleep.
I deliberately decided not to wean Jad before our Hawaii trip; post-Hawaii, I think that was a prudent decision. I was planning to wean Jad once he started daycare. He started at Bright Star in the beginning of March. I was feeling a bit of mom guilt when he started, so I kept on nursing him and within two weeks of starting daycare, he had a protracted stomach illness. Poor little guy was vomiting and had diarrhea for nearly a week. By the end of the illness, my skinny little boy was even skinnier. He's doing great now and now he has an appetite unlike I've ever seen with him before, so my little guy is starting to bulk up again. But now with all the teeth coming up, I'm not sure when I'll be able to wean him completely. I'm only nursing him at bedtime and when he wakes up in the middle of the night.
Successful pick up after his first day of daycare..
.. but got sick after less than two weeks. Even though he's a cuddlebug, he never sleeps in our arms
Also, Jad is officially speaking: his first word is probably "Mama", he babbles a lot so we took a long time to give him credit for having a first word since it didn't seem like the sounds he was making were directed at anything specific. But I can say with certainty now, that he says "Mama", "Baba", and "ball". Undoubtedly, he will soon try to say "Kai-Kai" and "Sora" since they're his favorite people in the world. :)
Kai started soccer last week so I am now officially a soccer mom. He had his first game this past weekend. In Kai's division, they play 5-on-5 on a smaller field, there are no set positions and they don't keep score, but even with these relaxed rules, playing a game is different from practice scrimmages, so Kai's team was steamrolled this past Saturday. As the other team scored goal after goal, you could see Kai's enthusiasm for the game waning: his shoulders were slumped and his heart just wasn't in it. When I asked him how he felt about the game, he replied that he felt "in between bad and okay."
Juggling extracurriculars has been a challenge, especially since jiu jitsu and soccer practices are back-to-back on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but Kai has been taking it in stride and on those days, we have him take a nap in the afternoon after school and it seems to carry him through until the evening. He's very good knowing that he should sleep when he's tired.. unlike some of my other children...
Kai's first jiu jitsu tournament was a few weeks ago. He had a rough match, where his face was pressed into the mat by his opponent and they had to stop. Kai ended up in tears and his coaches consoled him on the sidelines, but I was so proud of him when he kept going. He went on to win his next two matches and Nik and I were surprised that all the kids in his division ended up placing--three kids placed second, including Kai! It was good positive affirmation for continuing BJJ and Kai is looking forward to the next tournament
Looking sporty at his first soccer practice
We've officially enrolled Sora in TK for next fall. It's hard to believe that our bright and precocious little girl will have to wait another year until she starts kindergarten, but she is physically tiny, so perhaps it's not altogether a bad thing? And after years of wanting to grow out her hair to be "like Rapunzel," she finally said that she wanted to trim her hair a few inches. We went to the Kid's Salon a few weeks ago and they cut off about three inches; it literally took five minutes, but since it was her very first haircut, I wanted it to be special. :P
And just yesterday, Sora started riding a bike! She had been doing really well with the balance bike, but when we tried to get her to ride a regular bike, the pedals threw her off and she freaked out. So we back pedaled (pun intended.. hehe) and had her try out a bike with training wheels to get used to the pedaling motion. Yesterday, she was using the bike with training wheels and asked to use the balance bike, and I decided to ask if she wanted to try out the regular bike instead. She was initially freaked out, but then Kristy suggested using the driveway slope to help get her started. It was pretty amazing, after an initial positive experience, you could literally see her confidence building and building. By the afternoon, she was biking all the way down the street on her own!
This Friday, Nik and I managed to go out for a rare lunch date. We went out to a nearby ramen place. Decent, though not extraordinary; honestly, we're not willing to drive out just for better food these days. Time is precious, so having a decent ramen place nearby is awesome. Jad is a funny baby. He's always trying to emulate Kai and Sora, and sometimes he refuses to eat unless he's using a utensil (which means he doesn't eat since he doesn't have fine motor control yet -_-).
Poking at the ramen ≠ eating ramen
This Saturday, Nik and I were both at home with the kids, we considered going out, it just never happened. I ended up taking Sora out to the creek to play during Jad's morning nap (for some reason Kai did not want to go, and it's impossible to convince him otherwise once he has an idea in his head).
Making sure her skirt doesn't get wet!
And during Jad's afternoon nap, the kids helped the Chells clear out branches as they trimmed a tree in their front yard. The kids were actually able to be helpful and it was an awesome afternoon diversion. In the evening we went to a Lunar New Year celebration at the Milpitas Community Center. It wasn't nearly as entertaining as I had hoped (way too much talking).
On Sunday, I took the kids over to my parents' and as I was driving over, there was a beautiful rainbow arching through the sky. The kids asked me to "take a picture so we can remember this forever." I did.. though it definitely wasn't the safe thing to do.
Don't try this at home, kids
It had been raining a lot last week, so we didn't expect to catch the lunar eclipse last night. But we were fortunate enough to have a break in the rain just as the eclipse reached totality. My camera phone picture obviously didn't do it any justice, but it was amazing to see and we feel lucky to have caught it. The kids were already asleep, so they didn't get to see it either, but I'm sure there will be other eclipses.
Kai was off of school today for MLK. Though Sora's preschool was not closed today, it's difficult to take her to school when Kai didn't have to go, so we ended up keeping her at home with us. This afternoon we went to Happy Hollow with the Ngs. The park was so crowded because of the MLK holiday (we're used to visiting on random weekdays), but the kids enjoyed running around and playing with each other, and it was great to hang out and catch up.
Each night at bedtime, we ask the kids what their prayer requests are so we can pray together before bed. The kids' typical request is no bad dreams. Tonight after asking Kai for his prayer requests, I told him that my request is to be a better parent, to which Kai replied, "You're already a good a parent as you should be."
My heart felt like it was going to burst.
These are the moments that I need to imprint upon my heart to get me through the times when they're driving me up the wall.
