| Catch Up (Grace) |
December 29, 2009 |
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It has been a very long time since anyone posted anything there. Don't know if there are still any visitors. On the off chance there is, the following is a compilation of the past 9 months. I just discovered Smilebox which makes uploading and sharing images soo much easier. I hope you enjoy!
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| Pronouns (Grace) |
June 17, 2009 |
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We have been trying to teach baby the difference between you and me. It's apparently a pretty difficult concept for kids to learn because when you talk to them, you are always using "do you want food" "do you want to be picked up, etc" and so awhile when she started saying "you want to be bao bao" meaning Miley wants to be held, we would correct her and tell her she should say "wo yao bao bao" (I want to be held). This process has been going on for a few months.
Yesterday, after dinner, I pulled out some chocolate pound cake, topped with vanilla ice cream, and strawberries. When baby saw this, she sad,
"oh, I want plate" and ran to the kitchen for a plate
"oh, I want spoon" and came back with a huge cooking ladle. I looked at her and told her she could not eat using the big spoon, so she ran back to the kitchen to ask her aunt for a small spoon.
When she was all prepared, she told me, "oh, I want ice cream" and proceeded to help herself to the strawberries.
All this happened after her daddy had already taken her to JP Licks as an after dinner treat.
It's strange how magically overnight Miley seems to just be able to figure things out.
These days she also has quite the imagination, making fake slides out of pillows and blankets, she absolutely loves music, and singing and dancing, and gets particularly excited by Old MacDonald! |
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| Kinda About Miley. . . Okay, More About Me (Mainn) |
June 16, 2009 |
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I used to write on the side. I would spend my social-less evenings holed up in my dorm room (and later my basement apartment) and dream of writing a bestselling novel. . . and meeting my future wife during the inevitable book tour (anything to avoid actually going out and, you know, talking to the opposite gender).
Well, it didn't quite work out that way, and I'm thankful. I got over 25% of my social inhibitions, Grace filled in the rest, and at some point between the time when we met and when we got married, I realized I had lost the desire to write. The world had lost a lot of its mystery; the last missing piece was Grace, and there was nothing else I needed to explain to myself or others.
Then Miley came along, and life got strange again, and suddenly, I had the urge to write once more. Except now, instead of all my stories being about loneliness (in one way or another), it's all about parents and children. What about? Well, everything. Because it's all really weird, and (judging from my own childhood trajectory) I doubt it's something either Grace or I will figure out soon.
Long story short - recently, Blizzard - proud maker of World of Warcraft, Diablo, and other quality software titles - had a fan fiction contest, and I thought, what the heck, I'll enter. Grace, who has never been less than supportive, encouraged me, and spent a lot of weekend afternoons playing with Miley while I wandered out to the library to try and write. The weekend before the story was due, a family friend even agreed to come out with me and Miley to Copley Square to watch my daughter while I tried to write. Miley ended up falling asleep, but I was still tremendously appreciative.
In the end, I was up writing at 2am the day it was due (the story was due at midnight PST), and although the quality of my writing suffered enormously (not that it's that great to begin with), it was a pretty big rush, especially when I typed my last word and decided, heck with it, I was finished. At 5400 words, it's the longest thing I've ever written.
I didn't win the contest, but I was judged worthy enough to be a runner-up. Here it is: Kuma's Song. Much of it will be incomprehensible to someone who has never played World of Warcraft.
I've been trying to write since, but it turns out that without a deadline, it's hard to finish anything. Still, I can't help but hope that, even if I never publish anything, I can give, well, something to Miley someday. Just to see what she thinks. |
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| HAPPY BIRTHDAY! -- REALLY (Grace) |
June 11, 2009 |
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It's Miley's 2.5yrs birthday today! I didn't realize this until someone at work asked how old she was. Personally I think I've come along way from celebrating days and weeks.
Here are some photos of what she looks like. She will actually not randomly request to have pigtails...although she thinks of them as big girl tails because that's what the nanny tells her. Depending on her mood, she runs around when them for an hour or just 2 minutes before pulling them out.
The second photo represents what the Miley's favorite activity is these days. She will happily down as many ice pops as we allow her to.
I'm also very impressed at how far she's come developmentally. She not only makes jokes with you and looks at you slyly when she's being mischievous, but she can now articulate her own opinions.
For instance, the other day her Aunt Alice was visiting, and her nanny asked if Miley thought her aunt was pretty. Miley responded that, "xiao yi bu piao lan, niu, niu piao lan" (Aunt Alice is not pretty, Miley is pretty). Naturally I spent some of the evening trying to teach her that many people can be pretty and it's not nice to say someone is not pretty.
So . . .take two, today she was asked the same question, and Miley responded "jin tian, niu niu bu paio lan, xiao yi paio lan" (today, Miley is not pretty, Aunt Alice is pretty). Sometimes I wonder what kind of message she is receiving from something like that...but really, the rate at which she puts things together and how she forms her own sentences is astonishing! Congrats to mommy and daddy for getting her to 2.5 years of life . . .and counting!
Pig Tails
Ice Pops!
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| Imagination . . . (Grace) |
June 1, 2009 |
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Miley has reached that stage of development where she actually has an imagination. For a few weeks now she has really latched onto Dora and has been acting out various scenes from the 2 DVD's she watches.
For instance, we were shopping a few weeks ago, and she was sitting the cart, making circle motions with one hand. What was she doing? - - fishing up a present from the river!
Today we were outside in the courtyard of our house and she said, "I see crocodile! one, two, three" . . .because one of Dora's favorite activities is to get across crocodile lake!
Miley also makes her daddy sit in a "boat" with her and she finds keys and has her daddy wear a pirate hat. Sometimes we see baby jaguar fall into the river and must save the poor animal!
If we are lucky, we will see an entire rendition of Dora Saves the Puppies, as Miley ventures through the dancing tree forest, and finds keys to unlock the cages at the end.
What has really impressed me, however, was yesterday when we were heading out to Costco. She's attached herself to this small gray bear (he used to be white). She sits him next to her in a chair and feeds him part of her breakfast. She makes sure he has enough to drink, and yesterday insisted he come out with us as well. As we were preparing to leave, she was holding him and patting him like a small baby, saying "it's ok, don't be scared" and sometimes switching to "bu yao pa pa" (don't be scared). She held him very gently as we all loaded into the car.
On the ride to Costco, I asked her if the bear was scared, and she said yes. When pressed about why or what he was scared of, she said "ta pa ren" (he's scared of people). |
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| No Flying House, But There Was Chocolate (Mainn) |
May 31, 2009 |
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We took Miley to see her first movie in a theater - Pixar's Up. I thought it might be a good choice because it's colorful, has balloons, and features a talking dog.
Things were looking down at first, as 5 minutes after the movie started, she turned to Grace and said that she wanted to go home. So I took the responsible course of action and shoved my cherry slushie under her face, and she happily drank that for the next ninety minutes.
Miley gradually got into the movie, especially when the balloons burst out of the house and the characters started flying everywhere. She liked the giant bird and the nice talking dog (but the mean talking dogs probably scared her a bit). She only shouted things at the screen two or three or twenty times, and only once during a period of audible silence. And afterwards, she gave her own thumbs up to the movie by declaring that the whole thing was quite nice.
So tonight, as I was putting her to bed, I asked her if she had seen a movie today. She slooooowly nodded, and I asked her if there were balloons. She shook her head. There was a flying house? Blank look. A strange talking dog? She started kicking her legs.
A big bird? "The bird liked chocolate!" she said. "The little boy fed the bird chocolate!" I asked her about the balloons-house-dog again, and, again, was rewarded with a blank stare. Well, at least something stuck with her. |
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| Well, She Isn't Winning Any Spelling Bees (Mainn) |
May 27, 2009 |
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I'm a relative latecomer into the world of Red Sox fandom - 10 years or so now - and as such, I've always been a bit self-conscious about buying Red Sox apparel, to the point where I don't buy any.
Fortunately, Grace accepts and indulges my little foibles, and she buys my Red Sox gear for me (so far a cap and two T-shirts - Matsuzaka and Ellsbury). They're my favorite shirts, so I wear them all the time.
Miley gets bored when I change her diaper, so if I'm wearing something interesting, she comments on it. Any shirt with "LETTERS!" qualifies, and about a year ago, she started trying to identify the stylized font on my Red Sox T-shirts. At first, Miley would read each word right-to-left (D-E-R), and confuse letters with numbers (S-Zero-X). But after a few weeks of training, she would proudly recite "R!-E!-D! S!-O!-X!" "What does that spell?" "GO RED SOX!"
Whoops. What I *actually* told her was that my shirt spelled "Red Sox." Naturally, I then said "Go Red Sox!" And of course, she latched onto the latter. Yep, looks like I've already screwed up her phonetic learning.
On the plus side, I quickly realized that "Go Red Sox" wasn't enough - I had to train her to also identify that most hated of all teams, "Boo Yankees". So in actuality, Miley now believes that "R-E-D S-O-X" spells both "Go Red Sox!" and "Boo Yankees!" Simultaneously.
This causes much consternation with "Uncle" Pi, a lifelong Yankees fan, who has been trying to teach her to say the opposite. "Miley," he'll say. "Go Yankees! Boo Red Sox!" Sadly for him, Miley will shake her head and recite the correct phrases.
Even more tragic for him, it turns out that Miley has quite the impish nature. Once in a while, she'll walk up to him and say. "Go Yankees!" Pi will get all excited and say "Yes! That's right! Go Yankees!" Then Miley will shake her head and giggle and say, "No! That's not right! Go Red Sox! Boo Yankees!" And Pi will hang his head. |
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| How to Become a Carnivore (Mainn) |
May 12, 2009 |
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When we go to the library these days, Miley insists on finding one book. . . "Mollusks". This book has a painting of an octopus on the cover (which she loves), followed by many, many drawings of snails, slugs, barnacles, and clams (which she tolerates).
Anyway, two of the pictures are of the animal-eat-animal variety: a squid using his tentacles to grab a fish, and an eagle pulling a snail out of his shell. Whenever we reach those pages, I say, "Look! Animal X is eating animal Y!" At which point she looks up at me with an odd - and oddly heartbreaking - smile and shakes her head and says "Noooo. . . that's silly!"
One might think that this is the story about a future vegetarian; but when I think about it, it's probably the start of the necessary disconnect that all us carnivores live with. |
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| Potatoes Potatoes (Mainn) |
April 27, 2009 |
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I think most parents play this game: they point at a yapping dog, open their mouths wide, and ask the dramatic question, "Is that a cat??" To which the kid replies, "Dog!" It's implied that the kid thinks that you're a moron.
When I play this game, I always ask Miley whether object X is a "potato" or a "hippo". I dunno why; apparently, I secretly believe that those two things are the most unlikely objects in the universe.
In any case, Miley has recently turned the tides on us. We've been teaching her to say "No thank you," when we offer her some food that she doesn't want to eat (instead of rolling on the floor and screaming "Noooooooo"). She was doing pretty well at this, until a few days ago when we asked her if she wanted some broccoli. "No - PO-TAY-TO!" she shouted happily, and no amount of my coaching (or Grace's dirty looks at me) could get her to change her mind.
Another incident: while in the car, Miley happily declared that we were a "baby! mommy! hippo!" We interrogated her and she admitted that, yes, in fact, it was a "baby! mommy! daddy!" in the car, but a few minutes later she recanted and decided that we were now a "fishy! piggy! hippo!"
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| Day of Big Events (Grace) |
March 4, 2009 |
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Today was a big deal for baby. I brought her to work with me since the nanny had some personal issues that needed her attention. Usually I would've taken the day off, but Wednesdays are my light load, so I thought what the heck.
I was stunned because Miley was fabulous! I couldn't have asked for a better behaved, more charming little 2 year old to tromp through the halls with. Naturally when she shouted, "See mommy, circle, circle" in the middle of class, everyone laughed. My coworker showed her chalk and the chalkboard and she had a blast writing and erasing. She also spent an hour just coloring and doodling on paper. At one point when I had a few minutes to play with her, she wanted me to draw a whale. I think I made the eyes too big and the whale looked unfriendly, so she said "grumpy whale". Neither Mainn nor I can figure out where she learned the word grumpy.
I dashed home during lunch and after a nice meal of pork chops and macaroni and cheese, along with an episode of Thomas - brand marketing really works because boy can she identify her trains - she happily announced that it was time to sleep. I brought her upstairs and she was out in under 10 minutes. Daddy took over for the rest of the afternoon while I went back to school.
The bigger change in her life is that today baby received her very first haircut! I did a terrible job! :( -- she looks like an evil villan from a James Bond movie with a blunt bang cut, bordering on looking like a boy. I felt really bad for her, though because she refuses to put her hair up, so her hair is always falling in her face and in her eyes. Luckily hair grows back, but I can't believe I had to cut her hair! :( She looked at herself a little confused in the mirror, but then became distracted by her new Thomas and Friends baby toothpaste. |
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