Mummy & Me: Saturday

Daddy was busy playing host and weekend wedding photographer. His friend, Satish, flew in from Seattle on Thursday night, and after not seeing each other for 13+ years, Daddy and his buddy had a lot to catch up on. So Daddy dragged his friend to be his wedding photographer assistant as well, HAHA!

All the while, Mummy was with Erik! Yay! On Saturday, we went over to Tyler's Big Two Birthday party! It was a great and fancy party with a whole petting zoo. Unbelievable! Sylvia and Steve (Tyler's parents), really went all out and got a horse, a pony, and 2 goats, with lots of animals to pet (pot belly pig, ducks, chickens, and 3 rabbits).

At first, Erik was a bit afraid of the horse, pony, and goats. Didn't want the to even come near him and he'll tell them sternly "No Thank You!" with a hand signaling STOP!. He was even a little afraid of the other farm animals like the ducks and bunnies. So we just chilled inside the house for a little bit and Erik got to play with all of Tyler's very cool toys! (Thanks Tyler for being such a gracious host!)

Mummy and Erik got to meet some new friends like Jacob and his mom; Ryan and his parents; Kenna and her mom. We also got to reconnect with another couple that we met through the hosts, Maris' parents. Erik was not shy at all and loved playing with the new bunch of kids. He sat on the toddler-size trains and loved being a conductor!

What really impressed Mummy about the party was that Sylvia and Steve totally dished out AWESOME food! Erik ate dinosaur chicken nuggets for the very first time! Mummy couldn't believe her eyes that he actually wanted CHICKEN! He actually ate 5 nuggets! WOW! Plus there was his all-time favorite of Mac n' Cheese and delicious fruits! He also sat on the 'little kids' picnic table with his new friends!

After he warmed up to the whole party and sang "Happy Birthday" song to Tyler, he was ready for some animal petting! Erik was interested in the tiny white bunny. He's the "underdog"...eh or under bunny because he's the baby the other bunnies actually attack him. Poor thing! So the owner kept reminding the guests keep the other animals away from the white bunny. So Erik gave lots of attention and love to the white bunny. He was so gentle with the bunny that it was really wonderful to see! Then we had a problem, Erik didn't want to go! HAHA! By the time Mummy got Erik into the car within 2 minutes, he was snoring away!

Daddy: I Love You!

On a peaceful and sunny Easter Sunday, Erik woke up bright and early ready for the day. Mummy loves this tender moment when Erik's beautiful eyes flutter open and on his face is the widest and sweetest grin! He'll invitingly says to either groggy parent "Come on! Follow Me!" in English for Daddy and in Cantonese for Mummy to lead us to his usual morning routine (i.e potty walk).

This weekend, Mummy is pretty much buried in work and in school. Lots of catching up to do and have stayed up way too late the past few nights trying to catch up. Stress level is high....way high! So that means Daddy gets full "Erik Duty" past Saturday afternoon (from our Egg Hunt) but for Daddy, he's always up for having some extra 1:1 time with our Boo Boo.

After we shared our family weekend breakfast, Daddy and Erik hit the road! Off to one of their favorite spots, the Zoo, of course! Because of Daddy's affection towards exposing and teaching Erik about animals, Erik is very much into them these days. They have their whole zoo routine down and Erik doesn't mind the 20+ minute drive to it as long as its to the Zoo!

However, today was a bit special. They had a mid-morning animal show for "Animal Exposures" and Oh my! Erik TOUCHED a rat snake! EEK! That is why Mummy says "Daddy, I love you" because if it was Mummy in the same shoes, Erik would not have been touching any of the animals! LOL! Mummy is the 'overprotective' one, yeah, she knows it! However, since he was with Daddy, Boo Boo got to pet gently 3 different animals: a rat snake, a turtle, and a hedge hog! WOW! That is amazing! If you ask Erik "How does a hedge hog feel?", he'll reply with a silly grin "Pokey!"

What a special Father & Son Easter!






By the way, this is NOT the first time that Erik has touched a snake! His first time was actually in Singapore when he was only 10-11 months old and it was a Green Python.

Congratulations Irma Y Alonzo!

Two of Mummy's buddies from college, Irma and Alonzo, welcomed their most anticipated little bundle of joy, Miss Jazmin Erika Garcia, 7 lbs 9 oz!!! Way to go Irma (and Alonzo too of course)!!!!

Their "Peanut" was born 8 days early, already like her mami and papi being over achievers ;o) hahaha! Being day prior to Easter Sunday, it must be a very good sign too!

Seniorita Jazmin, you are very lucky to have 2 wonderful and loving parents!!

Congratulations Irma, Alonzo, and Jazmin! What a way to spend Easter as a happy family!

Dolphin poop

Call it an over active imagination – call it being a copy cat – but my son totally cracked me up the other day. So without going into too much detail – both the little guy and me are doing our morning ritual – enough said. Then he proceeds to look at his poop and yells “Dolphin poo poo - Dolphin Poo.” And low and behold his poop did look like a dolphin poo poo. I guess you can call it Bhutanese style instead of looking up at cloud shapes we look at poo poo shapes.

Am I going to be a shitty dad? Or am I just pooped! Or am I trying too hard?

An example of my Sunday morning with my son:
Son: “Wake up Daddy” “Wake up” constantly prodding me with his cute toes
__ barely awake and lifeless I crawl up
Daddy: “Come on boo-boo time to poop” except I have to get creative “wanna ride on Daddy elephant _ Phhhhhht (half-hearted elephant sound) “Mommy needs to sleep”
Son: “No, No Way _ Mommy Nai Nai (aka more mommy’s boob)
Daddy: trying a little harder hoist my son on to my shoulder – come on daddy will read you Nemo’s book
And off to the bathroom we go – we are off to do our morning father son – ritual.
Daddy: “Hey do you want to read about Baby Gruffalo?” (On a side note: these were some of the books we bought from the UK.. and I am soo happy to report that he loves about 3 of them... including the Gruffalo and the Monkey Puzzle. If you haven't tried these authors go right ahead. I love them :D
Son: “Yeah Daddy” (Yes he is starting to say Yeaaaaa instead of Yes)

After reading Nemo and Grufalo father and son score touchdowns and daddy cleans up Boo-Boo.
We head down stairs to brush our teeth and make breakfassst.
While washing toothbrush and adding toothpaste –
Daddy: “Erik want to show Daddy your sharp shark teeth (say that 10 times really fast) – Ok how about showing me your tiger teeth now say ROAR” more brushing ok – now how about showing me your snake like tongue… all done. Now do you want to make breakfast with Daddy?”
Son: “YEAAAA”
Placing him on counter _ very unsafe…
Daddy runs to fridge to get eggs w/Omega 3, milk, cheese and honey ham (Erik’s version of scrambled Eggs) Erik proceeds to help me put the ingredients together. We sample the ham together to make sure it is still good.
Some days I get lucky and some days like this morning he won’t eat a bite. It has to be close to what he is used to eating can’t be burnt.
While he is eating I get him dressed. And we head out to fairy tale town while Erik watches Dora in the back. He is enjoys about 15 minutes of watering the sensory garden at the center, where he waters some poor green onions to their watery death. I have been trying to get Erik to use the blue watering can instead of the pink watering can. After running all over the place and hour and twenty minutes later he is done and wants to get on Daddy elephant shoulders instead of the new jungle umbrella stroller we just bought as he would not get off it at the baby store.
On the way home just before he is about to fall asleep – we head to China buffet for more crabs seeing how well he did the other night. But alas he ate a few cauliflowers and half a shrimp with some grapes and then we were off home.
Erik falls asleep – and when he gets home I try and hold him while he sleeps and just as I am about to fall unconscious with my son he wakes up…. And the madness begins…..

Ok this is getting long (Daddy got to get back to work) So off to the aquarium aka local fish store where he runs all over the place… on the way back he spots Jamba Juice store from a van going at 35 miles per hour I know I need to go slower. So a quick pit stop – our favorite Peach Perfection and we are off to the park. Ok I don’t mean to be petty but what the heck is up with our local park and the influx of Russian families who buy giant motorized Humvees and never look at their kids – who trust me have no freaking driving skills
Erik: “Baby car” and proceeds to run towards this monstrous yellow truck all this while the Dad or Grandpa or really old father and his cheap jewelry is busy yapping on his cell phone.
Daddy: Hoist my son back on my shoulders scowls my mean Asian scowl at the dude and proceeds to the smaller park – “After we play on the swing – we will go home and you can play in Daddy’s car it’s much bigger than that car”
Back home – we go with Mommy to eat Thai food – again teaching our son to be adventurous. On a side note – we get people coming into the restaurant saying yeah I heard Thai food is spicy – maybe I will eat the sesame chicken instead… See what I mean – I do want Erik to be open to different foods. But then another potty adventure begins. As most of you know we have been on this potty topic for a while – Erik let’s us know when he wants to go to potty – even if it is peeing.
Mommy: “Take Erik to potty – “
Daddy: (WT__) “In a public bathroom?” so off to the bathroom we go _ holding son in one arm I proceed to place the bathroom protector on the seat – very hard to do with squirming son. So after great balance _ I manage to prop him on the seat (I have to still hold him since the toilet seat too big) it’s just pee pee. So back to the dinner table where he proceeds to screw with my brains –
Son: “Daddy more poo-poo” Back to the Bathroom we go….. mommy comes along for support. Nothing... just him seeing how much he can mess with us.
After dinner we head home – the little guy is tired… I am tired and Mommy is pooped. Mommy: “Give him a bath.”
So of too the bathroom _ where son wants to jump in bathtub –
Daddy: After learning from past mistakes – “Son do you want to sit on potty _ and read the Sea Creature book”
Son: “Yeaaaaa, Daddy (Chue Mum mum book) he wants to read the book on food” While taking a poop. *We do that a lot in our family read about food on the toilet.
After poop we jump into the bathroom. Erik loves his new Crayola Bubble making machine and swimming and kicking his legs about in the water. So after bath – we get him dressed and read him some books – but this Sunday he was pooped – had his mommy’s milk and I think went to sleep. Daddy folds clothes and gets lunch ready for son’s school. Manages about 1hr and 30 mins of alone time – Some basketball and his favorite show DIRT.

NOTE: this is not how a usual weekend days go – Mommy is usually in the picture but we were double triple booked. I think we need to say NO to some events. Yes Mommy does a lot of the chores – which includes breastfeeding for the last 2 years, holding a full time job doing god only knows what at Intel, getting her master degree from Sac State, helping out with SWE (Society of Women Engineers) and meeting the demands of son and daddy. On most nights _ I am usually pooped out from not doing anything challenging at work.. where I usually end up watching TV or surfing the web.

Am I spoiling my son? Or is my son plain picky?

Figuring out what to feed my son everyday is getting tiring – it’s draining me physically and emotionally. Then I hear that I am spoiling my child because we feed him shrimp and crabs? First, we don’t feed it on a regular basis. Second, I think it’s good to encourage our child to be adventurous when it comes to different types of food. I guess I am trying to hard?

Oh well back to the drawing table… Let’s see what I can feed him the next few days. I think maybe I tire of eating the same crap everyday hence I feel that my son may tire if I constantly give him the same food? Maybe things will be a little better and he will be less picky when he stops breast feeding and he will be hungrier? Or maybe he is just a chip of the old block – since Daddy is extremely picky when it comes to food maybe Erik will do that to me… and the cycle continues.

The following is a journal entry of sorts for us.

Here is some of the stuff Erik eats at this point in time. He started doing Ham & Eggs for breakfast, stopped eating Kix cereal. He loves seafood – crabs and shrimp. Mac and cheese is always good – loves my spaghetti and anything noodles. Still loves Tofu and all things fruit. He loves his oranges (or baby oranges) strawberries, blue berries, bananas, apples, cantaloupe, watermelon and grapes (both red and green).

Sandwiches of sorts Here is a list of sandwiches I will try and introduce to Erik. To get him ready for his transition to the 2 year old classroom. $1000 later and they cant heat his food up.

Birthday Dad

A few weeks ago, on Sunday, Feb 24th, Mummy threw Daddy a Breakfast Birthday Party at home. Ever since attending Makena's waffle breakfast birthday, Daddy has been wanting a breakfast birthday...and has mentioned it many many times. So despite being tired as heck from being Daddy's Wedding Photographer Assistant the night before, Mummy got all the breakfast items ready in the WEE morning.


Birthday Boy Chhimi & Makena

Mummy only invited a few friends over who lived closeby and knew would be willing to drive to our house in an early Sunday morning of 8:30am! Yes, you read it right...by 8:30 in the morning, our home was filled with friends to celebrate Daddy's birthday. We asked the kids to all come in PJ's ...really, no fuss and low key. Just roll off of your bed and come to our home for a Sunday Breakfast!

Mummy made 2 different egg frittatas (Broccoli & Corn and Asparagus & Artichoke), warmed-up 3 different sausages (Apple & Gouda, Spinash & Fontina, and Turkey Breakfast Links). We also served fresh cut up fruits (Pineapples, blueberries, and strawberries) to go along with the 'Made-to-Order' Waffles!! It was Mmmm Mmmm Good! All the parents had their choice of decaf/regular coffee, orange juice, or tea, kiddies got default whole milk :o) hee hee! If you can't tell already, Mummy is BIG on breakfast and early mornings!


The only time that Mummy is really sitting down


Erik helping Daddy blow out the birthday candle


Daddy having a wonderful time!

The kids were just basically running around like crazy...playing everything from upstairs to downstairs and back. We even got in a game of Doggie Bingo with the older toddlers, Lauren, Makena, and Erik (well, Boo Boo was just 'flirting' away). HAHA!


Erik & Lauren sitting down for some silly story time with Mummy

By the time everybody left, it was well after 12:00pm, if not nearing 1pm instead! Oh My! Can we party or what?! After that, Daddy, Mummy, and Erik just snoozed!

Mummy & Me: A Day in the City

Daddy had a very important training in San Francisco from 9am - 9pm and since Daddy couldn't bear to be away from Erik even for one night, Mummy decided to be the supportive spouse and took a day off to spend the night in the city and also spend the day with Erik.

So while Daddy was in his photography class, Mummy took Erik all around Fog City!

MORNING
First thing we did was enjoy an expensive breakfast buffet in the Fisherman's Wharf hotel. It wasn't intentionally but we had to eat...and FAST. The fast food won't do and traditional cook-to-order would be too slow. Thus the buffet was the best choice. Erik ate a little of everything but his favorite were the sausages and had a WHOLE bowl of watermelon all by himself! Mummy was pretty much stuffed with breakfast goodies...

Afterwards, Mummy & Erik decided to take a mid-morning stroll on Fisherman's Wharf to Pier 39, to walk off all the extra calories! Mummy wanted to show Boo Boo the sea lions and seagulls that were just lounging around relaxing the day away. Of course, our son was way too interested in the cotton candy cart and also ONE duck that was just floating in the bay! HAHA!

Mummy & son also got to stop and smell all the beautiful tulips along the way. The colors were nice and bright and absolutely reminded us that Spring has arrived! We saw the big boat that carried lots of tourists to and from Alcatraz. Erik got to enjoy Pier 39 carousel...TWICE actually!


Mummy & Me: Picture just isn't the same without our favorite phtotographer


Cool Horsie Ride

After our little stroll, we went back to the hotel room for our late-morning nap! Thank goodness we got late check-out so Erik got to snooze for a whopping 45 minutes before we took off for another round of sight-seeing!

AFTERNOON
After a nice "long" nap, Erik got to play in the bath tub as a little 'swimming time', with a new boat called "Coffee Cup"! LOL! Mummy had to be creative to get him to have a bath in the middle of the day so that we were both energized for more activities.

Afterwards, Mummy & Erik visited the Bay Area Discovery Museum in Sausalito! They had all these old "forts" that were converted into activity and exhibit areas. Erik thoroughly enjoyed the Tot Lot and made some new friends immediately. What can we say?! Our son is a friendly chap!

Erik loved laying down on the lily pads and then look up to see the goldfish swimming above us. He would clearly command that "Mummy lay down, see goldfish swimming!" Erik also loved playing in the outdoor steam and went "fishing"!


A Little Fishing


Erik testing out the insect sounds


Erik playing with his new found friend in the "Acorn Tree"

We visited the Art Studio next where we did some painting on their window mural and play with sparkly sand! Erik loved playing with the magnets, putting a family of turtles together underneath the tree. He enjoyed putting the color blocks together and then knocking them down and yell "YAY!"


Magnet Wall

Mummy & Erik hopped over to the Outlook Cove and did some 'deep sea diving' and found lots of starfish and crabs! We met another new found friend who spoke only in Spanish. We also went to their hard hat area where they had miniature construction site for the kids to play in. Very cool and interesting!


Starfish Galore

Mummy and son enjoyed a solid 2.5 hours at the museum and still didn't see everything! So much more to see and do! We tried to hit all the buildings but honestly Mummy was getting tired already! HAHA! We went to our car for a much needed afternoon snack of mandarin oranges and gold fish crackers plus lots of water! In less than 15 minutes after Mummy started driving, Erik was fast asleep...and Mummy wanted to take Erik to downtown Sausalito for an ice cream treat at Lappert's! DARN!


A Snoozing Erik

EVENING
Mummy then headed back to San Francisco to the Metreon and Bloomingdale's shopping center! Hey, Mummy deserves a little shopping too right?! By the time Erik woke up, it was already time for dinner! Erik slept for about 1 hour and 15 minutes! Actually, Mummy really just wanted to grab some dinner from Bristol Farms! They had such a wide selection of food that Erik got to choose his own dinner!

Erik chose all of his favorites: Mac n' Cheese (very yummy!), Shrimp (Popcorn Shrimp...Mmmm tasty!), Swedish Meatballs, Broccoli (Yes, our son loves broccoli if its steamed to be nice and soft!). Mummy chose the chow mein which Erik didn't eat at all. FIGURES! Erik also got to choose his own dessert, basically, all fruits of watermelon, grapes, and strawberries! HAHA!

We had a very lovely Mummy & son meal and talked about the day away. He was able to people watch and looked at all the 'digital fishes' on the LCD screen. Kind of cool and hip! After dinner, we went to Bloomingdale's where Mummy spent loads of $$....YEA RIGHT! Noooo! With a toddler in hand, shopping is NOT an activity that Mummy could indulge. Instead, Erik led Mummy back to the Toddler Play Area where he could play with the toys instead! SIGH!

From there, we drove to Baby Kayla's house for a little visit at Aunty Shirley and Uncle Thomas' place. They are Mummy & Daddy's friends that recently welcomed a beautiful baby girl, Kayla! Erik LOVES babies...so gentle with them that it is really making us wonder if he's ready to be a big brother! All Erik wanted to do was play with Kayla...he caressed her feet, wanted to kiss her, wanted to sing to her, wanted to impress her with his froggie jumps.

Of course Kayla being only 5 months old was a bit scared at this toddler boy getting a little too close. Erik was a gentleman and didn't show any jealousy at all when Mummy was holding the baby. Instead, he handed the baby toys to play with such as soft blocks, shakers, and books! Very adorable to see our little Boo Boo behaving so well!


Visiting Aunty Shirley & Baby Kayla

Mummy had a wonderful day with Erik! It was a long and tired day but it was worth it all to be so lucky to spend a solid day with our baby Boo Boo! Erik was a perfect little gentleman and we had a great time just being with each other!!