growing up

toddlers have such a great sense of humor. who knew? they are tremendous observers and know what is proper and what isn't. and it is funny when things are not quite right... like humongous shoes!

those dry, dry hands

one thing they do not tell you about caring for a baby is how hard it is on your hands. i swear, since january 2006, my hands have gone from nice and soft, to dry, crackly, baked-on super glue fingers. no joke! esp in the beginning, you spend so much time changing diapers and washing your hands after, that you lose all of the moisture from your skin. my cuticles and nail beds were the first to go. just constant cracking and splitting. then it started spreading down my index fingers and the sides of my thumbs. even the palms of my hands started to get very dry in texture, like cheap paper. i have this one spot on my thumb (right wear the nail ends) that just keeps splitting. whenever i don't get enough sleep or let my hands get too dry, it splits right there and it hurts like crazy whenever i press down, because it causes it to open up.

so, here are some tips for keeping those mitts in shape.
1-use cold water. this is william's tip. in winter, i hate using cold water, but have to admit, once i switched over, it has helped a lot.
2-put lotion bottles near every sink. make it convenient to reach for the lotion right after washing up. put the moisture back on as soon as you're dry.
3-don't let your hands soak in anything long enough for them to get all wrinkly. this takes out moisture as well.
4-apply a heavy lotion or vaseline right before you go to sleep.
5-get enough sleep. impossible at times, but doable once they establish a set sleeping pattern.
6-take a multi-vitamin. it can't hurt :)

also, that eucerin Aquaphor ointment that works so well on diaper rashes? it is great for patches of dry skin on baby as well as anything dry on you too. back when thomas was drooling so much it gave him a rash, i would put it on his cheeks and chin as a protective barrier. now i use it on the dry patches on his legs in the morning and by evening, they feel much better. buy a separate tube and slather it on. as long as you are not allergic to the lanolin, it is a great product for dry skin. i have heard it also works for mild cases of eczema.

gossip or not... you be the judge

my mouth has gotten me into trouble more than once in my 35 years. i think it actually runs in the choe family, that habit of speaking without regard for the potential effect on the people around. ha ha... actually (sorry anita but) my sister is worse than me. her mouth cost her a job once (at a well known startup). i remember our dad telling me to "think before you speak" on more than one occasion. i am sure my dad was bad at one time, but age helps keep the lips zipped. the older i get, the easier it gets, but unfortunately my mouth is still ill-mannered when i don't watch myself.

so on sunday, i was talking to a friend (who will remain unnamed, unless they choose to id themselves :) and we were admiring another gal's brand new, Bugaboo stroller. just a little, "ooo. wow. look at that. yeah it's very shiny. very beefy tires. up close and real, etc etc." normal yappy stuff. then I said "well, she wears a lot of really nice bling so if anyone, i would imagine she would have a bugaboo." then the friend said "yeah, that's their mercedes in the parking lot."

well, the owner of said bugaboo was in the adjoining room trying to get her baby off to sleep. it is very quiet in that room... not sure if she heard, but it is a high possibility. (and dear unnamed - really... next time kick me! or at least point.) anyways, i guess if there weren't the possibility of her overhearing, i might have not thought twice about it. there is a fine line between gossip and harmless stating of fact. but you tell me - even if the bugaboo owner was nowhere near by, was it gossip or just facts?

p.s. now mind you (yeah you o writers of drunken uncles), i did not say it with a bunch of attitude like, "you know, that girl, she's always showing off how big her bling is and puttin it in everyone's faces. she just had to go an get a bugaboo so she could sashaaaay around in it." i think those of you that know me, know that i did not say it like that. :)

a little trouble eating O's

thomas loves using a spoon but the angulation is off on the approach to his mouth... makes it really funny watching him try to eat. :)

spiked! danger in kids drinks

i am a huge fan of reader's digest. my dad always read it when i was growing up, so i grew up with it. maybe 30-40% of the articles are seasonal repeats (on topics like family/marriage, weight loss, etc.) and the remainder are new for each month.

this month there was an article on all the drinks they have now that are 2-5 times the caffeine and sugar content of regular sodas. i.e. monster, red bull, pimpjuice, vamp, radioactive energy, killer buzz, etc. there is even one that was called "Cocaine Energy" but the FDA told the mfg to pull it. so they just renamed it "Censored" and put it back on shelves.

a regular cup of 8 oz coffee has 135 mg of caffeine. these energy drinks often have more than that and a lot of the newer ones coming out in the last year have 200 to 360 mg - in one soda can! that doesn't even include all the sugar they put in it to maximize the "boost" you get.

the crazy thing is kids (like 6th grade and up) are getting addicted to these drinks for the buzz they get, as well as using them to stay up studying or to get amped up for sporting events. it is a completely legal jolt that any kid can buy. whatever happened to parents just telling kids that coffee is an adult drink? this is all starbucks fault. they have made it very cool to hang out and drink coffee. kids line up for these 400-600 calorie drinks they serve and parents have a hard time saying no when literally all the kids are drinking coffee now.

the scary thing is that ER rooms have seen an increase in kids coming in that have OD'd on caffeine. doctors mistake it for drugs/alcohol, but they run urine/blood tests and find out it is caffeine poisoning. terrible!

sorry... it is hard when in 12 years thomas will be subject to peer pressure that says it is so cool to drink starbucks or red bull. just had to share my "that's outrageous!" moment.

another hot day to end the week

hello everyone! hot hot these past three days. thomas discovered that playing with water is really fun. i actually ended up returning this rainbow pool because it was too big for william and i to manage (in terms of moving it to shady spots and covering it when not in use). the part in the picture is just the "wading pool"... it is attached to a bigger pool with a slide that we didn't even try blowing up. so now i have a small, round pool that we are going to try out today. or maybe... we'll attempt thomas' first swim in a big pool. depends on how we feel this evening.

thomas woke up early today (6am), after only 9 hours of sleep, rather than his usual 10-11 hour stretch at night. for those without kids, that is pretty normal for toddlers.
instead of letting him wake up to play, i made him stay in his bed until he fell back asleep. but it was a battle. he fought me as hard as his little 3 foot body could, spending a good 30 minutes screaching at me at the top of his lungs... pausing only to catch his breath here and there. it paid off though - he ended up sleeping from 7:20 to 9:30am. i KNEW he was sleepy... he just woke up early and decided he wanted to play instead of going back to sleep. in the winter it is easier for them to go back to sleep b/c it is still dark. but it gets light so early now that the slightest interesting noise will cause them to wake and their little brains start spinning.

as a prize for sleeping so well, he got a new toy. i was at Target last night and found a perfect toy watering bucket. finally!!! it came w/3 pots and garden tools too. we played with that for most of the morning, off and on.


we also unloaded the dishwasher, another favorite activity. i think he shortened the life of our dishwasher. i have never let him climb into it and he was a little short to get up there anyways. but today, my back was turned for just a moment and in a flash, he clambered up. *sigh* oh well... he was so cute, i had to grab a pic before plucking him off and explaining to him that the dishwasher was not strong enough for him to climb into. the door is not closing quite the same as before. so we'll have to take a look at the alignment and door seals before running it again. oh well!

thomas' current video game fav's

just wanted to share some great (& free!) toddler video games. this one is from sesame street: keyboard-o-rama. he can press any letter on the keyboard and elmo tells him the letter and names off something that starts with that letter. as you can see from this pic - he loves it. absolute focus for 5-15 minutes. sooo funny. and he is getting really good at finding his favorite letters and numbers with skillful one little index finger typing.

they also have a simple peek-a-boo game where babies can get results hitting any key or keys - which was great, but thomas has "advanced" beyond that now... *sigh* growing up fast!

there is also the games section on thewiggles.com/games (thanks theikedas for that tip!). thomas likes "instruments", "pot plants", "numbers 1 to 10" (if you press the middle, one of the wiggles just says the numbers out loud. thomas gets a kick out of that for some reason) and of course, "wiggly radio".

finally, william's dad sent us this link schoolsongs.edu.tw for all these silly songs. thomas LOVES the abc song (1st one) and will ask for it 5 to 10 times in a row. crazy! most of them are low quality, very simple, totally cheepo karaoke, anime-type drawings.... but they are great for toddlers. :). "colors" and "balloons" are 2 other good ones for his age.

if any of you parents out there have other internet games your toddlers love, share please!

Thomas showing off...

this morning, thomas was going through the letters in his little play area and as he was pointing to the different letters, he would make a sound for each one. of course it was the same sound. but he said "Ooo" as he came upon the letter "O". so i learned today that he recognizes the letter "O". amazing! you think they aren't but they really are absorbing everything around them as fast as their little neurons are letting them. and i have a feeling he recognizes some of the basic numbers now too. it is pretty amazing watching these little babies grow up and learn everything. hard to believe sometimes that we all started out this way too.



another thing he loves doing now is to eat by himself. sometimes, he won't even eat unless i let him work the spoon by himself. it can be really frustrating when i just need him to eat so we can get going (if I have something planned), but usually it is fun because i can just sit and eat next to him now. reach over once in a while to help him when he is having trouble getting a particular morsel going in the right direction.

cute, fat, little squirrel with a juicy apple. and check out my fly 80's style hip hop pants!



------------------------little monkey butt------------------------

did i mention how smart they are??? yeah, the little buggers are very smart. stephen lu (dylan's dad) and i were talking on sunday about how the movies don't really portray babies/toddlers correctly. most of them eat vegetables with no problem as long as you start them on vegetables and most babies stop peeing when their diapers are off.
Thomas has been really good about not pee'ing when his diaper is off. since 10-11 months, we haven't had any accidents and the only time he pee's when he is not in diapers is when he is in the bath. even that has become pretty rare since the beginning of the year. they are smart - they learn fairly fast that pee'ing when your diaper is off does not have desirable consequences.

this evening, after his bath, i was drying him off and he wanted to be picked up. so i obliged and he started to bite down. i took him sternly, said "no biting" and carried him straight to his crib for a 1 minute time-out. walked out and started counting. he cried off and on for 40 seconds. then for the last 20 seconds he was quiet. hmmmm....

as soon as i walked back in, he reached out for me. not even a tear. i didn't see anything amiss so i just reminded him why he got the time out and picked him up. something wet started to soak my sock.

he pee'd. in that 20 seconds, he pee'd a nice, good, long pee. it got on the bed, went down the crib rail, through the rails, all over the carpet in a nice 2 foot spread. i can see him in my mind, staring at his pee, as he presses his little bare abdomen against the rails of his crib and just lets it rain down. thomas 1, parents 0.

apples are almost as good as cheerios...

a new job

william has a new job! he started working for siemens in Fremont in October. since then he has not been happy with the commute (as many of you know). he has wanted to find a job closer to home but after sending his resume out in feb and mar, didn't have any luck. finally, a couple of his former Oracle co-workers gave him lead-ins at E-Loan and Robert Half Int., both in Pleasanton. funny thing is, as long as i have known william, God always makes him wait. ha ha.... not easy for william. he really expected a job offer back in mar or april, but God strung him along until just a week ago. all of a sudden, he had TWO job offers to pick from! on top of that, he got a raise. that's always nice too.
june 18th, he'll be back in pleasanton, working for my old company, Robert Half. it is a full time & temp staffing firm. i worked for them for 5 years before leaving to go into the clothing/mfg industry. best of all, it is only 2 miles from home! no more 1-2 hours/day on the road any more. plus he is very happy thursday lunches are back on at the pub in dublin... where the waitress knows them by name. :)

pillows

william always falls asleep with thomas at night. at 7:30 we get ready for bed and 8pm, he goes down, using the little twin bed in his room. we transfer thomas into his crib once he falls asleep. more about that 8pm bedtime below.....

for naps, i started doing the same at the beginning of the year. the bad part of that is he loves having one of us there now when he is trying to fall asleep. the even funnier thing is that he has noticed we always put our head on a pillow. so last month he started putting himself on a pillow. i have tried sliding him off the pillow once he is asleep, but somehow, he always finds his way back onto the pillow. this is regardless of whether he is on his back or front. it is hard to tell in this pic, but he is on his back. he is not twisted around like demon-possessed doll :p


last night, william put thomas in his crib because he would not fall asleep. it is getting harder and harder to get him to go to sleep. he always goes down around 8pm. but for the last month - he has stayed awake for 30-60 minutes before falling asleep. so he doesn't really actually fall asleep until 8:30 or 9pm. i guess that is part of those busy little toddler brains, working overtime.

sometimes, he just lays there babbling away. other times, he keeps trying to get off the twin bed and play more. so last night, william plopped him into the crib and walked away for 5 minutes. thomas started crying - he really dislikes his crib now. when william went went back in, he said thomas saw him through his puffy tear-streaked eyes, stopped crying, turned around, picked up the pillow, came back to the side of the crib, looked at him and pointed to the twin bed. breaks your heart!!!! sooo guttwrenchingly cute, you just want to pick him up and crush him to pieces! how come they're so cute???!!