Cheeks to Cheeks

Today is the day to be appreciative of myself.

Today is the day to give myself a pat on the back for being a somewhat successful person in my 34 years (and still counting) in life.

Today is also the day I have to thank my mother for going through labor and pain 34 years ago; and forever standing by me.

Today is the day I want to thank my dad for supporting me in my decisions.

Today is the day I thank my best friend and soul partner for giving me all the love a man could ever give to a woman.

Today is the day I like my kids to know how thankful I am to be their mother and letting me experience this great journey of motherhood.

Today is the day I’m utterly grateful and thankful to have the most understanding and caring parents-in-law.

Today is the day I like my sister to know (despite stealing the limelight from me by your appearance in our family) I enjoy being your older sister and is extremely thankful that I get to experience sisterhood for the past 23 years (and still counting). I have to admit, being an only child isn’t as fun as it thinks.

Today is the day to be thankful I get to breathe in the wonderful aspect of life and enjoy the fact that my love ones are healthy.

Today I want to thank all the people, be it friends or acquintance, who made my life an interesting one and I am hoping for more colorful experiences.

Thank you for celebrating my existence and I love y’all!

Cassie started preschool at LPP middle of March this year. She gets to have fun, art and music with kids her age every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I get to spend 1-on-1 with her the rest of the week. She has fit in the “terrible two” bill and has a very strong personality. She’s adamant with her decisions and loves saying “No” to us. At this moment, I have been trying to psych her into saying “Yes” and it is quite a formidable task. Most of the time we just have our silly games and she loves being silly. She enjoys to be the center of attention and never lose a beat in following whatever her older sister does. She simply adores her sister and I can tell she worships her a lot.

(My little Miss Fairy/Ladybug. She was determined to have the fairy tutu and ladybug wings on her.)

She is currently in the I-like-to-look-pretty stage. She is by far ahead of this game. Belle was not in getting all dolled up till she turned three. Cassie loves to be pretty. She is the perfect daughter for anyone who loves to put frilly dresses, ribbons and bows on their daughters. I, for one, is not that thrill to dress my daughters up. Anyhoo, this girl loves to play dress up and she is very capable of dressing herself up. I guess I should include this as her milestone update. She can put on her socks and shoes by herself. She is very good at stripping off her clothes and putting them on.  Hence, she’s already potty-trained (daytime only). She is quite advanced when compared to her older sister. I guess having an older sibling helps, as she is very observant in whatever her sister does.

This set of photos reminded me of Belle who was four months shy of turning 2. Here’s the link. Sigh, at times like this, I don’t mind having more kids. We have our down times with them but on the overall they do bring us joy and satisfaction. My baby Cass is growing up too fast (I think I’ve said that many times when Belle was at that age).

Love you very much, my baby girl!

Last Saturday (April 17, 2010) the girls woke up super early and Daddy & Mommy decided to sleep in a little bit. Both of them decided to play in their room for a bit and even took the liberty to go downstairs to play with their toys and other stuff in the playroom. After a good 15 to 30 minutes they came up to our room, giggling away and say, “Look, Mommy and Daddy!” This  is what we saw…………

Both in their swimwear and “war paint” on their faces. We didn’t know whether to laugh or be mad at them. I’m sure they will appreciate these photos when they are a lot older.

I can’t believe how stubborn the girl is. Told her to go pee-pee before going to the park. She refused and decided to lie on the bathroom floor. Yes, it is eeky but she’s determine to stay there. So, I let her be.

Five minutes later, I went to check on her ‘cos I heard noise in the bathroom. She peed…….on the floor! I was so mad. I scolded her told her “No park!” Now, we’re having a silent war. She’s lying on the carpet and I’m here blogging about my experience. I’m letting her know how angry and disappointed I am with her by not talking to her.

This girl is gonna be a handful as she grows older. There must be a way to break her stubborn streak but as of now I don’t have a solution for it. Time out doesn’t seem to work on her as she rather takes it and freezes up. Yep, you heard me right. She will freeze up as in not moving during the entire time-out.

Today is just not my day. I think I’ll have to feed her an early lunch and put her down for her nap. I need some sanity back.

We have a new addition to our family. Welcome Baby Delphine Leclercq!!! We are so thrill to see you and have been waiting patiently for your big appearance. We hope you will be a good baby and go slow on your Mommy and Daddy.

Cassie saw Baby Delphine on Uncle Stephane’s Facebook and kept saying, “Baby! Baby!” Then all of the sudden she said, “Shame! Shame!” (finger licking on her cheek) Baby Delphine was naked in that photo.

Most of you got it right on the first one. She was referring to the time. I guess my kid isn’t the only one saying dot dot for full-colon (:).

As for Cassie’s, you guys are so close to the right word. She was saying, “Hello” and it isn’t like the simple greeting “Hello.” She went “Hellllooo?!” I think she caught it from me ‘cos I’m always saying things like (to catch their attention):

Hello?? Is anyone listening to me?

Hello?! Quiet down, both of you. Time to sleep.

So, yea, when Belle started to jibber jabber away that night, the little one decided to shut her sister up by yelling, “Yaaallllooooww!!!”

Have I been gone that long from blogging? I guess I have! I just needed to be away and there are so much so soak in from my two full-of-energy girls. I do feel a slight guilt for not updating their milestones and antics, but I’m sure they will hear tons of it from their folks when they are a lot older.

So, let’s jump start this blog by having a guessing game. It’s the Look Who’s Talking and guess what they meant.

Last night, while putting the girls in bed–Oh yea, they are now sleeping together in their own room– they said this:

Belle: One zero zero polka dot polka dot zero zero.

Cass: Yaaallllooow!

Can you guess what they meant?

*Tick Tock Tick Tock* The answers will be revealed tomorrow.

On the day of Christmas eve,
I lost the chance to get to know you.
I so wanted to hold you dearly,
touch that little arm of yours,
stroke your little fuzzy haired head.
Mummy loved you so much,
yearned for you,
cried for you.
Only time can heal my heart, body and soul.
I love you my sweet babe.
Rest well and now go frolick with the angels,
who will forever protect you.

By this time next week, I will be enjoying a nice cuppa iced teh tarik. I can’t wait for this week to be over and it hasn’t been a pleasant one. Things went down the hill over the weekend and we’re recovering from it. These are the events that had happened over the week:

1) I woke up middle of the night finding Cass with a slight fever of 99.9 degree F. Luckily it subsided after one dose of Motrin.

2) Belle ate something bad and had the worse food poisoning in her life. She puked 3 times and had constant diarrhea. It was so bad that whenever she had to let out gas, poop came with it. We had to bring her in to the hospital (there are no private single clinics in Shanghai) the following morning. Luckily we didn’t go to the famous Pediatric/Children’s Hospital. Instead, we went to a General Hospital (which her daddy used to go to as a child) and visited the Pediatric department. Poor baby had to had IV inserted on her hand. The doctor said her electrolytes are imbalanced and if she doesn’t get the IV solution in, she would continue to puke whenever she eats or drinks. Poor girl gave a fight and all of us (both me and father-in-law and 3 nurses) had to pin her down just so the nurse could insert the IV needle into her. She had 2 bags of solution and it lasted almost 3 hours. Thankfully she felt a lot better at the end of the “treatment” and we were able to meet up with some relatives for lunch. She refused to go home to rest and we had no choice but to bring her along. She ran a slight fever when she came home but Motrin did the trick. She had to drink 2 doses of yucky medicine to stop her diarrhea. The girl went through the phobia of eating for few days but she is getting better now.

3) Just as Belle got better, Cass came down with fever again. This time it was about 100.9 degree F. Thank goodness I have Motrin with me and her fever subsided after one dose of it. As you can see why the title of this post is “Sleepless in Shanghai continues.”

4) Then the worse part happened, all three of us, my Father-in-law, Mother-in-law and I ate something bad and had food poisoning. MIL puked numerous times and had to take Belle’s anti-vomit med. I had a few runs of diarrhea and had to make myself puke once ‘cos my tummy was feeling uneasy the entire day. FIL puked once and had fever. He is still running a slight fever now. Luckily for me, my diarrhea lasted only for 2 days and I’m feeling back to my normal self. MIL is feeling better but doesn’t have much appetite.

So, now you can see why I want this week to be over with. With relatives flying in from Hong Kong and Australia, we can’t afford to be sick. We will just have to toughen up ourselves and hopefully by next week we can relax and enjoy the rest of the vacation. My in-laws have been a great help and they really deserve a child-free vacation. Hopefully with us in K.L. they get to relax a bit before they leave for U.S.

I will not be blogging till I get to K.L. So, I’ll see some of y’all soon! Adios!

Nong ho! We’re here in beautiful Shanghai.

The girls are still adjusting to the time zone and needless to say, I haven’t been sleeping well. So far, these are the food we’ve accomplished to consume: Cai bao (Steamed veggie bun), Dan bing (Savory egg crepe), Fan tuan (Savory rice balls), Shen jian bao (Pan-fried buns),  Da jai xie (Da jai crabs), and a lot of Shanghaiese style condiments and side dishes. Next on our list is McD. No, we are not missing our American food but McD has this lunch deal that is too good to give up. They are promoting their combo meal at the price of 15 yuan. That’s like USD 2!!!  This deal is only valid for lunch hrs. I’m sure Belle will enjoy her McD meal very much.

There are so much to do and we have so much free time on our hand. We will be here for about 3 weeks–the longest trip so far (at Shanghai). I’m Facebook-less from now till we arrive at K.L. So, those of you who has written to me on my FB, I will not be able to reply. Quite a lot of sites have been banned in China. Therefore, I really can’t do too much net surfing. I guess I’ll just have to stuff myself silly with the local food to pass time.

Zai wei! (Goodbye!)