Thanksgiving Weekend November 30, 2008

We had a great holiday weekend – although we had to end it with sending daddy back to Taiwan which is very sad. But Thursday we loaded up the car and headed to Enumclaw to have TGD at my parent’s house. Greg and I are very lucky because our families get along wonderfully and we get to have a lot of holidays all together at one time – and Greg and I don’t have to drive around a lot. Zoe dog also got to go which was her first trip out of the house since her surgery – she was psyched!

We had a great TGD with the most fabulous food and company!

That night Fiona and I spent the night along with my sister because Friday after TG is our traditional Christmas cookie making day!

This year we got aprons for all of us (inspired by Tami =) and Fiona loved the pockets in hers! She helped some but most of the day she wanted to follow “papa” around the house and play outside with him. I think the two of them had a great time. We baked around 937 cookies that day and man WE WERE EXHAUSTED!

The next day (sat) we were going to get up and go see Santa before Daddy leaves for Asia – but the holidays had caught up to us and Fiona was having a hard time. She cried and she whined and she wanted stuff and then didn’t want it. Poor girl…she was so tired too and just crawling out of her skin but didn’t know what to do about it. We had family friends in from Portland too so we scrapped going to see Santa because we wanted a good visit with them and headed over to Greg’s parents house.

As usual we a great visit with Goren and Susan, Olivia and Natalie. Natalie was great with Fiona and wanted to show her all sorts of things and played with her like a champ. Fiona loved following her around and seemed to think it was all pretty cool. We stayed for awhile until lil’miss just couldn’t anymore. When we got home we started setting up the Christmas tree and Fiona went to bed early.

Today has been a pretty mellow day and Fiona is relieved =) She was happy to go down for a nap and went down about a hour earlier then normal – I’m sure it feels good to be in her bed again. Hopefully we’re right back on track. It’s so hard because we want to do so much with her but there’s only so much that little ball of emotions can take!

We’ll see santa when Dad gets home and our chances are better at a good visit =)

You are a pretty girl November 30, 2008

Recently I’ve had a few different people make a similar comment to me (including my mom) that has made me stop and think.

Several people have said to me, “soon we’ll have to stop telling Fiona she’s pretty”. Really? Do we? They say that if we keep telling her that she’ll grow up thinking that’s important and that she’s somehow better then everyone else. Really? Will she?

What if along with that we teach her that everyone is beautiful and that beauty looks many different ways and comes in many different forms. What if we teach her that she is pretty and to be proud of herself and what she looks like and who she is. Why does this have to be negative?

Wouldn’t we be falling into the media and society driven trap of beauty ourselves by avoiding telling her that she’s beautiful?

I may change my mind in the future – I reserve that right – but for now ,and from the first time I was told that, my gut and my heart tells me  that it’s the right thing to do.

I want her to grow up knowing that her mom thinks she is beautiful and precious. Because she is.

El’Noooooooo November 9, 2008

Today was another brave day for mommy. There’s a ‘thing’ here in Bellevue called “MyGym” that i’ve been eyeing for some time now, thinking that maybe Fi would like it and maybe it would be a fun thing for her grandparents to do with her during the winter months. The web site is pretty illusive when it comes to explaining their programs and fees so I when I saw that they were having a free open house I thought I’d better go. Then I saw that it was also to raise money for a great local charity – AND – that the God of toddlers would be there. Elmo.

Forget Santa Claus, Elmo has super natural powers. Fiona has watched Sesame Street maybe 3 times. She’s really way too busy to ever pay attention to the t.v. There are a few toys with Elmo on them in the house and she does absolutely LOVE her Elmo crackers…but other then that no contact with Elmo – so how, HOW, does she now she loves him SOOOOO much?

So into the car we go with promises of seeing Elmo once we get there. MyGym is a fairly small, well padded, indoor play ground with tons of stuff to climb on, balance on, roll on, slide on, bounce on, flip on, spin on, and spread germs on. The classes are led by an instructor based on age and they go through a series of exercises and songs and dances and adventures. Fiona would totally dig it.

When we first arrived it was a free-for-all. Parents, kids, teachers everywhere. Maybe it’s because I’m still coming down off a nasty cold, or maybe I’m still just a protective parent of one, or maybe there are a lot of A*%@!holes out there but I was about ready to spank some butts….and I don’t mean kids and I don’t mean in a fun sort of way.

There were several kids there completely out of control and there parents just stood there watching. Throwing balls at people, blocking the slides, laying down in the middle of everything. Now this might be fine when it’s just you, and it might be fine with a small group of kids your child’s age, but there were kids from little-itty-bittys to old-enough-to-know-betters, and a lot of I-need-to-learn-to-know-better-but-my-parents-are-clueless’s. PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR CHILD. Instead these parents would just laugh, oh isn’t that funny. Strangely enough these  were the same parents that were also in everyone’s way and never seemed to notice.

Finally one of the teachers called everyone together for an organized exercise and to prepare for Elmo to take the stage. When he did, once again, those parents who’s child is more important then everyone else’s practically trampled all of the other kids and parents who were politely waiting their turns, so they could get pictures of their kids – while everyone else politely stayed seated so that ALL of the kids could see.

whew.

Elmo led the group in a couple of dances and Fiona was super psyched. She totally followed all of his moves and had a smile from ear to ear. Afterwards Elmo sat down and everyone had a chance to get their picture taken with him. It was noisy and they were trying to move us through quickly so when  Fi got up there she got scared and wouldn’t sit on his lap (can we say DEATH GRIP) but she gave him a high-5, waved and blew kisses, and then asked about him all the way home.

I won’t hold the chaos against MyGym, not their fault. But I may hold the $75.00 for 4 / 1 hour sessions against them. Oy!

aaaaaaaah November 7, 2008

Tonight Ellie and I met up for a pedicure after work. It was wonderful! I haven’t had one since Fiona was about 5 months old and my sister gave me one as a gift! We had a great time and nice relaxing chat. When I got home Fiona was very excited about my toes and begged me to do hers too! She sat the stillest I have EVER seen her sit and let me do each and every toe and then even waited to touch it for it to dry.

Zoe’s Progress November 7, 2008

Well zoe’s surgery went smoothly. She had to stay a few days in the hospital because she wasn’t getting up and around – and boy were we glad when she came home! Here’s what the scene looked like:

As you can see she was terribly embarrassed by her pink skin. The good news is that just a couple of days ago the cast seemed to be slipping so I took her in for the vet to look and they decided that it was healing so well that they took the cast off and the staples out. 4 more weeks and we’ll get an x-ray and then we’re on to the rehab portion of our trip.

Look at that tiny chicken ankle! Who knew!

Kitty Litter November 7, 2008

The saturday after halloween a friend of mine was throwing a party. Greg didn’t want to go so he stayed home and I got to go out on the town…well shoreline…alone. I had a great time at the party and danced long into the night (well…not by my old standards but definitely by my new ones!) here was the dessert I brought for the party….kitty litter cake…mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Halloween Is Here! November 7, 2008

Finally the big day arrived. it rained really hard all day – tradition of course – but miraculously the sky cleared and it was almost warm just in time for all the tricks and treats. Fiona watched me poor the candy into the bowl for our trick-or-treaters…her eyes wide. How does she know this? She has never had candy before, yet she knew she would like it. She kept pointing at it and saying, “yes momma. nona have. mmmmmmmmm. oh boy!” I gave in and gave her a piece of chocolate:

I’d say that by the way her eyes are half rolled into her head that she likes it. Now I had to convince her that we needed to leave the house, which made NO sense to her at all with all this candy here, why would we leave? But before we went we got a nice picture with the pumpkins:

Fiona completely embraced this new holiday. She walked almost the entire way around the neighborhood holding our hands. She knocked on the doors loudly – and though we were the only ones that understood her she said, “trick-or-treat” as soon as the door opened. AND THEN she grabbed a huge handful of candy. We would tell her no – only one -but everyone thought it was so cute to see this little baby grabbing candy they encouraged her for more. As soon as the door would close she would look at us, sign for “more”, say “more more, more mommy, house” and point to the next house which she would happily walk to. We were amazed. After the tnt’ing was over our neighbors invited us to their house for some warm yummy soup and drinks with the rest of the hood. It was a great way to end the evening. Fiona was still in her holiday spirit and danced and played LATE into the night:

The next day I let her have another piece of candy – but soon realized we have broken the seal. As we were grocery shopping she spied some candy in the isle and screamed for me to give it to her. aaaah yes, good times ahead!

Caged Daddy November 7, 2008

Finally daddy came home and Fiona invited him into Zoe’s new crate (which fiona and all the cats love but zoe will have nothing to do with). Then we got to put away the vegetables – one of fiona’s favorite chores up there with washing the dishes and feeding the pets. Sadly all of these chores cause more chores for me =)

Pumpkin Carving November 7, 2008

Just a few more nights until daddy got home and zoe was still at the vet from her knee surgery so Grandma and Fi and I decided to carve our pumpkins. Fi really got into it…though she preferred to use the spoon and instead of taking the guts out of the pumpkin she put the guts I took out into her already emptied one. Then she sang “cooooking sooooup! cooooking sooooup!”.

Whatever works sister.

Who Dresses You? November 7, 2008