01.31.05
Posted in Maddy at 11:32 pm by tina
After our usual night time routines and right after we prayed (the last thing we do before putting Maddy down in her crib), Maddy immediately shaked her head and brought over her blanket “Bau-Bau, bau-bau”.
Mommy: We can’t bau-bau you to sleep. Maddy needs to go to her crib.
Maddy: “Bau-bau, bau-bau” and pointed to her yellow couch.
(We’ve been holding her more during the past few days while she had a stuffy nose at night)
At which time chop-liver daddy wanted part of the action: “Can daddy bau-bau Maddy?”
Maddy: shaked her head.
Daddy: “Can mommy bau-bau Maddy?”
Maddy: nodded..
Dadday asked the same thing again.. got the same answers…Some people think they can change Maddy’s mind by asking the same questions over and over 
How can I reject such an honored and sweet request?
Maddy and I agreed then that mommy will bau-bau her for 2 minutes only. We sat on the chair with only her butterfly night light on; sang a few songs; talked about things we’re going to do tomorrow; gave each other big hugs and said our goodnights.. then she went down to her crib satisfied, and I came out of her room believing that I’m the luckiest mommy in the entire world!
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01.30.05
Posted in Parenting at 11:14 pm by tina
Dear Maddy,
I got your first Leap-Frog LeapPad yesterday and I was so eager to teach you different colors/ numbers/ letters activities that come with the little learning center.
You were very upset at me. You didn’t care for any of the stuff I wanted you to learn. All you wanted to do is press the on/off, the ’start’ and the ‘light bulb’. When I insisted on showing you how to press on the shapes/colors and kept on pushing you off the on/off button, you threw the leappad away and cried on the floor.
I guess I got too pushy… So much of my good intentions of desiring you to learn things, I neglect to see that you are not ready. The other day when I asked you the colors of each cube, you simply blurred out the first ‘color’ that came to your mind. When I showed you the red cube, you said ‘yellow’, when I asked about the green cube, you said ‘blue’, etc.. It was just all messed up.
And I am terribly sorry for not respecting your timing. How I had sworn to myself that I will not be a typical Chinese parent who puts academic excellence above everything else, and here I am doing the very thing I don’t want to be.
So I will put the LeapPad away for now. We will try again in a week. If you’re not ready then, we will put it away again. When you’re ready, we will learn these things together. For it is more important to me for you to know that I am here to help and support you to grow up to be the person God wants YOU to be, not the person I want you to be; I will respect your development as unique as you are, and not comparing to the statistics of other kids; and I will love you just the way you are, regardless of your achievements or failures.
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01.27.05
Posted in Maddy at 8:58 pm by tina
We’ve been lazy not taking Brownie out for a walk with the cold weather and Maddy under the weather, and for some reasons Brownie does not like to go in the backyard (at least not #2)… so we’ve been having accidents at home lately. Thankfully, we have hardwood on the 1st floor. I remember it was quite tough and trying cleaning up the accidents off the carpet.
This morning Maddy lead me to our supposedly ‘music’ room (still missing the piano I want) and pointed to the accident Brownie left there, saying “Bra, Bra”
Mommy: You’re right! Brownie poo-poo here…. “BROWNIE!!”
Maddy ran to Brownie: “Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad”
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01.25.05
Posted in Maddy at 9:11 pm by tina
Maddy’s old room picture in CA made it on Ebay:
Maddy on Ebay
The seller was nice enough to ask me if it’s ok for her to use the picture she found on cheninfo.com since PBK no longer carries the model.
And yes, I love the crib. It’s simple yet elegant for mommy; it’s sturdy (the crib does not move a bit even when Maddy runs around and jumps in it) for Maddy; and it can covert to a toddler day bed when the time comes. Good luck Michelle for selling it.
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Posted in Maddy at 7:37 pm by tina
Joe and I took turn “Work-from-Home” today to watch Maddy since she needs to be 24 hours free of fever before returning to Primrose.
Daddy was so mean and kept taunting Maddy this afternoon about how mommy is not here, and even videoed a movie and sent it to me at work. Talking about us getting a kick at our poor baby’s expenses! But I admit, it was worth the clip
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01.24.05
Posted in Maddy at 8:16 pm by tina
So we found out why Maddy wanted to go to sleep early last night.
Her preschool reported that she has a slight fever 100.9 this afternoon… sigh.. She got sick under our watch again.
We did venture out in the freezing weather this past weekend. If it’s any consolation, we had a great time roaming around in every isle in ToyRUS and all the kiddy stores and the indoor playground in the mall.
Joe and I will take turn doing the work from home thing tomorrow. I’m sure Maddy will recover by then.
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01.23.05
Posted in Maddy's First at 8:24 pm by tina
We never had too much trouble during our night-night routine after Maddy is sleep trained. Since Maddy is such a good eater during the day time, we have skipped the night-night milk time all together now a days. Usually we start the routine a little after 9:00pm and she’s down by 9:20ish. When she doesn’t seem too tired, we give her some time to ‘escape’ from us after we undress her for bath and instead of heading to her bathroom directly, she runs to other rooms on purpose to play hide and seek with us. Even then, she’s down by 9:30pm.
The weirdest thing happened today. Maybe the cold weather makes her sleepy, or she might be a little under the weather, she asked for her bai-bai and paci at 8:30pm when we were playing with her in daddy’s den.
I told her she can’t have paci if she’s not sleeping and she got whiny. Then I asked her if she would like to take a bath and go to sleep thinking of course she’s going to say no. To my surprise she nodded her head. Just to be sure, I asked her if she’s tired, and she nodded again.
I started to get the bath ready. Daddy said it’s way too early to go to sleep. I told him he can ask Maddy himself if he doesn’t believe me… and he did… got the same answer.
Maddy went to sleep at 8:45pm today. I am so amazed.. not so much that she went to sleep almost one hour earlier than her regular routine, but the fact that she actually knew that she’s tired, initiated the request, and got us to understand her.
Such a joy to watch her mature!
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Posted in Maddy's First at 8:07 pm by tina
I’m so used to Maddy saying one syllable words or saying part of the words like ‘pa’ for paci, ‘bra’ for Brownie, ‘Maa’ for Maddy, etc, it was such a joy this morning while we played in her playroom.
She stepped on the floor mat that makes sounds: “A” for Apples and she repeated “ApPle” loudly and unconsciously. I turned to her in disbelief: “Apple”, then she again said “apple” a few more times…. brought her to daddy and asked her to say apple again… well, by now she is so self-conscious and cracked under pressure and the only word she can utter out was oh-ah…
She did say apple again for daddy later on… after mommy calm herself down and didn’t make such a big deal.
Another new word she said today: “share”… said it first when we sat on her yellow couch to read.. then said it again in the playroom when I rode on her rocking chair, attempted to push me off the horse after she said share.
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01.20.05
Posted in Maddy at 9:47 pm by tina
Maddy had lost her interest in puzzles in the past two weeks since she found her new love in buckle/unbuckle the seat belts, drawing, and playing with this wooden stacking ring these days.
I have been trying to teach her colors, although I don’t think the concept has click in her head yet. But she surprised me today while she played with the stacking ring.
As she put the rings into the stand, I called out each color and she mimic after me for all the colors I said “red; green; blue; purple; yellow; brown; light blue” She couldn’t really say light blue or yellow yet but she got the other ones pretty good. “Blue” is the most recognizable word of them all followed by “purple”.
We repeated the process a few times, then I got too ambitious. I switched to Chinese… She look at me funny and then refused to say anything any more after that. Oh well.
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Posted in Maddy at 9:33 pm by tina
Since Maddy has started to understand many things we say, life has become much simplier as I can explain things to her… until today.
She only had a few bites of dinner, and she pushed the bowl away and asked for “pre” (pretzels).
I’m totally not into cooking 10 things and hoping my child will eat one of them, nor am I into skipping a perfectly healthy meal for some junk food (Just eat whatever you’re given) …. So I simply said to her: Maddy, you need to eat three more bites of your dinner then you can have one pretzel… which sent her to her screaming at the top of her lungs.
I repeated my statement again. First she agreed and calmed down. When I gave her bowl, she shaked her head and started crying again. So we went back and forth a few times… and finally I said: I guess you don’t want any pretzels and dinner time is over.
..took her down from high chair, cleaned her up, all the while she was getting more and more upset. I repeated my statement again about eating dinner first then she can have a pretzel for snack. She nodded her head. I put her up in the high chair and gave her her dinner all over again. All the sudden, screaming came back and she wanted to throw her bowl out.
I was calm, partly identified her stubbornness with my own and partly was curious to find out how long she is able to keep up with her tantrum. I cleaned her up, took her down from the high chair and explained to her again of why dinner time is over and why there will be no pretzels tonight.
She whales in screaming for another two minutes and stopped. Then she proceeded to play with the buckles on the highchair as if nothing had happened. It’s hard to tell if she finally realized that I wasn’t going to give in or if she just ‘forgot’ what all the fuss is about.
She did have some extra fruits and cheerios before going to sleep. At which time she asked daddy to give her some pretzels, but we told daddy what happened while he was not home and told him that there will be no pretzels for tonight.
The child totally got me. She look a little disappointed but was content to just eat her cheerios.
So I picked my first fight with her.
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01.19.05
Posted in Maddy at 9:38 pm by tina
Belly area getting quite tight with size 3 diapers although the rest of it still fits ok.
Well, since Maddy IS a big 17 month old girl now, she is promoted to use size 4 diapers.
They seem so big… compared to the premee diapers she used when she was first born. I can’t believe it. The new born diapers were too big on her before, and it seems like it was just yesterday….
Tonight, she ran around her room half naked with only her size 4 diaper on. It fits her perfectly. I missed her being a tiny baby, but I also love her the way she is now… asking to brush her teeth and giving me squeeze hugs and praying with us before she goes to sleep… I love you, my big baby!
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Posted in Maddy at 9:29 pm by tina
I’m so proud of Maddy; she is turning into a little cleaning freak like me.
First of all, I would like to thank the evolution of crayons/markers — now washable, easily cleaned with damp cloth. How did people deal with the horror of permanent marks on the chairs/tables/walls in the old time I would never know….
After Maddy did some drawing, she noticed her table has some crayon marks and announced with ‘Oh-ah Oh-ah’. I told her that don’t worry, mommy will get a towel to wipe-wipe.
I wiped one spot clean. She look pleased and relieved and continued drawing.
Five minutes later, she noticed some more marks on the other side of the table. She dropped everything, walked to her bathroom and look for a towel.
Daddy thought she was ready to get into the duck and take a bath, but mommy knew better. She can’t possibly relax knowing there are things to be cleaned up.
I gave her the towel. She spent the next 2 minutes wiping the table… saw more marks on the chairs and cleaned them too.
That’s my girl! I think I’m going to have a good helper really soon.
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