04.28.05
Posted in Maddy at 11:04 pm by tina
Daddy started to get really busy lately with the VBS planning here at RCCC , so mommy decided to pick up some slack apparent with the lack of picture update in cheninfo.
As a true engineering family, daddy gave mommy a TOI(Transfer of Information) … I was told that I have the freedom to use my own format/look as I see fit, but it will just be the ‘wrong’ way of doing them and daddy will have to port them to his format later. So much for embracing changes. The result: same old cheninfo look!
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Posted in Daycare Reports at 9:02 pm by tina
From Maddy’s daily report under “message to my family” today:
Madison also can identify and “say” fire truck, red jacket, chicken, cow, pig, penguin, hat, trumpet and more. When I showed her the ladder card, she said “up down”. She is doing great!!
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But she only knows “che-che”(car), “mao-mao”(hat) out of the list. Mommy has lots of catching up to do..
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04.27.05
Posted in Maddy at 8:51 pm by tina
Daddy is so nice to mommy…. I complained and complained about the inability to change font, which made all my ‘cl’ looks like ‘d’, and how I would get hundreds and hundreds of spamming messages even after I turned off the comments (they all got queued up in waiting for comment approval)… Daddy pulled through for mommy this time.
Another upgrade with much better spam blockers 
Thanks daddy!
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04.26.05
Posted in Maddy's first words at 9:02 pm by tina
It is as if all the sudden talking nerves ‘clicked’ in Maddy’s brain this past weekend, she is now picking up three word phrases:
“there you go”; “one more time”; “more sta-berries” (so her ’strawberries’ is not quite there yet)
And it is so amazing how kids can be bi-lingual so effortless, no extra time nor help required.. I’ve watched the kids in Maddy’s class, they talk to the teachers and each other in English. When their parents come, they switch their languages with their parents.. then turn around and talk to each other in English again. I wish I had that ability to pick up Enligh that fast when I first moved here..
So on our way home-
Mommy: Maddy, where are the horses?
Maddy: there… daddy horse, ben-ben horse, Maddy horse…
Mommy: What is ‘horse’ in Chinese? (I asked in Chinese, as my feeble attempt to speak more Chinese to her)
Maddy: Ma–h! (she said proudly)
I suppose that does serve as my inspiration to teach her more Chinese; I’m way behind though. According to her daily report today, her teachers were amazed on how fast she is using her words.. they mentioned the specifics such as penguin, flamingo, cow, pig, etc.
Sadly, I believe I need to look up ‘flamingo’ in Chinese.
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04.23.05
Posted in Maddy at 4:20 pm by tina
Today is Primrose’s annual Family Health Day Spring Fling and I was assigned to help out from 1:00-2:00pm. It wasn’t the original time slot I had hoped for, but I didn’t want to make them switch or anything.
I was out of my wits since last night, wondering how would I pull off being an volunteer and not totally screw up Maddy’s nap time. She usually sleeps from 12 to 2 or 2:30pm at school.
Making her wait until after the event seems like the worst choice, so I gave her her lunch at 10:00am. She only ate a few bites.. can’t blame her. Who is hungry at 10 in the morning?
Feeling a little guilty, I told her it was nap time after her ‘lunch’ and really prepared for her to protest. But the child is so wonderful.. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve her… She went down without a sound and slept for two hours.. two whole hours before her regular down time.
We went to school around 12:30pm… I wanted to take her around all the stations before I had to help out. We were so surprised to see the pony rides, bouce houses, chu-chu train, tumble bus, indoor games, and lots and lots of bubble machines blowing out thousands of bubbles.
You would think that after your child gave you so much grace on changing her nap time without any notice, you have the decency to at least bring the camera to take some pictures! I kicked myself in the head for leaving the camera by the bench at home.. No pictures… sorry, daddy.
After we came home, we spent another hour in the neighborhood doing the usual.. and I got so tired… so tired I needed Maddy to take a nap.. She was in her crib making lots of noises. After ten minutes, I thought ok, the child has been more than good to you.. it’s not her nap time, let her roam around in her playroom. I peeped in.. there she was, kissing her sheep; saying no, no to her pink doggie (I am beginning to think I say too many no’s to Brownie)… then she said “night-night” to each of her stuff animals… I stopped by the door. She turned to the wall, covered herself with her bai-bai and went to sleep.
Thank you so much, baby girl! You’re so amazing.
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04.22.05
Posted in Maddy's first words at 9:47 pm by tina
In the spirit of ‘Friday’, I left work a little early and got to chitchat with Ms Koronic at Maddy’s preschool. Both Ms K and Ms Basset have mentioned that Maddy has accelerated in her speech these past two weeks. Here is the best records of what Maddy has said so far:
To Ms B: More milk, please!
To Ms K: Juice, please!
To mommy: big spoon
Go figures… even her first ’semi-sentences’ are all food-related
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4/23 update…
The child is picking up speech like crazy now…
We spent a good hour reading this morning, and she spoke many new words. This is worth blogging though:
Maddy: Duck
Mommy: That’s not a duck. It’s an Ostrich!
Maddy: Ost? (looking at me very suspeciously)
Mommy: Yes, an Ostrich.. (we flipped and continued reading)
10 seconds later.. Maddy declared loudly to me:
BIG DUCK
I suppose an Ostrich does look like a big duck!
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The workers are working on our backyard and Brownie started to bark
Mommy: Brownie (very annoyed…)
Maddy: Braw–nie… No BARKING!
I couldn’t believe it! She said it with such authority and she sounded exactly like me. Same tone and everything… Poor Brownie, now she’s got two people scolding her.
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Posted in Maddy at 11:52 am by tina
Daddy’s goon-goon passed away on Monday (He was 101 years old… Chinese years) so all the ‘Young’ family members are heading back to Rhochester for Gong-gong’s funeral tomorrow.
Although his departure is sort of expected and goon-goon did live a LONG time, we are again reminded of how fragile life really is!
On the ‘funnier’ side of all these happening, daddy and mommy had a light conversation this morning while daddy packed:
Mommy: Aren’t you supposed to wear a DARK suit for the funeral?
Daddy: yea, but you know how it is. I don’t have one (He packed his ‘only’ formal shirt/suite… light beige and a spring-looking tie).. You know the one I have now.. I got it recently only because I was required to wear suit/tie as a moderator..
Mommy: ok… (thinking.. I guess if anyone can pull off wearing a ‘happy’ looking suit to a funeral, it would be you)
It gets better…..
During lunch time, I got this email from Joe (sent by Joe’s brother Dave) titled: EMERGENCY-
“So I get to the airport and realized that my suit is still at home. Do
you have an extra suit, dress shirt, and shoes for me? essentially I
need whatt you are wearing except the underwear.
- Dave Chen
Sent from my cell phone.”
=============================
I can’t help but started cracking up imagining the Chen brothers at the funeral…
One in underwear because he forgot to bring his suit and everything else
Another one in a spring-wear as if he’s going to a cock-tail party.
sigh….What would goon-goon’s spirit say to his two oldest grandsons?
I imagine he would crack up too. He was a funny man. I had enjoyed a handful of times sitting by him and listening to stories of Joe growing up. No one tells the story of “Joe kicking the door and cry cry cry” better than Goon-goon. Good-bye goon-goon.. you’ll be missed.
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04.21.05
Posted in Maddy, Maddy's first words at 9:02 pm by tina
New things we saw for the first time during our daily walk:
1) A yellow butterfly… we got to watch it for whole two minutes before it flew far far away
2) A short little baby snake… Brownie found it first, and I got brave and showed Maddy what a snake looks like… then the snake took interests in staring at us, so mommy decided it was time to say goodbye
3) We also saw three ducklings and two HUGE rabbits over the past weekend. To my disappointment, Maddy was not all that excited about the baby duckies.
New things she’s been saying:
1) She said “Maddy” for the first time today…. not just “Maa”
2) Maddy: HOT (when she first steps into the bath tub)
Mommy: Is it hot?
Maddy: No.. war (for warm)
3) Maddy: Chon-chon? (bug in Chinese)
Mommy: Where is it?
Maddy: Daddy (as in daddy ‘took care’ of them)
We saw two chon-chons the other day and mommy had asked daddy to ‘take care’ of them while Maddy and mommy went downstairs first. When we came up again, Maddy was disappointed that chon-chons were no longer there. I guess she knew who was the last person with the chons-chons because she immediated said DADDY. Yep, daddy the chon-chon killer!
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04.20.05
Posted in Maddy at 10:27 pm by tina
I think Maddy is going through another growth spur now. For the past three days, she had requested to eat after our daily walk, one hour before our usual dinner time.
She has eliminated her late afternoon nap all together recently. At first I was all worried that she’s not getting enough rest, and slightly disappointed that I don’t get that one hour of washing up/cleaning/make dinner in peace. But Maddy was very clear on telling me her lack of need for that nap. Thankfully, I’m ‘wise’ enough by now to realize that I am not always right..
So she sits on the deck munching her raisins with daddy and Brownie while waiting on me to cook dinner. Half of the time her baby sitter Emily pops out from her deck and greets Maddy. Never would I imagine we would spend a good part of our day chatting with our neighbors from our decks or laughing at the Chen lawn in our fornt yards, but it seems like such a treat now. On the days we don’t run into our neighbors, I feel slightly lost and miss their company…
Maddy is definitely growing taller as well. Her 2T summer outfits seem to fit her just right now. Well, mommy tries to be ’smart’ and got her mostly capri style pants… they used to be really ‘long’ when she first started wearing them two months back, but now they all fit just ‘right’ like regular pants. Thankfully they will still last for a while later being the true capri style…. that is my excuse for getting her cute outfits anyway. Daddy says he used to be the only person getting packages (on-line orders), but now mommy is getting more than him. I can’t help it… it’s like an addiction for me. Some people take pleasure in dining out; some in wine tasting; some in spa treatments…. Mine: shopping for Maddy.
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04.19.05
Posted in Maddy at 11:28 pm by tina
The other day the mom of the Chinese boy in Maddy’s Y2 class ’showed him’ off to me when he put on his own jacket. At the same time, other Caucasian kids the same age did the same while their parents didn’t make such a big deal, but they commented how ’smart’ Chinese and Indian kids are because they seem to excel in acedemics even at Maddy’s tender ages.
As an immigrant myself who had my entire childhood in Asia, it’s such an eye opening experience on what parenting is all about in different cultures. I remember the caretakers started to give babies utencils during meal time when they’re about 6-7 months old… they barely knew how to sit straight by themselves that time. Amazingly all the kids just learned how to self-feed by one year old. In Maddy’s Y2 class, they don’t even give kids bibs any more. They are expected to know how to eat cleanly (for the most part anyway).
I remember how my sister-in-law teaches her kids. She is still THE SUPERMOM of the supermoms (my goal is only to be maybe half as good as she is).. It was the same way. Surrounded by mostly Chinese (since we go to Chinese churches and have mostly Chiense friends), I was shocked to see that her one-year old twins didn’t need any help during meal time and the not-so-old nephews dressed themselves from head to toe promptly when it was time to go out.
It is almost funny…. In the asian community, it is not a big deal if your kids know how to count from one to twenty and knows her alphabet shortly after the kid knows how to speak simply because excelling in academics is the expectation. In the same token, it is not a big deal if your kids know how to be self-sufficent as soon as they can in the ‘American’ community simply because that is also the expectation.
The 9-year-old boy who lives right in front of us mows his lawn every other Sat morning while his parents do gardening work at the same time. The first time I saw that, I thought “hmm.. isn’t he a little too young to do such ‘dangerous’ work?” He’s barely four feet tall, but you couldn’t tell the lawn was done by a child. I don’t know any Chinese kids that age doing major house chores like that. They’re probably in some Chinese school or some music classes that their parents make them go to on Sat mornings. No wonder we have so many book-smart Chiense people when they grow up but you can hardly find any handymen around.
It is truely a blessing to be living in multiple cultures! We can choose the best of both worlds and pass on to our children. I did Calculas in nineth grade, but I never knew how to plant anything and how to keep them alive for that matter (Our lawn has become one of the statistics… why they say that real estate turns sour when you have Asians in there because they don’t take care of them… it’s the ugliest, patchiest one.. wait.. I’m sorry, it’s the only patchy one in the neighborhood and we ARE going to call lawn services). Perhaps, Maddy doesn’t have to memorize her multiplication table by 7. We will build a little garden for her in the backyard. We will learn to grow something small together.
We can take care of our yards together as a family on Sat mornings, just like our neighbors… And, she can go to Chinese school on Sat afternoons, just like the rest of the Chinese families
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04.18.05
Posted in Maddy at 10:06 pm by tina
Baby girl turns 20 months old today. She is becoming more and more of a delightful toddler with her own set of personalities and preferences:
- She is usually very quiet when grandma or ah-ma talks to her on the phone. She just stares or listens very intently with occasional ‘ah-ma’ ‘bye-bye’ after many requests. However, when daddy is on the phone, she copies everything daddy says “hi.. okay… rain… here.. bye”
- When we were having a nice dinner with auntie Betty in a Japanese restaurant the other night and left her out of our conversations, she screamed “Help me! Help me! Help me!”. It nearly scared the heck out of my sister because she thought some crisis had happened. We quickly look at her, only to find that her rice is a little bit too hot and she was having trouble putting enough rice on her fork.
- She insisits on pushing her stroller during our daily walk and protests profusely when anyone tries to help her. “Mine; Mine” she says if I go closer to the stroller. I told her she needs to ask nicely, so “MINE, please! MINE, please!” with a sad, desperate begging voice is her favorite saying during our walks… other than “no, no Bra.. no no”.
- She is getting really comfortable in her Y2 classroom now. Daddy says she is back to her old self, goes straight to their activity table after washing hands in the morning with nice goodbyes to daddy. When I pick her up in the afternoon, she takes me around the room and shows me where her pictures are being displayed. Then she points to whoever still in the classroom and ‘introduces’ them to me. When Lucas’ mommy ask him to say bye to Maddy today, she ran to Lucas and gave the boy who is much bigger than her two big hugs.
- She reads to herself ..The other night I watched her reading to herself: “night.. light.. mouse…hush.. night” as she flipped through the pages of “Goodnight Moon”.
- She is starting to put words together now. Most of the times, she still just speaks with single words, but occasionally she surprises me. When I asked her what she needed this morning during breakfast, she said “big spoon”. Because she was having noodle soup, she wanted the adult size Chinese soup spoon instead of her own toddler utencils.
- She so loves the new painting table/stamping set/paint brushes/crafty stuff she got over the weekend. I had explained to her that her arts/craft time would be after school and we can’t play with the paints in the morning on weekdays. She was the first one to get ready this morning. She came to us all proud because she had put her shoes on without our help… While Joe and I are packing up our computers and getting ready for wor, the child disappeared quietly… Too quiet… We found her at her new table painting, trying very hard not to make any sound.
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04.15.05
Posted in Maddy at 8:53 pm by tina
Maddy has this ‘thing’ for stamps. One of her favorite school routine is getting the hand stamps at the front desk on the way out. Recently she insists on doing the stamping by herself like the rest of the bigger kids, and protests profusely if I try to intervene.
I found this Create like Crazy stamping set from Target two days back. Even since we introduced it to her, she is obsessed with them! Not only she stamps all over the paper we gave her, she’s got body tatoos as well the first night. It was a lot messier than I expected, but I was delighted to see her excitement.
We moved the art set from her playroom to first floor. I saw the fine print that it might stain the carpet and decided that it would be much safer if we play with them downstairs where the hardfloor is. We had a blast again tonight, and I saved part of her work for our wall display.
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