12.28.05
Posted in pregnancy2 at 2:50 pm by tina
We were so excited to go to the doctor’s office today, only to find out that they had messed up my appointment and did not schedule the ultrasound.
And that pretty much did it for us. I’m changing doctors/hospitals again, back to my original doctors.
The first time I changed doctors because their urgent clinic refused to see Maddy after business hours (thus I changed out of principles). This time I’m changing it because I couldn’t take how things are run in the clinic.
It’s one thing that the clinic is kind of old and run-down, it’s another thing that they’re always late. What is the point of the sign that asks patients to get there five minutes before the appointed time when they’re always always at least half hour late? It sure didn’t help after I waited for half hour only to be seen by a doctor asking me things like “Is everything ok? Are you taking your vitamins?” If I was mad enough, I would have told him that I was fine until coming to the clinic, having to wait forever so they can see me for two minutes and ask me some stupid patronizing questions. But I guess I wasn’t mad enough, so I acted politely.
Since it didn’t seem very logical to drive to Duke Hospital or UNC Hospital for the distance, I’m switching back to Rex.
Baby Chen will remain as baby Chen for another week.
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12.26.05
Posted in Maddy at 5:39 pm by tina
We went to the mall to kill some time today. Fighting the after Xmas sale crowd in the parking lot, Maddy blurted out:
“Did Jesus save us a spot?”
And thankfully, we did find a spot.
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Mommy: Are you taking care of your babies?
Maddy: No. I check my email first. Then I bau-bau the baby, ok?
Now that’s a girl with her priorities set right 
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12.25.05
Posted in Maddy at 10:51 pm by tina
It’s a quiet Christmas at the Chen household this year! We attended a Christmas Eve service at church. Singing Christmas songs and lighting candles with Maddy was special for me. Maddy was happy seeing daddy on the stage playing the base… “That’s my daddy” she whispered.
It’s unusual that Christmas falls on a Sunday as well. Although the Christmas day itself is symbolic and all, it’s nice we’re able to set aside the time to remember the reason for the seasons.
Not that I don’t like to have family gatherings on Xmas holidays, but somehow the true meaning of Xmas gets lost easily with our busyness and all the activities we plan. For real, Xmas is not about being with the loved ones. We should be with the loved ones as much as we can throughout the year. Xmas is about remembering what God has done for us, an amazing sacrificial beginning of Jesus’ life from being born in a manger.
Even our two-year-old sensed the difference of today. When we asked her if she wanted to open her gifts this afternoon, she asked “the gifts for Jesus?”
How she put me in shame. Even the child knows that it is Jesus’ birthday today, and why in the world does she get gifts on Jesus’ birthday?
And I decided to tell her that those are the gifts different relatives sent her simply because they love her very much. I think I am going to start a family tradition of not opening gifts on Xmas day.
We did sing Happy Birthday to Jesus tonight. It’s a simple gesture Maddy can understand now. When she’s old enough, hopefully Xmas will touch her heart much deeper than just the lights, gifts, parties, and fun activities.
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12.24.05
Posted in pregnancy2 at 10:19 pm by tina
I’m 17 week pregnant and being attacked by stuffy nose every night.
Still have morning sickness although I’m well into second trimester.
Not to mention that I’m eating the grossest food such as cheesburger and fries… hated those fast food before but now it’s like I’ve got to have them.
Such a high maintainence kid even in the tummy… looks like he/she will be more like daddy this time.
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12.20.05
Posted in Maddy at 10:33 pm by tina
For the most part, Maddy is a tomboy. She is simple and straight forward, and she doesn’t have complicated emotional needs. But lately, there are traces of girly-ness coming out from her. It’s surprising, unexpected, and as sweet as it can be:
1) She didn’t want the red dress I picked out for her, and insisted on wearing a pink dress.. because it looks just like what ‘princess Arora’ wears (well, it’s a girly pink dress which I commented in passing that she look like Sleeping Beauty the last time she wore it)
2) When she acts shy or acts ‘angry’, she tilts her head to one side, making her hair falling from her face. But if you say the right thing, you just might get a grin from her in her totally girly gesture.
3) When we watched Bambi for the second time, her eyes were filled with tears even before the hunters killed Bambi’s mommy. She kept asking “Where is Bambi’s mommy” from the beginning of the movie whenever she’s not on screen. I think we’ll stick with the Pooh movie for now.
4) After a week of ‘making food’ out of nothing, I finally broke down and got her a tea party/dinner set. It’s so ironic because it’s the first real ‘toy’ I brought for her and I’m so not into ‘domestic’ things. The girl is delighted beyond description and we played tea party for two hours straight. At the end of the day, I felt like I was going to explode because it felt like I’ve been eating all night long. Joe and I kept complaining that we are too full and couldn’t eat anything any more.
5) She’s been really into ‘taking care of the babies’ lately. She wraps up her stuff animals; pie-pie them; change their diapers; feed them with her gentlest touches. She even told daddy this morning “Daddy, you go take a shower. I will take care of the babies, ok?”
But the most girly time she becomes is during our bedtime routine. She cuddles with me as we recap the day; she requests the song I sing for her; she asked to be tugged in and always ‘cover my toes’; she tells me sweet dreams and don’t let the bed bugs bite; she explains how she’s just going to talk and not cry when she wakes up; she kisses me good-night through the crib.
After a whole day of being a big two-year-old, she is always my little girl!
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12.19.05
Posted in Maddy at 10:46 pm by tina
We got a notice from school: Maddy is being transitioned to Early-Preschool-II right after school reopens after new year, two full month ahead of the alotted age in the class. Although I am half annoyed because they just got really good new teachers in the Early-Preshool-I class, it’s also nice to know that Maddy is doing well.
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For almost a full week now, Maddy has kept her diaper dry throughout the night. Granted she got up once at 2:00am to go potty, and she no longer sleeps until 7:00am. The child now wakes up at 6:15ish annoucing her potty need.
We’re quite proud of her for obvious reasons, but I’m still too chicken to let her go to sleep without a diaper on. The deadline I give myself: When her diapers run out. I think we still have about one month worth of them.
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More surprises with her speech:
Mommy and daddy carried on some conversations without including her. Instead of fussing or whining, and with a quite grown-up tone, Maddy said: “What are you talking about?”
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Maddy: Only grown-ups can drink coffee and tea.
Maddy: Mommy and daddy are grown-ups. Maddy is only a little kid. Little kid can drink apple juice, milk-milk, and orange juice.
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Mommy: Look, the big boys and girls are walking to the school bus stop. You can ride the school bus when you grow up too.
Maddy: I”m just a little girl now.
Mommy: yea.. when are you going to be a big girl?
Maddy: Next Saturday.
Maddy has pretty good concept of time now, and she knows the meaning of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. With the holiday seasons, she’s also learning about this year, last year, and next year… Still grasping the concept of ‘year’ though… she’s been using them randomly.
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In the bathroom-
Maddy: I poo poo. I have lots of poopoo, and I get lots of stickers.
Mommy: You may have two stickers after you put on your pants on and wash your hands.
Maddy: [continued examing her work] Look, it’s a snowman poopoo.
Mommy: What? [checked into the toilet]
There they were. Three round poopoos from big to small lined up perfectly.
Mommy: You DO have snowman poopoo!
She got three stickers for her ‘good work’.
———
On the other hand, she still talks like a two-year-old sometimes. She’s been babbling about something that sounds like
“Ba.. bay-bay. Yes we can… Ba bay-bay. Yes we can”
Mommy: Sweetie, what are you saying?
Maddy: “Baa… baybay, yes we can”
I finally asked the teachers yesterday when I picked her up from school. And it was the funniest thing for what I got. Instead of just getting an answer from Ms Rogers, I got a full room of boys (at least 5 of them), stopped what they were doing after they heard my question, and started singing at the top of their lungs with Ms Rogers
“Bob, the builder, yes we can… Bob the builder, yes we can”
On the way home…
Mommy: Sweeite, I finally know what you were singing. Sorry I didn’t get it earlier.
Maddy: Baaaa…baybayDER, yes we can.
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12.15.05
Posted in Maddy at 12:52 pm by tina
Mommy: Honey, can you go check if Maddy’s bath water is ready? [I asked daddy]
Maddy: No, no.. [she put her arm out to stop daddy] You stay. Let me check. [went off to her bathroom while mommy and daddy giggled]
Maddy: [came back with her report] It’s getting a little hot.
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Maddy: I need to go potty
Daddy: ok.. let me help
Maddy: No. I can do it myself.
Daddy: ok. How about I just watch?
Maddy: I need help.. turn on the light.
Daddy: ok.. [turned the light on]
Maddy: [seeing daddy is still watching, turned around and close the door on daddy]
let’s hope she doesn’t fall into the toilet when she’s in there by herself. The girl is not using the training toilet nor the training seats any more because “only baby use them” (she had declared a few weeks ago).
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We got her two 25-piece puzzles two weeks ago. During the first week:
Maddy: They are tough.
Mommy: They are? Well, if we do them together, they are not so tough.
Last night:
Mommy: Are the new puzzles still too tough?
Maddy: Nope. They’re just right.
Just right they are. She put the puzzle together all by herself last night mumbling “where is the dog piece?” “where is the corner?” “Oh, I see the horse and the girl”, etc.
“I did.. I did.. I did it all by myself” She ran to daddy and told him the good news.
Such a delight to have a 2-year-old. We thought having a baby is cute, but right now, it’s by far the funniest and cooliest time of them all. It just gets better and better
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12.14.05
Posted in Maddy at 1:31 pm by tina
School reassignment for 2006-2007 are up for Wake County Schools, and we’re officially rezoned to the new school Carpenter Elementary that is located on the edge of our subdivision.
We’re absolutely delighted!! It’s a mandatory all-year-round school for us. Yepee.. no extra application or waitlist or transferring from a traiditional school to an all-year-round school.
I can totally see our future morning routine. Maddy and I walk to school together in the morning (it’ll probably be a 10-min walk for a kindergardener), maybe I’ll drag Brownie with us if I’m feeling lucky.
And think of our future family vacations: No line; no crowd; cheaper tickets; cheaper hotels…. just the way we like it!
Now, we’ll just have to see if the kids in the neighborhood live up to the expectations and put the school on the top list!
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12.09.05
Posted in Maddy at 11:40 am by tina
I know when Maddy really really likes something if she says “I show Abraham, Cole, Matthew and everybody in school tomorrow”, and that’s what she said last night after we got her a new pair of fleece mittens in the mall.
She wore them proudly to school this morning. According to daddy, she got lots of comments about them even before she got into her classroom. After she got into her classroom, her buddies all came over and ‘wowed’ over her simple fleece mittens. The girl had a blast!
Not to mention she has become her new teacher Ms Holmes’ teacher’s pet lately for being the only kid helping her cleaning up the room (while the boys continued to play); for picking up potty training very quickly (can’t imagine how fun it is to wipe off numerous accidents, and these teachers do not believe in pull-ups either.. either diapers or underwear, they say. Kids either get it or not, pull-ups just confuse them. Of course, mommy and daddy use pull-ups during Maddy’s naps behind these teachers back on the weekends. )
For the times I checked on her unexpectedly, I also noticed that Ms Holmes always picked Maddy to be the ’special’ ones: She was one of the two kids who held the hand puppets; she was one of the two kids who ‘read’ a story to others; she got to be the first to wash her hand and sit at the lunch table.
All these little extra attention she gets from her teachers and friends…. I no longer lean towards changing her to the new school. I think we will stay put. After all, she’s got her own little ‘group’ going on. She’s known them since they can all barely walk. Now they chat up a storm with each other the moment they see each other.
There is something precious about their friendship!
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12.08.05
Posted in Maddy at 10:27 am by tina
Before Maddy, I always wanted a boy as a first born. Not because I like boys better, but I was certain that my last baby would be a girl. And all girls need a big brother.
Occasionally, I still wish Maddy has a big brother…. Someone to look out for her when mommy and daddy are not around even though she has turned out to be a little ‘mommy’ who pretty much hangs out with all boys and I have noticed lately that she has very little tolerance towards other overly sensitive and whining kids, mainly the “girls”.
When I dropped the girl off in school today (daddy says he’s under the weather thus ‘working-from-home’), I got to talk to Ms Holmes and Matthew’s mom quite a bit before heading in to work.
Maddy talks about Matthew a lot at home (along with Abraham, Cole, Jacob, Zach, Chase, Joshua… and occasionally Abagail makes it on the list), but her top three boys are definitely Abraham, Cole, and Matthew in that specific order. Everyone knows that Abraham and Maddy are best friends, but today I also learned that Maddy is apparently Matthew’s “girlfriend” and he is super protective of her.
Ms Holmes told us the latest incident: One boy got Maddy crying the other day and Matthew wanted to know “what happened”. Ms Homles asked Matthew to go and ask Maddy what is the matter. Apparently Maddy told Matthew the story because next thing Ms Holmes noticed was that Matthew marched to the boy and yelled at him “Don’t do that to Madison!”. Ms Holmes had to step in and tell Matthew that he needed to let Maddy works things out herself between her and the other boy.
We totally cracked up! These two-year-olds…They sure say and do the funniest things. And I sure don’t know what Maddy did to get Matthew to be so protective of her. It doesn’t seem to be important though. Some boy is watching out for her after all!
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12.07.05
Posted in Maddy at 10:51 pm by tina
Two days after I got the poopy underwear + jean home, I went to Target and stocked Maddy’s underwear. I gave the teachers new instructions: Do NOT pack home any poopy underwear. I can spare the few dollars, and I’m prepared for the ‘transition’ period where she is sort of but not really potty trained.
That was less than a month ago. Maddy hasn’t had any accidents for two weeks now. In fact, she only had one accident since her 27th month birthday on the 18th, the day she figured out how to poo in the potty (Praise God). She’s been doing so great consistently she no longer gets sticker rewards at school.
We will take the night training more seriously when she gets promoted to a twin-size bed in a few months. Since she’s still in her crib now, I really rather her just pee in the diaper instead of waking up really really early in the morning and screams “MUMMMMM…. I NEED TO GO POTTY”
So Maddy has a pile of underwears in her diaper basket.. all 30+ of them stacking up laughing at me for being a mother of little faith. I just wanted to be ‘prepared’, but I think once again Joe and I got the easy end of parenting (heard enough stories of how this transitioning period can last for months)…. although I have to say that one poopy underwear + jean experience really had grossed me out and traumatized me!
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Posted in Maddy at 10:22 pm by tina
It could be from anyone Maddy interacted on Sunday, but I suspect that she got it from our babysitter. The girl woke up on Monday morning repeating:
“Hey, what’s going on?” first to me, then to daddy… with a slap on our butt.
After a few talks with her while trying to keep my face straight from bursting out laughing, she reduced her ‘rudeness’ to “hey mommy, what’s going on?”
Thankfully, she is sent back to school, where her current teachers are ultra-polite with the typical Southern manner (I’m still not used to them addressing me as ma’am) The teenage phrase had since disappeared two days later.
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When I picked Maddy up yesterday, she was eager to tell me-
Maddy: “Mommy, I’ve been a good girl!”
Maddy: “I’m a good listener. I didn’t cry…. only baby cry”
Mommy: “Oh yea?”
Maddy: “And I peepee and poopoo in the potty”
Mommy: “I know. You have been a pretty good girl lately”
Maddy: “Santa is going to give me a gift this year! I’ve been a good girl.”
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