Mars and Beyond

Venice and Daddy were talking about outer space (7 months ago in March :) She said, “In space you can jump really high, like maybe to Mars.”

The cold shoulder (from March)

(this story is from March 28, 2006, I'm just now getting it into this blog!)

So, yesterday, I didn’t spend much time with the kids. Granny and Jiichan were here playing with the kids in the morning. Then while Xander was napping, I slipped out to celebrate a friend’s 30th and my 35th birthdays with an afternoon at the spa and then off to dinner. I hurried home to help Chris put the kids to bed. Only when I got home, Chris had done a great job and all was quite, kids were in bed, and I wasn’t needed! And, holy cow, Xander slept through the night! He slept from 8pm to 6:30am, which is I woke him up making sure he wasn’t dead. (Sidenote, this is the first time we slept through the night since he was born over 14 months ago! Phew!)

This morning, I saw familiar lights. No amount of caffeine or Tylenol would fix my oncoming migraine. So Chris took the kids for a while. When I came back down, headache subsided, I came downstairs. I sat down next to Venice, who immediately shrank away from me and exclaimed, “No! I don’t want you near me.” I had heard some noises and knew she was having a bad day, so I didn’t think anything of it. So, off to play with Xander.

I went outside to hang out with Xander. When I saw him, I got down and asked for hugs and kisses. He looked me in the eye and slowly turned his back to me. Once in a while he’d look slightly over his shoulder to see if I was still looking at him. If I was, he’d turn his back on me again. No love for Mommy.

Then at an afternoon party this same day, Venice was running and took a spill. She got up, dusted herself off and ran to me crying. She then saw Daddy beyond me and ran right by me saying, “Not you.” Wow, right in front of several party strangers, all were shocked to see her skip over her mommy.

The rest of the day went somewhat smoothly, but it has definitely been felt that Mommy was being punnished for being gone.

Tomorrow, however, is Monday and order WILL be restored.

Call me

While we were roll playing ‘rescue’, I was down and out. Venice came to rescue me and bandaged me up. When she was done, she said if I ever needed more help, to come to the rescue center. She parted ways by saying, “Call me if you don’t have the number.”

I remember

A story told by Granny Nagai (21 months after Xander brother was born):

"The other day when I was brushing Venice's hair, she said...you got lost when we going to see my brother at the hospital... I said yes and before I could comment, she added, I ate food from Mommy's tray. and she kind of chuckled. I said yes.

I was so surprised. We weren't talking about anything except her hair and getting ready for the party. It was out of the blue....her memory is so great!!
Granny

Learning to Read

Venice is doing a great job learning how to read words. She loves to play games where we write words and she sounds them out. Today she read the words, "dig, lid, kid, sad, mop, mops" and a few more. She can also write really well. She has been known in the past to go into our office, grab an envelop, write, "Daddy" or "Mommy" on the envelop, put a letter inside it and seal it for us. We've each received a letter that said, "I love Mommy. Venice" and "I love Daddy. Venice" written all by herself. So wonderful.

More Milestones

On October 5th, Xander pee'd in the toilet. Exciting, right? After bath, I asked if he wanted to pee in the toilet, often times he jumps up and down with excitement to givev this a try. So we tried and he pee'd a little. Other times he farts a lot and laughs and laughs and laughs. So it was pretty cool to get some actual pee this time :)

My shoes are stubborn!

A few weeks ago, Venice was putting on her shoes. I try to weed out the smaller shoes, but I am not always successful as Venice wants to keep it all. Well, she put on her sparkly pink shoes and told me that her shoes felt 'stubborn'. I looked at them and they were a size 9.5. She is currently wearing 11.5. Ouch. Stubborn for sure!

Colors and letters.

Xander is getting better at identifying colors and letters. He is starting to understand that everything has its own color and that words have letters. When he points to something and guesses at the color, he is often times correct. The same with letters! It's pretty exciting to see him explore his world and show his curiosity.