TG 2009 photos

Here's our TG meal this year.
The sweet potatos were really good. I added some butter and sour cream and mashed it together. YUM!


Unfortunately my resident carnivore only ate meat.



Here's the famous sequence of him using chop sticks...Ready get set GO!



Funny right?

Thanksgiving 2010 - Oliver style

We had my family over for the TG holiday this week. We planned everything to a T, however, did not plan to have the turkey SUCK. It was a disgusting piece of dry cardboard, a recipe I will not choose to repeat or relay to anyone. A coworker had a convection oven and told me the recipe, and I tasted the delicious turkey she brought in, and was hoping that it would work in my non convection oven...sadly, I couldn't replicate it. We had garlic mashed potatos, sweet mashed potatos, brussel sprouts, green beans, spinach and my cornbread dressing. That night we broke down the carcass to make a turkey soup, and unlike the previous years, I did not have any shitake mushrooms, so I opted for just regular brown button mushrooms...big mistake. All the flavors were off, and I HATED the entire meal. Uncle P took photos of it all, I didn't choose to remember any of my disappointing meal.

The day after, was much better in terms of food. My mom made her chicken noodle soup, and while I LOVE having the soup with rice noodles, I instead had to have it with whole grain noodles....and lets just say the results were not the same. But the soup was tasty. We also had some fresh dungeness crab stir fry that my mom made and got some take out from my favorite Chinese restaurant. The big deal about this meal was that Oliver noticed that there were chop sticks in use and he wanted to try his hand at it. I made him a plate of roast duck, green beans, Chinese bbq pork and some salt and pepper pork...and he was successful in picking up bits of meat in his chopsticks. No one was happier than he was when the food actually reached his mouth from the end of those chopsticks. Uncle P captured the shots on film, because my camera was in another room. Maybe he will share them.

We did not partake in Black Friday this year, as I am in the more awkward stage of this pregnancy. You know, the one where you need to have an exit strategy in every situation because you never know when the pressure of someone's head is on top of your bladder? Yes, that lovely one. Speaking of which, I feel like I am on an episode of punk'd. Really. On Tuesday when I went to see the OB, we listened in on noname's heartbeat and guess what? The second she found his heartbeat, he started to kick the monitor. The kicking even startled her so she lost her place. When she found it again, he again started to kick the monitor. The reason why I say that I am on an episode of punk'd is because at some point Oliver started to have one of his terrible two fits, and the second that noname caught wind of the drama on the outside, he started to create drama on the inside. It wasn't just a gentle moving around, it was the entire body stirring that if you took a video of, you'd think my belly was possessed. I see evil in my future. Thanks to Crazy, Oliver, soontohaveaname, Kylee and Chia.

My nights are filled with so much joy these days. Let me give you a low down on my nights. The last few nights that we've had guests in the house, we had Oliver sleeping with us. Our ultimate goal was to transition him from our bed to the full sized bed. Since we had guests here, Crazy put the bed back on the full size frame and so last night we all went to sleep (it took Oliver 1 hour to settle down). I play Gilmore Girls on my computer at night because the lull and dead noise give some type of comfort to Chia, and that means we all get to sleep. Chia is 16 and at this point, just doesn't care who he is inconveniencing, and at this age, I don't blame him. So if he wants me to play him a all girl TV show at night, I will do it. Otherwise, no one sleeps and then everyone is grouchy in the AM. Well last night Oliver woke up at 3 am by the noise of the TV show on the computer, and as I rushed to lower the noise level, I pushed the pause button, however the pause button only played a jingle from a company I worked at before the sucky one that laid me off. Over and over and over again...until I was awake enough to shut the damn thing down. At this point, I'm exhausted because Oliver is climbing all over me and I know he won't go back to sleep easily. So in a bit of frustration, I went to sleep in the guest bed. 10 minutes later, Crazy brings Oliver into the room and starts to reason with him, this is your crib, go to sleep...and Oliver refused. Crazy battled Oliver for 30 minutes until he couldn't take it anymore, and at some point Oliver fell asleep. When Crazy went back to bed, Chia started crying...because his Gilmore Girls show wasn't playing...so he had to set that up for him. Grrrr. I don't know how people can sleep with their kids. I kicked Oliver out at three months and have never looked back. Every night that we've had him in bed with us has been an extremely uncomfortable one. We will have to work out the sleeping on the full size bed at a later time.

So on to my GD, its been going well. Crazy has been able to manage my GD with diet and I've been walking as much as my body will allow me to. The good news is that I haven't gained any weight in the last 5 months, the bad news is that I can't eat chocolate cake. :-( I got a catalog from Williams-Sonoma with a beautiful photo of hot chocolate in a mug with vanilla marsh mellows topped with chocolate shavings. I CAN'T HAVE IT! Instead, I'll settle with my decaf lemon and ginger tea. At least I purchased some low carb chocolate tonight...and some brown rice crispies...not the same I know, but hopefully it'll fill the void of what I can't have.

Sorry about the photos, Crazy is in the process of uploading my computer to Snow Leopard, and we don't have a copy of iPhoto, he is rectifying that but it will take a couple of days.

It's official, I have GD

Its something that I dreaded when I was pregnant with Oliver, and luckily, wasn't something I had with Oliver. Noname, however has bestowed the bounty of gestational diabetes on me. I took the 3 hour test on Saturday and came up failing 2 of the 3 tests. I was worried at the beginning when Barbie didn't fuss over me, and now I will hate that she will be all up in my business. Can I say that at times of stress, the internet is not your friend? I mean, its great that it allows access to immense data, but then, it also gives you bad scenarios that you'd rather not think about.

Interestingly enough the only thing that I have to exclude from my diet is sugar, which isn't a really big deal. Except for those strange cravings for chocolate cake or syrup on my waffles. :-( I mean these are the times when I should have a guilt free card to eat these things. But now I can't have any. I'm not much of a bread person, so the whole refined grains doesn't mean anything to me. We made the switch from white rice to brown rice a few years ago, so I won't miss white rice. I also don't eat white potatos. The only thing that's a bit tough for me is to have breakfast and a snack before bedtime. I just am not hungry in the morning, and forcing myself to eat breakfast will be a bit hard. Of course, I will have to give up Mexican food (aka burritos) and will cross my fingers that diabetes does not follow me after I give birth to noname.

The strange part about finding out about my GD is that today was the first day that I didn't need a nap. I attributed the naps during the day to being depressed about not working, however, it was an eye opener knowing that I did not need a nap today. Funny thing about this whole deal is that Crazy is joining me in the new diet. He's my solidarity sister. Unlike me, he LOVES bread and white potatos. But since I have to go through this, he's fully willing to go through it with me.

Crazy found a recipe for whole grain waffles and made some for us this morning. Oliver ate the link sausages we have while sitting on his chair, however demanded to sit on my lap while he ate his waffles with blueberry jam spread on top. I had some quesadillas with whole corn tortillas and salsa with lowfat string cheese for lunch and then we just had a spinach salad with steak, mushrooms, tomatos, shallots, boiled eggs and citrus olive oil and balsamic vinegar....I need to mention that we picked up some sweet potato fries from the freezer section today and they were seriously tasty. I had some persimmons for dessert. Oliver had pizza at costco earlier in the night so he had oranges for desert while we were eating dinner.

Speaking of costco, it was a circus there today. I don't know what it is about public areas, but why do people insist on being so rude? We were walking in the aisle, and some woman in the far left lane wanted to go right and rudely asked me if we had made up our minds as to which direction we were taking. I made a nasty comment about her rudeness, but later had really wished I had said my mom's standard "Are you in a rush to reincarnate?" Oh well, next time.

When we got home from costco I gave Oliver a bath. Can I just say we do not have a jacuzzi tub, but yet, when Oliver was in it, it became one? He just giggled with delight, and I silently hoped that there would be no floaters. At some point, he decided he wanted to make bubbles with his mouth, and then he would start sputtering water, like he had taken a swig of the bath water. All I could think about was when we first got Kylee, it rained like crazy. There was this dog park we would take her that had tons of mud puddles, she would waddle into the mud puddle, then pee in it, and then walk a foot then take a sip. I kid you not, she is one nasty little dog. But that's what I kept thinking about when Oliver kept reaching for a drink. Gross right?

Oliver's learning to put phrases together. He has his standard phrase, but he has learned that he can interchange certain parts of the phrase. I like eat *pizza*, can be interchanged with grapes, apple, chicken, or whatever he's eating at the time. Tonight while playing with tennis balls on the dining room table, it fell inbetween the wall and the leather bench, and he said "Oh no, fall ball ball! Help me teacher!" This is something he was never able to do before, so it was strange we were actually listening to him say these things. Not odd in a bad way, just odd in a wow, this kid is growing up way. Tonight Oliver was watching the video below where he was jumping and he kept saying "Baby!", and everytime he said it, I would correct him and say "Big boy! Oliver is a big boy!"

This morning as Crazy was in the process of making waffles, Oliver walked up to him and while holding his stomach he informed Crazy "I HUNGRY!" Crazy was completely flustered and told him that it would be another minute before breakfast was ready. But, wow! He told Crazy he was HUNGRY! I need to teach him "Feed me Seymour!"

The other night we were at the mall and I took something away from Oliver, and he was just besides himself. He just threw down in a FIT. SCREAMING, sobbing, and crying, big fat crocodile tears rolling down his face, while he was sobbing his entire body raged on like he was the hulk, he vibrated with anger and his face was so red. Crazy and I looked at each other and was just floored at how upset he got. It was definitely a new behavior. Lucky for us! He goes through cycles where he eats and cycles where he just refuses to eat. Well on Friday, he started to eat. While at the food court, Oliver and I normally share meals together. Since my appetite has been decreasing, his has been increasing, which works out. But what shocked me was on Friday he ate until I was done. I guess I'm a bit of a slow eater, Crazy inhales his food as fast as possible, while I sit there and actually take time to chew my food. Oliver ate and ate and ate until I was done eating. He didn't need to be coerced to eat (not like it works anyway), but he ate without fussing.

He now sings Happy Birthday, to himself. Really. "Happy Birthday to All-ver" I know what you are going to say, prove it. I will try to.

I'll upload some photos tomorrow.

Week in review (sorta)

We've been getting up earlier to have breakfast with Oliver as a family, however, I can't eat in the morning and so I just sit and watch Crazy and Oliver eat breakfast, while I choke down some decaf tea. We recently picked up a waffle maker, and Crazy is all over it like a $2 whore. He LOVES the waffle maker. A few years ago, we got Ada's old waffle maker that she sent to us, however, it never worked out when Crazy tried to make waffles with it, so he was left waffle maker less. I saw a deal for a waffle maker that was half the price of retail a couple of weeks ago and purchased it. I casually told Crazy about it and let me tell you, that guy was oh so giddy about it.

This reminds me of the time when I had purchased him a brand new Toshiba laptop (many many many moons ago) and while discussing his then birthday, I told him I got him something he really really wanted. Quietly he asked me if it was a kitchen aid mixer....and because I enjoy torturing him, I told him yes. I know, I am evil. Anyhow he came to pick me up and I showed him the box where the computer came from. He looked in there and disappointingly said "this is a bit small isn't it?" Poor poor Crazy. He didn't get a mixer until the following year. So back to the waffle maker. Crazy cannot stop talking about the waffle maker. We've had many meals consisting of waffles, and Crazy has even made chocolate waffles. Oliver LOOOOOOVES breakfast. We always seem to have a few leftover waffles for him to munch on. We currently are using a multi grain baking mix that has a recipe for waffles, and Oliver just loves it with a bit of honey or jam. But seriously, you have to see how Crazy takes care of the waffle maker. It totally cracks me up.

This morning Oliver had multi grain waffles smeared with a bit of honey. I had a bit of a rough day because I am once again making an effort to give up coffee. I should also mention that a certain unnamed fetus woke me up at 4 am pounding on the walls that confine him. So I stumbled out of bed and sat bleary eyed next to Oliver as he ate his waffles. He then went to daycare and actually didn't have a cow when Crazy left him there. I attempted to take a nap the entire day, with little success. I made cauliflower soup, baked chicken with potatos and onions. To my shock and surprise, Oliver came home, read a few books with me and we all sat down to a non combative dinner. Oliver ate his dinner but refused his soup. We had oranges for desert and then he had a bath, and then more book reading and quality time with Crazy. When bed time came, he brushed his teeth and allowed Crazy to put him down without fussing. I should say that despite having a pleasant night with us, he was put into time out at least 3 times for 1. throwing a large book at me when I refused to read it (he's too young), 2. not getting down from the chair while flickering the lights when I asked him to, and 3. not listening to either Crazy or I when we asked him to do something.

He will be spending the day with me tomorrow. We'll hopefully go to the farmers market in the morning if its not raining and then spend the day reading and learning the alphabet. I'll take some photos tomorrow.

Jump Jump

Recent Photos

Oliver enjoying a little desert at the Safeway, believe it or not, this photo was pretty tame, what occurred 15 minutes later needed a drop cloth and a hose.

Oliver trying on Ms. Naomi's hat at daycare.

Oliver in fine form tonight as he took apart my feather chair for his own amusement while Crazy was busy putting the house back together.


Photos from an ambush wake up...on Oliver's Kansas Grandma's birthday.


Sorry, took longer than I thought. We were busy today, first appointment we went to was 8:00 am and this continued past 7:00 pm. I got my bimonthly prenatal massage while Crazy went to pick up antibiotics for Chia. Then we had to run home so that we could prep the house for the carpet cleaners who showed up promptly at 10:00. Oliver and I settled down to watch Pixar's "UP!" in our bedroom while Crazy supervised the carpet cleaner. We then headed off to pick up some lunch and dinner from the local Mexican supermarket. Came home and had lunch, Oliver went down for a nap, and so did I. We went to Home Depot in the evening to pick up some items on the "to do list" after which Oliver got a bath, was fed dinner (mac n cheese, banana and a sliver of Mexican cheesecake) and then went to bed after being read three books. We had Mexican sandwiches for lunch and seafood fajitas for dinner.

This morning at

5:45 am I awoke to what amounts to invisible cymbals being played by a nameless fetus who shook me awake enough that I couldn't go back to sleep. Grrrrrr.

Week in Review

Its been a long week. Sorry for not updating the blog since I got laid off from work, but its been a bit tough on my end.

Oliver has been sick on and off this week, and I've had to tend to him. I don't like having the TV on to entertain him, so the entertainment is on me during the day. Let's just say that its EXHAUSTING to entertain him day and night. At least he's sounding better these days.

Crazy took Mr. C to the vet this week to get a yearly check up. The last time we took him to the vet was last year, and he checked out pretty cleanly, even though we knew something was wrong. However, our vet said he was fine, so we took him to a "holistic vet", $600 later, blood work returned with him being soundly healthy. We knew it was wrong, but let it go. This year, he has lost a lot of weight, he no longer can eat raw (Biologically appropriate raw food diet), almost deaf, and his eyesight looks poor. We've switched him to a cooked chicken, squash and brown rice diet. We supplement with plain yogurt and brown rice and he gets Honest Kitchen (turkey blend) throughout the week. He has gained a bit of weight on this new diet, however, he's still really skinny, he's 21 # soaking wet. So, as I was saying, Crazy took him to the vet. The vet ran some blood work and called yesterday to tell us that his pancreas levels look odd and the urine sample we gave them had trace amounts of blood. She was going to run further tests and in the meantime will prescribe some antibiotics for the blood in his urine. I am crossing my fingers in the hopes that whatever it is, we can manage it with medication and diet. He's 16 years old and still has a zest for life. We will continue to do whatever we can for him.

Something that I've noticed lately is that whenever Oliver is introduced to new things or recognizes things he'll hold up something and say "mammie, mammie plum", I'm using plums as a example, because this morning as we were walking around the farmers market, Oliver was given a plum after he tasted how sweet it was. He kept holding it up and telling me over and over again it was a plum. He's starting to understand the alphabet. He will hold up a magnetic letter and tell me what it is and half the time, he's actually correct. He has discovered crayons, and thankfully, we have discovered big washable crayons...so if he draws on something he's not supposed to, we can just wash it. We also bought a bunch of coloring books for $1 at Target so that he can draw on something. During the days that he's home sick with me, he will walk over to the microwave where I keep the crayons and say "mammie, mammie paper!" This is my cue to grab the crayons and paper, he will run to his little table and sit in the chair. He will only draw on clean paper, meaning I can't give him used paper, he will refuse to draw on it.

This week we have purchased a car seat and a pack and play. We also bought the infant car seat attachment for our stroller so that we won't have to get a new stroller. I honestly do not know how well this will work, because Oliver loves riding in his stroller, and I don't think I will get a double stroller, because we normally don't go to too many places that requires a stroller. So we'll see how it plays out. We decided to transition Oliver to the full sized bed in his room so that the baby can have Oliver's crib, however, Oliver's a little attached to his crib. We will work on slowly transitioning him to the bed. We've removed the frame from the bed, and will just have the mattresses on the floor, but Crazy doesn't like that idea, so we will get those cheap metal frame things to lift the mattresses off the floor. The full sized bed frame has the mattresses really high up, so we decided not to use them. They are now stored in the closet. Potty training will have to wait, as we are trying to get him to see the upside of moving to the full sized bed. He now goes to sleep without much fuss and knows what's expected of him during bed times. He gives the parent who isn't putting him down a kiss and a hug and then we tell him to say "night night", and he walks towards the hallway. He will then walk over to his bedroom door and wait to be let inside, he will then walk over to his crib and wait to be lifted into it. He then just lays down for quiet time and goes to sleep on his own. He doesn't need us in the room now, which is 100% better than 3 weeks ago where he cried and cried if anyone left the room before he was fully asleep.

We unpacked a lot of the onesies that Oliver used in infancy, but noticed that I still have a lot of shopping to do. He has a ton of 12-18 month clothes, but very few onesies. The reason being is that Oliver was really rough on his onesies, his refusal to use a bib, and his love for food...just didn't add up to any usable onesies for his future sibling. We purchased Oliver's snow clothes for this winter's upcoming trip to visit his grandparents in KS. We are slowly getting him used to wearing jackets and such. I think his blood runs a bit warm as he HATES wearing jackets. I mean it, blood curdling screams if he is made to wear a jacket. It also doesn't help when our weather is always so agreeable, so he never really has to wear a jacket. He still sorta has a fit almost every morning, and has made it almost impossible for me to dress him. Crazy has to step in and overpower him to put the long sleeve shirts on him. We have a hoodie for him, however its a FIGHT to make him wear it. We're still working on getting him used to wearing a jacket. The puffy coat and matching pants we bought him for the winter in KS is stuffed with down feathers and will hopefully not be a fight to make him wear it. It will most likely be really really cold there. I am not looking forward to the fight in the snow or the long travel days.

Oliver is starting to get more and more independent. Last night we were having chicken noodle soup (Chinese style with rice noodles). I pulled up his high chair to the table because this is a meal that will likely result in a huge mess and every time I tried to help him up or move his bowl closer to the edge of the table, he'd refuse and want to start all over again. After the 3rd try, I gave up and let him try again on his own for the 4th time. He climbed up there, sat down on his own, and reached for his own bowl and fed himself without any help. When he was done, he allowed us to help him out of the chair. To show you how fastidious this kid is, this morning when we dropped him off at daycare after our trip to the farmers market, he insisted we wash his hands before he went out to the play ground. He had a cereal this morning, then a plum, and then a croissant before we dropped him off. He didn't want to go out to the playground with filthy hands! You understand right?

Oliverisms:
"Mammie, mammie, hand a hand!" - depends on when he says this, this could mean that he his hands are dirty if he's holding up his hands at the dinner table or if he's trying to grab your hands, it means he wants to take you somewhere.

"Mammie, mammie, how bout dis?" - means he wants you to read whatever book he has in his hands.

"Mammie, mammie, candy, fentsones" - means he wants you to give him flintstones vitamins which he thinks is candy. He will suck on the little piece of vitamin, pull it out, tell me "mammie, mammie, candy - fentsones" several times before the vitamin evaporates.

"Papa, papa, come here" - this is normally his salutation to Crazy as he walks in the door. Or he will say "Good morning papa!" even though its the evening. We are working on him saying "Jo Sun papa" to indicate in Chinese "good morning papa", he says it, but I don't think he knows that its specifically for the morning.

Oliver is memorizing books now. He will pull out a book and as we are reading the book to him, he will anticipate the lines on the book and say the words out loud as we are reading it. Dr. Seuss' book "SNOW!" or "Foot book" he repeats lines on. He also repeats lines on "Mr. Brown can mooo" as well as "Chugga chugga poo poo." He loves the books that his grandparents from KS gave him, he will point to the pictures on the books and tell me what he's pointing to. "Mammie, Mammie, strababerry!" or whatever animal is pictured there. He's starting to remember names to pictures. His latest deal is shapes. He will hold up his hands and create a shape then tell me what it is, "Mammie, mammie, triangle!", "Mammie, mammie, diamond!" I'm sure you are getting the picture.

I wanted to apologize to everyone for a misposting. Oliver can say his numbers in 4 different languages, not 5 like I had originally thought. Before mealtimes, the kids say their numbers in English, Cantonese, and Spanish, while during circle time, the kids say a rhyme in Mandarin which is essentially "one, two, clap your hands, three, four" something something...and goes on until ten. Its really really cute when he does it, but he still hasn't caught on when I want him to do it, so I can't video tape it.

Anyhow, that's enough for now. I will add photos later today.

Photos

Our floors are disgusting, we'll have to call the floor guys to come clean the carpets (again) this year. The carpets don't stand a chance between Oliver and the two dogs.

Week in review

We've all been relatively sick this week. Although Oliver went to school every day, I spent most of it bumming around in the house. I haven't really cooked anything, because we haven't really felt like cooking and mostly I've been trying to adjust to life in the unemployment line. But enough about me.

The director and I spoke about us putting Oliver into daycare part time for Nov & Dec, however she wasn't willing to give me much of a break. Its nice to know that even in a down economy, they can still play hard ball and not even try to work with us. I also gave her the infant care deposit, even though noname won't be going to infant care until maybe May/June, depending on when I get hired and when my unemployment runs out. Grrrr, its a sore subject, what can I say.

Crazy and I have decided we will get up a lot earlier and have breakfast together as a family. I will take Oliver to school every morning and pick him up in the afternoon. Crazy will come home for lunch everyday so we can have some time together during a work day. All this family togetherness is going to kill me, but, what can I do? :-)

So Oliver's language has exploded in the past two weeks. Here's a few funny conversations.

While driving to my office a couple of weeks ago, Oliver pointed to a street sign and said "Diamond", and I said, "Good job" he said, "I know."

While enjoying his cheese plate tonight, Oliver said, "Happy!", and I asked him if he was happy, he said, "No!"

Saturday morning at 6:45 am, we heard a very awake Oliver start reciting the numbers in 5 different languages not so quietly. It was English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Spanish and I don't know what the fifth language is. He said all his numbers in groups of the digit. It was quite impressive. Even though half of the time, I can't understand him.

He now sings songs and sometimes I actually know what he's singing. The Itsy Bitsy Spider, Old MacDonald had a farm, Row Row Row your boat, and of course his favorite Apple Red, Apple Sweet song. Every night he brings us book after book to read, and repeatedly points to the shapes in the books and tells us what they are. After we finish reading the book, he says "The end" then climbs down off of us and grabs another book. He will bring it to us and say "How bout dis?"

Before meal times, he comes up to us and says "Wash hands", then he climbs up on a dining room chair, because he's too old to sit in his high chair. If we try to put him in the high chair, its WWIII. Seriously. When he's eating dinner and if anything food touches his fingers or hands he has a fit. Mammie! Hand! If I don't quickly wipe his hands, we will have a problem.

One last phrase, "Teacher help me!" He says this to us on a daily basis. It could be anything, if he needs help, its always "Teacher help me!" Despite the fact that we've told him repeatedly, that we are not his teachers.