I know, I know.  I've been so out of touch with blogging these days that I've been getting IM messages and emails from friends asking me what's up with me.  Last thing I want to do when I get home from work is to type.  I'll try to recap as much as possible-

 

Last week, I organized a little dinner for my good friend Julie.  I invited the girls of the group as well as their spouses though someone  had to stay home and watch the kids (the dads were man enough to stay home).  For the past month, I was on a mission to find a man online for Julie.  Since I'm not familiar with Match.com, Nerve.com, Hot Asian Men.com (kidding, I don't know if that site exists), I decided to check out Craigslist.  I tell ya, there are some weird fucking freaks out there.  I was lucky enough to find a sane Korean guy although he didn't fit into Julie's criteria in a man.  After having dinner at El Quijote, we karaoked (Don't Stop Believin'!) the rest of the night.  I was yawning by 11p.  Momma really can't hang late.  Still, lots of fun had by all. 

 

The story I was supposed to spill two months ago was about my so called upcoming trip to Reykjavik.  I was "supposed" to go with Julie as a girlfriend trip/Julie's birthday celebration trip.  Somewhere inbetween the planning stages, I blabbed to my mom and sisters about how excited I was about going and mistakenly said, "Do you wanna come too?"  One thing lead to another and UH OH, everybody's coming along too.  Not good.  I had to cancel everything, which ended my father being pissed at me ("Your mother is really disappointed"- broke my heart), my younger sister fuming (we made up afterwards) and a sad Julie who was looking forward to a girlfriend/birthday trip.  Now my sisters and mother are flying to a beach vacation in a few days.  I'm not going because I can't take off on a Monday (I get paid by the hour) and I seriously don't want to go to a beach vacation without my girls.  If it were a shopping/spa trip, I would so be there.  But a beach trip?  Not worth the hike unless my babies come too (which would defeat the whole purpose of a mother/daughters trip).  So I backed out.  I hope they're not pissed off about that.

 

What else...

 

Every morning I have to yell at Sophia (and Phil for the first part) to a)WAKE UP b)brush her teeth c)change her clothes (yes, she can do it by herself, maybe a little help with the shirt) d)eat her breakfast e)drink her milk f)put her shoes on g)put her coat on h)DRINK HER MILK FOR THE NTH TIME  Holy shit.  By the time she leaves the house for school with Phil, I am mentally exhausted from telling her all these things. 

 

She is though, excelling in school.  I know it's just pre-school, but we've been getting a lot of praises on her writing skills, her knack for remembering things (she is constantly telling the student-teacher that her house is "broken") and her speaking abilities.  She has an imaginative mind- having a picnic in the living room with O's toys as food.  She still has a love for music- during the Chinese New Year parade, there was a marching band (to me, that's just too Americanized to have on Chinese New Year, but I know it's to promote awareness in Chinatown, to get the whitey's to eat and shop, blah blah).  Phil told me she identified every single instrument (then again, he doesn't know what is what, do I trust his brains?).  Could be because she loves watching her favorite TV show Little Einstein (move over Dora). 

 

Which leads me to our latest dilemma.  Right now, S is enrolled in a expensive pre-school.  By September, we can enroll her in the city public school for pre-k (which I plan to).  Thing is, I want to enroll her in a specialized music public school, but they don't have a pre-k program.  So I would have to wait until she's in kindergarten (but it's not guaranteed that she would make it in).  I don't want to yank her out again.  Do we keep her at the expensive pre-school for one more year until it's time to enroll her in kindergarten or do we roll the dice and pull her out of the pre-school, put her in the public school then pull her out again to put her in a specialized music public school?  Confusing? 

 

I'm loving work, but am exhausted from dealing with car services from prima donna ex-NFLers and ex-NBA star.  I recently spoke to one of the editors about a book I was working on and how disappointed I was about the photographs that went in the book.  I had researched so hard to find good photographs, but didn't have sufficient time to get the quality images due to deadline constraints.  He understood my frustration and promised to get me more involved (and he needs to get more organized!).  The way I see it is, it's kinda like being the music supervisor for Grey's Anatomy.  Music supervisors choose the music to plug in the show/movies (think John Hughes movies!).  When I read an autobiography, out of habit, I automatically flip to the photographs before reading.  I connect more with the subject when I see good photos.  By the way, I got mentioned in two books in the acknowledgment section (if you must know, you can email me for more info).  Woo!

 

Alright, I think that's enough for now.  Gotta hit the sack.

A recap of what's going on with O.  I'll try to update this week on Sophia.

 

This kid is nothing, NOTHING like Sophia.  She is now very active when it comes to walking.  Infact, if you turn your head away from her for a split second, she disappears into either the kitchen, the bedrooms or bathroom (I have to remind people to put the toilet seat down and close the bathroom shower).  She is fast.  She loves to climb and reach for things such as the remote controls, telephones, wires, toys that are high up.  She recently grabbed Phil's Razor phone that was on an end table and chucked that shit right into the toilet (Phil was lucky that it wasn't fully submerged!) when we weren't looking.  In that same day, she ended up underneath the couch, attempting to sit up.  Crazy kid!

 

She does not sit still very long.  Not even for Mickey Mouse tv show (loves the songs on MM Clubhouse).  Speaking of tv shows, when Sophia watches "Little Einstein", O understands the "pat" and "blast off" commands.  It's so farkin' cute watching her lift her arms up when we shout blast off.

 

She still has a tendency to put toys in her mouth to chew on.  If she finds paper, magazine, tissue, dustballs, ANYTHING that is on the carpet or floor, it goes straight to her mouth. 

 

When it comes to food, she used to eat anything that I put on her table high chair.  Now, she's getting picky.  Things she used to love to eat were chicken, pork, tofu.  She absolutely HATES, HATES beef.  I tried giving her meatballs (from Trader Joe's!), but she ends up spitting it back out.  She'll eat carrots and peas.  She has no problem eating rice, cracker rice cakes, noodles, toast and cheese.  I found out this weekend that she LOVES mac and cheese, so much that she'll eat a big bowl of it.  Fruits, she loves apples best, grapes and pears, she'll munch on too.  Bananas, hell no. 

 

Some little tricks that I've taught her how to do are wink (she does that by blinking hard with both eyes), sticking her tongue out, tilting her head to the side (I make the snoring sound) and poo'ing in the toilet (we put her on the toilet everytime she finishes eating and before she takes a bath).  Her first word that we've manage to understand is "jei-jei" (older sister). 

 

She understands my command when I ask her to bring me a book to read to her.  She has zero patience with me and often flips the pages in a hurry (gee, I wonder where did she inherit that).

 

Our little baby is no longer a newborn.  She's now a wee toddler!

Finally, NYC's train platform will now have an announcement of when the next train will arrive.  Very reminiscent of London.  Oh, how I yearn to be there...

OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD

 

After watching Grey's, I had to call "my person" Robin.  I don't know anyone else who watches it religiously other than Robin.  All of my other girlfriends and sisters don't watch it because a)they don't watch Grey's b)they've got children to mind c)they're busy working and never followed it.

 

So, I call Robin after the show ended and what happens?  SHE'S IN DC with Abbie.  SHIT SHIT SHIT!  I had to discuss what had happened!  She laughs and says they're heading back to Abbie's and will watch the episode, so I will need to hang on. 

 

AAAAAAACCKKKKKK.

Sophia asked me last night, whilst being tucked in bed, "Mommy, how come the man don't make more *snow?"

 

(Before the 1-3 inches of snow fell down on us this morning)

This is what I emailed my sister Judy this afternoon.

 

Sorry, been a VERY busy day- nanny came in, I went to the gym, got  frantic call saying she's sick and puking, I rush home from the gym (after a personal trainer tries to get me to sign up after telling me I have a weak core meaning my belly is motherfucking fat, I knew that, thank you very much), nanny had the laundry half done, I rushed her to get home, called Phil to see if he can leave work early so I could get to work because I had pressing things that needed to be taken care of.  At this point, O doesn't want to nap, she's causing a ruckus, I had to shower, pick up the laundry that is located in my building basement, email my bosses to let them know I will be coming in to work afterall, eat my late breakfast/lunch (cuz I went to the gym on empty tummy), call Monica (she's a friend of mine who's doing a huge favor for me by picking S up from school everyday) to let her know Phil was picking S up.  

 

PHEW.  All in one breath.

And at work, I was busy working on getting images on a famous racehorse, booking car service for a famous retired football player AND dealing with NASCAR invoices.  All in three and a half hours.

 

Oh, and I get to come home to a crazy house full of attention starved children (that includes hubby).  Life of a mother (or as Phil pronounces it, mudder), I suppose.

 

Holy fuck, will I get to take a dump in peace?

There is nothing more exhausting than chasing down a one year old to wipe her nose every ten seconds, yelling at your older child to clean up the mess in the living room and telling her to cover her mouth while she coughs every five minutes and screaming at your other half why is he sprawled out in the bedroom playing sick (okay he was legitimately sick).

 

I've got such a bad headache.

Even though Ethan was born one day before O, technically he had dibs on having his birthday party before O.  But his parents were gracious enough to let me choose the weekend I wanted to celebrate O's birthday.  So this weekend, we celebrated Ethan's birthday at a Korean restaurant called Gama. 

 

First, Olivia and I had to pick up Julie (Phil and Sophia were home sick with a bad cold/cough).  The sleek bar is situated in the foyer.   Drink specials are posted up on the mirror.  I really wanted to try the watermelon soju (I drove, but Julie ended up driving the rest of the evening), but settled on ginger ale.  We got there pretty early, so we seated ourselves at the far end of the restaurant.  Smart, since that was where the spread was!  The dining area was gorgeous.  Brick walls were decorated with jeogori (the top part of the hanbok) and other traditional garb (although there was a motorcycle on display- huh?). 

 

Since I wasn't the hostess of the party, I was able to hold conversations with some of my friends (how refreshing!).  I had O with me, so it wasn't easy sitting still with her.  I was surprised how well behaved she was (she wasn't squirming to walk around the restaurant or anything like that).  Infact, she was very latchy to me.  Perhaps there was a lot of unfamiliar faces that threw her off (ahem, Uncle Birree).

 

The food was great.  Lots of dduk, kimchi, fish cakes, jap chae, bulgogi, sashimi, kim bap, cucumber seafood salad, list goes on and on.  How can one get sick of eating this?  So good!  The Elmo birthday cake was from Cupcake Cafe (mmm).  Ethan's future prediction was...money!  He picked the $20 first, then thread.  Which means he will live a long, rich life.  Hey Ethan, Sophia and Olivia are available...

 

***

 

I didn't want to return to an infested home, so Julie, Olivia and I drove to Jersey so I can make my returns at Target and Ikea.  We ended up having dinner at Ikea.  Got back home pretty late for O's bedtime, around 9:30p.

 

What did I wake up to this morning?  O sneezing and drippy, watery nose.  Great.  My attempt to keep us out of the house went futile.  Foiled!