THE POONIE, POONSTER!: April 2012

Monday, April 30, 2012

Chester is 18-month old today!

Owen and I played with Chester on these puzzles from time to time. Without me notice, I found out today that he is already able to match these puzzles by himself.

The weather is so nice lately. We have picnic in our backyard for lunch almost everyday. Today they both decided to have banana as snack on the play structure.

The whole time Chester goes after all the balls in the yard, he holds tight onto the mini ball in his hand.

We treated Chester the "Berry Berry Very Berry Good" at Cold Stone for his 1.5 birthday.

God knows our needs

After we moved to San Ramon, it becomes more challenge to attend Sunday worship in Alameda. To get everyone ready before 8:30 on a Sunday morning and drive 30-40 minutes to get to church is not easy. I started to search around for a closer church where offers Cantonese worship but I was only able to find couple Chinese churches that offer Mandarin service. I prayed to God about it for couple weeks, and the director from Haley's preschool told me there will a new church formed in the Ulfert Center in Dublin that offers Cantonese service. I got online to research about it and I found out Crosspoint Church of Silicon Valley in Miliptas is expanding their services to the Tri-Valley area. The past Sunday is their very first worship service at this new location. I have friends who go to Crosspoint in Miliptas and I attended their fellowship and service 4 years ago when I worked in Santa Clara. This new church is not completely new to me. I am comfortable with their worship style and the sermon is very practical in our daily life. It is amazing how God prepares for me. He knows my needs, and it is perfect timing.

http://www.crosspointchurchsv.org/tri-valley

Chester: Ap-ple...

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Nap time battle

Once again, I gave up on the battle of asking Haley to nap. I know she still needs the nap in the middle of the day to recharge. She will definitely fall asleep if we are in the car at around 3pm, but it's just too much conflict and drama to make her stay in her bed when we are at home. If she naps, she will go to bed around 10-10:30 at night. If not, she can easily fall asleep at around 9-9:30. It's a challenge to deal with her tantrum during meal time because she is already exhausted. For her not napping, I lose my only private time I have in a day. Since Chester needs to nap in the afternoon, I have to keep Haley busy in some quiet activities. We now spend that 45 minutes to an hour to do her preschool workbooks, coloring, or crafting. I get very frustrated when she is just goofing off and not listening to instructions while working on her workbooks. I need extra patience, I need more love, I need endless consideration so I won't scared her off from learning.

Who does he love the most?

Chester can be with anyone during the day or play time. He only demands to come to me when it's bed time. When he wakes up, he will scream and start to cry when he sees me. As soon as he sees Haley, he will smile and say 姐姐. I know I am Haley's favorite since she was little and until now, I am still her favorite. She will run to me for kisses and hugs as soon as I walk in the door. Maybe this is the difference between a boy and a girl. I don't feel as much needed to Chester. Maybe I am crazy that I am a little jealous of Haley who gets all the attention from Chester. He follows her around everywhere, laughs on every silly things she does. Even sometimes Haley takes away his toys, push him away, not sharing with him, he still loves to be around with his sister so much. Hmmm...I should be glad that my kids love each other, and I hope they can forever maintain this special bonding between them.

Cool or not?

Thursday, April 26, 2012

First time in the ball pit

Chester is in heaven full of balls!

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Time for Chester...

I feel guilty for not giving as much time to Chester compared to Haley when she was at his age. Chester always just tag along. Dropping off and picking up Haley from school and all other activities. I tried to spare time to read books and do puzzles with him. However, I always want to take advantage of having only child to finish up grocery shopping, cleaning, and organizing the home when I'm alone with him. Sometimes without me notice, he has already learned many new things. He can speak more double words like 媽媽, 爸爸, 婆婆, ball ball, 奶奶, 包包, 麵麵, 抱抱... He can identify and name duck, horse, cat, dog, fish... He loves and he knows many of the characters from the Elmo show. He loves to dance to the music. He will dance with Haley when they watch the Elmo or Barney show. I guess the only special treat he has which Haley never had is to sleep on mommy and daddy's bed. I didn't try hard to train him to sleep alone, maybe this is my way to compensate him somehow.

Chester is going to be 18 months old soon. He will soon give up his morning nap. I plan to bring him to more storytime at the library and attend the parent and me classes when Haley is in school. I know he is excited to spend more quality time with mommy and have time with mommy all to himself...so am I.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Haley sings 劃叮噹

Haley slides down with Chester

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Buying power

Haley wanted to bring her little wallet for grocery shopping today. I gave her a dollar to put in her wallet. When we were at the cash register, I was so surprised that she pulled out the dollar from her wallet and wanted to pay for the things we bought. Wow! I didn't even remember that I told her to use it at the store. I separated one item, a box of Hello Kitty bandage, for her own transaction. The cashier gave her the change and the receipt. She was so excited about having her own buying power, and I was a proud mom too. My girl is well trained to buy things that are on discount and clearance. I hope this rule of thumb will stay in her mind for the many years to come.

Chester loves kicking ball

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Haley's sentimental feelings

One of Haley's friend repeatedly told her that "You are not my friend!" in several occasions. Haley is a very sensitive little girl, she comes to me and tells me that her friend doesn't want to play with her. I explained to her that sometimes her friend may want to play alone or play with other friends. She picked up this line and she told Chester that he is not her friend. I again tried to explain to her only mean girl will say this, and we want to be nice girl instead. Seeing the facial expression of disappointment and sadness on her face hurts me. I wish my girl doesn't have to hear these verbal abuse, but I guess this is part of growing up. What can I do to better ease her sentimental feelings!??

Haley's independent thought

Haley is driving me crazy lately with her strong will on everything. Every little thing like getting dress, brushing teeth or taking shower can become a chaotic scene everyday. It is so hard to manage my own temper when she tempts to say NO to every thing you ask her to do. I know this is her stage of fighting to gain control and authority, but it is just so challenging to stay cool. NO BREAKFAST, NO LUNCH, NO DINNER = NO SNACKS! This is a new written rule I posted on our refrigerator. I am sick of getting upset when Haley is not finishing her meal. A mom recommended to write the rule on a big piece of paper so Haley sees it as a reminder. Instead of repeating myself over and over again to ask her to finish her meal, I just give her a friendly reminder that she will not be having any snacks if her meal is not finished. Haley quickly adapted to the new rule, she will just tell me she doesn't want any snack when she doesn't want to eat her meal. She will then come back to her meal when she wants a snack. Sometimes this may mean breakfast at 10:30 instead of 8, lunch at 2:30 instead of 12:30, dinner at 8:30 instead of 7, but at least we have one battle less between us. Persistancy is the key! I need to follow through with my rules. Yet I really need to control my own temper, so Haley will always remember me as a loving mom, not a tiger mom in her childhood. SIGH!

An afternoon in Berkeley

Stream train ride in Tilden Park. Chester held my hand pretty tight.

They are waiting for the rooster to walk closer.

Chicken are walking around freely in the Little Farm.

Chester called, DUCK DUCK!

Chester is stunt with this BIG moo moo cow!

Chilling down the street in Berkeley.

培英中文學校

Haley is trying to learn a different pronunciation of the same word that mommy teaches. I explained to her that mommy is teaching her Cantonese and teacher is teaching her Mandarin. Hopefully she can pick up both language as much as you can. All the students have been in the class since last September. So Haley is a bit clueless when teacher is going through all the words that had been taught throughout the year. I told Haley that she can just listen when she doesn't know, and she can answer if she recognizes some of the words. There are only couple more classes left before this school year is over. I think we will register her for the Mandarin class in the next coming year. I asked Haley if she likes coming to Chinese school, and she answers, "YES". I believe one of the incentives for her is that teacher always gives out cookies and treats.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Trial work day @ S2S

Today I volunteered as a preschool teacher at Haley's preschool. I prepared a bible story (the good Samaritan), an art and craft project (a spring floral basket), two songs with movements (I'm bringing home a baby bumble bee and hoki poki), and an indoor game (balloon). I practiced to tell the story many times at home, but I was still kind of nervous when I sat in front of the twelve children. My brain went blank couple times. It was definitely a challenge to manage all the children at the same time. I'm glad that it was done. I'm happy to see the children gone silly while singing and dancing. Couple of the children went to me to talk about the bible story that I told them during circle time. I'm not Haley's mom today, but Ms. Maggie. I have the education requirement to become a preschool teacher, yet with not much working experience in a school setting. Working in a preschool part-time gives me a more flexible working schedule so I can take care of Haley and Chester. In additional, usually the school will give a discount on their tuition. Would this be a new career path for me? Well, let me pray about this more and see God's guidance.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Summer is soon to come

I love to still be able to see some sun light at 8 o'clock in the evening. The summer is soon to come... I hope I can still say the same thing when the dry heat arrives. : )