Post-holiday Update

It's been a whirlwind ever since Ian's birthday. He had a fantastic time at his birthday party. We had a total of 13 kids (not counting the twin 9 month old sisters of his friend Brian and the Lins' oldest, Nikki). This place was great -- lots of space, two people who supervised, directed, set up and cleaned up, and one activity after another. I didn't have to do anything except tell them how much pizza to order and bring a couple of extra snacks (popcorn, chips & salsa, gingerbread cookies). They started with temporary tattoos (Ian didn't want one), then coloring dinosaur pictures (which Ian did very enthusiastically). The dinosaur picture was their "ticket" to go into the back activity room, where they decorated their own pith helmets with dinosaur stickers. Once they all had their helmets, they were ready to start digging for dinosaur treasure and artifacts. The instructors were very good about making it clear that the sand was to stay in the sand pit -- no throwing, no putting sand in their buckets, etc. Each child had his/her own bucket and shovel with his/her name on it and they were off and digging. There were 12 or 13 treasures to be found, including different types of rocks, plastic dinosaurs, bouncy balls with dinosaurs in them, dinosaur eggs, dinosaur hunter jeeps, etc. It was a pretty good haul.

After the dig, the kids sat in a row and answered some questions while the pizza was being set up. Then it was pizza time! They had pizza and juice boxes/water for the kids and pizza and soda for the adults. After the pizza, they had dancing and games. It was hilarious watching the kids dance around. They put hula hoops on the floor and when the music stopped, the kids all had to be standing in a hula hoop. They took a hoop away after each song, and the kids had to cram into fewer and fewer circles. Ian decided to go against the crowd and stand perfectly still when the music was playing and then go crazy when it stopped. Afterwards, they had an ice cream cake (vanilla cake with chocolate and vanilla ice cream) from Cold Stone Creamery with dinosaur decorations on top. Plus, all the plates and napkins had dinosaurs on them. Ian ate a little bit of the vanilla ice cream from his cake, but wasn't terribly interested otherwise. And that was an hour and a half of sheer bliss for the kids.

The following Tuesday, Wai Gong arrived and then Abuelita and Grandpa arrived the next day. The Friday before Christmas was the 3rd Annual Fondue Cook-off at Gary & Makiko's house, so Ian had a good time with Thomas and Alexander. The Saturday before Christmas, we went to Madison Square Garden to see Cirque du Soleil's Wintuk, a present from Grandpa and Abuelita. Ian was absolutely entranced. He took turns sitting on Grandpa, Abuelita, Daddy and Mommy's laps and was literally shaking with excitement. When he gets exciting, he takes one finger and repeatedly puts it together with his other hand, kind of like clapping, but not exactly. At one point, he put his hands over his head. He never makes any noise, he just starts wriggling and moving his hands.

Tia and Tio came over for Christmas Eve and Wai Gong came back from Long Island. On Christmas Day, we opened our gifts and of course Ian had the most (he hasn't finished opening his birthday presents yet and there are still a few more presents that we're waiting for Wai Po to give him in person). Then we had Kai-Yi Gong and Xiao Li Yi (Auntie Allie) and surprise visitors Man-Yi Po and Man-Yi Gong (visiting from Beijing) and Mimi Yi (Auntie Tiffany). It was great having so much family around. Ian was little confused when Wai Po called from Taiwan. We asked him where Wai Po was and he pointed to Man-Yi Po and said, "Right there!"

Jiu Jiu and Jiu Ma and Jiu Ma's sister Mei-Lun and her family came on Thursday, Dec. 27. It was great to see Mei-Lun, Larry, Lawson and Maxine, and they bought groceries and cooked up a storm before heading to Larry's mom's house after dinner. On Saturday morning, we met them at the New York Botanical Gardens in the Bronx to the annual train show. It was a beautiful day, in the 50's, so we walked around the gardens after seeing the trains. It was hard to believe that it was the end of December!

Jiu Jiu and Jiu Ma stayed until Sunday, Dec. 30, when they headed back to the Philly area before catching a flight back to the West Coast the next day. We spent New Year's Eve at Tia and Tio's. Abuelita made a fantastic dinner and we managed to stay awake until midnight (except Ian). There was a pleasant surprise after the ball dropped -- we heard fireworks outside. It turns out there was a 20 minutes fireworks display in Central Park and we had a great view.

We paid for the fun we had, though. We got home around 1:30 and Ian proceeded to wake up at 2:30 and 4:30, I had a leg cramp and Jeff had to wake up to help me with it, so we were exhausted the next day! Jeff, Ian and I spent New Year's Day in our pajamas, just doing nothing, and the next day, we tried to get Ian back on track.

So Jeff got ready to go to school while I made his lunch. Jeff brought Ian downstairs, but Jeff was still in his pajamas. When I asked him how long he would be, he said, "I am going to take a dump and then I have to take a shower." So Ian and I were sitting on the bottom step and Ian said, "When Daddy comes down, he can sit here." We sat for a few minutes, but I needed to go upstairs, so I said to Ian, "What's Daddy doing?" to try to get him to go upstairs. He looked at me very seriously and said, "Daddy is taking a dump." *sigh*

Ian occasionally refers to the baby, but he's in semi-denial. A few days ago, I went with him to wash his hands after dinner. He had wanted to sit with me after he was done eating, but Jeff told him to come sit with Daddy. Ian did and didn't make a big deal out of it, but clearly he knew why Jeff said that. On the way to the bathroom, he said, out of the blue, "I can't sit on Mommy's lap because Mommy has a baby."

And he's been very good about sharing things with us, especially food. I had to try not to smile when I was cleaning some food off the floor under Ian's chair and when I looked up at him, he put his hand on my shoulder (he was sitting in his chair), leaned his face into mine and said, "At school, we have to share."

Oh yeah, and about a week ago, he learned another new trick. I asked him for a kiss ("What you want, Mommy? A KISS???") and he leaned over and licked me. My reaction had him in hysterics and now he thinks it's really fun to lick me instead of kiss me. He'll tell me, "Mommy, you ask for a kiss and I lick you, ok?"

In the midst of all this, I have been going to the doctor on a regular basis. The due date for the new baby came and went yesterday with no signs of this kid coming out on his/her own. So we have scheduled an induction for this Friday. We have everything ready after a couple of false alarms. The baby's presents to Ian are all wrapped and ready. The doctor asked us if we had gifts from the baby and we said we were prepared for that. Then she said that when Ian sees the baby for the first time, I should not be holding the baby. Instead, the baby should be in the bassinet (or whatever they call it at the hospital) and I should take Ian by the hand and walk to the baby with him. She said it's harder for the older child to see Mommy for the first time holding the new baby after not seeing her for a day. She said she had been told that the analogy is how would I feel if Jeff came home with a new wife? The feelings of jealousy can be very strong, so we need to ease him in.

I'll get around to posting pictures from the holidays eventually, but it's just been a bit crazed here. This may be the end of the Ian blog since I'm going to have to do something for the baby. I may keep it separate for a while to let the baby have his/her 15 minutes of fame, but the two blogs will most likely eventually merge into one.

Happy belated New Year!