Holiday videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP-AuwE96N4

Tutu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Bh5TtxtZkE

Dancing to DVDs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEASHJzuAxc

Building a tower

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP5Z7aX8oCo

building a tower (TA-DA!!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXCthOE8rqA

Is this the end of O's ski career?

O has had a lot of fun at my parents house. My brother and sister took her in the backyard and blew bubbles and played in the wagon on her first day here. She came in and said 'I had a FUN day!'

On the second day, she watched the musical scenes from the 'Sound of Music.' While watching, she said 'This is so much, so much fun.'

However, when we asked 'Did you have fun playing in the snow,' her response was the less than ringing endorsement 'shi hen lěng' ('it's very cold.')

Christmas Tree

My mother has carefully collected beautiful and charming Christmas ornaments over the years. O loves my mother's Christmas tree. Every few hours, she will arrive in the kitchen holding a new ornament and ask 'Can I take this one home?'

Dinner helper

O has been trained by S (who does most of the cooking) to say 'Thank you making me dinner, Daddy' before she begins to eat.

Tonight, she helped S make dinner (stirred the stir fry.) When we sat down to eat, she turns to me and ordered "You say 'Thank you making me dinner O__."

Yesterday

Yesterday, leaving the house in the rain

Me (to S): I really need to buy some rain boots.

O: "Mommy, you buy ladybug boots like my ladybug boots?"

Later, after opening a birthday gift of some beautiful colored pencils.

Me: I like your pencils

O: This mine. Maybe I buy dem for you.

Me: Really, you'll buy me some pencils?

O: Maybe I buy dem for you when you're older.

Guest Blogger Margaret Visits Again

K - It's me, guest blogger, Margaret again!

I visited Olivia over Halloween, and saw her as a Lion - one that
would roar for you.

What else happened?

Well, I went to her daycare to watch her, and she came to me right
away, and started to walk out with me, when I told her that I was
actually there for circle time. Her mood completely changed, and she
was silent. Through the entire circle time. Her teacher encouraged
her to get up and sing and dance, but she sat in my lap, turned her
head and wouldn't participate. Then she said something to O in
Chinese. I didn't understand what she said, but Olivia nodded her head
and finally stood up. The teacher pulled out flashcards to quiz her
on. For some reason, Olivia loves flashcards. She was able to
identify 57 of them which was something like 80% of the cards.

Olivia loves to go to the park. She loves to sing and dance.

Another day, we picked her up and woke her in the middle of a nap. She
was silent the entire time in the car, and seemed about to cry many
times. Finally, she said --- "I don't WANT to be grumpy!!! ---"

I purchased some US children's songs from her, as I know she is headed
to preschool next year, and I thought it might help her learn American
songs along with her Chinese songs. On her last day, we played a game
where I would sing "If you're happy and you know it --- " and Olivia
would do whatever I told her to do --- "clap your hands, pretend to
cry, tap your head, make a funny face, laugh out loud" Then I started
to have fun - "wrinkle your nose" (she used her fingers to move her
nose), "blink your eyes", the best was "speak chinese" where she came
up with Chinese phrases to say.

Her birthday was a lot of fun. She had a lot of friends over, and we
had pizza and cake, and she got a lot of gifts. She was still opening
one gift per day when I left.

video from 11/4

video from 11/4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWBR1CSTFtI

Where is O developmentally?

http://www.nncc.org/child.dev/ages.stages.3y.html

Ha! My kid can stack 10 blocks.

But can't name her colors, hmmm..

10/3

J: Olivia, do you want to watch Dora?

O: Yes! Yes! I want to watch Dora Car.

J: (showing Olivia the three Dora DVDs to let her choose.)

O: "I want this one. It is my favorite."

I don't know why I'm impressed that Olivia understands the concept of 'favorite.'

O the _fill in the blank_

Here's a picture of how much stuff O brought on a recent walk -- 2 bags (each containing a stuffed animal) and a basket full of random stuff. Fill in the blank with what she reminds me of but is too politically incorrect to mention here.

On that note, I'm ceasing publication of O pics to this blog and will be posting to Facebook instead (I have all of the sudden started freaking out about web privacy.)

O-isms, April 2010

April

'I don't want it home' (her response to "Okay, it's time to go home.")

Loves pickled red onions.

O has stopped cheering for daddy when he wins a game of chess.

Getting better, but not yet consistent with the potty.

In early April, would refuse to wear jeans or dark colored pants as she thought they were 'boy pants'

Says 'Hoood Nite' (instead of 'Good night')

Likes to sing into a microphone. I have no idea where she learned to do this. Are they watching Hannah Montana at daycare?

Had a fun easter egg hunt with her brother and her cousins.

Got her bangs cut while visiting Oma and Puppy.

Oma also taught her to answer the question 'How old are you.' ('2') Unfortunately, this is also her answer to the question 'What's your name?'

Can't go anywhere without 2-3 bags full of random stuff.

Says 'Oh, thank you' (which S loves.)

Points to my seat belt and says 'Mommy, this one' when we get into the car.

Can get herself dressed (albeit very slowly -- 1.5 hour to get her pajamas on last night.)

Counting with Olivia

5 objects on page.
"1,2,3" (skips two objects.)

3 objects on page.
1,2,3,4 (counts one object twice)

6 objects on page.
1,2,3,4 (skips 3 objects and counts one object twice.)

You get the idea.

I'm sorry

Olivia has been a bully at daycare a couple times, and our care providers have been teaching her to say 'I'm sorry' after she pushes or grabs toys from other kids.

Last week, I was giving Olivia a shower. She cried, whined, and fussed for a long time, which caused me much frustration at the end of a long work day. At the end of her shower, she said 'Sorry Mommy.'

I got ready to start bragging on Facebook. My child is already emotionally intelligent enough to apologize when she frustrates me. Take that, 2 year old who is able to read!

The following day, she started saying sorry more often. When I made her get dressed. When I made her leave the playground. When I wouldn't let her play with matches. It turns out that Olivia says 'Sorry' not when she's sorry, but when she doesn't get her way. Which makes it kind of funny that the daycare providers think they've achieved something by teaching her to say "Sorry"

Did I just blow my chances of getting into a good pre-school by posting this?

Olivia Milestones, Q1 2010

I'm a little behind in posting (mostly because whatever I thought about posting sounded really boring even to me.)

But I thought that I should document some Olivia milestones:

January 2010: Started walking up stairs on alternating feet.

February 2010: Saw (and played in) snow for the first time. Didn't like it that much initially (got a big face full of snow when sledding with Daddy on a powder day.) Had a blast playing with a friend and her mother on our second trip to the snow. I bought a pair of used kiddie snow boots and can't wait to teach her how to ski (remind me I said this next year when I am dragging a screaming toddler down a green run.)

March 2010: Had her first 4 word sentence. I don't remember what it was. I think Olivia is a little behind in language development but Spencer keeps making excuses for her (Spencer -- 'She's bilingual!' Joyce -- 'Yeah, she speaks English and broken English')

The return of GUEST BLOGGER Margaret

So here I am --- mainly because I am tired of reading Joyce's boring parenting Network Rants, and well, I seem to have more free time these days. Maybe joyce will help out by spicing up this blog with some photos.

Olivia is at an age now where she is learning her numbers and ABCs by sight. The only problem is that she gets some numbers and letters confused, and is also very stubborn. Here is a sample conversation with Olivia from February:

Joyce and Olivia are Reading a Book, "Olivia Counts" together.

Olivia says "1" on the first page. So far, so good.

They get to the 2nd page, and it is the number 2, with a curlicue, so Olivia says "SIX!".

Joyce: "No, that's a 2." Olivia again: "SIX!"

Joyce: "That's a 2."

Olivia won't back down. She looks straight at joyce and says "6, Mommy!" and Joyce says, "2, Baby!"

Then, to prove her point, Joyce points to the page and says "2. See --- (pointing to the objects) 1 --- 2 - TWO!".

Olivia then points to objects on the page (there are NOT 6 objects) and says - "1 -- 2 -- 3 -- 4 --- SIX!".

-----------

Apparently, she did the same thing with the number "1" and the letter "I" when my mother was visiting. She finally agreed that my mom was right after my mom showed her the "1" and "I" in context.

Parenting is hard

From today's BPN ...

Wow, as if I didn't have enough anxiety about leaving Olivia somewhere all day with kids 3x her age.

---------------------------
Review for a well known, well respected pre-school

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I cannot recommend XXXXXXXXXXXX as well, had to chime in.
XXXXXXX is a family-owned business. The
location is beautiful and we liked the philosophy too.
We did not get support from teachers or director when we
thought our child should have been moved (from the 'big kid' class to the toddler class)... He
loved to run with the big boys who in turn 'bowled him
over'. He was teased about potty training and picked on
in class time after time.
I was shocked to see no interaction by teachers in the
play yard. My son was bitten by one of the biggest kids,
a 4 year old, no teachers were present at the time to stop
the escalating bad behavior. I learned that at times there
was no supervision in the yard after 3:00 p.m.
The yard is chaotic and you should visit unexpectedly to
check this out.

Crotchety ranting: "Architecture"

Ugh, I hate industrial chic. (My friend M tells me that I can go ahead and use this blog as a forum for my crotchety ranting.)

The latest adventures of the breast feeding mafia

The NYTimes Motherlode blog reports that the International Breast Milk project is engaging in an effort to send breast milk to Haiti. If you had a plane and resources on the ground to get food to needy families, wouldn't it be far more efficient (and less wasteful) to get clean water and food to women who are able to nurse, and maybe even, gasp... formula for the kids whose mothers are not able to nurse?

(Addenda: Jan 28) As you can see, I was skeptical of the value of loading a plane with highly perishable breast milk on dry ice, rather than food and water...), so I dug deeper into the motivation for seeking breast milk donations

"... after the Asian tsunami of 2004. According to the Emergency Nutrition Network, some 72% of families with infants received donated baby formula. The result was a dramatic decline in breastfeeding and a tripling of diarrheal diseases among babies, the British group concluded. "People are really well-meaning, and it's a very difficult concept for people to grasp," said lactation consultant Gina Ciagne. "But breastfeeding is going to be so much better."

That seems to make a little more sense. In addition, formula is friggin expensive and the last thing most Haitian families need is a kid who will only drink formula. And an adult human could survive 2 weeks without food, but a newborn baby could not. So I take back what I said about breastmilk being an inefficient use of cargo space.

Sleep Training, and other unnecessary parenting worries

If I had to do it all over again, I would have never let myself near Berkeley Parents Network when I was a new mom. Sure I got a lot of great used stuff at great prices, but at the price of adding a lot of stress to my life. BPN is full of parents who are worried that they are doing the wrong thing with their kids, or that their kid is or isn't doing something.

Many parenting topics are like religion -- there are no right and wrong answers, the best approach is the one that works for the parents and the child. And while there is the occasional kid who actually has development problems, most kids are just picking up things at their own pace.

There are 2786 titles on Amazon on the topic of 'Sleep Training' and 300 titles on weaning. Interestingly, there are also 118 titles on 'Overparenting.' I have to admit that Spencer was right that kids eventually grow up on their own and that you don't have to worry too much about about co-sleeping, weaning, sleep training. I hope he's right about potty training too.

Oliviaisms: Eating

For now, Olivia is an adventurous eater and thinks she's missing out if she sees you eating something that you haven't offered her. Yesterday I was preparing a bowl of pickled onions as a condiment for a dish that Spencer was making. I taste tested one of the onions, then heard a little voice below me saying 'That, that' and pointing to the bowl. After getting a bite of onion, she said 'I like it.'

Bad Mother?

I'm embarrassed to admit that I regularly read mommy blogs. What has become of me?

Anyway, in one of the parenting blogs I read, the author identified 'Calling yourself a bad mom' as one of the 'Top parenting trends for 2009'

The author comments that 'the amusing thing about this trend is that all these parents who think they're so bad really aren't bad at all.' I've read a few of these so called ' bad mommy' blogs and I will go one step further to say ... 'Get over yourself. Calling yourself a bad parent is like Heidi Klum calling herself fat.'

Has parenting has become so competitive that a mom has to be apologetic if she doesn't feed her kids 100% organic food. When did putting your kid in front of the TV become a reason to call Social Services?

Classic Tantrums: My lunch

My sister commented on the last episode, 'Could the tantrum have been avoided if you had asked Olivia if you could share?' Yesterday's tantrum may shed some light on that question. Olivia and I went to the hot food bar at Whole Foods for lunch today. I got a large plate of food for us to share. She was a good girl. Even though she was hungry with big eyes as we put chicken and macaroni and cheese on the plate, she patiently waited for us to pay. We sat down to eat and I said 'Olivia, will you share this food with Mommy,' she immediately pulled the plate away from me and said 'MINE.' I decided to just let her have the food (and that I would eat whatever was left,) but it was too late -- the crying episode had started. After letting her cry for 5 (10?) minutes, I distracted her by taking her outside to visit a dog. She was happy, but the unhappiness resumed when we sat down again. She eventually started eating and all was fine.

I had definitely thought about getting two separate plates of food while in the hot bar line. I made the risk assessment of a potential tantrum against trying to handle 2 plates and an independently minded toddler in a grocery store. I know now to weigh the tantrum more heavily in future calculations.

Rookie move

I made a rookie move and scheduled a pediatrician appt the same time that Olivia usually naps. She is sure to be one happy camper (it's a shot heavy appointment.)

Classic Tantrum Episode #1: My Spinach

We had pizza for dinner on Sunday. I ordered a spinach and feta pizza, and Olivia picked the spinach off the pizza and left it on the side of her plate.

Monday: We made leftover pizza for lunch. Olivia was fussy while eating it, so I did her a favor and picked the spinach off and ate it. Wrong move. Apparently, the spinach was more than just a condiment, me eating it launched a 20 minutes tantrum.

About 15 minutes into the tantrum (and a time out,) she stuck her hand into my mouth and dug around for the spinach that I had taken from her. This was really funny. (The thing about most toddler tantrums is that they are pretty amusing if you are not late for a doctor appointment or work.)

Now, your opportunity to be an armchair parent. Use the comments field to tell me how I should have handled the situation.

Oliviaisms: Pizza and the Reverse Atkins diet

When we get pizza, Olivia eats the cheese (and licks the sauce) off the pizza but leaves the crust.

New Feature -- Classic Tantrums

In this new blog feature, we'll document classic moments with defiant and insistent Olivia. Unlike previous features 'Judgmental parent roundtable,' 'Olivia-isms,' and 'Classics from BPN,' we're likely to have plenty of material to keep this feature going.

Some background -- Olivia has been in the terrible twos for some time. She is insistent that she has do to things by herself -- get into the car by herself, choose her outfits, get up and down from her chair, close the door.

As an example, if we try to put her into the carseat, she will jump not only out of her seat but out of the car so that she can do it herself. We usually succumb (a la 'choose your battles' school of parenting.)

Most of the literature attributes toddler tantrums to the child being at a crossroads of becoming independent and not being able to communicate. We may be in trouble, as Olivia's language skills are a bit behind for her cohort.

Feel free to use the comments field to give us guidance on not spoiling the kid (but maintaining our sanity -- i.e., giving in.)

Spencer Scissorhands

Spencer and I both often have to work on weekends. Often, I'll watch Olivia since Spencer's weekend work usually involves table saws and nail guns. Needless to say, I don't get as much done as I would like. So, when Spencer offered to take Olivia to the office last weekend, I jumped at the chance to get caught up on some work and home projects.

As a side story, I had been wanting to take Olivia for a haircut for months, but Spencer loved her long hair and wanted to be there for her first haircut. Trying to be a good partner, I resisted the urge to take Olivia to get a cute over the shoulder uni-length bob cut for months.

Imagine my dismay when Olivia returned home from work that day with bangs poking out of her little hat.

I'm not sure what the next steps should be ... maybe getting the rest of her hair cut shorter (a la Suri Cruise @ 24 months?)