Happy Lunar New Year!

School Performance

So the kids are never at a loss for school performances. They had one this past Friday, 1/23, for the Lunar New Year. Hansel, my brother Ed, and I went while my mom stayed home with Mathis.

Maile's class did two songs. One involved a costume change. Maile pretty much knows the moves but she rarely sings.

Beck's class also did two songs -- no costume change but they had umbrellas. Not to be biased but Beck knew the routines the best in his class. He tried to sing the first song. During one of the songs they would squat and hide behind their umbrellas and then stand up and raise their umbrellas. Beck liked the standing and raising part.

Beck takes a music class at the preschool now. He started this month. He was too young to take it back in September, but now he is old enough to follow along and he can keep a rhythm.

Em & Em's Engagement Party

Hansel took Maile and Beck to Emmet and Emily's engagement party at Kingfish. I stayed home with Mathis.

Maile came home with two princess balloons while Beck was empty handed. Hansel said Beck wasn't that interested in the balloons. Apparantly, he was more interested in taking photos. Because I later found a lot of photos of people from the waist down.

I'm sorry I missed the engagement party. It looked like a fun time based on Joyce Lee Yang and Joyce Bernas-Yung's photos. Our photos came out a little blurry. Probably because of Beck's grimy hands.

Eric and Yura's Lunar New Year Party

On Sunday (1/25) Hansel, Maile, Beck, and I went to a Lunar New Year party hosted by my cousin, Eric, and his wife, Yura. They had yummy Chinese food and games and fireworks. After dinner, we gathered in their backyard, where the kids got to hold sparklers, throw snaps, and watch Yura almost catch herself on fire from these spinning sparkler things. Beck was scared of the snaps but not by the sparkler stuff. I guess he's more sensitive to sound.

Beck hiding behind me while other kids throw snaps

My aunt (Eric's mom) had told Yura that she used to play Bingo to celebrate the New Year, so we played Bingo. Yura actually had one of those Bingo contraptions that you spin around til a Bingo ball comes out. We let each kid spin the ball cage and we played until each child won at least once.

My cousin Richard's youngest son, Lucas

Each child also came away from the party with a red envelope, where each family contributed a couple of bucks to each.

Baby #3: Lisa's Perspective

So, a week before his due date and a day before his grandmother was to arrive, Mathis decided to come into the world. Even though I was hoping he'd hold out until after my mom got here, he picked an okay time. My regular contractions started around 7:15a (thankfully not the middle of the night). See Hansel's blog for the rest of the story. My blog has my perspective of the labor and delivery and other observations.

Maybe it's because it's so fresh in my mind but I would have to say this time was the hardest. I say this despite having received an epidural that actually worked. With Maile my labor was longer, I pushed longer, and I did not get an epidural. With Beck my labor was about the same as Maile's, I didn't push very long because they ended up using a vacuum, but I got some kind of pain-relief medicine that made me nauseous and my epidural only settled in the right side of my body.

Warning: The following two paragraphs contain some graphic content. With Mathis after one of his kicks, my water started to break and the contractions got 10 times more intense. I felt like my insides were going to explode. As soon as my water completely broke, the contractions felt a little less intense. The nurse commented that contractions usually get worse after. I think the fact that my water did not break with Maile and Beck (the doctor ended up having to break it) is why my contractions with them were not as painful.

The pushing was harder and more frustrating this time too because I couldn't feel the contractions or what I was doing. With Maile even though I pushed for a lot longer it didn't seem as frustrating. Part of it was probably because I had no expectations then, but also I think it was because the hospital where I delivered Maile (CMPC) is more progressive. They had me try different things while pushing, such as sitting on the toilet and holding onto a squat bar at the end of the bed. But at El Camino I had to be on my back, legs apart and back, and chin to my chest. It was actually easier for me when I had my chin up, but she kept reminding me to tuck my chin.

In the end it worked out fine, and Mathis came out after pushing for less than an hour.

Mathis was born with less hair than Maile but more than Beck. His face seems shorter and rounder, his cheeks are a little fuller, and his eyes look wider. So far he is a good sleeper. He has been on a 3.5-4 hr feeding cycle and actually would not drink when I tried to feed him after 3 hrs like the doctors and nurses say to do. A couple of nights in the first week he slept for 5.5 hrs between feedings (I didn't wake up at 4 hrs like I planned and he didn't cry). He burps a lot more easily than Maile and Beck and does not spit up as much.

So far, Maile and Beck both adore Xiao DiDi. Maile likes to look at him and kiss him. Beck likes to give him things although sometimes he's a little too generous.

Bloop. Ah, there he is.

I couldn't sleep last night because I thought I heard Lisa's patented sigh. The same sigh that she made when she went into labor with Maile and Beck, by now burned in my head. Lisa's Mom wasn't due to be here in SF until tomorrow (Friday) night, so we were hoping Lisa would hold off until then, in case she went into labor at night (otherwise who would watch the kids!). And I of course just didn't want to get up at night. That would suck.

Lucky for us, Lisa held off until exactly morning, starting her contractions right when I woke up at 7am. We whipped up her overnight bag, gave the kids breakfast, and I dropped off Lisa at the hospital just before dropping the kids at school. For some reason I felt like I might not get a chance to eat much today, so pow - McDonald's sausage mcmuffin .Trying to start a trend for each kid born. When Beck was born, I shaved my head. With this guy, it's Super-Size Me for a day (that's right, three non-vegetarian fast-food meals in a row!)

Back at the hospital, Lisa was pretty close by the time I got back. It's interesting how alike Lisa and I are with pain-type things. We sort of keep to ourselves when in physical pain and don't say much when other people are in the room. When people leave, we make small chit chat with each other. That hurt? Oh ok. Did you update your facebook? Cool.

The anesthesiologist poked a couple holes in her hand which only produced a couple bruises. Once he finally got a good vein for the IV, he worked on the epidural. Lifesaver for Lisa! After that, it was smooth sailing. I went from "that looks like it hurts as much as my 100 miler" to "who said having a baby is tough?"

After about an hour of labor or so - bloop. There he was. Seemed pretty ugly to me at first, but seemed to look better after being cleaned up. Going through this the third time was almost the exact same as the other two times. I felt a little emotional as the baby came out (for about 2 seconds), and then Lisa said "aw, baaaby", like she usually does. And then at the end I look at the uterus thing that comes out and say "man, that is nasty." Done it once, done it a million times.

So - baby boy, 7lbs 3oz, 19 inches, ugly at first, better looking later. Weird looking ears. Mathis Alexander Lynn (MAL!). As I said to Lisa about 10 times - the 2008 Sacks Leader for the Indianapolis Colts. Robert Mathis, number 98!









 
By this time it was about 2pm and I was staaaaarving (even tho I had Mcdonalds for breakfast). Just as I was about to leave, the nurse told me to stay a bit to push Mathis to the nursery. So one hour in the nursery and about 10 infant tests later, I say to the nurse "um, can I just go and get something to eat?". She says "oh yea, sure, we'll just wheel him over to Mom when we're done". Note to self, the dad does NOT need to go to the nursery, it's just a trick.

Later that night, I picked up Maile and Beck. We went to see Mom. We introduced Mathis to the kids as Xaio-Di (little little brother). What is the obsession of chinese people NOT using kid's names? On the other hand, I can't wait until the first white person comes up to us and says "why do you guys call your son Shoutie"?

On the way out, we saw gan-ma Vicki on her way in to visit, and Beck told her that "Mommy had baby, tiny-tiny". Hee hee.

(ok ok, this blog is almost over, what's the limit to the text on here anyway?) Finally we get home and Beck can't stop crying because he misses his mommy already. We called her at the hospital and he couldn't even talk, he was crying so much! So mommy sang to Beck over the phone. Aw. Maile said "because didi likes mommy and not daddy". And then later Maile and I played our game of who loves each other more. I started with "I love you two times", and she ended me with "I love you into outer space". And then Beck starting crying...

Ok, I will personally guarantee I don't write another blog this long. Let's see how much Lisa censors this. Three kids, woohoo! I mean doh! I mean woohoo! ...

A Beautiful Mind

We let the kids watch preschool cartoons while they eat. They eat better, and they're just sitting there anyway. So the other morning they were watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Every episode the characters use a tool called Toodles to help solve problems. The tool contains four items, and they call upon Toodles for help throughout the show.

In this show, one of the obstacles was to pick the largest apple off the tree. They couldn't pull it off, so Mickey and friends starting wondering what they could do. Before even calling for Toodles, which they had used once earlier in the show, Beck started making a pinching gesture with his fingers and saying something I didn't understand. I then realized he was indicating scissors. Lo and behold, Mickey calls for Toodles, and there was a pair of scissors.

Later, Mickey et al have to bring a golden harp back to Minnie, but they can't move it. So they again wonder out loud on what they can do. Beck replies, what sounds to me as, "walking, wh wh wh (sounding out the letter w)." I realized after Mickey calls for Toodles that Beck was saying wagon.

Beck usually just repeats but in this case he was anticipating and answering. Very cool.

1/7 Maile's School Birthday Party

Since Maile's birthday was during her school's break, I figured we'd do the school celebration after the break. We first tried on Friday, January 2, because Maile had school that day. But there was only about 4 kids in her classroom when I dropped her off. So, her Chinese teacher suggested we do it Monday. She also said I should bring photos from each year of her life, maybe put together a DVD about Maile, which other parents have done, and see if Maile would like to sing a song or read a story. I was still thinking about the DVD suggestion when I left.

When I told Hansel about the DVD, he suggested I just create a video like he did for me for Christmas and use the song he wrote for Maile. So I spent part of the weekend putting together the slideshow/video. Hansel also thought it'd be a good idea to put the video he made on the same DVD since Maile likes to sing along to the song.

On Monday I got to Maile's school with all the birthday stuff at 4p like her teacher suggested. As soon as I walked in, her teacher was walking to the front and said that Maile just threw up. I was not expecting that. Maile seemed fine that morning. But there she was sitting in the middle of the classroom with paper towels and barf (pardon my French) on her lap. The assistant teacher was shocked that I got there so quickly not realizing I had come for Maile's birthday party.

Suffice it to say, we didn't celebrate her birthday. I kept Maile home on Tuesday. Third time was the charm. We made it to school on Wednesday. I got there at 4p, and Maile was ready to go. The kids were very excited. They kept crowding around me as I was setting up the laptop with the videos.

The teacher placed a light in the middle of their circle and laid out a card with each month of the year around the circle. For each year of Maile's life, the teacher would lay down a stick and Maile would walk around the circle holding a globe. As she walked around, the kids sang Happy Birthday. They sang it in English, Chinese, and Spanish. Talk about multi-lingual. The teacher asked me to tell a little story about Maile for each year. So I described each of her birthday celebrations.

Then, we got to the videos. I explained that the first video was about our family. We had a rocky start with the kids yelling, "I can't see. I can't hear." But I started the first video over again, and all was better in the world. One boy was actually trying to sing along. Maile sang along and danced around. For the second video I explained that her Daddy had written the song after Maile was born and that the video included photos of Maile from when she was a baby until now. After the videos were done, one of the kids said they wanted to see it again. So, I'm guessing they were a hit.

After, Maile passed out goody bags and then the kids went out to the food tables for a birthday treat. I took the easy route and bought cookies. The kids sang happy birthday to Maile very loudly before digging in.

1/1 Maile's 5th Birthday New Year Party

Since Maile's birthday is on New Year's Eve, we typically have a birthday party for her on New Year's Day when everyone has the day off. I figured this year was probably the last year we could have a party at home. So, I decided to make it a New Year's theme with a countdown at noon and a balloon drop. To go with the balloon theme, we hired a balloon artist. I actually found her on Yelp, and she had an amazing portfolio. I did look into another balloon artist but decided on the Balloon Lady (http://www.heyballoonlady.com/).

Jim and Joyce were our first guests. They came early for a short visit while Payton was sick at home with the nanny. Too bad they couldn't stay longer. People started trickling in after 11, so the Balloon Lady had a pretty small audience for a while, which meant more balloons for each kids. She can make anything she's seen before and was even pretty good at improvising a Batmobile for Carter Sun.

Originally, we had planned to have the countdown at noon. But since some people were running late, we decided to eat and then have the balloon drop. We had the balloon drop at 1p. We just gathered the kids under the drop and started counting down. The kids loved it. They then gathered all the balloons into the conversation pit (better than a McDonald's ball pit).

We then brought Maile's cupcakes out and sang happy birthday. We told the kids if they wanted a cupcake, they had to follow us back to the kitchen. I heard a couple of yays and kids running after us, but was surprised to see only Maile, Hannah, and Beck. Other kids eventually followed, but we still had a bunch of cupcakes left as Hansel had predicted.


For more photos and details about the party, check out Mia's blog at http://www.adventures-of-mia.blogspot.com/

12/31 Maile's Actual Birthday

Hansel woke up early that morning to go run out to the local market to a get Maile a cupcake for her birthday. He ended up getting a cute Tinkerbell cake. So we had cake that morning for breakfast. It was actually pretty good, except the frosting turned your lips blue.


Hansel and I had thought about taking Maile to a Pump It Up New Year's Eve party from 4-6p, but then found out it was $14/person (including adults). Usually, Pump It Up only charges for the kids. Before confirming the price, I had asked the Yaus if they wanted to join us. They wouldn't be able to, but they suggested a Noon Year's Eve event at the Hiller Aviation Museum.

So after breakfast we picked up Hannah and Al (Leilani had to work) and then headed over to the museum. Maile provided in-car entertainment that morning by "reading" a book to Hannah (she recognizes and has memorized a lot of the words). Maile brought the book along because one of the characters is named Hannah.

We got to the museum a little after it opened. The main parking lot was already full, and they were directing people to an adjacent motel lot. There were a lot of mini-vans and SUVs. We knew it was going to be a full house.

Besides the usual exhibits, they had bounce houses, live reptiles (e.g., tortoise, snakes, etc.), young women dressed as fairies, face painting, live entertainment, and a balloon drop. I wasn't sure if I wanted us to stay for the balloon drop because I thought it would ruin the novelty of the balloon drop we were going to have at Maile's birthday party. But Hansel thought it would enhance the anticipation.

One of the fairies had a shaggy dog puppet, which I think the kids thought was real. I thought it was real at first until I got closer. The girls got their face painted while Hansel took Beck around. They then watched a bird show. We had lunch there. I ate a hot dog. My first in probably a year. It was yummy. We then headed inside for the balloon drop. The bag was huge, but definitely not big enough to cover the number of people there. After the balloons dropped, Hansel was surprised that people weren't hitting the balloons around. All the kids were trying to grab them. Kids have a strange fascination for balloons, bubbles, and balls. I wonder what Freud's interpretation for that would be.

I'm not the most organized person in the world and with Christmas, getting ready for baby #3, planning Maile's birthday party, I hadn't bought her birthday gifts yet. I also still had to buy some stuff for the party. So I ended up going to five stores during the kids' naps. I did buy her birthday presents (whew), including a princess item upon Hansel's insistence. I'm trying to keep the princess gear to a reasonable amount, esp Disney princess, a lot of which is pretty gaudy. Have you seen that stuff?

Fantasy of Lights

Originally, we had planned to go to a drive-through light display "extravaganza" called the Fantasy of Lights in Los Gatos's Vasona Park on 12/29. But we left the Old Spaghetti Factory later than planned, so we decided to check out the lights the next night.

I thought there was a discount if you went Mon-Thurs, but apparently not because it cost us $15. Besides charging each car $15, each light display was sponsored. So, Hansel was sitting there calculating how much the park was probably making each night. When we went, it was bumper to bumper.

We saw some kids checking out the lights through their sun roofs, so a little ways into the drive Hansel asked the kids if they wanted to do it, too. Beck had to stand on my arm rest to do so. He came back in after a little while and just sat on my lap.

We thought it was cool and the kids enjoyed it, but $15 was a little steep.

The Cantonese Experiment Continues

I think Beck and Maile are both starting to pick up the language, a little bit. Maile yesterday just said "jo sun" to mean (good morning), her first Cantonese words. It's still really (really really) hard to continue to speak Cantonese to them all the time, but I probably end up doing it maybe 70% of the time (at least to Beck). I figure as long as they grow up understanding basic vocab, I'd be super happy. I have a feeling I'll have a much better shot with our third one!

Beck's pretty funny tho, he'll mix up mandarin and cantonese for "hold me" - bao-bao and po-po. He just said bao-po to me today - halfway there! And he's having a crazy time saying thank you, "mm-goi". It always just comes out like "ha-gwai..."! I'm pretty sure I'm confusing the crap out of both of them (not to mention myself) as I speak cantonese then mandarin then english.

Ah, kids are awesome aren't they?

Oh and completely unrelated, when he blows bubbles into his water through a straw at restaurants (like we all did when we were kids...), he always has to put his fingers to his cheeks. Hee hee!

Christmas in the Park

On 12/29, we decided to take the kids to Christmas in the Park in San Jose before it was gone for the season. I figured we'd get there before 5p, hang out for 1/2 hr and then go to dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory for some cheap, yummy eats.

When we got to Christmas in the Park and saw the carnival rides along with the decked-out trees and animated displays, we weren't sure 1/2 hr would be enough. But we parked in a 1/2 hr spot and took our chances anyway (oooh, what daredevils).

One of the first things we saw was a mini-train (not one that kids could ride) that went around a small track. We then walked on to see other things, like a machine that was making "snow" (I think/I hope it was bubble foam). While Maile was trying to catch snow, Beck ran back to watch the train.

Each kid then rode one carnival ride. Maile rode the mini-roller coaster while Beck drove a car. That night after we put them to bed. I could hear them over the monitor talking. Beck talking about how he drove a car ("vroom, vroom") and Maile riding a roller coaster that went fast.

At the Old Spaghetti Factory each meal comes with ice cream for dessert. Beck tends to eat ice cream out of a bowl rather slowly. Not so much to savor it but because he's not really great at scooping out ice cream. So as his ice cream was melting, Hansel teased Beck that Daddy was going to eat his ice cream, so Beck immediately protected his bowl and started digging in.

Young Photographers

On 12/27, the kids got a hold of the camera and took random photos. Some of them turned out pretty well. Maile took the first photo. Beck took the second one, and I took the last one. Not as clear as the other two. Looks like they're the better photographers.