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September 25, 2006
Dowa
She likes Dora the Explorer. I don't think she actually watches the show, she just likes her. We got her the balloon for her birthday; it was probably her favorite. We even got her a Dora doll, but she just called it "doll" and "no Dowa." The Dora doll looks slightly different than the cartoon character. Any grownup will tell you it is Dora, but Katy thinks otherwise.
Right now Katy is in Reno with her grandparents. Grandma is going to take her for a photo session tomorrow. We tried to have it done here at JC Penney last Saturday. But after waiting for 40 minutes, we decided to leave. We don't even wait that long at the doctor's office, let alone a photo studio.
Speaking of the doctor, Katy had her checkup last Monday. She is going to be one tall girl.
Posted by Mike at 06:54 PM | Comments (0)
September 16, 2006
Finally!
Yes, we finally decided to put up a new post. It has been more than a month since our last post. I wonder how many would be disappointed to not see a new picture. We are trying a new format: maybe we will do more writing and post fewer pictures. We don't know; we are just trying out.
A lot has happened in this household for the last month. Since our last post, we have been getting really lazy. There were just way too many distractions and Katy has lost her novelty.
In early August, we were looking into buying a new car. Katy's daddy's truck had no AC and it was really hot in August. So we looked around and did some research online. And then the weather cooled down, so we decided to put it off until next year.
And then in the mid-August, Katy's daddy had his birthday. He received Veronica Mars Seasons 1 & 2 DVDs. So we spent most of our evenings to finish 44 episodes of VM as fast as we could. Naturally it cut into Monkey Diary time.
And of course, the new semester started. This semester, both parents are taking classes. The not-in-graduate-school parent is taking a computer class at a local community college, and the class meets on the day and time when VM is scheduled on TV. That immediately called for a cable upgrade. We called the cable company and asked for current special and got a nice package. It was about two weeks ago. As anyone would know, when you get premium channels and DVR, you can spend all day sitting in front of the TV. HDTV is truly addictive. One of the many interesting things we learned from TV is that one out of six babies in Sacramento is a racially mixed baby. That is a very good news; Katy won't be the odd one out when she grows up.
We eventually got over our addiction to the cable TV, but a couple of new current events distract the parent who is responsible for Monkey Diary: Katy's birthday is coming up and the Moon Festival is in three weeks. That requires emergency recipe research online. We are looking at making our own mooncakes and baking a birthday cake for Katy. We are going to make this mochi-style mooncake; it is supposed to be very popular in Taiwan and Hong Kong right now.
Originally we didn't plan to do anything for her birthday. Katy will not remember her 2nd birthday; so really, if there is nothing to be done, she won't know. But as it gets closer to the day, we are more excited about the upcoming event.
Katy is quite handful these last few weeks. She is much older. Here are the highlights:
1. She is getting taller. Now she can turn on the light switch and can barely turn it off. She can also reach the deadbolt. Yes, she locked us in the garage about three weeks ago. We were all panicky. Katy's mom tried to explain to her to turn the deadbolt the other way, but she was too traumatized to do anything. Luckily Katy's daddy forgot to lock the front door, so we could get inside the house. Needless to say, we stash a spare key outside the house now.
2. She is defiant. When she says no, she looks into your eyes and shakes her finger at you. We don't have a strategy yet.
3. She speaks more. We think she can say a few phrases or sentences now. Today, she was offering our gray kitty Wallace his toy. Wallace is always wary of her, so he got up and walked away. Katy picked up the toy, followed him and said "Maomi (kitty in Chinese) is here...and maomi here...and then maomi here...Maomi stay here come on!" She still speaks mostly English.
4. She LOVES Baby Signing Time videos. We think she is addicted to it. She would ask us to play the DVD over and over again for her. We had to tell her no and screaming and crying ensued. She did learn to sign a few more words: cat, hat, hurt, and horse. She was not this into TV before, we are pretty concerned. We do watch TV with her. She likes that a lot. Speaking of DVDs, we got this Miyazaki (artist of Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro) collection in Chinese when we went to SoCal a few weeks ago. Maybe watching shows in Chinese will help her conversation skills in Chinese. Of course, we forgot to mention that this new collection of DVDs also cut into Monkey Diary time.
Anyway, we are sort of back online. We will do our best to post a picture when we can.
Posted by Mike at 08:48 PM | Comments (0)