I imported all posts from Daniel’s blog to our blog, http://www.livingtogetherblog.com

See you there. Thanks!

- Althea

Anyway, Daniel turned two last month and we celebrated it with my husband’s relatives. As opposed to the grand celebration that we had during Daniel’s first birthday, we had a simple one this time. The birthday boy blew his candles without help (well with some coaching from daddy) and clapped his hands while our relatives looked over.

Daniel’s is a big boy now. He’s also very smart and knows words such as ‘infinity’ and ’scrumptious’, can count in seven languages, can memorize his alphabet and numbers up to 50, can identify the things around him, knows the president and the secretary of state, and is a big fan of American Idol! He’s also semi-retired from watching Brainy Baby and Baby Einstein– his favorite shows now are Dora the Explorer, Blues Clues and Go Diego, Go!

We often check out some kid-friendly locations in the Bay Area for our active toddler. Here’s a recent photo taken at SadieDey cafe in Oakland.

I crossed my fingers as we entered Target hoping I could find a nice costume in his size: 3T – 4T. Luckily, as I perused the Halloween section, I found a cute Elmo attire that looked perfect for my toddler. And, lo, the size is 3T- 4T!

I quickly pulled the item from the rack, looked at the model wearing the costume to see what it looks like when worn, and placed it against Daniel’s chest and back to see if the color red complements his complexion. Then I checked the hem, zipper, and sleeves just to make sure it has no hidden defects. Lastly, I asked myself: would Daniel like this? He doesn’t really like wearing caps and hoodies unless he sees someone else wearing the same. What the heck, mommy and daddy will wear hoodies if they have to — this Elmo costume is really cute and adorable, I bet you he’ll get extra candies when he goes Trick or Treat in little costume. Plus, I can’t wait to take photos him wearing this outfit.

I felt a sigh of relief when I finally placed it in my cart. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to pick something that will look good on my son. (I don’t want him to wear Yoda, which was the only alternative available.) Good thing I didn’t run out of good luck and Daniel will definitely have a blast! It will be his first Trick or Treat, after all.

Enjoying the fountain

We recently took Daniel to Sausalito along with my in-laws and my husband’s uncle and aunt from Tulsa. From the time we left off Embarcadero on a ferry to Sausalito to our way back home late in the afternoon, he didn’t cry once. Yes, not even once! My husband’s aunt and uncle were very impressed. They said they’ve never seen any toddler as patient as Daniel. I couldn’t agree more!

Surrounded by beautiful flowers

I thought he did a pretty great job traveling with a bunch of adults: he enjoyed sightseeing, danced to street music, pointed at whatever caught his attention, and asked for milk or water if he needed it. I’m so proud of my son! For sure, there will be many road trips with him to come.

Dreaming of Christmas

Doing laundry is a family affair for us: we not only get to spend time with each other, we also get fresh and clean laundry in an hour or so.

Blogging from my iPhone.

That’s not funny, Daniel.

So I was away from the mobile universe for more than a week. Fortunately, I only had 11 contacts in my phone book so I didn’t really miss anything major. (I was just building my contact list and reconnecting with friends.) Besides, they all have my e-mail.

I was hoping that Apple would replace my phone. After all, it was just 3-weeks old and in super mint, pristine condition. Fat Chance! Of course Apple has a way of knowing whether there was water involved or it just died on its own. I was so disappointed that I had to buy a new one and that $100 off the regular price didn’t make me feel better.

It cost me a new iPhone to learn my lesson: gadgets and toddlers don’t belong together. Now, I have it buried under my pillow or tucked away in the deepest part of our closet before I sleep at night and pretend, when I wake up, that it doesn’t even exist.

If you’re a mom who thoughtfully or impulsively bought these DVD sets, you can totally relate: Brainy Baby [and Baby Einstein] videos are absolutely the best when it comes to soothing tantrums and keeping toddlers entertained. These miracle disks that often go in colorful cases are little savers for me. I mean, seriously, what will I do if the geniuses behind these amazing videos hadn’t thought of them in the first place? But, isn’t why I called them geniuses in the first place, because they actually thought of them?

I don’t know. I haven’t figured what I’ll do, really. I’ll probably spend the entire day playing Itsy Bitsy Spider with Daniel or singing Old McDonald Had a Farm, Ee I Ee I Ooo, while trying to think of what to feed him or trying to cook up a trip somewhere that will allow him to explore and appreciate his surroundings, or thinking which playgroup I should join next week. I would have been too enervated and tired to think of going to Betty’s nail salon for a quick pedi with salt scrub. Oh no, I’m going to miss Betty and her girly salon with pastel and glittery O.P.I. nail polish collection—one of the best nail salons in the Bay Area, I must say. If I can’t go to Betty’s, I’m going to have ingrown in all of my toenails they’d hurt so bad I won’t be able to walk! Then if I see her again, she’d be horrified and say, “Oohhh I teenk you need to go to the hospitaaal. You need an operayshun. Dis is really baaad” Then she’ll have this ‘I’m Scared For You’ look on her face that will eventually melt into ‘Gosh, What a Poor Girl’ look. And then, of course, the procedure will cause and arm and a leg (literally) because the insurance policy doesn’t cover it. Then I’ll spend days and nights at the hospital because it was that bad and I won’t be able to work. Then we’ll lose all our clients because they will become impatient and antsy. Then we won’t have any money to buy anything, we’ll be so poor we’ll collect leftover food and dollar change along downtown San Francisco, or maybe pretend to strum a guitar or play an accordion and wait for people to give us coins while battling the cold. But then I won’t be able to travel that far to San Francisco. My feet hurt, remember?

But that’s clearly not the case here. Daniel totally loves his Brainy Baby DVDs since he was 8 months old. He can hardly contain his zeal and excitement as soon as I turn on the player and press the play button. Once the intro pops onscreen, he ignores everything and everyone else. He cannot get enough of the ABC and the 1-2-3 episodes, both of which he watched a gazillion times already and probably memorized every bit of it. (I have to admit that I can also memorize every bit of it: I know exactly when to pause, when to giggle, when to cover my face, and when to start singing the alphabet!) Daniel is totally smitten by the song-and-dance parts and he delights in the overall production: the animation, the kids who appear so gigantic on the TV screen (we have a 55-inch TV), that female voiceover that seems to hypnotize you to repeat after her every time, and those familiar nursery rhymes that play forever. He can watch them for hours, and only takes breaks when needed, like when he needs something to eat or when he needs to change his nappy.

I can always buy myself time when he’s busy dancing and reciting the alphabet and counting 1-2-3. This is when I work on my laptop or do something else equally important like going to Tracy’s coffee shop and order Vietnamese noodles or paying a visit to the library to check-out books that I fancy only to end up not reading them anyway.

But I cannot really accomplish everything that I have to do without the generous help of Daniel’s grandma and grandpa. (Yes, they’re like the modern everyday heroes—what will parents do without them? Grandparents are like angels sent from heaven.) They’ve been overly generous in helping us take care of Daniel. They enjoy watching and playing with him. I hope they enjoy Brainy Baby, too.

So I’m utterly grateful for Brainy Baby and for my in-laws. They just make our lives more manageable. I also have to mention that one month after my purchase, Daniel can already recite and read ABC and count 1-2-3. He can also correctly identify colors and some animals and fruits. I’m glad I decided to buy him the set. Definitely worth every penny spent. Definitely worth all the hoopla and all those glittering 5-star reviews on Amazon.

Daniel doesn’t miss his Yaya and while I am still trying to figure out whether “not missing” is a good thing or not, I also doubt if he even realizes losing his nanny in the first place. It seems that life goes on for Daniel and his days go by nary a word spoken about his trusty nanny. I guess I wouldn’t want my son to start crying profusely in the middle of the night and demanding to fly his Yaya to the Bay Area. So in this case, it makes sense to say that “not missing” is a good thing.

When we left Iloilo (God, the mere mention of the place makes me want to catch the next flight out of San Francisco) more than a month ago, Daniel brought with him basic words that he picked-up from his Yaya, the people around him (mostly our relatives), and from his deep personal attachment to food or anything that looks edible. One of the first words that he masterfully enunciates in different accents is apple. I didn’t know that apple, if repeated a thousand times over in one day at the rate of five repetitions per second, can be pleasing to ears especially if it is formed out of the lips of my dear son.

One night, at a dinner with friends from the Web 2.0 world, Daniel gleefully referred to a Yahoo engineer’s balding head as apple. Most of us in the room thought it was ridiculously funny so I wondered if the guy was offended one bit or whether he was also amused despite the fact that his smooth, depilated crowning glory was the center of Daniel’s (and everyone’s) hilarity. I thought he was a real sport and very forgiving at that since Daniel literally spent the entire night actively pacing back and forth, stomping his feet on the carpet-covered floor, and ceaselessly pointing at the guy’s head and boomed on top of his lungs: “Apple! Apple! Apple!” What seemed to be just a reference to the head became the person’s new monicker. (I think Apple is a nice nickname for a techie guy.) At the end of the night, the guy was merely reduced to being an apple. We parted ways with Daniel waving his hands saying, “Buhbye Apple.”

My son will grow up a very charismatic man, no doubt about it. At 20-months-old, he already has manifestations of being a politician: he can charm you with his sweet, puerile smile; he renders everyone in awe with his mastery of the alphabet, numbers, and colors; he can melt your heart by squinting his right eye, and he can shake his booty to no end. And once he starts dancing and waving his hands up in the air, the game is over: he steals the whole scene and turns himself into an instant hit. He doesn’t care whether he’s at my Zumba class, at a boutique, or at a park as long as he can wiggle his hips and flip his fingers like doing flamenco dance.

One afternoon at a local park, Daniel got up and started dancing in front of an Indie singer. Then, almost in a snap of his fingers, he got two very tall and bulky men to cheer for him. We just stood there as spectators with occasional glances from our little dancer. He enjoyed all the attention and he liked it when people clap their hands towards the end, to signal that they are pleased or as if to say, wiggle it some more. Needless to day, we do enjoy all the compliments afterwards.

Daniel sweeps me off my feet sometimes especially when he looks at me with astonishing intelligence and begins to utter “Mommy” in his sweetest voice while tucked in my side and cuddled in my arms before bedtime. Actually, he thinks that mommy is a funny word because it rhymes with puppy, a new word that he learned from his newfound Vietnamese friend, Khoi. I have to make sure that I relay a very clear message to him that Mommy is not a member of the canine family or something that resembles a puppy, but someone who sings him lullabies at night, shares warm bubble baths with him, and gives him comforting hugs and kisses when he gets naughty and accidentally bumps his head on God-knows-what hard object. I guess, based on his smile and caresses, he knows that I am Mommy and he gets lots of love when he is with me.

I’ve also taken the initiative to learn to prepare simple but meaningful meals from scratch since we arrived in the Bay Area. (I am vehemently opposed to the bottled, processed, and sugary food—the thought of feeding them to my son makes me feel guilty to no end.) I’ve also bought a set of educational videos for him instead of buying very expensive toys that end up being tossed in the trashcan. While he enjoys his videos and can’t let a day pass without watching them, I make sure that Daniel gets a lot of human interaction from people around him. For a short period of time, he has grown into a smart, healthy, and happy toddler, and his personality is infectious. He can also recite the alphabet, count from one to 10, and can identify colors such as black, green, blue, red, white, purple, and white. He also added some words to his vocabulary such as Angkor Watt, balloon, puppy, mommy, papa, dog, flower, corn, wheat, milk, khaki, and a few more that he’s waiting to unravel to us. He can also spell-out words from a food label, nametags, or from a store’s signage.

I guess, with the help of my husband, I am doing a great job as a parent. Two years ago, I was uncertain if I can fulfill my new role of being a mom to an unborn child but now, I swell with pride to tell others that I have a wonderful 20-month-old. I cannot even begin to describe how grateful I am for having Daniel in my life. It’s just different. And, unless you become a parent, you won’t totally understand what I’m trying to say.

When Daniel retires at night, I take a moment to look at my precious one hugging his pillow tight and in deep slumber. Then I give myself a pat on the back for doing a great job raising this adorable boy.

]]>