it has been a long time since i’ve written a product review.  i’ve been so busy playing with new toys and reading new books to take the time to review baby gear.  but yesterday, i came across a product so crappy, that i felt compelled to share.

lately, i have doing pretty well feeding myself with a spoon and fork.  i usually use regular adult sized plasticware, but sometimes, i get to use real silverware like a grown-up.  but because i am such an aggressive stabber, mama thought it would be in the best interest of the dining table, koda, and everything else around me, to get me some eating utensils that are a little less sharp.  she had already decided on the gerber graduates safety fork and spoon set.  they are just the right size for my little hands, and well-textured to make for easy gripping.  plus, they come in cool colors!

so we went to the store to buy my utensils, and we saw a tableware set that included the fork, spoon, and a suction plate!  perfect, right?  i have been wanting a suction plate for awhile, but eating right off my booster- or high-chair tray has been working out fine, so i never got around to getting one.  but since the set was right there, and so nicely packaged, we decided to get it.

first of all, the suction piece is removable.  great, more parts to keep track of.  secondly, it is not intuitive to assemble.  mama is at least as smart as the average mom out there, and it took her a long time to figure out how to attach the suction piece.  auntie judy couldn’t even figure it out, and auntie judy is super smart!  and most importantly, the suction DOESN’T WORK.  even if you get it to stick, it un-suctions itself after just a few seconds.

mama searched online to see if she was doing something wrong, and in the process, she ran across many reviews for this product.  they are all terrible.  she should have done her homework before buying this useless piece of _____.  (i dunno what word you chose to insert there, but i was thinking “plastic”.)  moral of the story: impulse shopping = bad.

li’l trainer tableware by gerber graduates: (out of 5 )

(2 smileys for the the spoon and fork, but don’t waste your money on the 3-piece plate assembly.)

like all the good holidays, christmas happened 3 times this year. and it’s a good thing, ‘cuz it took me awhile to get the hang of opening presents.

our first christmas was earlier in the week at grandma and grandpa’s house. auntie barbara had to work on christmas day, so we celebrated with daddy’s side of the family early so we could all be together.  (can’t people stop having babies on christmas day so that auntie can stay for christmas?)  see that photo of me with all those presents?  those are a LOT of presents, right?  and yup, they were all for me.  well, almost all of them.

on christmas day, we drove up to the east bay to cousin zoey’s house.  i spent the afternoon opening more presents, playing with cousin zoey, and rocking out on uncle jamie’s drum pads!  i’ve been practicing drumming with my bathtub drum, so i was pounding the snare pretty good, but my legs are too short to tap that bass

then we all headed over to cousins jerrod, caitlyn, and justin’s house.  the rest of mama’s family was waiting there for us.  we had a yummy dinner (i chowed down on the homemade pad thai and broccoli cheese casserole), i charmed all the ladies by blowing kisses and giving hugs, and guess what else…  yup, more presents!  by that time, i was a gift-wrap-ripping expert.

thanks everyone for all my presents.  i really appreciate all of the generous gifts and am so lucky to have such thoughtful family and friends.

i still don’t know about this santa claus guy, though.  all my cousins were talking about what he brought them, but i got nothing.  no presents under the tree from santa.  nothing in my stocking.  is it because i didn’t go visit him at the mall, or write him a letter, or leave cookies out for him?  or maybe he came, but couldn’t come down the chimney because daddy made a fire?  or is it just because i’m a naughty kid?   i wonder if santa will come next year.

i’m still not sure what this christmas thing is all about, but i like it.  a few weeks ago, daddy put colorful lights up on our roof and mama decorated a tree inside our house with pretty lights and shiny bulbs.  and as the days went by, more and more presents started collecting under our tree — and they all have my name on them!  we also have christmas decorations around the house and stockings hanging from our fireplace mantle. and mama said something about santa coming to visit tonight after i go to sleep.

i don’t really get the whole santa thing.  nobody ever  explained it to me.  i’m not sure, but i think that santa is the hairy old guy who wears red and hangs out at shopping malls.  lots of my friends went to visit him, but i didn’t want to.  i just think it’s weird to sit on strange old men.  unfortunately for me, i think that means that i won’t get anything good from santa, since i never had a chance to tell him what i wanted.  i bet he’ll bring me boxer briefs because he probably saw me eyeing them at the mall.

cousin zoey said that you’re supposed to leave cookies for santa to eat when he comes by your house.  i didn’t have time to bake tonight though, so i didn’t leave any snacks out for him.  i wonder if he’ll come to visit our house anyway.  i guess if he gets hungry, he can always eat some of my string cheese in the refrigerator.  i just got a whole pack of them from costco.

but santa or no santa, christmastime makes me happy.  i am so happy tonight that i just can’t stop dancing around.  (mama and daddy have no idea where i learned these moves!)

mama says she’s on vacation this week and through the rest of the year.  but i think she’s confused.  vacations are when we go to carmel, or socal, or hawaii.  but all week, mama and i have just been hanging out around town.  we’ve been doing lots of fun things though.  we went to christmas in the park, had playdates with my buddies, got a visit from 8-week old foster puppies, hung out with my some of my favorite out-of-town aunties, and we even had an early christmas dinner (more on that later).

christmas in the park was so much fun.  i wanted to go last year, but by the time the weather was nice enough for us to go, they were taking down the displays   so this year, we decided to go even though it was raining.  lucky for us, the rain stopped just as we pulled into the parking garage.  hooray!  i guess my no-rain dance worked   i had a blast looking at all of the colorful lights and decorations, and of course, i had to wave at all of the characters and animals (and people) that we passed by.  the carribean christmas was my favorite display — it had frogs playing reggae music.  how silly, huh?  i didn’t like the scary-looking fake people, though.  whenever they were pointed out to me, i just shook my head to say “no, i don’t like them!”  when we go next year, i hope we can go ice skating.

i don’t need elaborate displays and fancy lights to have fun though.  earlier in the week, kai invited us over to his new house for a boys’ day in.  4 crazy boys in his house.  he sure is brave!  kai has so many toys in his play room, and he even has a slide inside his house!  (darn it!  that‘s what i should have asked santa to bring me!)

and today, i met matthew at vasona park to ride the steam train and carousel, but neither of them were running today!  BOO!!!  but we made the most of the day and ran around the park.  then we went out to lunch and played outside of the restaurant.  we found rocks to play with, weaved around the pillars, and we made new friends with other boys and high fived them through the restaurant’s glass wall.  see, i really can have fun anywhere.  but why does mama only take me on playdates with BOYS?!

next week, some of my playdates better be with girls.  otherwise, i’m gonna fire mama as my social planner.

yesterday was a weird day.  when i went downstairs in the morning, daddy didn’t let me turn on the kitchen lights like i usually do.  instead, he made a fire.  and instead of getting my food and drinks from the refrigerator, i had to get them out of a cooler.  (daddy said that i couldn’t open the refrigerator because it would let all the cold air out.  as it was, he had to put big bags of ice and frozen jugs of water in our refrigerator to keep our food cold all day.)  and when i tried to turn on the tv, nothing happened.  and when i walked out onto the front porch, the motion-activated light didn’t come on.  what the heck?!

PG&E was installing a transformer somewhere around our house, so they told us that we would have no electricity from 7am to 5pm.  at first, mama didn’t think that it would be so bad to sit in the dark with no TV all day.  but then daddy reminded her that no power = no wi-fi and no refrigerator.  uh oh.  mama said we were going to be amish for a day.

but instead of embracing our amishness, mama packed us all up (me, koda, and gung-gung) and evacuated the house.  we had a whole day of adventure.  noah’s bagels, starbucks, little gym, sushi maru, jamba juice, gung-gung’s house…  and after all that, it was still only 1:30pm.  so we drove up to visit uncle henry and spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out with him and christmas shopping in the east bay.

it ended up being a pretty good day.  i was happy ‘cuz i got eat out at lots of new places and crash a gym class (and since i had already been to my normal tuesday class a couple of days ago, i got to demo new skills — like the back handspring — for the kids in the thursday class)!   gung-gung was happy because he got to do some more christmas shopping.  koda was happy because he got to play with his sister.  and mama was happy because she didn’t have to be amish for the day.

thanks for fostering all of us, uncle henry!

everywhere i go, i blow kisses to the ladies. and i’m not discriminating, either. little babies, teenagers, silver foxes, they’re all fair game. and every time a kiss floats their way, the ladies stop whatever they’re doing to “awww”, giggle, blow a kiss back to me, and ignore the men that they’re with. i’m especially popular at restaurants where i can walk around and flirt with all the women who are just sitting around, waiting for me to make my move.

usually, the guys don’t mind. but at the fish market the other night, one man was particularly unhappy about me moving in on his woman.  but hey — it takes two to tango.

me: *blowing a kiss*

silver fox: “awww, hi there handsome!” *blowing a kiss to me*

man with silver fox: “watch it!  that’s my wife.”

was that a threat?  man, the fish market is a rowdy place.

about a year ago, i went to maddie’s 1st birthday party. we were both so little back then, huh? well, i just went to her 2nd birthday party. how cool is it that she gets to have parties every year! i wonder if mama and daddy will let me do that.

anyway, her party was at pump it up jr. if you’ve ever heard of pump it up, this place was just like that — but for toddlers like us. cool, right? well, not really. i’ve decided that i do not like it when the ground moves under my feet. it’s like an earthquake — and earthquakes are NOT fun. in fact, earthquakes are considered natural disasters. why would anyone want to recreate a disaster for fun??? i don’t get it, but apparently, lots of other kids enjoy it.

so while everyone else was running around in earthquake land, i got the heck outta there. instead, i cruised around the place in a cozy coupe and went down the slide with mama a couple of times. after all of the earthquaking was finally over, we went into the food room for pizza and cake. yeeeesssss! i finally got to eat pizza and cake. AND… it was an ice cream cake! i kept signing “more”, “more”, “more”, but mama only let me have a little bit. she said that the cake was “all done”, but it wasn’t! it wasn’t all done! i saw another 1/4 of the cake just sitting there waiting to be eaten by me!

at maddie’s 1st party, i got a fistful of cake frosting. at her 2nd party, i got pizza and ice cream cake. i just can’t wait to see what i’m gonna get at the next one. maddie has the best parties ever!

mama and daddy are trying to teach me good manners.

• they help me write thank you cards when people give me gifts
• they help me eat my meals at the dining table with the tv off
• they taught me to slip bills under under belly dancers’ bra straps when they provide dinner entertainment

not a bad start, right?

i know, i know…  i still put my feet up on my stroller and high chair whenever i can.  and i still put my hand down mama’s shirt sometimes.  i’ve heard that those things are not proper etiquette.  hey, i’m trying — but old habits die hard

things i like:

• head-butting (koda, people, walls, the floor, anything…)
• turning things on and off (tv, baby monitor, lights, laptops…)
• plugging and unplugging mama’s laptop
• pulling things down from countertops that mama and daddy don’t know i can reach
• opening doors (i can just baaarely reach the door handles in our house when i stand on my tippy toes!)
• brushing (my hair, mama’s hair, my teeth — i think i have all of them now!)
• “touch” books that have different textures to feel on all the pages
• playing in water (ponds, fountains, ocean, sink, water works exhibit at CDM, koda’s water bowl… it doesn’t matter)
• collecting rocks at the percolation ponds (where we take koda to swim)
• playing my drums and xylophone (i’m still working on my aim with the drumsticks and mallots)
• helium balloons (i know i used to like them when i was younger, but now i looove making them bounce and dance along the ceiling!)
• “helping” mama and daddy — taking clean clothes out of the dryer, closing drawers and cabinets (after i’ve opened them), putting trash in the garbage can (after i’ve dumped it out)
• eating at the dining table with the family (so much better than eating by myself in my high chair.  after all, eating is supposed to be a social experience, right?)
• pumpkin pie!  (but how come i only get to eat a little bite when everyone else eats big giant pieces?)
• cereal (real grown-up cereal — no more baby puffs!)

things i don’t like:

• sharing mama with other babies (her arms are for holding ME and her lap is for ME to sit in!  i never want to have a little sister!!!)
• napping in my crib (i hate missing out on all the excitement going on just outside my door)