i love to read.

i’ve been reading for a long time, but nobody believed it.  mommy and daddy just thought that i had memorized all the books in our house and that i was reciting rather than reading.  but then christmas rolled around and i got a bunch of new books that i had never read (or heard) before.  and guess what.  i was able to read them all by myself.

mommy and daddy were so shocked.  i still need help with new words sometimes, but i can often figure them out through context.

after mommy recorded this video, i wanted a do-over. i was embarrassed that i didn’t know some of the words and i knew i could do better. but mommy said the whole point was to let me read a new book that i had never seen before.

i’ve been to super franks a couple of times for friends’ birthday parties, but today, we had a BDO there.  make that boys (plus sienna) day out.  in the morning, sienna and i met edison at super franks at 10am right when it opened.  the safari adventure room was open, and of course, the arcade, but the fun stuff (bounce house, foam pit, zip line) were in rooms that were closed until the afternoon.  apparently, they were having birthday parties in those rooms.

so after an hour of climbing up and sliding down an inflatable slide, we headed back to our house for a lunch break.  matthew, jeffrey, and logan joined us there.  we hung out at home for a couple of hours and we were having so much fun playing that i wasn’t 100% sure that we were going to go back to super franks.  but we eventually made it.

we headed straight upstairs to the fish tank where we jumped in the bounce house, flopped into the foam pit, climbed up and slid down the plastic play structure, and raced around on ride-on jet skis.  after that, we went to the mini gym to ride plasma cars, shoot hoops, and play a game of dodge ball.  by that time, all my friends were tired and headed home.  but sienna and i rallied because at 3:30pm, they opened the zip line!

sienna was too little to ride the zipline by herself, but she still had fun.  the last time i rode a zip line was at edison’s 1st birthday party, and i hated it.  i cried through the whole thing.  today, i meant to ask the guy to push me slowly, but i forgot to.  so i went FAST.  and i loved it!  sienna and i both couldn’t get enough of the zip line, but they closed it at 4pm. here are videos of me and sienna zip lining.

after they closed down the zip line, we were ready to go home.  on our way out, we passed by a dance party going on in the main lobby.  it was a kiddie rave complete with music, lights, bubbles, and even a dancing stuffed animal (but unlike miley cyrus, this was a non-twerking G-rated stuffed animal).  i didn’t want to get up on the stage at first, but when i saw sienna up there getting her groove on, i eagerly joined her.

after the kiddie rave, they announced that there would be a flashlight safari coming up.  i wanted to stay for that, but mommy and daddy insisted that sienna had to get home to take a nap.  awwwww.  i hope we can go back again and stay for ALL the activities.  super franks is super fun — it’s an all day party over there!

in the past, i’ve talked about a lot of different girls and the dates that we’ve gone on.  there was maddie, murci, and plenty of others, too.  but this time, i’ve found a real girlfriend.  her name is maria.  (huh.  i guess i have a thing for girls whose names start with M.)

maria is in my eagles (pre-K) class at school.  she is 4 years old (but everyone thinks she’s older because she’s the tallest kid in class) and she has golden hair that is so beautiful.  we hold hands, we dance together (she even spins me), and every day when mommy picks me up, we always hug each other goodbye.  like me, maria doesn’t nap.  so during nap time, we lay down next to each other and just look at each other.

and if you still aren’t convinced that this one is for real, look at the love letter than she gave me today.  it’s a picture of me and her together with our future dog.  i guess that’s not really a letter, but it counts, right?

whenever mommy gives me a haircut, gung-gung asks for one too.  mommy also used to cut daddy’s hair, but lately, daddy gets his hair cut for $8 by some vietnamese lady near his work.  i’m not sure if it’s just more efficient that way or if he didn’t like the way mommy cut his hair. 😛

anyway, my hair has been touching my ears, so it was time for a trim.  but today, mommy wanted to cut gung-gung’s hair first.  and i wanted to help.  gung-gung is so easy-going that he let me do it!  that’s love.

did you know that po-po was a professional hairdresser?  she worked in a salon before mommy was born.  and then after mommy came along, po-po quit her job, but she still did a lot of her clients’ hair out of her garage.  i guess mommy learned a few things by watching po-po work.  i guess i’m following in her footsteps.

kyden’s kuts is open for business.  walk-ins welcome.

sienna turned 2 1/2 today.  she was so excited that she walked around telling everyone “today is my 1/2 birthday!” we’ve never celebrated our 1/2 birthdays before, but sienna was so excited about hers that we couldn’t resisted sticking a candle in a (gluten-free) lemon bar and singing “happy 1/2 birthday to you…”!

here’s what she’s been up to.

daily schedule:

her schedule hasn’t changed much from a few months ago, but when she wakes up in the morning, she always looks for mommy.  if mommy is already downstairs working, sienna goes downstairs and hangs out with her until daddy wakes up.  if mommy is still in bed, sienna crawls into bed with her and lays down on her arm.  then she pulls mommy’s arm around her because she wants to be held in a certain way.  she always wants mommy to face her too, so if mommy’s head starts turning away from her, sienna grabs her face and whips it back toward her.

the only other change is in sienna’s blankets at bedtime.  she used to want 2 1/2.  now she wants none.  strange girl.

things she’s good at:

• getting dressed by herself.  she gets SO MAD when someone tries to help her.
• counting to 20.
• swimming.  mommy says that sienna is a better swimmer than i am, and that’s saying a lot.  sienna can swim the length of the (small) pool, on her back, by herself.

things she’s working on:

• good manners.  she is demanding and sometimes needs to be reminded to say “please” and “thank you”.  but now that i think about it, she is very good as saying “excuse me” when interrupting a conversation.
• sharing mommy.  she cries real tears when mommy holds another baby, or even when mommy puts her arm around daddy or other friends.
• using the potty.  sienna stays dry all day at school, but she’s not potty trained yet.  she still wears a pull-up because mommy and daddy learned their lesson in potty training me too early.  sienna is pretty good about telling someone when she needs to go, and she can take off her pants, do her business, wipe, and flush by myself.  (she’s not as good at wiping herself when she poos though.)  maybe it’s mommy and daddy who need to work on making the leap and ditching the pull-ups.

things she does that make mommy and dada angry:

• hitting me for no reason.
• running away whenever she needs to stay still.  like, when mommy or daddy is fixing her hair or trying to put lotion on her.
• talking back.  sienna is SASSY.

things she does that make mommy and dada forget about all the things that made them angry:

• feeding m&m’s to daddy and almonds (or whatever snack she’s eating) to mommy.
• telling them (mostly mommy) “i love you”, unprompted.
• when someone gets hurt, she stops whatever she is doing to check if that person is okay.  she asks “are you okay?” with genuine concern (and has the sweetest little voice).

favorite things to say:

• “can you check on me?”  if daddy puts sienna to bed, sienna asks mommy to check on her before she goes to sleep.  (mommy checks on us every night before she goes to bed.)  if mommy puts sienna to bed, she asks daddy to check on her before she does to sleep.  i don’t think daddy ever does.  =P
• “NO!  DON’T HELP ME!”, “I WANNA DO IT MYSELF!”, “MOVE YOUR HAND!”, and various other proclamations of independence.
• “i took a nap today” (when mommy asks if i took a nap that day at school), “i’m not whining (when i’m whining), “i’m being a good listener” (when i’m not being a good listener).  she’s always trying to act like the goody-goody, but we know the truth.
• “it’s nice to kiss.”  usually, she says this when she does something bad and we tell her “that’s not nice”.  she responds with “it’s nice to kiss” and she then she kisses her victim.  and that works.  IT WORKS!  how are the grown ups around here so gullible???  *rolling eyes*
• “i have a booger.”  no context needed.

favorite indoor activities:

• helping out in the kitchen — soda streaming daddy’s water, hand-mixing whatever mommy is baking, scooping rice into the rice cooker…
• pretend play.  she plays dress up at school and takes care of her baby doll at home.
• story time.  she can’t read yet, but she loves to have books read to her.

favorite outdoor activities:

• driving my old lightning mcqueen e-car.
• sliding.  she can slide all day.  i think that’s all she does during outside time at school.  climb up, slide down, repeat.
• whatever i’m doing.  if i’m shooting hoops, she wants to shoot.  if i’m playing golf, she wants to golf.  if i’m running around, she wants to run.

favorite book: “super sweet dreams”.  it’s a kai-lan bedtime story.

favorite song: tiny tim the turtle.  i had never heard of this song before.  in case you haven’t either, you can click here for the video.  she also really likes the duck song.  this is one of my favorites, too!

favorite iphone apps: she doesn’t really play games, but she does love watching youtube videos of herself (and me).

favorite foods that i’m only allowed one bite of: jello, lemon bars

favorite characters: doc mcstuffins, kai-lan

today, we hosted a football party disguised as a playdate.  weeks ago — before we knew that the  49ers would be playing in the NFC championship game — we had invited logan, mason, caylie, and nathan (caylie’s new baby brother) to come over and play.  so they came over.

<– that’s baby nathan with his grandma.  (actually, she’s logan and mason and caylie’s grandma, too!)

we played outside, we played in the front room, we ate, we played in the living room, we played in loft, and we ate some more.  after koda calmed down, he even got in on the fun.  the grown ups watched football, watched football, and watched more football.  they great thing about a big game day is that there’s more focus on football than anything else.  we probably could have gotten away with a lot of stuff and nobody would have noticed.  the grown ups were so busy watching TV that i’m not even sure if any of them ate anything.

but anyway, sienna and i had a fun time hanging out with our friends, and mommy and daddy had a fun time watching football with theirs.  winners all around.  well, except for the 49ers.

a guy with one pretty girl is lucky.  a guy with 2 girls has got game.  a guy with 3 girls?  gay.  at least, that’s how the saying goes.  so what do you call a boy with a dozen girls?  me!  or maybe hugh heffner.  but in this case, me.

kai-kai and i were the only 2 boys invited to maddie’s all-girl pool party.  we felt so special.  yes, it was in middle of one of the coldest winters since the ice age (something about a polar vortex causing record low temperatures across the US and canada), but hey, this is california.  we may have hit record lows in the bay area (in the 30’s), but it was nothing compared to negative temps in other parts of the country (chicago recently hit -82 degrees with wind chill!).  mommy says that the high cost of living here is a “weather tax”.

maddie’s party was at AVAC (our old swim school in san jose), so we felt right at home.  sienna could barely keep her head above water even while standing on her tip toes like a ballerina, so daddy swam with us.  but really, there wasn’t much swimming going on.  we mostly just splashed around, tossed around a beach ball, and squirted each other with water toys.  it was way more fun than swim lessons!

after an hour of splashing, we had pizza and fruit in the party room.  and even though the whole party was a girly “under the sea” (little mermaid) theme, i got a special boy-themed good bag. 😀  thank you, maddie.  and happy birthday!

tonight, after dinner.

mommy:  we have just enough bananas to make scones or banana bread.  what should we make for breakfast tomorrow?

sienna:  banana bread.

me: scones.

sienna:  banana bread.

me: scones.

sienna:  banana bread!

me: scones!

sienna:  banana bread!

me: scones!

sienna:  banana bread!!!

me: scones!!!

mommy:  okay, you two need to work this out and come to an agreement.  let me know when you decide which one you want to make.

then after a few seconds of thought…

me (to mommy):  i have a good idea.  daddy will buy more bananas so we can make banana bread AND scones!

me (to sienna):  sienna, that is called compromise.

mommy (chuckling):  actually, that’s not a compromise.  but it’s really good problem solving!

kai-kai and i took our mommies to tahoe this past weekend.  it was just us boys and our mommies — no daddies and no sisters.

since sienna is so attached to mommy, we took special care to prepare her for her weekend alone with daddy.  we told her that she couldn’t come with us because she is too little to go skiing (or “skeeting”, as she says).  she took it well.  apparently, she had already make plans with daddy.  watch.

MY FRIDAY

i skipped school on friday so we could hit the road and get an early start.  kai-kai and auntie victoria came to our house, and kai’s auntie kassandra (visiting from indonesia) decided to join us at the last minute, too!  kai-kai sat in sienna’s car seat, and we all rode up togeher in mommy’s car.  the roads were clear and the drive to kings beach was pretty easy since there hasn’t been any snow in tahoe.  i guess that’s the one upside to this drought we’re having.  we stayed in on friday night and just cooked dinner and played in our hotel room (which was right on the lake).

SIENNA’S FRIDAY

sienna’s went to school as usual, and daddy came home early so he could pick her up.  it turns out that sienna didn’t eat any of the lunch that mommy packed for her (she usually finishes the whole thing).  daddy thinks that sienna was on a hunger strike protesting against being abandoned by mommy and me for the entire weekend.

MY SATURDAY

on saturday morning, it was raining and windy in king’s beach.  mommy figured that the rain would cause the slopes to be really icy, and she was ready to scrap our skiing plans.  but we were already all the way up in tahoe, so we sucked it up, bundled up, and headed to diamond peak.

mommy was planning to take me to the bunny slopes and teach me how to ski, but kai-kai had planned to take a lesson.  (it turns out that auntie victoria had never skied before!)  so i decided to take a semi-private lesson with him, which worked out great.  the timing was perfect, our rental gear was included, and we got our own private little bunny hill with a magic carpet to take us back up to the top after each run. we learned to make “pizzas” with our skis.  a big pizza wedge makes you go slow, and a skinny pizza makes you go fast!

it was snowy, windy, and cold, and mommy was sure that i would only last a few minutes before wanting to head back inside.  but i didn’t complain one time (even though icicles were forming on my helmet).  mommy was so surprised.  and actually, mommy was the only one complaining about the weather.  kai-kai and i did great in our ski lesson.  our instructor complimented me on my good form riding up the magic carpet and skiing down the hill.

here’s a video from my ski lesson:

after our ski lesson, i surprised mommy again by wanting to ski with her some more.  so we rode up a LONG chair lift (which i really loved, by the way) to the top of a pretty long hill.  i didn’t have poles, so i took one of mommy’s.  mommy helped me down the really steep parts, but i was doing pretty good on my own on the flatter parts.  and then suddenly, “i gotta go potty!  i gotta go potty!”  mommy gave me 2 choices:

1) make yellow snow (which would have involved stripping off all of my layers in the middle of a snowstorm)

2) ski down the hill really fast to find a restroom in the ski lodge.

obviously, i went went option #2.  it was mommy’s first time on skis in ~25 years, and she wasn’t sure if she’d remember how to ski.  well, i guess she did okay because we made a beeline straight down the hill and made it to the potty just in time.  whew!

here’s a video of me skiing with mommy.  (mommy was skiing backwards while she was taking this video, but she was going too slow, so i passed her.)

after my potty break, it was almost time to return the ski gear we had rented.  plus, my head was hurting.  i think my helmet was too tight.  so mommy and i just waited for everyone else to make their way slowly down the hill.  we only skied for a few hours, but we were beat.

SIENNA’S SATURDAY

every morning when sienna wakes up, she goes to mommy and daddy’s room and climbs into their bed right next to mommy.  she lies on mommy’s arm and pulls it around her because she likes to be held in a very particular way.  but if sienna doesn’t find mommy in her room, she wanders downstairs to look for her.  when sienna woke up on saturday morning, i’m guessing that she looked for mommy in her room, and probably looked downstairs, too.  but since mommy was nowhere to be found, sienna went and smacked a sleeping daddy on the face and demanded “where’s mommy?”  daddy reminded sienna that mommy was skiing in tahoe.  sienna was on the very of tears, but made herself feel better by singing “grown ups come back”, a little tune we learned from daniel tiger.  and then she looked at pictures of mommy on daddy’s iphone, and that cheered her up.

sienna and daddy spent the day playing at grandma’s house.  we always have so much fun there.  grandma noticed that sienna is much more independent and strong-willed when i’m not around.  i think grandma was implying that i stifle sienna’s independence, but really, i keep sienna in check.  she’s so willful and demanding as it is — can you imagine the little dictator that she would become if she didn’t have me around?

MY SUNDAY

sunday was sunny and warm and there was fresh snow on the ground.  what a perfect day for skiing.  too bad we were headed home.  but we did stop at north tahoe regional park for some sledding on our way out.  and guess what.  i love sledding.  LOVE it.

when we first arrived, kai-kai wasn’t in a sledding mood, so rode with auntie and mommy.  and then i joined kai-kai in playing in the snow.  we dug an “oven” (a hole) and collected “marshmallows” (chunks of ice) to “cook in the oven”.  we probably spent a good hour doing that.  we also collected pine cones and climbed a snow bank and then finally got back to sledding.

kai-kai and i took turns being in the front of the sled, and we tried different runs.  sometimes we would stop right at the bottom of the hill (“not cool”) and sometimes we would slide all the way out to the rock barrier at the side of the road (“SO COOL!”).  one time, we almost hit a tree and mommy yelled at us to “BAIL OUT!”, but we didn’t know what that meant.  we missed that tree by just a few inches!

i wanted to stay and sled all day, but it was well into the afternoon and we were all getting hungry.  we found a pasta place for lunch, then headed home.

SIENNA’S SUNDAY

when sienna woke up on sunday, i guess she remembered that mommy was gone.  she climbed into bed with daddy and sang “grown ups come back”.  and then she laid on daddy’s arm and pulled his arm around her.  she had never done that with him before.

the 49ers played in (and won!) the divisional playoffs on sunday, so sienna and daddy had a lazy sunday watching a lot of football.  actually, i think daddy watched a lot of football and sienna fed him a lot of m&m’s.  win-win.  well, win-win-win if you include the niners. 🙂

we all had a really fun weekend.  here are some photos of our boys & mommies tahoe weekend.  and thanks for taking the videos, auntie victoria!  i missed koda and gung-gung last weekend, but i didn’t miss daddy or sienna because i facetimed with them every night.  i like being silly and making sienna laugh.

sienna keeps asking if she can go “skeeting” when she gets bigger.  i told mommy that i am going to teach sienna how to ski by letting her watch me and telling her to do what i do.  we hope to go skiing again in the spring when the weather is warmer.  too bad sienna is still too small.  but being the adreneline junkie that she is, i bet she will LOVE sledding!

when we moved to san ramon, we all got new doctors.  even koda.  and guess what.  koda’s new doctor is auntie laura (auntie mimi’s sister)!

today, we took koda to see his new doctor.  even though it looks like koda is pooping out a sienna, that wasn’t the purpose of the visit.  he just needed a check up to make sure he’s healthy and he needed shots so he won’t get sick (just like me sienna!).  he got 2 shots (rabies and DA2PP) and he got some medicine to eat (dewormer), too.  i guess he didn’t like the dewormer very much because he spit some of it out, but he did such a good job staying still for his shots, and he didn’t even cry.

auntie laura — i mean, dr. chan — even gave koda a pedicure.  his nails are so nicely trimmed now.  i wonder if my new doctor will do mani/pedis.