when we moved into our new house, mommy and daddy started taking turns putting me to bed at night. i keep track of whose turn it is. my bedtime routine is a little different depending on who is putting me to bed. mommy lies in bed with me and we talk about our day and what we did. and then we talk about the next day and all the things that we are going to do. i always ask mommy to stay with me for a little while, so she does.  if she has work to do, she leaves after a few minutes, but sometimes she stays until i fall asleep.

when daddy puts me to bed, he lies down with me, too.  sometimes he lies in my bed, but sometimes i make him lie down on the floor.  daddy tells me the “story of a little boy”.  (the little boy’s name is kyden and he has a dog named koda.)  when the story is over, i ask daddy to leave.

last night, it was mommy’s turn to put me to bed.  we went through our regular nighttime routine, and then she laid next to me while waiting for me to fall asleep.  after about a minute, i turned to her and asked her to leave.  mommy was stunned and asked me if i was sure.  i was sure.  so mommy went to take a shower and when she was done, she came back to check on me.  she expected me to be asleep when she came back to my room, but i wasn’t.  so she laid down next to me again, and i asked her to leave… again.  mommy was a little hurt and a little sad, which is ironic because she and daddy spent so long “training” me to go to sleep by myself.  mommy explained that she wants to spend as much time with me as she can because she misses me so much now that i’m in school full-time (6-7 hours a day).  but she is very proud of what a big boy that i’m becoming.

sienna, on the other hand, is not so good at sleeping by herself.  regardless of who is putting her to bed, she needs her routine to be exactly the same.  she lays down in her bed, holds minnie with one arm and bunny with the other, and asks to be covered with two blankets.  even during the recent heat wave, she needs TWO blankets.  then she tells mommy/daddy to sit down in the chair in her room (since sienna is in a toddler bed, mommy and daddy can’t lie down next to her).  and she tells them what song to sing — either “wheels on the bus” or “baby song” (“hush little baby”).  oh, and sometime during the songs (each of which are repeated several times), she always gets up to go potty — even if she had gone just a few minutes before.  so she goes to the potty, and the routine starts all over again.  and if mommy/daddy tries to sneak out before she’s sound asleep, sienna gets out of bed, starts crying, and they’re back to square one.

even after sienna falls asleep, there’s no guarantee that she is going to stay asleep.  lately, she’s been waking up about 2 times in the middle of the night.  she either asks (read: demands) to sleep in mommy and daddy’s bed or she wants to go downstairs and eat breakfast (even if it’s 2:00am).  when mommy or daddy put her back in bed, she screams.  loud.  luckily, i am a heavy sleeper like daddy, and i almost always sleep through all of the commotion.

remember when mommy and daddy used to say that sienna was the easy one?  i bet they’ve changed their position on that.

today is the 4th of july. it’s a special day because (1) there is no school, and (2) there are fireworks. gung-gung started telling me about how it’s like a birthday party for america, the country we live in, but i don’t get it. he must be confused. we live in san ramon. and it’s not anybody’s birthday. like i said three years ago, the 4th of july is about the four F’s — food, friends, fun, and fireworks.

we started out our day by going to kai-kai’s house. mommy drove us there, and then guess what. she left. SHE LEFT! i didn’t want mommy to go, but she explained that she had to go meet daddy at our old house to go get all my toys that were still in the garage. (mommy and daddy just signed an offer on our old house, and it has a 15 day close!)

it was the first time ever that sienna and i stayed at a friend’s house by ourselves (without mommy or daddy).  this is a huge milestone in any kid’s life!  mommy was worried about how we’d do, but we did great. we had a fun time playing with all of kai-kai’s toys. we ate lunch outside in his pop-up play house, and we tried lychee for the first time. (it turns out that we love lychee.)  mommy asked both me and kai-kai to take care of sienna, so we did our best.  we both tried to feed her lunch, but she insisted on feeding herself.  we were just trying to be good big brothers.

after lunch, we kept cool by splashing in the kiddie pool. kai-kai’s mommy didn’t put sienna’s swim diaper on her because she didn’t think it was necessary. well, kai-kai and i disagree. if you had been in the pool with us when a big poo-poo floated out of sienna’s swim shorts, you would too. for the rest of the day, sienna kept talking about it. “sienna went poo-poo water”. yes, sienna, we know. you went poo-poo in the water. gross! it’s hard to tell if she feels bad about it or if she’s bragging.

mommy came back to pick us up in the afternoon, then we headed home to take naps. after nap time, kai-kai (and his mommy, auntie victoria) came over to our house to continue the fun. we played outside, then we played inside, and then we ate the dinner that daddy grilled for us, and then we played some more. there are certain friends who bring out the CUH-RAY-ZEE in me, and kai-kai is one of them.

once it got dark, it was time for fireworks. last year, we just went outside our house and looked up in the sky to see fireworks. that was pretty cool, but it didn’t compare to the firework show at disneyland. this year, we decided to make our own fireworks. earlier in the day, we had picked up some sparklers. they were buy one, get one free, so we bought a pack of 30 and ended up with 60. mommy thought that was way too many, and she tried to give some away. but no takers. maybe it had something to do with the fact that fireworks (even sparklers) are outlawed in san ramon and most other cities in the bay area.

anyway, kai-kai, sienna, and i went through almost all of the sparklers. (don’t call the cops on us, please.) daddy cut us off at 54. i thought that was strange. why save just 6? no idea. if you figure that out, let me know.

we hope you enjoyed your four F’s today. we sure did!

remember M?  first we went on a blind date, then a second date, and today was our 3rd date.  there is a dating rule of thumb that says that the 3rd date is a milestone — after that, the relationship either gets more serious or it sort of fizzles.  well, when your little sister tags along on the 3rd date, i’m pretty sure you’re destined to move into the friend zone.

M’s full name is murci.  she is named after a sexy sports car (the lamborghini murciélago) and my sister is named after a minivan.  based on that fact alone, i wasn’t sure that we were going to get along.  but we did.  we get along great.

so murci and i planned for our 3rd date to be central park again.  and since the weather has been so hot, we agreed to bring our swim gear and play in the water area.  as mommy was leaving to pick me up from school to go meet her, sienna woke up from her nap and begged to go.  *sigh*

so the three of us met up at the park.  in the water area, murci didn’t play much with me and sienna.  but she and i eventually ditched sienna and headed over to the play structure.  we had fun climbing, sliding, and chasing each other around.  sienna stayed and played in the water.  after a little while, i invited sienna to come and join us.  she did, but she couldn’t keep up.

i’ve met up with murci 3 times now, and we play together really well.  so far, i’ve been seeing her every ~6 weeks, but starting next week, we are going to see each other every week.  we signed up for the same soccer class.  yup, we are in the friend zone.

after swim class, we picked up lunch, went to grandma’s house to eat it, then headed downtown (san jose) to see elmo.  i thought it was silly that we were going to san jose to see elmo, because he lives on sesame street.  but mommy explained to me that he comes to visit san jose once a year.  i get it.

we always go see sesame street shows with matthew, and this was our third time.  (sienna’s second).  this year, we got there a little early and saw ernie, bert, and cookie monster putting on a pre-show performance in the hallway!  guess who paused to high-five sienna during the song? 🙂

when i went to give cookie monster a high-five, daddy said “cookie monster is my favorite!” i said that elmo is my favorite. i hope i didn’t hurt cookie’s feelings.

we made it to our seats, and edison joined us there. just like last time, we got seats up front near the stage, and right on the aisle. that way, we would definitely get to meet elmo and his friends when they came down off the stage to dance with the kids in the audience.

this year, the show was called “can’t stop singing”.  elmo got a hold of abby’s magic wand and cast a spell on all his friends.  everyone was singing all the time and they couldn’t talk!  abby spent the whole show looking for her wand.  i kept telling her that elmo had it, but she wasn’t listening to me. we kept waiting for the sesame street friends to come down off the stage and dance with us. we waited and waited, but they never came.  we got gypped.

we all agreed that we didn’t enjoy this show as much as last year. within the first 20 minutes, i asked mommy “why is it not over yet?” sienna was so unimpressed that she slept through the whole thing. maybe we were just tired (no naps) and hot (it was like a sauna inside the theater — mommy was worried that elmo and friends would pass out under the hot stage lights). i’m glad we went, but i’m not sure if we’ll be going again next year.

i am back at my old swim school for the summer. mommy and daddy have been taking turns swimming with sienna while the other one watches my class. since sienna’s class starts first, we watch her swim for 15 minutes, then we walk over to the other end of the pool where my class is.

well, the swim school had placed me in the jellyfish class, skipping past the guppies and seahorses. but last week, mommy found out that even though i am in the jellyfish class, i was still at guppy level. what happened? it turns out that one of the skills required to pass the guppy level is to walk out onto the pool deck with the teacher and to be comfortable in class without parent(s) present. oops. we had no idea. mommy/daddy have only been sitting on the pool deck to get an unobstructed view for taking photos for my blog. YOU (my readers) have been holding me back!!! but not to worry — my teacher said that i could demonstrate the skill by walking out to class with her 3 times (over the next 3 weeks).

so today, after watching sienna swim for a few minutes, daddy and i went to the viewing gallery. it has wall-to-wall glass so that mommies and daddies can watch their kids swim. when it was time for my class, my teacher came and called my name, and i walk out to the pool with my swim friends. daddy watched me from behind the glass.

i had a great lesson (as always), and when i climbed out of the pool after class, i got TWO ribbons — guppy and seahorse! i was surprised that they advanced me today because everyone had said that it would take 3 times (walking out to the pool deck on my own), but i’m not complaining. i am now legit in the jellyfish class!

i’ve been going to my new school for almost 2 months, and i’ve cried at drop off almost every morning — until now.  during this past week, i didn’t cry at all.  not one time.

you’d think this would be good news, right?  well, yes and no.  remember how mommy was thinking about putting me in a different school that doesn’t have pizza parties every other day?  well, she pulled the trigger.  she enrolled sienna in a different school (she will start when she turns 2) and gave our official 30-day notice to my pizza party school.  i’m supposed to start at “sienna’s school” in a few weeks.  we drive past it every day, and mommy always asks me if i’m excited to go there and be an owl (that’s the classroom that i would be in).  i have always said yes — until this week.  i’ve recently start saying that i don’t want to be an owl.  i want to stay at my current school.  mommy is torn.  she would prefer to have me and sienna at the same school (and also likes sienna’s’ school for other reasons), but doesn’t want to put me through another traumatic transition.  we are both supposed to start in a few weeks after sienna turns 2, but we’ll see what happens.

but anyway, back to my good news story.  i have been wanting to go to a drive-thru car wash for a long time, and there happens to be one that we always see on the way to the freeway.  mommy and i made a deal.  after one full week of tear-free drop offs, we would celebrate with a trip through the car wash.  so today, we did it.  we went to the car wash!  it was so cool seeing the rainbow colored bubbles and red brushes and the high-powered drying fan (just like the dyson hand dryers in some bathrooms!).

sienna was lucky — she didn’t even have to do anything, and she got to go to the car wash with us, too.  after we exited, sienna kept asking to go through the car wash again.  we both thought it was so cool and hope that we can go again soon. 🙂

i think mommy was the one that benefited the most from this deal, though.  she enjoyed an entire week of easy drop offs and now, a clean car!

sienna has no friends.  she just tags along with me and my friends wherever we go.  so basically, she hangs out with older boys all the time.  that’s a trend that we all wanted to put and end to — the sooner the better.  so it was very exciting when caylie invited sienna to an all-girl playdate.  (remember caylie?  she’s logan and mason’s cousin who sienna met at their memorial day BBQ.)

this morning, after mommy and sienna dropped me off at school, sienna met up with caylie and two of her friends at a park in san ramon.  sienna was the oldest of the 4 girls.  everyone brought fruit and snacks to share, so the girls spent the first 30 minutes just stuffing their faces.

after that, sienna and caylie went and played in the playground while the other girls mostly just hung out in the shade to avoid the heat.  it was such a hot day — even sienna was complaining that some of the equipment was too hot to play on.  but that didn’t step her from exploring the awesome new playground.  she especially liked the conveyor belt thingy.  when you hang on it, your feet slide out from under you.  it looks so fun!

sienna only stayed for a little over an hour.  she had to get home to eat lunch and mommy had to get back to work.  sienna hopes to get invited to the next girl’s day out, and if she’s lucky, mommy will be able to juggle her work schedule to bring her again.

things she likes:

• swimming
• swimming
• swimming
• talking.  she talks a lot.  a LOT.  and she speaks in complete sentences.  sometimes she mixes up her pronouns, and she doesn’t pronounce some of her double consonants correctly.  so being the good big brother that i am, i correct her grammar.  my grammar is better than sienna’s, and i have a larger vocabulary, but i think her articulation might be better than mine!
• her flip flops.  she just got her first pair a couple of weeks ago and she loves them.  she calls them “fop fop”s.
• doing everything herself.  she protests, “self!” anytime someone tries to help her.  climbing in and out of her car seat, washing her face, getting undressed… she wants to do it all herself.  (she can’t actually undress herself, but she likes to try.)
• annoying me.  sometimes, she does things just to annoy me, like push me, poke me in the chest, or hit me on the head.  i am not supposed to push/poke/hit her back because she is little, and i’m pretty sure she knows that (and that’s why she does it).
• school.  sienna has visited a couple of preschools, and she had a blast. she didn’t want to leave.  she has also come with mommy to pick me up from my school a few times.  she loved it.  when i leave for school in the morning, she always says that she wants to go too.  we tell her that she can go to school when she turns 2.  she can’t wait.  (i wonder if she will still like it when she realizes that she will be going for the whole day.)
• swimming.  have i mentioned that she likes to swim?  sienna loves swimming.  if you ask her if she’s ready to go swimming, she responds “super ready!”.  she smiles and laughs throughout her entire swim lesson.  even her teacher asked if she is always so happy.

things she doesn’t like:

• her car seats.  at first, we thought it was just the car seat in the daddy’s car that she doesn’t like.  she still rides rear-facing in the infant carrier when in daddy’s car, and that thing can’t be very comfortable.  but she doesn’t sit in there often, so we thought it would be okay.  apparently, it’s not.  she protests, and protests loudly.  in the past couple of days, sienna started complaining about her car seat in mommy’s car too.  in there, she has a comfy forward-facing convertible car seat just like mine.  but she doesn’t seem to like that one either.  “mommeee!  i don’t like this chair!  don’t like this chair!”  it makes for some really long (and noisy) car rides.
• hearing other people sing when she’s not in the mood.  i’m not sure, but i think she thinks that people are trying to put her to bed, and that’s why she doesn’t like it.

whenever daddy is alone with me and sienna, he writes status messages about how difficult we are and/or posts photos and videos of us crying.  (remember this one?)  this happens whether mommy is gone for an hour or for days.  this week, she’s in texas for 3 days.

here’s a photo that daddy posted yesterday.  he wrote about how i was bratty and pissy all morning, and that my mood hadn’t changed when he picked me up from school in the evening.

a few months ago, mommy asked daddy if when she travels, if it makes him appreciate her more or just resent her for leaving.  he said “both”.  i think yesterday, it was more resentment than appreciation. 😛

but that’s not the point of this entry.  the point is that when these photos/videos get posted, mommy’s and daddy’s friends always wonder if:

(a) when mommy leaves, sienna and i transform from our usual angelic selves into demon spawn

(b) daddy is incapable of handling two kids on his own

(c) daddy exaggerates how tough of a time he’s having in an effort to guilt-trip mommy (so she’ll never leave us again) and/or get sympathy from his friends

when friends ask mommy what the real deal is, she responds “i’ll never know”.  sienna and i know, but we won’t tell.  what do you think?

we’re back at our old swim school (AVAC) for the summer session.  everyone thinks we are crazy for taking swim lessons 45 miles from home, but it’s really close to grandma’s house, so it gives us a good excuse to drop by and visit every weekend.

sienna’s class starts 15 minutes before mine, so i got to watch her for a little while.  sienna is still a baby, so mommy swam with her.  i sat with daddy on the pool deck and cheered “good job, sienna!”  i wanted to encourage her during her first time back in the pool this year.  she didn’t need any encouragement, though.  she was so comfortable in the water, like she had been swimming her whole life.  she did a great job doing big arms and big kicks, she is comfortable back floating (with her neck supported), and she can “swim” under water.  each time sienna finished an underwater “swim”, she came up for air and immediately said “try again!”  sienna obviously loves swimming — even her teacher commented on what a great time she was having.  i think she might catch up to my swimming skills very soon!

last summer, mommy swam with me during my swim lessons.  but i’m a big boy now, so now i swim by myself.  the baby class that sienna is in (where mommies and daddies swim with you) is the pollywogs.  the first independent swim class is the guppies.  then the seahorses.  then the jellyfish.  i started in the jellyfish class.  i wasn’t sure if i would be ready for it, but it was just fine.  we reviewed some skills that i already knew, and we practiced some new skills like swimming with a kickboard and holding our breath as long as long as we could.

i am so happy to be back in the warm water.  sienna and i both love swimming and we are already looking forward to next sunday!