taco bar.  water playground.  carnival games.  mickey mouse cupcakes.  a toodles cake.  where did we find all of those things?  no, not at disneyland…  at matthew’s mickey mouse clubhouse birthday party!  and yes, there were real carnival games.  with prizes!

i was surprisingly good at the boat race where we had to squirt a rubber donald duckie down to the end of the water trough.  i have scary good aim.

when i was handed 4 bean bags to knock down a pyramid of cans, i threw all of the bean bags at once.  and guess what — all the cans fell over!  what.  nobody said that i had to throw them one at a time.  it still counts, right?

there was also a ring toss and some other games, but my favorite was fishing.  sienna liked fishing, too!

everyone won mickey mouse clubhouse (my favorite) books as prizes.  hooray!

with all of those exciting games and all the playtime in the water features, what do you think my favorite part of the day was?  well, when gung-gung asked me what i did today, i told him “eat cupcake!”  i actually only got to eat a little tiny piece of dada’s.  i tried to talk him into letting me have the entire thing, but no luck.  i need to work on my negotiating skills.

if you ask dada what his favorite part of the day was, i think he would say it was the tacos.  he ate 10 of them.  and each taco came with 2 tortillas.  so that’s like 20 tacos.  TWENTY!  who eats 20 tacos?!

thanks for inviting us to your super fun party, matthew.  we had a blast.  happy birthday!

after malia’s party, we had to go shopping to buy food because auntie judy was coming over for dinner. since we were already near the japanese market, we decided to go there to buy fish and have a sushi night.

the whole time were in the market, dada was talking funny. (he was speaking to me in japanese.) i kept telling him “dada, don’t talk like that”, because i didn’t like it. but the more i protested, the more he spoke to me in japanese. he kept it up during the entire car ride home, too. “dada, don’t talk like that. grandma talk like that.” mama thought it was sooo funny because dada never talks to me in japanese. good thing auntie judy came over, because i think that’s the only reason why dada stopped talking funny.

our sushi dinner was yummy. i like sushi. (don’t worry, i don’t eat the raw stuff.) a ladybug from the park must like sushi too, because she followed us home from the party. i think she must have stowed away in mama’s bag. i had never seen a white ladybug before — cool, huh? we let it free in our backyard. i hope it’s not a rose-eating ladybug or something bad like that.

after dinner, mama went upstairs to put sienna to bed, and i put auntie judy and gung-gung to bed downstairs. i laid pillows on the ground, told everyone to put their heads on the pillows, then i covered them with blankets. then i announced that it was read book time, and i read “if you give a mouse a cookie” to them. (really, i just narrated the illustrations.) after that, it was goodnight time, so i turned off the lights.

when mama came downstairs, all the lights were off and it was dark. she asked what was going on down here. i turned on the lights and said “it’s wake up time!” then i put away all the blankets and pillows, waited for a few seconds, then started the bedtime routine all over again FOR THE 6TH TIME.

dada said it was like groundhog day. auntie judy was laughing so hard that her stomach hurt.  okay, it’s goodnight time… again!

today was malia’s birthday party.  it was a butterfly-themed party in the park.  there was a butterfly cake, butterfly cake pops, butterfly-shaped jello, and even butterfly-shaped pb&j sandwiches.  and you thought mama went crazy with the theme at sienna’s party 😛

malia is sienna’s friend, but i crashed the party.  i’m guessing that i was allowed to go because malia’s sister (maddie) is my friend.  i wonder when maddie and malia are going to start having girly princess-themed parties that i won’t be invited to.

a bunch of my friends were at the party today, and i had a nice afternoon hanging out with them.  it was too hot to play in the playground, but we ran around the park, played in the bubbles (we brought our bubble machine), and ate lots of yummy food.

sienna had a little too much fun with my friends, i think.  actually, it’s just one particular friend that she spent all her time with.  you know how i joke about my friend kai getting a little too friendly with sienna?  the first time was at maddie’s 3rd birthday party.  and then there was the time when he tried to get her upstairs into my bedroom.  and then of course, there was our weekend in tahoe (apparently, they stole a few private moments together when i wasn’t looking).

well, i don’t think it’s just a joke anymore.  they really like each other.  whenever sienna sees kai, she always reaches out for him.  and he always wants to put his arms around her and touch his forehead to hers.  even when he’s off playing, he comes back often just to touch her gently, as if he’s reminding her that he hasn’t forgotten about her.  it’s actually pretty amazing to see the way the interact.  i would think it was really sweet if i wasn’t such an overprotective big brother.

sienna has seen doctors about her peeling palms and soles, but none of them have been any help. so she went to see a new doctor at lucile packard children’s hospital today. the new dermatologist immediately recognized sienna’s condition as palmoplantar keratoderma. don’t google it — the photos will freak you out. basically, it’s a genetic condition that causes the thickening of the skin on the palms of her hands and soles of her feet.

the bad news: there is no cure. she will have this condition for the rest of her life.

the good news: sienna is otherwise healthy. some types of palmoplantar keratoderma affect internal organs, are associated with deafness, loss of teeth, and other serious (and scary) things. sienna doesn’t have any of those issues right now. *fingers crossed*

sienna’s new doctor is young and good-looking, and he had a female resident working with him who is super hawt. while we were wrapping up, a second resident came in to check out sienna’s condition — i guess it’s not very common. she wasn’t as pretty as the first resident, but not bad. it sure seems that a lot of good-looking doctors specialize in dermatology.

the best news: sienna is going to continue to be monitored by this new dermatologist.

so single aunties, if you’re interested in meeting a good-looking doc, i’m sure sienna will be happy to be your wingwoman 😉

every few years, the union contracts at mama’s work come up for renewal.  while the negotiations are taking place, there’s always the possibility that those hundreds of thousands of union employees will go on strike.  so as a contingency plan, managers across the company (like mama) are trained to do union jobs like 411 operators, dsl installers, and customer service reps.

in 2004, mama was a customer service rep in a call center in southern CA.  in 2009, mama would have been an installation and repair tech, but there was no strike.  (fun fact:  mama was pregnant with me while she was in pole climbing school!)  this time around, mama trained to be a complex order writer.  the contract expired in april, and the union employees have been working under the terms of the old contract, so it was looking like mama wasn’t going to have to write any orders after all.  but then all of a sudden, a strike was called.

for the past 2 days days, mama has been working 12 hours shifts in san ramon, 45 mins away from home.  that probably doesn’t seem like a big deal to most kids.  most kids spend ~10 hours/day at day care, then come home, rush through dinner, wash up, and then they’re off to bed — they don’t get to spend a lot of quality time with their parents during the week.  but sienna and i are spoiled.  mama works at home, so we get to see her throughout the day.  we usually eat breakfast together.  she makes us hot lunches.  and as soon as i wake up from my afternoon nap, mama stops working so that we can go for a walk, or go shopping, or do something fun.

for the past two days, mama was out of the house before we woke up in the morning, and she didn’t come home until it was time to get ready for bed.  mama worried about us, but we were jdust fine.  i took care of sienna, miss denise, gung-gung, koda, and dada.  mama missed us a lot.  she got a taste of what it would be like to have a job where she had to go into the office everyday, and she didn’t like it one bit.

if union workers can strike, why can’t mama and dada, too?  i think they should go on strike so they can just stay home with me and sienna all the time.

have you ever noticed that when girls get together, they eat weird food?  like at baby showers and stuff, they never eat pizza or noodles or anything yummy.

today, mama and sienna went to a girls-only family lunch.  in the photo, that’s cousin caitlyn, auntie cindy (mama’s cousin), and auntie jan (mamas youngest aunt).  cousin caitlyn (who is 10 years old) loves sienna and says that she can’t wait until she gets to babysit her.  i think she wants to paint her nails and dress her up like a little doll.  uh oh, i hope she doesn’t want to babysit me, too.

anyway, they met at an italian restaurant which had yummy pasta, but mama must have felt obligated to stay with the weird food theme.  you should see what she packed for sienna’s lunch — roasted organic kale (unseasoned) and organic quinoa salad with chicken, avocado, edamame, and carrot.  bleccch.  i can’t believe sienna eats that stuff.  look at her munching away on the kale.  notice which hand she’s using?  yup, shes starting to use her left hand more and more.  i’m starting to think that she’s going to be left-handed like me!

i’m glad i wasn’t invited to lunch — i didn’t want to eat kale and quinoa anyway.  but how come i never get to go when dada has boys-only dinners with his friends or golf days with uncle randy and grandpa?

add one more to the list of birthdays we celebrated this week! today is connor’s birthday. this year, he celebrated this birthday early — the same day as sienna’s party — so we didn’t get to go. instead, we met up at a ryder park in san mateo for a picnic lunch today.

ryder park is really cool. not only does it have great playgrounds and a picnic area just like other parks by our house, but this park is also right on the water. there’s a hiking trail that runs right past it, and a lot of birds hang out at the edge of the bay. also, SFO is close by, so there were lots of planes flying right over us, and they looked really big!

after lunch, we spent the afternoon playing. a lot. auntie jen brought bubbles and bubble-blowing crazy straws for all of us. connor and i took turns riding my bike. josh and connor played catch with uncle kyle. sienna and i played in the playground.

see that rockin’ rocket thingy that sienna is riding? there were three of them in the playground. they are cool. i’d never seen one before, so dada had to teach me how to ride it. then i went over and tried to show sienna how to ride hers, but her legs are too short. look. they don’t reach the foot pegs!

so i went back to ride my rocket again, and i was getting the hang of it and having a blast. then out of nowhere, a boy came up to me, grabbed me by the shirt, pushed me to the ground, then climbed onto my rocket. mama was livid. she removed the boy from the rocket and said to him very sternly, “excuse me. that’s not nice.” she looked around, sort of expecting the boy’s mom to run over and apologize to me, but it quickly became clear that nobody was watching this kid. mama asked the boy where his parents were, but he just stared at her and backed away. mama stalked him like a crazy person (for what seemed like a long time!) until his dad came looking for him. mama had a word with the dad, who blew off the incident like it was no big deal. well, i guess we know why the kid is such a jerk.

mama realized that she should have handled the situation differently, but she was so angry in that moment that she was just trying to restrain herself from throwing the kid onto the ground, like he did to me. but as soon as mama got back from talking to the jerk’s jerkier dad, she turned the situation into a learning opportunity about how pushing is not nice and how i shouldn’t push sienna, and blah blah blah. whatever. she was just trying to make up for missing the opportunity to coach me through conflict resolution instead of fighting my battle for me. oh well. i think the real learning opportunity there was for mama.

aside from the jerk on the playground, it was a fun day and we had a great time playing with friends who we don’t get to see often. connor and josh are 5 and 7, and they’re kind of like big brothers to me and sienna. i like to watch what they do and see what they’re like so i know what kinds of things that i have to look forward to in a few years.

i was happy to celebrate sienna’s birthday a couple of weeks ago, but i wanted to celebrate my birthday too!  mama explained to me that my birthday is not until october, then she showed me on the calendar when october is.  so now, when people ask me how old i am, i tell them “i’m 2!  i’ll be 3 in october.”

i was prepared to wait patiently until october, but i didn’t realize that there would be so many other birthdays in between.  just this week, there were a lot of important birthdays around here.

monday was auntie barbara’s birthday.  i wanted to facetime with her so i could sing to her, but she wasn’t home when i called.  so i made a video for her instead.

on tuesday, koda turned 4.  we all sang happy birthday to him, but we didn’t really celebrate until today.  uncle henry and kiara came over today to celebrate koda and kiara’s birthdays.  mama made a special treat for the dogs using real organic beef and decorated it with kibble.  uncle henry made all-natural peanut butter cookies for them.  lucky dogs!

today is also miss denise’s birthday, so we made cupcakes for her.  there was an oreo baked into the bottom of each cupcake and oreo bits mixed into the cream cheese frosting.  so yummy.  i like frosting.  we all gathered around and sang happy birthday twice — once for miss denise, and once for koda and kiara.

other people’s birthdays are fun ‘cuz i like singing “happy birthday” and i like eating cake (mama makes “special” healthy cake that she lets me eat).  i especially like sienna’s birthday because i get — i mean, she gets — fun toys to play with.  but i can’t wait for my birthday to come along, and i keep asking about it.  mama is not planning to have a party for me this year and wants to take a family trip to visit mickey mouse instead.  that’s a terrible idea, don’t you think?  i told mama that i want to have a birthday party at my new gym, and that i don’t want to invite any of my friends.  i’m afraid that if my friends come, then it will end up being their birthdays.  but mama explained to me that if i don’t invite any friends, then i won’t get any presents.  “oh.  i like presents.”  this birthday stuff is so confusing.

a couple of weeks ago, we went shopping to find a red hair accessory for sienna to wear on her birthday.  my favorite store is target, so we went there first.  target has everything, right?  well, they don’t have red hair accessories for little girls.  so we went to the great mall and stopped into every kids’ store that we passed — burlington coat factory, stride rite, carter’s, gymboree, naartjie kids, marshall’s, and others that i can’t remember.  it is shockingly hard to find red hair accessories!  we saw a ton of clips, bows, and headbands in purple, white, blue, green, and every shade of pink you can imagine.  but no red.  i guess little girls don’t really wear a lot of red.  well, we finally found a red headband at crazy 8, but that’s not the point of my story.  while we were walking around the mall, mama noticed that sienna was holding a set of hair clips.  what the…?  apparently, she had lifted them from one of the stores we had visited.  baby is a thief!  if you’re wondering what we did with the clips, we brought them back to the store, OF COURSE.  baby might be a criminal, but i am not.

well, earlier today, we were back at target.  as usual, gung-gung went with us and drove around in one of those motorized carts.  watching him trying to drive those carts around without knocking down displays is one of my favorite things about shopping at target.  anyway, we picked up a few things and went to check out.  as usual, mama let me swipe her credit card and use the plastic pen to press the buttons on the screen — first the red one, then the green one.  usually, that’s all i get to do.  but today, mama let me write my name in the rectangle on the screen and finish the transaction!

wait, did i just commit credit card fraud?  or identity theft?  i guess baby is not the only criminal in the family.  oops.

usually when we go out, it’s me and sienna and a bunch of dudes.  but today, matthew and i were outnumbered by the girls 🙂  in addition to sienna, claire and bella spent the day with us.  they’re the ones that i went to the zoo with last summer.   remember, it was my first time at the oakland zoo, and all the animals were hiding?

well today, all the animals were out an about.  there was actually a special “feed the beasts” event, and the animals got special treats.  we watched the elephants eat watermelons.  whole.  it was so cool — they curled their trunks around the watermelons and popped them into their mouths like candy.  (mama was very concerned that they were going to choke.)  i also liked the giraffes and the monkeys, but the tiger was my favorite.  the tiger stayed toward the back corner of his habitat just laying on his back with his feet in the air.  he wasn’t doing anything interesting, so mama and dada were surprised that i liked him so much.   it was my first time seeing a tiger.

watching all the animals eat made us hungry, so we stopped for a picnic lunch.  after that, we played in the playground for little bit then headed into the petting zoo.  we all petted and brushed the goats — even sienna.  i’ve been teaching her to brush and pet koda nicely, so she did pretty well.  until she tried to eat the brush.  yuck.

we finished off the afternoon by going on some rides.  we rode the train around the zoo, and then matthew and i drove the cars.  you have to be 36″ to drive, and we barely made the minimum height!  good thing i have tall shoes 😉

we sure have been seeing lots of animals this summer.  since last month, we’ve been to the sea world, palo alto junior museum & zoo, monterey bay aquarium, safari west, and now the oakland zoo.  to top this next summer, i think we’re going to have to go see animals in africa.