co-sleeping is not for everyone.  some of my friends never wanted to sleep with their mommy and daddy for a bunch of different reasons:

• they were scared that their mommy or daddy would roll over in their sleep and squish them
• they didn’t want to bother their mommy or daddy when they moved around in their sleep
• they were worried that they would roll into a blanket or pillow and suffocate

i was never afraid of those things.  i loved sleeping with mama and dada.  here’s why:

• it was great family bonding time
• when i got hungry in the middle of the night, mama didn’t have to get out of bed to feed me

i am a big boy now, and i haven’t slept with mama and dada for a long time.  but baby sister is just over 2 months old, so she still sleeps with them.  and it’s a good thing she does.  unlike me, baby is very patient.  when she gets hungry, she looks at mama with hungry eyes.  if that doesn’t work, then she makes hungry hippo mouth.  but if waiting patiently doesn’t work, then baby gets upset.  and when she gets upset, she cries.  LOUD.  (this happens in the car when mama is driving.)

so it’s a good thing that baby sleeps right next to mama because when she wakes up to eat, mama feels her moving.  if baby was sleeping by herself, then mama wouldn’t know that she was  hungry until she was upset and screaming.  and if she was screaming, she would wake me and koda up.  dada would sleep through it, but mama would wake him up to put me back to bed.  and then everyone would be sleepy and grouchy.  see?  that’s just one more reason to sleep with your mommy and daddy:  more  sleep and peace for the whole family.

ever since baby sister came along, i’ve been a terrific big brother. i don’t get jealous, i share all of my stuff, and i even help take care of her.  all those days when mama took baby sister out and left me at home with miss denise, i never complained.  and all those nights when mama didn’t put me to bed because she was busy feeding baby sister, i never said a thing.  but after last weekend, i can’t keep my mouth shut any more.

on friday, baby sister went to the sharks game with mama and auntie mimi.  it was the first home game and i really wanted to go, but they said it was girls’ night out.  okay, fine.  i was a good sport about it — i even let baby sister wear my sharks fleece outfit.

on saturday, we all went out to dinner with a bunch of my aunties and uncles.  cool!  but after dinner, dada took me home while baby sister went to see moneyball with everyone.  what the heck?  there are so many things wrong with that.  first of all, it was uncle henry’s and uncle ritchie’s big screen debut.  i’ve known them longer, so i should have been the one to see the movie with them.  plus, i am the A’s fan.  i have an A’s t-shirt and socks and i’ve even been to a game.  (baby sister has 2 SF giants shirts.)  worst of all, i’ve never been to a movie, ever!  in what world does it make sense that baby sister gets to see a movie before i do?

then on sunday, dada married his coworker.  no, he’s not getting a husband — he officiated his coworker’s wedding.  i was so excited to see him in all of his official minister-ness, but guess what.  i didn’t get to go to the wedding ceremony.  and guess what else.  uh huh, baby sister got to go.  no fair!  at least mama and baby came home to pick me up for the banquet.  mama said that i’m just like an old chinese person — skipping the wedding ceremony and showing up just in time for the free food at the banquet.

i wasn’t going to say anything about being left out because i didn’t want to cause trouble.  and i didn’t want to seem like a whiner, either.  but all of these things happened in just one weekend.  enough is enough, right?  plus, uncle greg encouraged me to write this rant 😛

baby sister just turned two months old, and she has already been to her first sharks game.  that’s even younger than i was when i went to my first game.  that must make her the world’s littlest sharks fan!

when i first heard that she was going to the game, i was a little worried.  don’t you remember all the times that sharkie tried to eat me???  there was the time that he grabbed me on my way down the aisle, and one time he even came and found me in my seat!  somehow, he always manages to find me.  and since baby sister was wearing my sharks fleece, i was sure he was going to find her, too.

but guess what.  baby sister got to see sharkie, but he didn’t bother her at all — he went to the next section over.  and guess what else.  baby sister got to be on TV!  (click the photo to view large.  i know you can’t really see her very well, but i made a red circle around her so at least you know where to look.)

that just isn’t fair!  when i go to games, i get eaten by sharkie.  baby sister goes to one game, and she gets on TV.  hmph.

mama and dada usually take me (and now, baby sister, too) everywhere.  but once a year, they go on a date night to celebrate their wedding anniversary.  they always pick fancy places that are not “kid-friendly”, and baby sister and i don’t get to go 🙁  on their anniversary last year, i stayed at home and miss denise came over to take care of me.  we had a great time hanging out together all night.

this year, we planned to have a big party at home when mama and dada went out.  it was me, baby sister, miss denise, and gung-gung.  we were having a great time and everything was fine until 9pm when baby sister got hungry.  miss denise made her a bottle, but she wouldn’t drink it.  we all tried to feed her, but she refused to eat.  so miss denise and gung-gung took turns holding her and walking around with her to try to get her to stop crying.  nothing worked.  i went to sleep at my normal bedtime (10pm), but baby sister waited up for mama to come home to feed her.  it’s a good thing that mama and dada didn’t know how upset baby sister was, otherwise they wouldn’t have enjoyed their date night.

when mama got home, she fed baby sister the bottle, and she drank it just fine.  uh oh.  if mama is the only one that can feed baby sister (breast or bottle) mama is never going to be able to leave her alone again.  i think we have a diva in the making.  and they say that i am the difficult one.

i went to my first class at the little gym when i was 4 months old.  i had already tried out gymboree and knew that it wasn’t for me.  but with the little gym, it was love at first sight.

i started taking little gym classes on a regular basis when i was 10 months old.  i even had my 1st birthday party there.  eventually, i entered into a long-term relationship with the little gym by registering for classes a full year in advance!

i’ve been taking classes at the little gym for over a year, now.  so when edison invited me to go with him to check out his gym, i felt a little bit guilty, but i couldn’t say no.  so we went there today.

california kids sports center (CKSC) has real gymnastics equipment just like my gym does.  i balanced on the low beam and high beam, hung on the bars and the rings, and rolled down the inclined mats.  and they have some other familiar things that i love to play with: hula hoops, balls, and my favorite… a big slide!  but they also have lots of fun stuff that i’ve never seen before:  a swinging rope, a climbing wall that’s actually vertical, and a trampoline run with a foam pit at the end.  best of all, this gym has drop-in hours!

the little gym is my main gym and i’ll continue to take classes there, but i think i’ll be returning to CKSC for drop-in play.  shhh… don’t tell my gym that i’m cheating on it.

happy 2 month birthday to baby sister!

things she likes:

• pulling her hair.  she grabs a fistful of hair and pulls it so hard that she makes herself cry.  dummy.
• pulling mama’s hair
• clawing at her eyes and face
• blowing bubbles and sticking out her tongue
• trying to stand up on her feet.  (yeah right, good luck with that!)
• bathtime
• curling up next to mama.  no matter where they start off at the beginning of the night, baby sister manages to wriggle herself right next to mama.

things she doesn’t like:

• blankets.  she kicks them off and soon as i (or anyone) covers her.
• lying on her back.  she sleeps so much better on her tummy or when she is being held.
• manicures.  she clenches her fists so mommy can’t trim her nails.
• the de-boogerizer
• vitamin drops.  she gargles it and spits it out so that she has to swallow as little as possible.  thank goodness i never had to eat that stuff.  it must taste gross.

baby sister had her two-month checkup today.  we know that everything is a-ok with her kidneys, but mama had two more things to discuss with the doctor.

1. baby sister’s head is flat on one side.  mama has been making her sleep on the other side, but that hasn’t seemed to help.  mama thinks that she might need surgery to fix it.
2. baby sister has really sensitive skin, and she seems to be allergic to dada (and lots of other things).  mama thinks she might have eczema also.

we know that these are common issues in babies, but i never had any of these problems.  girls are just so much trouble.

doc said that baby’s head is mildly flat and she’ll just look at it again at her next checkup.  nothing to be concerned about right now.  hopefully, her flat head will fix itself just like her big kidneys.  and her skin?  just dry — no eczema.  in fact, doc says baby sister looks awesome 😀  and the fact that she is growing well further confirms that her kidneys are just fine.  (apparently, kids with renal problems have growth issues.)

here are her stats:

• weight:  11 pounds 4 ounces (62%ile)
• length:  23.25 inches (72 %ile)
• head circumference: 37.4cm (20%)

the doctor must not have realized that baby sister is a pinhead like i was at her age.  there’s nothing awesome about that.

i didn’t get to go to my first wedding until i was 8 months old.  baby sister is only 8 weeks old and she went with us to a wedding this weekend!  we got all dressed up in our fancy clothes.  i heard that sweater vests have been “out” since the 90’s, but i wore mine anyway.  gung-gung says that fashion trends cycle every 20 years or so, so i wanted to bring the sweater vest back in style for this fall.  i guess logan had the same idea because he was rockin’ his sweater vest, too!

during the wedding ceremony, auntie judy was playing the piano.  i kept telling mama to bring me over there so i could play too, but mama wasn’t listening.  i know she must have heard me though, because i was the only one talking.  everyone else was quietly watching the wedding party walk down the aisle.  maybe chatty kids like me are the reason for adult-only weddings.

lots of my friends were at the wedding, too.  logan and chloe were at my table.  at the table next to us were greyson, abby, and my new friend allison.  some of the other kids went home early, but baby sister and i partied until past 10pm!  maybe that’s why we look drunk in this family photo 😛

so, remember how baby sister has big kidneys?  our doc said that since she is perfectly healthy, she would just need more ultrasounds until she grows into her kidneys.  but the specialist at stanford children’s hospital wanted to do a VCUG study on her, just to be extra sure that nothing is wrong.

so today, baby sister woke up extra early to go to stanford hospital.  first, they made her change out of her clothes and put on the world’s smallest hospital gown.  it was made out of warm cozy flannel, and it had cute animals on it, but she didn’t like it.  who would like wearing an outfit that makes your butt stick out of the back?

after she put on her gown, she was x-rayed, and then she went into another room for the VCUG.  they told her that they were going to put dye in her bladder and then wait for her to pee it out.  through a magic monitor, they would watch to see if her pee was coming out of her or going back up into her kidneys.  not so bad, right?

well, it took the doctors 3 tries to insert the catheter into baby sister.  she was screaming the whole time 🙁  waiting for the pee to come out is usually what takes the longest, but baby sister must have wanted to get outta there because she peed right away.

baby sister’s bones look perfect, and her pee is going where it’s supposed to.  so our doc was right all along — she just needs to get more ultrasounds until she grows into her kidneys.  so baby sister went through that whole ordeal for nothing.  those darn stanfurd people! 😉

mama and dada are shopaholics.  but they’re not the normal kind of shoppers that go to the store to buy stuff — they buy stuff online.  how do you think i learned to order stuff from the tv when i was only 13 months old?

with all the stuff that they buy, we get packages delivered to our house ALL THE TIME.  you know that your parents have a shopping problem when your mommy is on a first name basis with the UPS guy, she gives him christmas cards, and he knows your dog by name.  mama always jokes that the UPS guy is koda’s best friend.

but that’s not all.  today, i got a special delivery from the FedEx guy.  no, not the package — that’s for baby sister.  the FedEx guy said that he wanted to bring me a present because i always wave to him and i’m so friendly.  so his wife made me some delicious cookies!  (well, i heard they were delicious, anyway.  mama didn’t let me eat any.)  but can you believe it?  that’s so nice of them.

yup, mama and dada have a problem, but koda and i don’t mind.