you know how mommies and daddies have bring-your-kid-to-work days?  well, us kids have bring-a-friend-to-gym day — and it was today!  i invited my buddy logan, so he joined me in class.  i was planning to show him the ropes, but he was a natural on the balance beam and the parallel bars.  he didn’t need my help.

when i first started the class, i was able to hang from the bars.  then one day, i just couldn’t do it anymore.  my teacher said that it’s normal for kids my age to lose their grip and then regain it, but mama thinks i just got so fat that i could no longer support my own weight 😛  but today, i did it!  i wandered over to the parallel bars by myself and just starting hanging there.  i was showing off for logan —  i couldn’t let him show me up!

at one point, mama and uncle greg put me and logan in the foam fort.  they thought it was so fun, and they took a bunch of photos of us in there.  do we look like we’re at all amused?

i’ve made some really good friends in class, but i sure hope logan joins too — we would have so much fun together!  although… my class is a big sausage fest as it is.  it sure would be nice if more girls signed up.  if you know any girls looking for a fun time, send ’em my way (or to the little gym in milpitas).

mama took some more photos of us working out.  if you wanna check em out, click here.

things i like:

• poking mama’s belly button.  her belly is getting BIG, so it’s pretty easy to find.
• playing follow the leader.  except, i only like  being the leader.  and how come i always have to pull everyone by their fingers to get them to follow me to where i want them to go?
• patting the couch/chair where i want people to sit or patting the table to indicate where they should put my plate of food.
• gym class.  i’ve always liked gym class, but now i just looove it.  i get so excited whenever we pull into the parking lot that i kick my feet, my eyes light up, and a silly ear-to-ear grin creeps across my face.
• housework.   i like to sweep the kitchen floor and wipe down the table after meals.  i also like to vacuum, but i need help pushing the vacuum cleaner because it’s bigger and heaver than i am!
• jamba juice.  i even got my very own kyden-sized jamba juice today 😀  i guess mama got tired of me stealing hers all the time.
• spicy food.  mama is so surprised that i like to eat her food — even spicy curries and other things that she adds hot sauce to.

things i don’t like:

• sleeping without my special blankets.  po-po (grandma quon) knitted some blankets for me many years before i was born.  i have been using them, along with many other blankets for my whole life. but lately, when i get into my crib, i hug my special knitted blanket and then lay down next to it.  and if one of those blankets is not there, i get really upset and i won’t sleep.
• eating sriracha sauce straight outta the bottle.  i tried to suck some out of the bottle but mama wouldn’t let me.  so she squirted some onto her finger and fed it to me.  i cried.  mama is so mean!

hey everyone!  i have an exclusive story for you.  are you ready?

from the makers of kyden q. (that’s mama and daddy)…  the sequel!  coming soon, to a hospital near you.

that’s right, I AM GETTING A LITTLE BROTHER!!!  well actually, i don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl, but i’m pretty sure i’m getting a brother.  here’s why:

<– look at this handsome boy.  this is me at 16 weeks gestation.

and this is my new baby at 16 weeks. –>

stunning resemblance!  i am cuter, of course, but baby looks just like me when i was his age, right?  so he must be a boy.  yay for my baby brother!

mama says that she is going to tell everyone that the baby is a boy.  but i’ll let you in on a secret — the only people that actually know whether it’s a boy or girl are mama’s doctors.  she keeps telling them not to spill the beans because she wants to be surprised.  daddy keeps trying to find ways to get a peek at the baby’s private parts so that he can find out the gender.  he says that it would be nice to be able to prepare.  but like mama says, what’s there to prepare for?  baby can use all of my old infant gear and my old clothes.  and even if “he” ends up being a “she”, little girls look cute in blue, right?

baby is due to arrive on august 1, 2011.  if you’re trying to do the math, that would make us 22 months apart.  mama and uncle jamie (her brother) are 23 months apart, and they always had a close relationship growing up together.  i hope that’s how me and my little brother are gonna be, too.  mama and daddy have accepted that their lives are going to be hell for the next few years, but they’re both very excited about our new baby — no matter if it turns out to be a boy or a girl.  i think i’m excited too, but i’m not quite sure.  i’ll keep you posted.

and when information about my sequel goes public, remember where you heard it first… right here on kyden’s korner!

just before my birthday, i got my first haircut.  and boy, was that an ordeal!  daddy did his best to distract me with yogurt puffs, and mama did her best not to snip my ears or give me too many bald spots.  they said that i wasn’t very cooperative.  i kept whipping my head around trying to get a glimpse of that thing that was buzzing in my ear and tickling my head.  mama called them clippers.

for the past 4.5 months, my hair has just been growing and growing… and growing.  my hair got so long that mama was able to bieber-fy me earlier this week.  aaack!  and we don’t even like justin bieber!

so tonight, while i was brushing my teeth, mama started trimming my hair, on impulse.  now, correct me if i’m wrong, but it doesn’t seem like it would ever be a good idea to get an impulse haircut.  but, it obviously wasn’t up to me.  i was brush brush brushing away, and mama was snip snip snipping away.  she just used scissors — no clippers this time.

so what do you think?  i think my new haircut makes my ears look big and my cheeks look fat.  although, it could just be that i have daddy’s big ears and mama’s fat cheeks.  *sigh*  sucks to be me.

oh, and don’t tell daddy about my haircut.  i’m gonna wait and see when/if he notices my new ‘do.

since eating everything wasn’t working out so well for me, i decided to change up my eating habits.  this weekend, i decided to become a part-time vegetarian.  at first mama and daddy thought i was starting to get picky with my food, but after a few meals they figured out what was going on.

on saturday,  we had hot pot with my girls zoe and ava (and their parents) for lunch.  i wouldn’t touch the chicken or the beef, but i stuffed my face with noodles, cabbage, and fruit.  (why am i not sitting in the middle between the girls in this photo???)  and then today we went out for BBQ at lunchtime, and i had zucchini, avocado, chicken, pork ribs, and cheese in front of me.  i gobbled up the cheese and veggies, but i hid the chicken and pork in my chair, in mama’s salad dressing, and on the floor.

mama and daddy were confused — they didn’t understand why i wasn’t eating my meat.  but then they remembered that all weekend, my dinners consisted of mostly meat.  i ate all the meat off my plate, asked for more, and only ate a little bit of my veggies even though i usually cannot get enough of them.

so here’s the deal.  i am a vegetarian at breakfast, second breakfast, lunch, snack, and dessert.  (i just discovered dessert this weekend.  i could live on caramel apples alone!)  and at dinner time, i am a meat-atarian.  you might think it’s strange, but mama told me that one of my older buddies, zachary, went through a phase where he was a vegetarian every other day.  i wonder how long that lasted.

all my life, mama and daddy have talked about what a great eater i am and how they’re so lucky that i will eat anything.  i eat plenty of whole grains and i love fruits and vegetables.  lately, i’ve even been eating spicy things like curry, hot and sour soup, jalapeno bagels, and mu shu chicken with sriracha sauce!  that makes mama happy because she loves spicy food.

last night, i wanted to make mama and daddy really happy by showing them that i really will eat anything.  so i grabbed a spoon out of the dishwasher and brought it over to our weeping fig plant.  i dug up a spoonful of soil from the pot and shoveled it into my mouth.  it was gritty and it tasted like dirt (bleccch!) but i chewed it and swallowed it anyway.  i wanted to make mama and daddy proud.  i didn’t get quite the reaction that i was expecting, though.  mama said that dirt is not for eating.

so when mama took me to clean up after dinner, i thought i’d try again.  like always, she pumped liquid soap on my hands and then turned on the faucet.  but instead of rubbing my hands together under the water, i stuffed the handful of soap into my mouth.  bleccch!  mama said that soap is not for eating.

sheesh!  what else is not for eating — broccoli?  chicken?  i guess i’m on a restricted diet now — no more eating everything.  i think that mama and daddy want me to lose weight.  they keep talking about how fat i’ve gotten lately.  i’m not fat, just a little puffy.  maybe i’m retaining water.

i heard that when mama was a little girl, she ate an entire bottle of baby aspirin, poisonous mushrooms from the lawn, and other stuff that isn’t for eating.  and she wonders where i get it from…

the super bowl used to be a big deal in my family before i came along.  mama and daddy love super bowl parties.  they say that they love watching football, but from what i can tell, super bowl is more about the commercials and junk food.  we went to a party at uncle henry’s house last year, but i was only a few months old, so i barely remember it.  this year, mama and daddy weren’t planning on going anywhere and they didn’t invite anyone over to party.  BOOORING!  so at the very last minute, i took matters into my own hands and invited logan over to watch the game with me.

while mama was busy making pasta salad and daddy was preparing sliders, i was preparing for the game by working on my spiral with my cal football.  yup, i’m just like aaron rodgers (except that he’s not a lefty)!  even though we didn’t have a particular allegiance to either team playing, we cheered for green bay because two of their players went to cal, like mama and daddy did.

green bay won, logan and i got to hang out, and we all got to eat “super bowl food”.  it was a good day.  oh, and i got to see the commercial where darth vader used “the force” to start a car.  i haven’t been able to do that yet, but i’m gonna keep practicing!

thursday was the start of the chinese new year.  starting at midnight, there were firecrackers going off all throughout my neighborhood.  my peeps really know how to party!  apparently, the celebration lasts for 15 days.  i sure hope that there won’t be 15 nights of firecrackers cuz they’re really noisy.

for our chinese new year dinner, mama made broccoli chicken with oyster sauce and steamed egg custard. she said it was chinese food, but gung-gung begged to differ. he wanted traditional dishes — like jai (monk’s stew) — that bak-bak (great-grandma) used to make. i dunno what he was complaining about though, cuz i loved it! and then today, we went out to lunch at a chinese restaurant. we never go out to chinese places because mama doesn’t like the food, but i guess she made an exception since it’s chinese new year. i’m sure glad she did. we ordered hot and sour soup, mu shu chicken, mongolian bbq, and steamed sea bass. i gobbled it all up. and when i was done, i devoured my chinese dessert: a soft-serve ice cream cone. it was delicious! mama said i ate like a little piggy. i sure do love chinese food (especially the dessert).  daddy says that comes from my japanese side.

there are 12 more days of the chinese new year celebration, so i hope we get to go out for chinese food a few more times before it’s over. gung hay fat choy to me!

most kids say “mama” and “dada” as their first words, but not me.  daddy is not amused that i’ll (try to) say “koda” but refuse to say “dada”.

things i like:

• my new la-z-boy chair!  mama bought it for me so i could sit in it and read (which i do), but i have found other uses for it too.  (recliner, drink, tv remote…  what else could a guy want?  wait, where are all the hawt chicks???)
• playing iphone games.  now i can play by myself because i know how to swipe to unlock and launch my apps.  but when i push the wrong button, i need help getting back to the right screen.  (just like gung-gung with the tv remote.)
• zippers.  i could zip and unzip my jacket (or anyone’s jacket) all day long.
• dancing.  i just started doing a new move:  the booty drop.  mama and daddy think it’s so ghetto, but sooo hilarious.  they have no idea where i learned it.
• kissing mama on the cheek all the time, just like she does to me.
• drinking out of my big boy drinking cups.  they are supposed to be for 24+ month old kids, but nothing gets between me and my drinks!
• using a fork to stab anything within arm’s reach.  that includes koda, the table, my cup, my chest, my head, and sometimes my food.
• my daily jog along the creek.  i can run so much faster now that i’ve learned to swing my arms while running 🙂
• cleaning.  i like to wipe down the table, fireplace, floors, etc.  sometimes i even take tissues and clean koda with them.
• baaaaa-ing like a sheep.
• saying “mama”.  i know other words, too, but i like saying “mama” all the time.

things i don’t like:

• saying “dada”.  daddy is not very amused by the fact that i’ll say “doda” (koda), but when he asks me to say “dada”, i say “mama”.
• shoes.  i take them off within seconds of getting into the car.