Fahitas & Fighting

On Saturday we spent the evening at the outlaw's house. The parents are away visiting the homeland and that left a house chalk full of adult siblings eager to play with my children. The first order of business was supper. Nicholas ate almost an entire fajita. The boy just doesn't eat much, you'd think he was adopted or something. His sister on the other hand is an entirely different story. She made her first fajita and gobbled it down like it was some sort of sports drink and she had just run a marathon. While she was preparing her second fajita, one of the aunts told her that she had way too much steak meat. So before anyone could react she removed about 4 stripes of steak, put it in her mouth chewed 4 times and swallowed it whole. Needless to say we were in shock. Such behaviour is expected from her father but to see it in a 4-year-old girl caught us completely off guard. Of course I'm not sure if I was more impressed with this display of carnivorism or the fact that she ate 3 loaded fajitas in a single sitting. That's pretty much what I ate and I was stuffed. Oh well, she might not look much like me but she definitely eats like me. Another highlight from the meal was when she tilted the bowl that the steaks were in to get at the "juice" (otherwise known as blood) to put on her fajita.
After dinner, the kids spent almost an hour beating the crap out of their 20 something uncle with the rest of us adults watching. Ever since I've known him I've seen him play fight with kids where he pretty much lies down and takes whatever punishment they wish to dish out. The show was very entertaining and cute. My kids suck at fighting and inflicting pain but that's not a bad thing. The only time Juliette came close to hurting him was when she continually bounced from the sitting position on his back. At 40lbs. she's not a little girl anymore.
Everyday, there is something that my kids do that makes me smile ear to ear. If I was a better writer and if I had unlimited time I would post something everyday. But I'll just have to stick to this once or twice a week posting for now. BTW if you haven't read the blog in a while check out the entry "A new addition to the family".

A new addition to the family

That's right, we are happy to announce that there will be a new addition to our family. The baby is due May 14, 2005 (that's the year of the rooster for those of you keeping track). Our little family is very excited, especially the parents. Nicholas isn't quite sure what it all means while Juliette is used to having new additions to the family every couple of years (see Nicholas), so even though she's happy and excited it's no more than she would be for a new bike. We don't know what the gender is yet and I'm not sure if we'll find out this time. I wouldn't mind knowing but it's up to mom since she does most if not all of the baby making and delivering. Now I know what's on most of your minds, it's a question we've received almost from everyone upon the making this announcement. Was this planned? The answer is yes. I know after the Nicholas, I told everyone that having a girl and boy was the perfect family and there was no reason to have any more. There was only one thing I didn't take into consideration. That is Love. I love kids. I love everything about them. I love having an ally so that we can eat the raw cookie dough together while baking. I love running through a toy store taking all the toys off the shelves and playing with them. I love singing (I'm a horrible singer by the way) at the top of my lungs about speckled frogs, jumping monkeys, little worms and meatballs on spaghetti and I love running everywhere all the time. But, it's my love and my wife's love for children that has made our lives so filled with meaning, purpose and the feeling of being truly alive. I already know Juliette will make a great big sister to the new baby and I’m sure Nicholas will make a great big brother. Besides, you only live once and as a result you should try absolutely everything while you still can. Sure I would have been happy with 2 but with three in the house life will be that much more rich and exciting. Juliette is already catching and throwing a disc at the age of 4. With three of them I’ll always have someone to play with when we go to the beach and my wife will always have someone to fish with. My wife swears this is the last one. Pregnancy for her is hell and every time she swears that it’s worse than ever. I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure it was this bad every time. It’s just that women are blessed with pregnancy amnesia. The fact that she can go for months in a state of nausea where everyday is a challenge to eat anything at all and then a year later completely forget about it and want another is an amazing if not cruel trick that mother nature plays on women. All I know is if men had to give birth, there would be a lot fewer babies out there. As for myself I won’t make any predictions on whether it is our last until we do something surgical about it. If I were to make a prediction I’m almost guaranteed to prove myself wrong. So in preparation for the new baby, Nicholas and Juliette are sleeping in the same room. They love it. I have also picked out a few names but if anyone has any suggestions let us know in the comments section of this blog. Here are some guidelines I like to use for the name selection process (can you tell I’m an engineer): It should be three syllables long; it should be bilingual (French, English); and I would like it to be slightly unique. “Juliette” meets these conditions very well, and “Nicholas” meets the first two. So put on your thinking caps and who knows perhaps the new baby will be named after your suggestion.

Juliette update

Things Juliette says:
-"Daddy, I want to change my name to Diamond Wendy" I'm not sure where she got the diamond from the Wendy came from a radio commercial advertising the fast food chain.
-Juliette looking worried "Daddy, we have to go to the hospital", "why Juliette", "I swallowed my gum".
-In a frustrated voice, "Nicholas, stop copying me". That boy wants to be like his big sister so much that he not only follows her everywhere but he also repeats every word out of her mouth sometimes.

Things Juliette does:
-She can do all the 2-7 year old puzzles by herself.
-She's great at languages (English, French & Cantonese) except when it comes to counting.
-She's started taking showers in the morning (which I think will soon come to an end because we just don't need another activity to fit into an already stressful chaos that is our workday mornings).
-She eats at least two if not three servings every meal and follows it up with as much dessert as we give her. When it comes to eating she's too much like her parents for her own good.

Little Voice

It's truly amazing how cute children under the age of 5 can be. The other day Nicholas did something that made his parents laugh out loud. Juliette was doing her usual running around the house thing when she fell and hit her head on the corner of a wall. She began to cry, but the tone of the cry was not a hysterical "I'm in a lot of pain!!!" cry, it was more of a "I just hit my head and I deserve some pity" cry. As a result neither my wife nor myself moved a muscle to console her. Nicholas on the other hand was very concerned so he walked over to his big sister and in his most parental/sympathetic voice asked, "What's wrong Juliette", "Did you hit the wall?” "Bad wall"(Nicholas hits the wall with his hand). Now what he said was cute enough to bring a smile to my face but his tone of voice was hilarious. He was doing his best to mimic what parents do when they ask their little one if they're OK. Of course his soothing voice came out so high-pitched I thought he was perhaps a squirrel sucking on helium.

Halloween 2004

I know this post is a little late in coming but what do you want. As a working parent of 2 there is only so many hours in a day, and any extra time is usually dedicated to washing, drying, folding mountains of laundry... So much laundry :(

Anyway, Nicholas was dressed as a dinosaur and Juliette was dressed as a gorilla. We managed to convince the kids that being warm was more important than wearing a favourite dress up outfit (princess dress or Spiderman pyjamas). Juliette left the house first with her entourage of 3 loving and doting 20 something aunts. One of them even wore a costume. They did a grand tour of the neighbourhood that resulted in quite the haul. For highlights of the trip you'd have to ask them but apparently the trip to the senior citizen home was cute. Nicholas went out a little later with his old man. We did the equivalent of 3 blocks being very selective with the types of houses we stopped at. Those houses that had no lights on outside we passed by and those houses that had amazing decorations that set a truly frightening atmosphere Nicholas would not approach. So, if you wanted a visit from Nicholas, ensure that you had some lights on, and a few decorations (preferably happy ones like smiling pumpkins). The average visit from Nicholas went something like this:
(Nicholas using is small 2-year old legs to climb the stairs)
(Daddy knocking on the door)
House owner:” What do we have here?"
Daddy:” Say trick or treat Nicholas"
A shy Nicholas:(barely heard)"trick or treat"
House owner: "Oh, it's a cute crocodile"
(House owner gives quality candy to the cute kid)
Daddy:” Thank you"
The highlight of the outing was the excellent holiday spirit showed by neighbours in how they decorated their houses.
Lowlights of the outing included visiting a few houses with so much second hand smoke coming out the front door I almost choked and an appearance from a scary lady with tons of tattoos that said "only take candy from me tonight, don't do it on any other night” I believe she was drunk and this was the only house that Nicholas became scared of after someone answered the door. For those of you that have read my Blogger before you can find this scary character mentioned in the entry entitled "Weirdos".
By the end of the night we returned to the house to count and divide all the candies, chips and chocolate bars. Overall, it was a big success since daddy got tons of his favourite treat, Reese’s Pieces.

Running Errands

I'm the running errand guy. You know, in every relationship jobs end up being divided up amongst the parents. Like my wife being in charge of family organizing (macro & micro), washing dishes, planting gardens and doing homework with the kids. I tend to do waste management (garbage), yard management (lawn duty), financial management, human waste management (accidents) and errand running. All the other jobs such as cooking, cleaning and laundry are more of a team effort. I like the errand running, I enjoy driving and getting out of the house. Since Juliette was born I've asked whether she'd like to join me on these outings and usually the answer is no. This weekend I went on two errands and Nicholas kept me company on both. This blog is about those adventures. Mission 1, go to the grocery store, purchase two whole chickens and bring it back in time to cook them for dinner with the aunties on Halloween night. Nicholas is always ready and readily volunteered for the mission. We secured a shopping cart close to the car and after convincing him that he would be more comfortable sitting in the kid area as opposed to the grocery area we were on our way. The boy loves to talk and ask lots of questions. Going down the aisles he usually asks, "What's that?” When you tell him what it is, he repeats it the best he can. Something like "Nicholas, that's olives", "Owives?” "Yes, olives". He also asks, "Where we're going?” "To by chickens", "Chickens, buk, buk?” "That's right chickens". After the chicken we picked up crackers and cereal. He loves repeating everything I say especially the boring stuff. The line was really long but I let him run free and he always came back, usually without some candy in his hand. Overall the mission was a success and we returned home with our chickens as heroes. Mission 2, go to the shopping center and exchange a TV antenna. Nicholas again volunteered for the job. Except this time it was late afternoon, he hadn't had his nap yet and there would be lots of toys at the store to distract him. Mission impossible started with an entertaining car ride. It's so easy to make 2 year olds laugh; it's like shooting fish in a barrel. All you need to do is say "Nooooo" with the tone of voice like what the child is asking for is crazy and he will laugh his head off. As we walked to the mall it was raining and he kept on asking where my hood was. I told him I didn't have one and I pulled his off his hood and asked him where his was. These types of games never get old. At the mall I had three challenges. The coin-op mechanical rides, the toy store and the electronics store. I convinced Nicholas that the we'd play on the coin-op toys on the way out and he bought it. The toy store was a little more challenging. He loved the Thomas the train display and we had fun fighting with small to-scale rubber animals (the best being the dinosaurs). It also didn't help that the electronics store was taking forever with the exchange. To keep Nick distracted I pulled a giant remote control fire truck off the shelf and handed him the remote. The truck didn't work but wouldn't you know it a low-rider race car vaulted off its shelf into an unsuspecting customer about 20 feet away from us. Sure enough the fire truck remote was controlling the race car. So I brought the race car over to entertain Nicholas. This worked for a little while until Nick, not quite understanding the concept of "remote control", started using his foot to direct the vehicle where he wanted it to go. After a few kicks to the car and an evil look from one of the workers I picked him up and showed him the fire truck again. I can't believe how long they took to do the exchange. When it was finally done both of us were tired and wanted to get out of the mall ASAP. So I put him on my shoulders and started for the door. Nicholas kept lifting his shirtfront and putting it over my head until it covered my eyes. Not only did Nicholas laugh hysterically when I said I couldn't see, but everyone else in the mall that saw us smiled as well. We were almost home free when the coin-op toys got his attention. I had to let him play in them. Now the key to leaving anywhere such as a park or toy store without your kid kicking and screaming in the process is not to tell him/her "If you don't come right now quietly, we'll never come back! I can't believe this is the thanks I get for me bringing you here in the first place!" What works way better is "OK, Nick 5 more minutes and we have to leave", followed by "OK, 1 more minutes", then an "OK, this is the last ride". Is this spoiling the kid? Perhaps, but this way you leave on time with a child who is not kicking and screaming. Especially if you start the routine early you can leave exactly when you wanted to leave in the first place. Overall it was mission accomplished. Nicholas was finally tired enough to take his pre-Halloween nap and I accomplished what I wanted to do. I hope I continue getting volunteers for future missions.