Dancing Baby

My life has become extremely busy. The funny thing is it's not even the 3rd child. It's more thanks to work commitments than anything else. Now that I have a little bit of time here are some things that Sophie is doing. As a newborn her job is to eat, burp, sleep (not necessarily at night), poop and look cute. Well if that is the criteria in which to assess her performance as a baby I'd have to give her a perfect 10 on all fronts. People are always asking me how the kids are handling the new addition. The answer so far is better than I could have imagined. Not only are they not showing any baby envy, if anything, they are just as excited to have her around as we are. To them it's like having a family pet. Both kids love to hold her and do miscellaneous jobs to help out. For comic relief I sing a silly song with the lyrics being "la dee da dee da Dancing Baby" while I hold Sophie upright and bounce her around a bit. I tried to sing a real song once but they requested that I use the silly made-up song for all dancing baby performances. Sophie is also adjusting quite well to her new home. She does love to be held though. Sometimes my wife complains that we are holding her too much but I always tell her that you can't spoil a newborn (it's true, look it up). Still, I'm not the one who has to hold her to sleep at 2 in the morning. Well all in all everything is going well. It will nice when it stops raining outside so we can go out to the park a bit more.

Disbeleiving 5 year old

Juliette is growing older and at the age of 5 she's already telling how things are in the world. I try and tell her that she's only 5 and therefore doesn't have even 10% of my knowledge so as a general rule she should believe everything I say but it's no use. I feel like I'm arguing with a 17 year old instead of a five year old.

Here is an example of one of these arguments:
Juliette request that we put sunscreen on her so that she won't burn. I told her that because she's half Chinese we don't need to put as much sunscreen on her as some of the other kids at daycare due to the pigmentation of her skin. Juliette responded that she was not half Chinese. I tried to use logic and asked her whether her mom was Chinese which she agreed with but she refused to believe that it made her half Chinese. Finally I held out my arm and asked her to compare skin color and she agreed that she was a bit darker than me. I tried to ask her the question again in front of all her Chinese aunts and Grandmother and she refused to answer the question because she knew she was wrong all along. It's like she was doing it just to annoy me.

I'm glad at least that she's confident enough to stand up for what she believes I just wish she would at least wait until she was a teenager before disbelieving half the things I say. At least my wife and I are making a special effort to ensure that she addresses her elders in a respectful tone.

Birth Announcement

We joyfully announce the birth of Sophie. She came into the world at 10:30 AM and weighed a healthy 8 Lbs, 7 ounces. The entire clan is very excited to welcome this new addition to our happy family, no one more so than Juliette and Nicholas. Mom and baby are doing well and will enjoy a quiet summer (or two) at home together. Next time you’re in our neighbourhood feel free to drop by and say high. Just like any other zoo, visiting hours are between 8 AM and 8 PM except we encourage you to feed the animals (especially the male gorilla that can usually be found wearing his young).

The ten best things about being a third child…
10. There won’t be any pressure to get married and have kids so you can concentrate on your career as a professional athlete.
9. You won’t need to worry about the hassle of sitting beside a windy window seat during family car rides.
8. Three kids are better than one especially when it’s time to convince the parents to go on family vacations to places like Disneyland or Mt. Splashmore.
7. You will be the proud owner of hand-me-down wardrobe for your entire life.
6. The third little pig avoided getting eaten by the wolf by building a beautiful brick home (whatever that means?).
5. By the time you become a teenager, Mom and Dad will barely be disciplining anymore.
4. Everyone knows that the baby of the family can concentrate on being spoiled and having fun while the older siblings can deal with being “responsible”.
3. There won’t be any embarrassing pictures of the third child (actually there won’t be any pictures at all).
2. There will always be someone older than you around to take care of you / tell you what to do.
1. Everyone knows that the third time's a charm.

Love,
Mom, Dad, Juliette, Nicholas and Sophie