project 52, week 34

this is how he spends quality time with books.  coincidentally, this is how he stays contained and quiet.  if only for a moment.

solution

i mentioned that i was having a certain little problem with reading homework a couple weeks ago.  namely that i was helpless against falling into a complete comatose state every time my little first grader would do her twenty minutes of read-aloud time to me.  the comfy couch... the warm little body pressed against mine... the sweet, haltingly soothing little voice stumbling over the words...  ZZZ.

out like a light.  a snoring light.

but, my friends!  i believe i have found the answer to my problem.  oh happy day!  and here she is:

 a handy dandy little sister!

who stays alert and engaged during the reading of the story.

awesome.  i am now ready to tiptoe off to start dinner.

but wait!  oh no, what's this?  she appears to be leaning...

cannot. resist. that. sweet. haltingly. soothing. voice...

and... another one bites the dust.

*cough, cough* LAUREN! [that was me with the fake coughing].

ha ha, just kidding!  i'm awake, mommy!

boy.  it's going to be a long year of reading-aloud homework.  sigh.

snippet

while doing spelling words with mikey...

me: the next word is 'wife'.  mikey, will you have a wife when you grow up?
mikey: uh, yeah, i think so.
me: what kind of wife do you think you'll have?
mikey: um, a pretty one?

just callin em as she sees em

just now...

lauren [holding up a picture she had just drawn]: mommy, this is you.
me: thanks lauren, it's very nice!  but what are those big circles on the stomach part?
lauren: oh those are your booby feeders.  is that what the name of them are?
me: um, ok.
lauren: i thought so.
me: :/

splish splash

"hey jonah, wanna take a bath?"

the answer to that question is always yes.  the boy loves bathtime.

he'd stay in here all day if i let him.

staring contest with his toy boat.  i think he won.

once i finally do get him extracted from the water, his next favorite thing to do is check his fine self out in the mirror.  his crazy hair always cracks him up.

making faces and yelling at ourselves is always part of the fun, too.

but yeah, the boy is long overdue for a haircut.  all three of 'em are. time to whip out the clippers and get to work!

project 52, week 33

love watching our two littles grow in their friendship and affection for one another.

the missing birth story

i thunk a thought the other day.  i know.  that often gets me into trouble.  it causes me to remember things i've forgotten to do, like missed doctor appointments and late bills and such.

so it's best that i limit that activity as much as possible.

:p

however, this particular thought had to do with thankfulness.  so i think (there i go again!) i was pretty safe from getting into trouble this time around.  i was thankful mainly for this blog and all the years of family memories i have recorded.  and i'm thankful for YOU, for reading along and sharing in our joys and supporting us in our sorrows (and for comments both here and on fb, emails, and in-person encouragement- it all means more than i can say).  it has been one of God's major blessings in my life.

and i was thankful that i have the story of each of our children's births written down pretty soon after their arrivals so that little details were preserved and now they each have their very own story to enjoy and giggle over.  to know that each of them are precious to us, and that each of their stories have God's handiwork and protection and fingerprints all over it.

until.

i remembered that mikey has no such story.  i started my blog when he was three months old and it never occurred to me to write down his birth story.  mostly because he was our firstborn and all the details were seared in my memory and still feels like it happened just yesterday, not almost eight and a half years ago.  also because i was pretty jacked up and had a longer recovery time than i did with the others.

you know how in most families, the firstborn has everything saved for them, has the completed baby book, and most importantly, has the most pictures of their babyhood?  it was true of my family growing up-- there are tons and tons of pictures of my big brother, tons and tons of slides of him, tons and tons of 8mm videos of his every baby move.  and a completely filled in baby book along with clippings and other photos jammed in there.  me?  i have a whopping three pictures of the first year of my life.  and a depressingly blank baby book that i asked my mom about when i was 6.  she must have felt guilty over it because she took it and later proudly showed me what she had done- hastily gone over it, wrote in a few facts, and wait for it... drew in an outline of an imaginary baby's hand and foot.  "that's roughly the size of your hands... when you were a baby," she said with a hint of vagueness in her voice.

thanks, mom.

i vowed that day that i would have filled in baby books for each of my babies to spare them the feelings i felt for being the second-born.

and now here i am.

with a nearly-filled in baby book for my first, a partially (and that's a generous statement) filled in book for my second, a blank one for my third, and still have to get one for our fourth.  who is 19 months old today.

God, thank you for lessons in humility and teaching me to never say never.

but!

thank the good Lord for this blog wherein i DO have many stories preserved of each of our kiddos and puh-lenty of pictures of each one.  so much so that we actually are the opposite of my own growing up experience.  i actually have more (and better!) pictures of each successive baby.

so the baby books may actually be a lost cause at this point, but they each WILL have their own photobooks telling the stories of each of their first year of life.  at least that's my goal for this Christmas.  we'll see.

but for my sweet boy, mikey?  no such mommy-written birth story exists.  boo.  but!  thank the good Lord again for my sweet hubby who was a proud first-time daddy and emailed our friends near and far about our baby son's arrival.  and!  we just happen to have those emails saved.  whew.

so, here is mikey's birth story, in his daddy's words.  following that are a few pictures.  (of course!)

-----Original Message-----
From: phil tsai
Sent: Tue 5/11/2004 8:33 AM
To: ***
Subject: A New Addition to the Tsai Family

Hello to all,

   I just wanted to report that on May, 8th, 2004, at around 4:30 am,
Michael Kyle Tsai was born.  He weighed 6 lbs. 1oz., and was 20 inches in
length.  His best features so far have been his lungs, as one nurse
described him as, "the smallest baby in the nursery with the loudest
cries..."

   Michelle first started having contractions at around 11:50 pm, on Friday
May 8th.  At first, they were approximately 10 minutes apart.  They timed
down rapidly, and around 2:30 am, we thought, "Hey, they are around 3 - 5
minutes apart, maybe we should go to the hospital."  Michelle was worried
that the staff would send her home for false labor!

   We checked in around 3:00 am, and the nurse who first examined her
announced, "You are around 6 cm dialated.  You will have the baby before
this morning is over."  Good thing we came when we did!

   The staff thought that an epidural would take too long to take effect, so
Michelle was ordered an intrathecal shot of morphine, which is supposed to
take the edge off of the contractions, but leave her enough sensation so
that she could move around and feel when to push.  Unfortunately, the shot
only seemed to work minimally, but the side effects came on maximally, so
Michelle got nausea, shakes, chills, the whole spectrum of stuff.

   Within minutes of receiving the shot, Michelle was ready to push (We
waited forever until the anesthesiologist came in and administered the shot
at the height of what seemed like the transitional phase.  Those
specialists...)

   The baby's heart rate started to drop after a while, so the ob/gyn did an
episiotomy to help get him out.  The next push, Michael Kyle came into the
world, crying his head off.  We were blessed because Michelle only had to
push for around 15 minutes!

   Phil used his med school connections to get a private corner suite with a
double bed.  Actually, I think the room was open at the time, so they just
gave it to us, but I prefer to think that the ob/gyn, who was terribly
impressed that I was in the MD/MPH program, and conversed with me about
epidemiology in-between Michelle's contractions, pulled a few strings. :)

   Michelle is doing well, but she has to recoup from a tear which came in
addition to the episiotomy cut.  Michael is settling down a little, but he
still likes to show off his lungs.  (We think Michael tends to look more
like Phil, but there are definite Michelle features which are evident...)
Phil has two finals this week, and good thing public health grades do not go
into his med school record!  Unfortunatley, he has had a hard time studying,
preferring to hold Michael as well as design stupid things to send to people
(see attachments).

   If someone could forward this to the unity-line, that would be
appreciated. (I don't think I have exclusive membership...)  Anyways, we
appreciate all your thoughts and prayers and most of all praises to
God...


Proud Parents
Phil and Michelle Tsai


and a shorter email sent to our small group friends:


From: phil tsai 
To: ***
Subject: New Addition to Tsai Household
Date: Sun, 09 May 2004 05:50:27 +0000

Hey old small group posse, 

Just wanted to let everyone know that at approximately 4:30 am on
May 8th, Michael Kyle (99% sure that's the name) Tsai was born,
weighing 6 lbs. 1 oz, and 20 inches long.  Michelle did a wonderful
job, and Michael came out after only 15 minutes of pushing...  Mom
Michelle is resting up and recouping from an episiotomy and fighting
an allergic rxn she had earlier from sun screen, and Father Phil is
burning the midnight oil changing diapers, and hoping to get some
study time in for his two finals this coming week.  We are at
Fairview Riverside Hospital, room 583, but will probably be home by
Sunday night/Monday morning...  We appreciate all your thoughts and
prayers...  Well gotta go.  Fortunately, we have a double bed in
Michelle's room, so I don't need to sleep on a cot...

We'll be sending out pictures when we get home :)

Phil and Michelle Tsai
"Sleep Deprived Proud Parents"


********

the part about "design[ing] stupid things to send to people" from the first email?  well, look what i happened to dig up!

a "redesigned" pamphlet.  see a familiar face in there?

and another "redesigned" pamphlet.

a page from mikey's baby book.  up on the left there is his daddy-designed birth announcement.  before costco and other websites offered birth announcements. or, maybe before we were aware of them.  and on the right is his newspaper birth announcement.  the only one of our kids we did this for.

my sweet boy on the day we took him home from the hospital.  taken with our first digital point-and-shoot camera complete with date stamp.  phil still misses this feature on the pictures i take now.  i don't.  

so very, very thankful for this written account of mikey's birth.  such happy memories.  except for maybe the "allergic rxn", "episiotomy", and "[4th degree] tear" parts...  those i could maybe have done without.  :/

ps- this post is brought to you today due to yet another forgotten swim lesson.  oops.

soccer mom

so here's the thing.  the title of "soccer mom" has always signified to me someone who had actual kids instead of toddlers and babies, who had her stuff together enough to know how to sign her kid up for organized sports, and who is not constantly in a state of moving/packing/unpacking/being preggo/having a newborn and so could actually fathom staying on top of games and practices and snack schedules.

i'm so not that mom.  in terms of having her stuff together and being able to stay on top of schedules, that is.  oh, and i still have babies in addition to the kids.  a lot of times it feels like i'm the only one.

case in point of the former, mikey had a game scheduled last saturday at noon.  on friday night, we got an email from his coach regarding a game time change.  phil and i each got this email in our different accounts, read this email separately from each other and both came to the same conclusion: that this game was moved to later in the afternoon.

so we enjoyed our saturday, gallivanting around one of our old 'hoods, enjoying lunch as a family, stopping by a few places, and finally moseying on back home.  got mikey ready for his game and off he and phil went.  i got a movie started for the girls and laid jonah down for a nap and was all ready to enjoy a quiet afternoon.  until i heard mikey running back inside the house.

turns out, the email was for NEXT WEEK'S game which we clearly understood once we both reread coach's email.

and yes, we were the only two parents to have misread the email.  unfortunately, we are married to each other so neither of us could catch the mistake.

and did i mention that it was our family's turn to bring the snacks for the team?

yup.

oh, did i mention we're new to this neighborhood and this might possibly not be the best way to make new friends?

i so do not have my stuff together.

yet at the same time, i have this eight year old boy in my house who i just feel bad for.  we haven't been able to sign him up for afternoon activities because of extended years of needed nap times for younger siblings and their exhausted mommy.  he hasn't been able to do soccer or little league or basketball or pretty much anything ever since outgrowing afternoon naps himself.

and he's never once complained about it.  but that hasn't stopped my mommy guilt from kicking in big time every time i hear what his friends have been up to or see their athletic skills developing.

so ready or not, stuff together or not, we signed him up this fall!  not only for soccer, but also piano lessons, and continuing swim lessons, and tae kwon do.  what the what?!  this may or may not be a contributing factor to my current crazed, forgetful, loopy state.  but darn it all, i gotta let him get out there and try new things!  so bring on the craziness.  i embrace the crazy!  i am the crazy!

huh?

"the fire-breathing dragons" team huddle.

grouped by age, so he's the shortest kid on his team.  wah.

but at least he's got the biggest cheering section!

i gotta say, i am so completely proud of this kid.  he walked into this situation not knowing a single other kid, pretty much not knowing how to play this game at all, and yet has given it his best effort, coming at it with his usual great attitude.  it was intimidating for me as a parent to walk in to this new situation and my kid handled it waaay better than i did.

go, mikey, go!

keeping close tabs on the game?  not really.  i think they were there mostly for the snacks.

he's all about the snacks.

but maybe we can get this one started a tad bit earlier in all this soccer mania.

a little father-son bonding time.

trying to walk that fine line between being encouraging and also giving pointers (lectures) to your kid.

meanwhile, the girls found ways to keep themselves entertained.

there was once a time not too long ago when she was the one needing a little assistance.  and here she is now, all growed up!

and when there were popsicles for the dragons after the game, the big brother came over to share his with the little brother.

which just totally made his day.

so while mikey may never be a star soccer player, he's totally a winner in my book.

i love that kid.

project 52, week 32

just checking things out from a new vantage point.

old flames

phil has a couple first loves that remain near and dear to his heart to this very day.  but no worries, i can peacefully coexist with this knowledge.  allow me to explain:  his ardent affections are for old interests that are enjoying a revival of sorts now that he has a little more time for such things.  so these loves of his?  well, the violet burning being one.  it's okay if you've never heard of them.  i hadn't either until we started dating and my musical horizons expanded whether or not i was particularly into his type of music.  i wasn't.  and still am not.  but this does not deter or bother him one bit.  he blasts his tunes on his iWhatever and i listen until i can take it no longer then shake my head and retreat into another room.  and we're both okay with that.

the other love being water polo.  also okay if you're not really familiar with the game.  i wasn't either until... well, you get the picture.

except i now find water polo games pretty interesting to watch.  maybe partly (or mostly) because the matches are mercifully short and action-packed.  kinda like ice hockey but without all the blood.  there is fighting, but they keep it underwater where we spectators can't really see.

so when phil asked recently if we as a family wanted to go to a ucla water polo exhitition game, i was all for it.  because for one thing, it was ucla (go, bruins!).  and for another, it was free.  that adds up to a total win in my book.

"gooo number 1 bruins!" (isn't that what ursa used to say?)

and please shed some light on some recent confusion for me... they call it "de NEV" now?!  wasn't it always "de NEVE drive" before?  when did that change come about?  and why that makes me feel so stinkin' old?

my wacky entourage.

discussing the finer points of water polo.

and sooner than later, jonah got a little too restless just sitting around so i took him down to an open area where he could stretch his legs a bit and climb on non-jpma approved play structures.

and this is what he looks like after bonking his head on the non-jpma approved play structure.

a quick hug and a kiss and all's good in the hood.

back in action and lookin' for adventure.

not sure if he found it, but at least he found his boys.

this boy absolutely, completely, definitively loves his big brother.

and happily, i think the feeling is mutual.

meanwhile, the girls were also reveling in their sisterness.

but all displays of sibling affection were off as soon as daddy whipped out the iphone.  mostly because i think he actually wanted to watch the water polo game we drove 25 miles to attend.  go figure.

project 52, week 31

self-portrait.

just one of those days

you know one of those days when the hubs is working a 14-hour day and so it's all on you to get the kids up, and changed, and dressed, and fed, and lunch made, and hustled out the door, and got to school on time, and gas bought cuz it's on empty and oh my why is it $4.55 a gallon now?!, and back home to clean up breakfast dishes, and change the baby's poopy diaper (and it doesn't make the task any cuter to call it "poopy"),  and put the baby down for nap, and vacuum the endlessly shedding rug, and then homeschool the second grader, and get so engrossed in a pilgrim unit inspired "scrubbing day" with the second grader that the time completely slips your mind, and then you rush off like a madwoman because you're totally late now to pick up the preschooler, and you get there only to find her sitting there alone with the teacher but thankfully they are reading a picture book together and the teacher gives you grace you don't deserve and an understanding smile saying it happens to all of us, and then you get back home to finish scrubbing the bathrooms and make lunch, and clean up after lunch, and read aloud from "the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe", and make pumpkin chocolate muffins with the preschooler, only to realize you're now running late to pick up the first grader, so you rush off and manage to get there just in time, and then you get back home to finish baking the muffins, and you throw in a load of laundry, and pluck the baby off the top of the bunkbed ladder, and start in on the first grader's homework, and fall sound asleep as she does her prescribed 20 minutes a day of reading aloud to you, and wake up to discover she has finished reading and is now coloring in her room, and the baby is playing with dirty diapers from the trash can, and you ask God for strength, and you start dinner realizing it's almost six o'clock now, stepping over and around the baby as he's intently emptying every single plate, bowl, and utensil out of the kids' drawers and onto the floor, and you wonder why in tarnation you took the advice of an older mom who suggested putting all kid-ware in lower drawers so that the kids can practice being helpful early on when actually it's just an irresistible invitation to the baby any and every time he goes in to the kitchen, and you get interrupted because the preschooler needs help wiping, and you get interrupted again because the baby pooped again, and you throw in yet another load of laundry before resuming making dinner, and then realize you didn't preheat the oven for the meatloaf so that's going to take another fifteen minutes, and then kid by kid comes up asking when is dinner because they are starving, and then you realize it's getting close to when hubs is supposed to finally be home so you text asking if he's on his way only to get a one-word response, "trauma", so you hold out a bit longer hoping he'll show, but no, so you serve up dinner to the starving kids since it's now a quarter to eight, and you slump into your seat and your son looks at you sympathetically and asks if you're tired, and you say yes and appreciate his noticing, and you realize bedtime is quickly approaching but you still have to sit through piano practice with the two olders, and they all still need baths/showers because it can't wait til tomorrow since hubs is working a 36-hour shift then and won't be around to help anyway, so you do the piano practice and then hurriedly put the baby down to sleep, and get the older three showered as quickly as possible only to see hubs come through the door just as the last kid is getting the last rinse (he has always had impeccable timing), and so the kids brush teeth, get bible story read, tucked in bed, and you collapse on the couch thanking God for this perfectly ordinary day but also thinking now would be a good time to see if a mike's hard lemonade is as good as regular old lemonade because you'll be back on single-handedly running the whole show again tomorrow.  and the next day.

yeah, just one of those days.

confessions...

of a former elementary school teacher-turned-parent:

my very least favorite homework assignment to do with the kids is their daily reading aloud practice.  HATE IT.  and it is expected to be done EVERY SINGLE DAY.  now, i know the value of daily reading practice for fluency, for comprehension, yeah yeah yeah.  but no one ever says how brain-numbingly boring it is for the parent who must sit through the excruciating 15-20 minutes of a child's monotone voice stumbling over words nicknamed "rule breakers" and therefore are not sound-out-able and so require said parent to actually be paying attention enough to help with those pesky words.  unfortunately for me, listening to my child's monotone reading voice works faster and more effectively than the strongest sleeping pill in a matter of seconds.  though i am supposed to be alert, holding up the book, and enthusiastically following along with my child so that her love of reading flourishes to heights unknown, i am out cold in ten seconds flat.  every single time.

thankfully and oddly enough, my child has yet to notice and if she has, hasn't seemed bothered by my snoring next to her in the least.

the funny thing is? 

my dad used to do the exact same thing back in the day when i had to read aloud to him.  snoring.  right next to me.

except that i used to get very bothered by it and somewhat offended that he'd be fast asleep instead of riveted and enthralled by my exceptional reading skills.  and so i'd elbow him and huff my displeasure.  and yet, he'd never get mad at the rude awakening but would mumble out a sleepy, "sorry, sorry" and then be out again seconds later.

hmm.

this makes me very thankful for my daughter who never elbows me now that i'm doing the same thing to her.

also very thankful for my dad who never got upset at me for being upset at him. because i know i surely would not take an elbow in the ribs too well now that i'm the parent.

hmm.

beach baby

we had a long run of very hot days last month.  which meant we went looking for some relief...

beachside!  this is the one and only shot i got of this boy...

before he did this.

he didn't care a bit about sand potentially getting in to his eye and proceeded about his business.  so while the others scampered off to splash in the ocean, here he squatted with his blue shovel and his sisters' pink buckets.

completely ignoring those pink buckets but being endlessly fascinated by the sand.  and blue shovel.

pink buckets, you say?  when did these get here?

see this big huge rock?  prepare...

to be...

amazed!  hee hee, baby feats of strength amaze even the baby.

and then?  and then the baby ditched me.

to conquer the ocean.

he no longer has any qualms about running right in with no intention of stopping.

thankfully his daddy was right there to scoop him up before his diaper sucked up half the ocean.

he kept wanting to get in those waves, though.

plotting his next escape.

wishing for freedom...

like the freedom these two enjoy.

or even to make some type of ocean soup like the one this girl is making.

but alas, he's stuck being the baby still.

and as it turns out, wasn't the only one sporting a sand-face.

which makes them both my beach babies.