Christmas 2010 in Victoria

We spent 4 days in Victoria celebrating Christmas with Gong Gong, Po Po, Yee Mah and Ko Fu. It was a very enjoyable and relaxing time. Due to the kiddies eating and napping schedules, we didn't go out much at all. We spent lots of time just talking and playing mah jong, as well as fixing dinner at home. Every meal was home cooked delicious and super healthy.

Everyone stayed at Winnie's condo (can't wait until she moves into her new house at the end of January!). It was cozy. Thanks for hosting Win! Here are some pics we took (click on the picture to enlarge):

Christmas Morning - trip to the ER

Something awful happened this Christmas morning. We were heading over to Victoria for a few days so I was in a rush to pack everything and was trying to leave the house to catch the 11am ferry. It was already 10am and we were still loading up the car when I noticed that Jasmine was still in her PJ pants! So I wanted to dash upstairs quickly, grab Jasmine's jeans and then dash back downstairs. Bad mistake.

Jasmine was walking up the stairs slowly with me and stupid me, I thought that it would be quicker if I carried her instead of her walking on her own. I picked Jasmine up and started going up the staircase. I slipped (I was wearing socks, another stupid thing to do in the house) and fell, Jasmine landed face first into the stair case. Jasmine smacked her chin open. Ikes!

Unfortunately, the cut was pretty deep and definitely needed to be stitched up. We drove to the Children's hospital and arrived there by 10:30am. Surprisingly, the ER was not busy and we got in after an hour. I guess most parents don't want to be at the hospital on Christmas morning.

Jasmine was always scared of the hospital, probably from her first experience when she was strapped down to do a head x-ray (when she was 15 months old). It took some convincing for her to sit on the bed and lie down. Good thing we brought her favorite blankie with us. The wound was about 2.5cm and required 5 stitches. I am very thankful that no needle was needed to do the stitches. The nurses used a topical gel on the wound, which took 30 minutes to work and Jasmine didn't feel a thing. Thanks goodness.

Now, we are only waiting for the wound to heal. So sorry Jasmine! Mommy has learned her lessons.

Lesson 1 - don't wear socks in the house
Lesson 2 - don't run up the stairs
Lesson 3 - wake up extra, extra early when traveling so there is no rushing

Emma First Birthday

Emma celebrated her first birthday today. Julia and Emma are good friends and have been on play dates since they were only a couple of months old (they even had bum rashes at the same time!). Emma is 2 months older than Julia.

It was a super fun day; Jasmine and Julia both enjoyed eating lunch and then playing with all of Emma's toys in her room. They even met many new friends there. Since Emma is still very young, they were unable to play together but I'm sure next year when she is walking and running, things will be different.

10 Months - Julia

Julia is now an unstoppable 10-month old, with massive teething/drooling issues. As soon as we put her on the ground, she starts crawling off to where ever she wants to go, usually heading towards the kitchen table or down the hallway towards the bathroom. She can sit up steadily, pull up into a standing position and knows how to scream at you when she is unhappy.

We go through about 10 bibs a day, as she is constantly drooling non-stop. I can feel her top 2 teeth coming in. Julia loves eating a variety of foods now including apple, banana, pear, carrot, sweet potato, peas, squash, cheese, yogurt, oatmeal and bread chunks. She's still eating purees but we are moving towards chunkier foods.

No check up this month, although she does have to go in for her second set of flu shots. (since we mentioned the flu shot, I am convinced that Julia may have an egg allergy because her face turns all red and hot with rash the 2 times she's had them. More on this topic later).

2 Hours - Meal Times

2 hours - that's how much time we lose at each meal, trying to feed Jasmine. She is a very s-l-o-w eater. She can eat alot, but she just takes a long time to eat everything. She keeps the food in her mouth and leaves the food there. She just sits in her chair. Her mouth doesn't chew at all. Why can't she just chew?

Annoyed, agitated, anger, losing patience... these are some words to describe what I feel while feeding Jasmine for 2 hours. Watching TV doesn't help (she is too engrossed in the TV to chew), giving her time-out after 30 minutes when she still has her first spoonful in her mouth doesn't work, and yelling at her just makes her take even longer to finish (she opens her mouth to cry and doesn't chew). Sheesh!

There's nothing we can do, just wait for her to want to eat. It's funny though, when we offer her favorite foods, she finishes so quickly and asks for a second helping. Her favorite foods include: noodles, pasta, soup, french fries, ice cream. We can only hope that one day, Jasmine will grow up to learn to like eating healthy foods.

Adyson 3rd Birthday

Today we celebrated Adyson's birthday at her house. She just turned 3 years old. Lunch was served quickly with all the kid favorites such as pizza, egg rolls and fruit. Jasmine had tons of fun playing with all the friends there. There were many activities including playdoh, expanding sponges that turned into sea creatures and hitting a fish piniata. The fish piniata was kinda scary, since the kiddies had to use a bat to smack it. Luckily, the adults all helped keep the bat away from hitting heads.




After that, it was cake time. It was a mermaid cake with an actual doll on it! It was a terrific day. Thanks for having us over Adyson!

Understanding Emotions

Something happened today and I noticed that Jasmine is really, truly growing up. She's starting to understand that other people have feelings, and it's not only about her in this world.

It was dinner time and Jasmine was sitting in her highchair, eating and watching TV. Her feet like to push off on things and it just so happens I was sitting directly across from her. Her feet was pushing off on my shins/knees. For some reason, her feet started pushing harder and harder to the point, it started to hurt. I said to Jasmine, "Ouch. Please stop. You are hurting my legs" (in Chinese). Normally, Jasmine would push harder (to test me) or start screaming to throw a fit. But today, she didn't do this. She just looked at me quietly with a sad face and tears welled up in her eyes. She totally understood that she had hurt Mommy and she felt bad about it! Isn't that terrific?

After some cuddles and kisses, Jasmine was back to being her old self. It's amazing how much a person can develop in one day.

Julia Crawling (video)

Julia has been attempting to crawl for the past few weeks and just today, she started doing it the correct way. Julia loves her new found freedom and roams around on the floor all day long. She doesn't mind being left alone for 15 minutes at a time because she enjoys gazing at the feet walking around.


Her favorite spot in the house right now is under the kitchen table. She hides under there until she sees a pair feet she wants to chase after, and then she dashes out. We have to be careful we don't accidentally step on her.

Pumping Milk - 3 pumps a day

I have been pumping breast milk to feed to Julia in a bottle. Now that it is December, I am preparing to go back to work. I was pumping milk 4 times a day but since I noticed that Julia is not drinking as much milk as she used to, with her being on solid food, I now pump 3 times a day starting today.

Originally, I yielded 26oz of milk when I pumped 4 times a day. Now puming 3 times a day, I am yielding around 21oz a day. Julia is drinking 18-20oz a day. In a few weeks, I hope to decrease to 2 pumps a day and start Julia on formula.

Convert to Toddler Bed

Jasmine has been sleeping in her crib since she was born, 3 years ago. In the recent months, every time we put her to bed, she would disapprove and try to get out by climbing over the bars. She hasn't fallen out yet and she hasn't escaped per se, probably because she is scared to fall down.

Now that Jasmine is older, we took down the bars and converted her crib into a toddler bed this evening. Jasmine was so excited and actually wanted to go to bed, which never happens. She hates the winding down process (although once she is sleeping, she doesn't want to get up!) but tonight, it was so easy. She willingly went to bed by herself. What a big girl she is now.

Julia - Eating Solids (video)

Julia is starting to eat more solids now. We've tried different types of fruits (apple, peach, mango), veggies (peas, carrots, squash, sweet potato), chicken congee, bread and cheese. It's only this week that she is eating more than a spoonful. We will be trying baby yogurt this week.

9 Months - Julia

Julia is now 9 months old (a week ago). Because Jasmine and Julia were sick for the past 2 weeks, we delayed doing Julia's check up this month until today. Julia and Richard both had their flu shots today. These are Julia's 9-month stats:

Weight - 16lb 8oz (20th percentile)
Height - 73cm (85th percentile)
Head - 44cm (50th percentile)

Currently Julia is sort of on a schedule but she still doesn't eat alot. Her schedule looks like this:

8am - wake, 5oz bottle
10am - nap (1.5 hours)
11:30am - 1oz cereal with fruit puree
12:30pm - 5oz bottle
2pm - some bread or puffs
2:30pm - nap (1.5 hours)
4:30pm - 5oz bottle
5:30pm - 1oz meat with veggie, 1oz fruit puree
7:30pm - 7oz bottle then bed

As you can see, Julia really doesn't eat that much solid food yet and she doesn't drink that much milk (sometimes she doesnt' even finish the bottle). Unfortunately, the doc told me that Julia is underweight so we'll have to keep on offering food to her every 2 hours. I mean, I offer her food all the time, but she just doesn't eat that much of it. How do you make a baby open her mouth when she just clamps it shut?

I'm very lucky in terms of Julia sleeping through the night and taking her naps during the day. It is only recently that Julia sleeps 1.5 hours during the day. It probably corresponds to her being more active now. She's not quite crawling but she's really, really close. She sure helps Mom clean the floor nicely, by first drooling and then dragging her body on the floor. Thanks Julia!

Pop Goes the Weasel (video)

We recently bought a doll stroller for Jasmine and she was fooling around with the box that the stroller came in. Jasmine got into the box and tried to hide inside. She said "Mommy "san san" meaning close the box". And just as I closed the box, Jasmine POPPED out of the box... constantly. It was a fun game for her for about 20 minutes. Check it out.

3 Years Old - Jasmine (video)

We celebrated Jasmine's birthday a couple of days early because she is supposed to have her shots the day before her birthday. Rather than hosting a birthday party this year, we decided to celebrate with family instead. We had a tasty dinner at Western Lake restaurant and then cut the birthday cake at home. We arranged for a special cake that had Jasmine's favorite caterpillar on it (from Baby Einstein).

Check out the video. All she kept on saying is "choy hong chong chong" meaning rainbow worm. Happy Birthday Jasmine!

(Jasmine is still scared of taking pics so it's hard for her to smile and look at the camera at the same time.)

Bottle Nipple - back to level 2

After changing the nipple to a faster flow, I noticed that Julia does not finish her bottles anymore. She also has alot of air and needs to burp more often. In fact, it was getting more and more difficult to get her to drink milk. I can hear her gulp every time she swallows and she takes smaller sucks to compensate for the larger amounts of milk getting into her mouth. Not good.

I made an executive decision to revert back to using level 2 nipples. As soon as I did this, Julia finished the next 2 bottles. Hooray!

Both Kids Sick again

I really hate the colder months. It seems the kids catch colds so easily, even when I put so many layers of clothes on them before we go out.

Both kids are sick again. Yes, again. I think they just got over the last cold a week ago. Jasmine on nebulizer again; her airways seem to swell whenever she is sick. We are administering meds every 4 hours again. Julia is starting to get better (she caught the cold first this time) now with a slight runny nose. But with teething issues, she isn't drinking milk (on bottle strike) and she's not eating that much solid food either so that's bothering me.

I hate colds. Please don't let me catch the cold from the kids.

Nipple Change - next level

Julia has been on the bottle since 6.5 months, still drinking pure breastmilk. We are using Born Free bottles with level 2 nipples but recently Julia is collapsing the nipples when she drinks (sucking very hard) so we decided to go to the level 3 nipples now.

At 8.5 months, we changed to level 3 nipples. No problems adjusting on the first try although I could see it in her face that she realized something had changed. Every time she sucked, she gets so much milk that sometimes she chokes. I think it'll take a week to adjust to the new nipples.

Typical Day at Ballet Class (video)

I have a wonderful father-in-law who is retired and helps take care of Jasmine while I am working (and while I am on maternity leave). Jasmine usually stays at home most of the time so we enrolled her into ballet class. She can go out, get some fresh air, meet new friends and stay active.

This 2-minute video shows some of the things they do in ballet class every Monday afternoon (2.5 year olds). Jasmine is the class clown wearing grey shirt, pink pants in the pony tail. She is the LOUD one:

Logan 3rd Birthday Party

We celebrated Logan's birthday today (he's 2 days older than Jasmine) at the Thunderbird community center. It's one of the newer community centers and we've never been there before. When we arrived, lunch was served and we ate noodles, fried rice, chopped vegetables, fresh fruit on sticks and yummy cupcakes. Each cupcake had car icing on it, yummy! Then we had cake (that was yummy too). There was even a car pinata, where you hang it up and kids pull strings off of it to eventually dump a bunch of candies all over the floor. Jasmine managed to grab a bunch of treats.


After lunch, we went downstairs to the gym to burn off all the calories we ate. It was a terrific birthday party. Thanks Logan for inviting us.

Time Zone Change

It's been a few days since we changed daylight savings time. We turned our clocks back one hour, from 2am back to 1am again. For most people, that's a terrific thing, (get an extra hour of sleep) however for me, it's a bad thing.

Julia usually starts her day around 6am and has her first feeding of milk. Sometimes she goes back to bed for another hour, but lately she gets up at that time. With the new daylight savings time, the 6am feeding now is a 5am feeding.... Zzzzzzz. Way too early for me.

Unfortunately it'll take a week or more to adjust her internal clock to the new time. I can't wait until this happens. I really don't enjoy waking at 5am and entertaining her.

Playing Together (video)

Both Richard and I were doing chores today so we decided to plop them both down on the floor to play. There were so nice and playing together without any screaming (Jasmine likes to play with anything that Julia is playing with). It was a perfect video opportunity. Any peace and quiet in the house is something to celebrate.

Halloween - Trick or Treat, and Capilano Bridge

For Halloween this year, we decided to head over to Brentwood Mall for trick or treating. Jasmine has been practicing saying "Trick or Treat" for the past 2 weeks and was ready to make use of all her efforts.

It was a zoo at the mall, with probably over 500 kids trying to get candies. Although trick or treating time is only for an hour, many of the stores ran out of candy before it ended. We weren't too disappointed though, since we don't want Jasmine to be eating so much junk anyways. Besides, Julia is one of the nicest sisters ever, letting Jasmine have all of her candies too.

We took some pictures of Jasmine and Julia in their costumes before we left the house. Jasmine was a dragon and Julia was a lamb:

We also visited Capilano Bridge, where they decorated the entire park up for the Halloween spirit. We had annual passes so we made this a family outing. There were tons of pumpkins as well as a band playing. Jasmine was dancing and jumping to the music.

It was all fun until:

1)Jasmine had to use the potty. It was an entire ordeal just getting Jasmine to the toilet, getting everything set up and then she tells me she doesn't have to pee. Sigh

2) Richard thought he lost his wedding band. By the time he told me, we had already walked the entire park so we had to trace back our footsteps and look everywhere! After searching for half an hour, Richard then remembers that he didn't wear his ring out that day. He called home and asked his Dad to check if his ring was at home. And it was. Relief!

Anyways, that ruined the mood for anything else we wanted to do that day so we went home. Mind you, I was pretty much out of energy anyways, lugging the two kids around so I was happy to drive home. What a day.

Second Tooth Finally Here

This morning when I was wiping Julia's gums, she gave me a nice hard bite. That is when I noticed her second tooth on the bottom. Yay! It's finally poked through. There seems to be continuous amounts of drool still so I assume more teeth are on the way. Let's see when the next ine will pop out.

Cold - Going Around the House

Uh oh, looks like we are having another battle of the colds. Jasmine caught something at the community center during her ballet class. She came home with a slight runny nose. Did I mention that Jasmine is taking ballet classes? Yeah, for 2 year olds! Put a bunch of little toddlers together, play some music, and ask them to bounce around or pretend to be a rocket ship. That's ballet for them.

Jasmine's cold got steadily worse on Tuesday and she started wheezing (difficulty breathing) as well as a fever, cough and stuffy nose. I only found out in the afternoon after I came home from visiting a cousin's place. Before I even had a chance to take off my jacket, I had to leave for the doctor's office.

To help the wheezing, we were prescribed some meds to be administered every 4 hours via nebulizer. Terrific. Nothing like adding another item on my list that needs to be done day and night. Here's a pic of Jasmine taking in her dose of meds:



By the way, I did a jumperoo swap for a month so this "new" one is only temporary. Hope they don't mind Jasmine sitting in it. She just can't keep away from any new toys in the house. I promise, she won't break it...

Unfortunately, Julia caught the cold from Jasmine so she is now coughing away with a fever and a nose running like a tap. No meds for Julia though. I kinda wish that Julia can take meds so that some of her symptoms would go away (like her runny nose, then she can at least drink milk without popping on and off). My plan is to have all-night-parties until the kiddies get better, since I have to stay up all night long anyways (just kidding). 6 hours sleep in 48 hours. Let's see how much sleep I'll get tonight.

8 Months - Julia

Julia turned 8 months today. Look at her pretty 1-tooth smile (click on photo to enlarge). The next check up is at 9 months so no stats to report.

I am happy to inform that Julia loves playing with paper, pamphlets and magazines. She just chews on everything that is paper! Here she is, playing with a cardboard box:

Toilet Training - She did it!

This past long weekend, we started potty training Jasmine again. Yes, again. We've been training on and off since she turned 2 years old to no success. Jasmine will be turning 3 next month so we think she should be out of diapers by then.

After 3 days of hardcore training, Jasmine peepee and pooped in the bathroom toilet today! Yay! I'm so proud of her. We could see it in her face, of how proud of herself she was too (not to mention all the chocolate she got when she made it to the toilet).

For the past 3 days, we let Jasmine run around butt naked from the waist down. By doing this, Jasmine learned how to hold it in and run to the bathroom when she had the urge to go. Previously we put Jasmine in underwear and she would pee/poo on the floor so that didn't work. I'm so glad we decided to change our strategy.

It's funny watching her run back and forth from the living room to the bathroom constantly as she learns how to use her bladder muscles. It's definitely a learning process. We'll continue training her (go naked) for a few more days until she routinely uses the bathroom all time. Go Jasmine go!

Megan's 2nd Birthday Party

We celebrated Megan's 2nd birthday today and enjoyed a nice lunch at their house. There were lots of kiddies there, over 50 people (adults and kids)! There were tons of food including yummy chocolate cupcakes and jello (all the other food were not important, haha). Jasmine did eat some chicken, corn and fruit. They even had a bouncy castle in the backyard where all the children were jumping in like crazy (Jasmine included).

We tried to take a picture with the birthday girl, but all 3 of them (Jasmine, Megan and Julia) were all staring at the chocolate cupcakes! Such cuties.