20130928 Another Performance

Today started as usual with A going to Chinese school and CF and I taking care of R.  And as usual, I took R for a drive to help him take a nap in the morning while CF got ready to go out.  Once we were ready, we went to A's Chinese school to meet up with A and CF's parents.  We ate some lunch that CF's mom had prepared.  Then it was off to check out the performance location (Dufferin Care Centre).  But we did manage to take a quick stop at Target for the kids to explore a little bit.

We waited a good while at the Care Centre where we meet up with Jasmine and Alex.before A and Jasmine performed the same song/dance they did at the TAIWANfest.  And poor R gets dragged around to these things.  Well after their 7 minute performance, we went back to Coquitlam Centre for play at the playground and frozen yoghurt.  A and Jasmine had a blast playing with each other and running around.  And again poor R doesn't get to play much since he had to eat (he was being fed by his grandmother).  But it was nice to chat with Alex for a bit. When us dads get together, we vent about our crazy wives and kids.  It's nice to know that Jasmine and Lex get into fights too - it's not just A and R.  And it is nice to hear that Alex's kid, Lex, did not start communicating until very recently so I do not feel that bad that R has not started talking more than just (mama, dada, baobao-grandma, gogo-grandpa).  It was also nice to hear that when Alex has both kids to himself, things go really well - like clockwork, as he put it.  And I think about how I get Alyssa ready for school in the mornings.  She actually does a pretty good job.  But it would be nice if she could hurry up and eat her breakfast faster.

Anyways, after playing, the kids had some frozen yoghurt - and poor Russell only got a bit of a taste.  A and CF ate it all.  Then it was off to CF's grandfather's house where we would have dinner and then head home.  R did not eat very well at his house.  I am getting concerned about his eating.  He used to eat so well before I went to work.  I hope this is just another phase he is going through.

CC

20130922 Guilford Town Centre

I decided that we should explore the newly renovated Guilford Town Centre today as the Lego store had a grand opening as well (and last week the Disney Store had their grand opening).  I had asked CF to take the Pattullo Bridge today to avoid the tolls.  Little did I know that the toll was only $1.50 and we had probably driven so far that we spent more money on gas than save on the toll.  Luckily, R was sleeping and A had her little TV to keep her occupied.

Anyways, there were tons of people in the mall on this rainy day.  We went straight to the Lego store which was really busy.  After that, we went to look at the green Lego Hulk they were building.  CF decided to get A to help build part of the Hulk.  They spent about 15 minutes doing that while R and I walked into a card store and looked at Christmas ornaments.  After building, A got some certificate that said she helped build the sculpture.

We then went to the new Disney Store and browsed for a bit.  It seemed a lot like the one in Metrotown so there was not that much that was interesting.  But the mall itself was quite nicely renovated with new lighting, appearance, and water fountains - though we only walked through a small bit of it.  The kids had some McD's happy meals at the Walmart for lunch as I knew that they would eat a bunch.  And afterwards, we browsed around the toy section.  At that point, A was probably getting tired as she was getting excited and not listening to CF and I.  So we went home after that and called it a day without doing much shopping at either Walmart or the rest of the mall.

I made mac and cheese for dinner while CF was building a Little People car toy for R.

20130921 Maja and Amelia's Birthday Party at Koko's

Today started like a typical Saturday morning.  A was in Chinese school from 9:30 until 12:30, while R was with CF and I.  R was a bit fussy today but pretty typical.  He is not eating and sleeping as much as we feel he should.  But it still is pretty normal.  I was trying to clean up a bit by doing some vacuuming when I could.  CF was nursing R quite a few times today.

A came home around 2:30pm and we were rushing to make birthday cards for her friends, Maja and Amelia.  CF had already started on the cards using the special markers that she got from PNE.  Once the cards were done, we were off to Koko's for the indoor kids playground.  CF had purchased some science themed toys but she made sure that we gave them gift receipts in case she wanted to return them.  A was playing with Maja quite a bit and R was just trying to figure out what was happening.  He did not enjoy the toddler area very much, but he did want to sit on all of the ride on toys (only when they were not moving).  The food was not great, but the kids seemed to have fun until A started getting tired and cried a couple of times:  once when she fell down while climbing up to the slide (she said that she bumped her head and her back - but I only found this out at night before she went to bed since she was too hysterical at the moment it happened.  CF thought that A was just crying because she did not get to race/slide with her and R), and another time when A thought she was lost in the jungle gym.

On the drive back home at around 8pm, R fell asleep and would be asleep until around 9:30pm when we put him to bed.

20130915 Medicine and Farm Day

Today, we had to make another trip to get Chinese medicine from Dr. Wang.  But Dr. Wang was not in today so we saw Aunt Winkie.  She took a very long time to see the previous couple and was very talkative.  When she finally saw me, she said I was doing a lot better.  I'm sure A was totally bored.  Luckily, R was sleeping in the car.  After picking up our 6 week supply, CF decided to go to North Vancouver to Maplewood Farm.  Before going to the farm, CF ordered a few pirate paks to feed the kids.

CF planned to feed the kids inside the farm ( i.e. have a picnic) but that turned out to be a bad idea since the it then started to rain (along with thunder!).  We all went into the barn to finish our lunch and watch the cow being milked.  After scarfing down lunch, the kids went to see the bunnies (who were all fat and fed), the peacocks, the chickens, cows, and horses.  The kids did seem to be very interested in the goats which we got to see up close.  It was funny that R would copy CF and I when we went "BAAA, BAAA!" as we went up to the sheep and goats.

Oh, forgot to mention that some English lady and her kid let us ride on a pedal tractor toy.  A wanted to play with it and did not want to share with R.  But it was soon apparent that the tractor toy was impossible to steer.  We took some pictures of the kids on the tractor toy anyways.

Before bed, I had been reading with A - books from progressivephonics.com.  I know she was learning the sounds and learning to read at school.  But it was nice to see first hand how much she can read - even if it is just 3 letter words.

20130914 Barbecue With the Richmond Girls

Today, A had her first day at Tzu Chi Chinese school at Charles Best Secondary.  She apparently had a performance (same as her TAIWANfest performance).  But we were going to see her after lunch.

It was tough to get out of the house today as R was being difficult to get out.  I tried driving around with him in the morning so that he could take a nap.  But he only slept about 40 minutes.  So while he was awake we managed to make it to Toys R Us for their "Back to Class" event where they were giving away freebies.  Since we came late, we only managed to get a couple of Star Trek Enterprise Lego toys and some Playdoh.  But while were were there CF decided to buy more stuff including an "Adirondack Table and Chair Set" (even though we have lots of plastic chairs and outdoor stuff).  After we picked up A, we headed down to Trout Lake for the barbecue with the Richmond girls, Ken, and Jay, which we have been planning since July 2013.

We made it there by about 3:15pm even though we were supposed to get there by 3:00pm.  It was nice to see them but we were too busy watching the kids to talk much with them.  I think the kids had fun especially A who had come up with a new game of playing in the "tree house" which was basically walking under a pine tree.  We stayed until about 7pm when everyone else was leaving.  We had not seen Bernie in forever...  Anyways, we decided to plan for another get-together - probably the first week of December.  The kids slept well tonight, but I think they caught a little cold.

20130908 CC's typical school night

My typical school night starts after dinner where I am frantically trying to get A asleep in bed before 8pm.  A usually sleeps about 11-12 hours.  And if she is woken up before she wakes up on her own, she is very grumpy and will often cry for a few minutes when she is woken.  But I need her to get up by 7:30am to get ready for school, fed, and drive to school by 8:45am.  If you do the math, that means that A should be in bed by 7:30pm at night.

Like I said, I try to get A into bed before 8pm.  This includes making sure she has eaten her dinner, drank milk if she wants it, goes pee, brushes her teeth and washes her face, changes into her pjs (and diaper - just in case).  But CF just dilly dallies and delays bedtime every night.  She does not take R when I need R and CF out of the room before I read a bedtime story to A before she sleeps.  CF usually takes him to nurse (or whatever) around 8:30pm and I am lucky to get A in bed and sleeping by 8:30-8:45.  When I am sure that A is asleep, I sneak out of her room and grab the baby monitor.  This is usually around 9pm.

After the A bedtime routine, I usually spend time cleaning up the dinner table and eating the kids' leftovers from dinner.  After that I spend about 30 minutes doing dishes.  Then it is wiping the table, cleaning up a bit, doing some recycling, and other miscellaneous chores.  On garbage day, I spend another 30 minutes just getting the garbage and recycling ready.  There is always some silly thing that I am doing be it laundry, cleaning up, working on the computer/researching, whatever.  Then I take my Chinese medicine while watching some TV show.  Lately it has been Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel on Netflix.  In the coming weeks, the regular TV shows will be back like "Walking Dead" or "Person of Interest".  I do not normally get to bed until about 12 midnight or 1am.

In the morning, it is getting A ready ASAP to make sure she is at school before 8:45am.  Work at the office from 9am to 6pm.  And every night I hope I can see the kids in the evening before they are asleep.  Soon R is going to forget that I am his dad since he will not get to see me much during the week.  At least on the positive note, R should be learning more Chinese from his grandparents.

Oh, I forgot to mention R's schedule.  CF still nurses R to sleep.  And R still wakes up numerous times during the night.  R may be teething, having growing pains, or just wakes up because... Anyways, CF needs to get to work by 6:30am and before then, she has to get ready for work, get R changed and ready to go out, drop him off with his grandparents (I guess around 6am).  There are so many sleeping problems with R right now.  He does not sleep at night until around 9 or 10pm.  He may sleep 2 naps during the day for a total of 2 to 4 hours.  He still often sleeps in CF/my bed.  And he is very cranky when he is tired/can not sleep/can not nurse.  Just a couple of weeks ago, he had roseolla.

I am looking forward to nights when R can sleep as well as A.  That's not to say that A did not have problems early on either.  It's just that we have forgotten them now that she sleeps better.  ;)

We are not sure how we are going to survive this sleeping nightmare.  Hopefully it will get better.  But we are taking it one day at a time.

20130908 Vancouver Convention Center and Crab Park

Today was CF and my monthiversary which we hardly ever celebrate anymore since we are always too busy with the kids.

We were deciding between going to Maplewood Farm or the Mexicofest at the Vancouver Convention Center.  We decided that going downtown might be fun - or at least more fun than last week with the fiasco with the grandparents who did not know their way around and the mixup with the restaurants.  We parked at the Delta Pinnacle and A and I went down while CF and R were in the car napping.

A and I walked around and saw the new Cactus Club and another pub restaurant.  We had a nice sightseeing walk around the convention center area.  We finally made it to Canada Place and I asked the information desk about the Mexicofest.  At that point, they informed me that it was "yesterday"... sigh...

Oh well!  A and I made the best of it by walking around Canada Place.  We did a little exploring of the outdoor information displays and some staring at the cruise ships.  We stopped to eat a little dragonfruit, watch seaplans, and then went back to the car since A wanted to go to the farm.  A stopped to make some wishes at the water fountains including the Olympic Cauldron.  When we finally got back to the car, CF and R were already awake.  So we went back to the area to get some food.  Cactus Club was awfully expensive so we went to the pub restaurant which claimed to have a kids menu.  That might not have been a good choice since the kids menu was $9 and there really was not a menu.  But we ate.  It was still expensive though and not worth it.  A did eat some, but R did not (we are getting worried about him since he does not eat that much lately).

After lunch, A wanted to go to the farm, but it was getting close to closing time for the farm so we just walked around the Convention Center area some more and watched more seaplanes.  R just got so excited when we put him on the ground to stretch his legs.  He started walking fast along the seawall railing.  We made it around to the gelato place next to the Bellagio Cafe which we went to last week.  The kids shared two scoops of ice cream and then we started to head for home.

On the way back, A asked if we could go to Crab Park.  It is not in a great area so I was a little hesitant, but CF decided to go.  We got to a parking lot where you had to pay by phone.  I must have spent about 30 minutes just trying to get the parking setup.  Once the data connection got screwed up when I tried to send off my registration data.  The next time, it said that my phone number already had an account setup with it.  The third time, I just called the number and when I was almost finished the transaction, the phone line got cut off.  The last time, I called the number again and finally finished the transaction.  It was then that I realized that the pay by phone used by this Impark lot was the same system that the City of Vancouver uses for their meter parking - which I had setup before.

There was only one toddler in the park aside from A and R.  And the other park users were dog walkers, a few homeless people and some twenty somethings playing some ball sports.  We stayed for about 30 minutes before we headed home to eat dinner as I wanted A to get to sleep before 8pm.  CF and A were overturning rocks to look for crabs while R and I were running in the grass and waiting for the girls to finish.  We went home and had a hot dog dinner.  The kids had a bath and went to bed by 8:30 for A and 9:30 for R.

20130907 Mah Mah Time and Kits Beach

Today, CC's mom came over to visit the grandkids just around noon.  R was terrified of mah mah since he does not see her very often.  But Alyssa looks forward to seeing her all the time.  Maybe it is because she always gets gifts from her since we do not see her often and when we do, there is always some vacation she has just come back from or some birthday, Christmas, or some other special event.

A soon came home after she heard that MM was over for a visit.  A is usually sleeping over at grandma's (por por) since she has to get up early for Chinese school with Tzu Chi at Charles Best Secondary School in Coquitlam.  When the grandparents came and dropped off A, they were going to leave again.  But we asked them to go for dim sum at the Wah Lan Restaurant just a couple of blocks away.  So the kids, grandparents including Mah Mah and CF and I had dim sum together.  Surprisingly there was actually a wait at the restaurant. But since the grandparents (with R) got there a little earlier, we did not have to wait long.  The food was good - not terrible anyways.  CF's dad stole the bill before all of the food came so I am not sure what the bill came to.  After lunch, the grandparents left and mah mah visited for a little while longer while waiting for Aunt Czarina and Michael to pick her up.  Once we got home, R was actually playing with Mah Mah.  It was good to see.

A got to show everyone her video of her performance from last week at Taiwanfest.  She also brought everyone upstairs to show them her room and R's room.  After they left, we decided to go for a drive so that R could sleep.  CF wanted to go to some park near Granville Island.  At that point, I decided that we should go to Kitsilano Beach since we had not been there with the kids and I do recall going there with my dad as a kid when we would visit Auntie Cleta and Uncle Bob.

I took A while CF took R in the car since he was still napping.  It was nice and sunny with a light seabreeze.  A had fun in the playground but it was very crowded.  Living in Burnaby, I guess she was not used to the crowded park and was not quite used to having to wait and competing with so many kids to have a turn going down the slide.  The big slide actually required climbing up a chain ladder with wooden rungs - I think she was scared to go up the ladder and so she did not slide on the big slide.  I then suggested going to the sandy beach where we played for a while.  I sent the family a picture of A at Kits Beach and then my sister Monica replied that she was also at the beach.  So I told her that she should come by and see her niece.

A few minutes later, CF and R arrive - he did not sleep much.  Then Monica arrives - on a BIKE?! and full biking gear.  Very strange to see her like that - I did not even recognize her until I saw her actually steering the bike onto the beach from the bike path - a very strange sight indeed since most people would not take their bikes onto the sand (sand and bike gears do not mix well).  After snapping up a couple of pics, CF was worried that R would get cold and hungry so I went back with R to get some clothes and snacks for R while CF, A, and Monica visited for a while.  It was nice to see Monica with her niece and nephew, if only for a short while.  Monica soon left on her bike and the kids went to play on the playground for a little while longer.  A liked playing on a merrygoround with a rope web tent on top.  She could not get the hang of running, turning the merrygoround, and hopping on top to ride it.  But it was fun for her to try.

Dinnertime soon came and CF wanted to take the kids to the "Local" restaurant.  I was not happy at all once I saw that the restaurant was more of a college bar than a restaurant.  But we ordered food.  Then CF decided to take R to the car to nurse him.  At that point, I got really angry since I did not even want to stay at the restaurant and the food was taking a very long time to be prepared.  CF messages me on her phone that there was a lot of restaurants in there area - which I already knew since I had just been back to the car parked near the Local Restaurant.  But it was too late and the food eventually came.  A was so hungry by then that she scarfed down half a hamburger slider - she usually does not eat that many burgers.  CF and R came back soon after the food arrived, but R did not eat much of anything.  So I took R back to the car to get some baby food.  On the walk back, CF and A were walking up the street.  I guess they decided to leave and had packed away the food and paid the bill.  Grr... not a good day.  I don't plan on going back to that restaurant any time soon - at least, not until the kids are teens.

After a quick bath for A, it was bed time.

20130902 TAIWANfest in Downtown Vancouver

Today was the big day - A's performance with Tzu Chi, her Chinese school where she learns Mandarin Chinese with her birthday twin, Jasmine.  A had been going to a couple of practices, watching the performance on video, and listening to the music very often for the last few couple of weeks.

We showed up about 10 minutes late for her 11am meetup in front of the Art Gallery.  She got right into the pre-performance practice and was given a head dress made of fake leaves and pipe cleaners.  We waited about 1 hour for the show to start and see her 7 minute performance.  She and Jasmine did great and they were right in front and looked like they knew what they were doing.  However, A had not really done as much practicing as we would have liked, but it really looked good up on stage.  She made us proud.

R did not have as good a time.  His normal 2 hour nap lasted only about 20 minutes before he got woken up by all of the noise and excitement of downtown Vancouver.

After the show, we wanted to get something to eat with A's grandparents and Kathy.  We tried to go to the Imperial Restaurant as Lynn said that the Victoria Restaurant at the Hyatt was closed.  In fact, it may have been the reverse.  We ended up at the Bellagio Restaurant which seemed busy.  But the service was terrible and the food was mediocre and expensive.  A memorable moment was when R and his grandmother walked into a plate glass at the patio.  Admittedly, the glass was hard to see with all of the scenery at the Waterfront/Convention Centre/cruise ship.  No one was hurt, but I am pretty sure R was bumped into the glass.  I was also embarrassed when A's grandmother bought some ice cream from an ice cream parlour and dropped it off right in front of A in the restaurant.

We walked a bit around Canada Place with the kids, grandmother, and Kathy.  There was lots of people around and the Disney Wonder cruise ship docked at Canada Place.

After that, grandparents and Kathy went home.  And we walked back to Pacific Center where we parked.  We tried to do some shopping but this mall was not kid friendly and there was a lot of renovations since I had last been there so I was quite unfamiliar with the mall now.  We walked outside of the mall to get our bearings and noticed that the TAIWANfest was much larger than I thought.  We walked about 4 blocks of the festival but I did not find it all too interesting.  But I did have a bad experience with one vendor booth giving out paper cutout dragon boats.  I will post my nasty email to them later.

20130901 Barnet Marine Park

Today, we took the kids to Barnet Marine Park in Burnaby near Port Moody.  CF and A went first while R and I were in the car while R was sleeping.  CF and A met with Lynn, Alex, Jasmine and Lex as they were playing at the beach area.  We were meeting with Lynn and Alex for a barbecue.  CF spent the morning making macaroni with cheese (and alfredo sauce).

When R woke up because of a train blowing its whistle, we walked down from the parking lot to the picnic area and beach to find CF and A.  After having something to eat, I took A down to the beach with Jasmine.  A was actually being a good girl and listening to me.  The girls had lots of fun making "soup" from sand, water, seaweed, shells, and whatever else they could find on the beach.  Before long, it was time to go because Alex with leaving with the kids and R needed a nap.  I think both kids had fun this day.

20130831 Parks

Today, we spent the afternoon in the parks. We went to confederation park to ride the miniature train. Then went to mcgill park to fly a kite, play in the playground and play hide and seek.

A got scared and could not climb the wall up to the top of the big slide which she was all excited about being able to do before.  R seemed to have fun wandering around, but both kids are still kind of shy.