Again! Again!

I read this post on Babycenter and just had to laugh because it’s too true.

Your 2-year-old now

Five Little Monkeys Sitting in a Tree again?! Oh yes. Reading the same book over and over provides a measure of comfort to preschoolers, who see the familiar characters and plot as an oasis in a world full of unknowns. But there are cognitive and language benefits to re-reading, too. Re-reading helps your 2-year-old connect the words he hears with the pictures he sees. This is an important kind of pre-reading that will be a useful skill in a few years when he learns to read. Hearing the same sentences again and again helps him decode grammar. Your child also gets a rush of confidence when you turn the page and he sees the expected next part of the story: “Yes! I knew that was going to happen!”

Let your child choose which book to read. If it’s the same old favorite, mask your boredom and read it once again. (Hey, at least most preschooler books aren’t terribly long.) He may well want to hear the same story several times in a sitting. Keep a wide variety of books on hand by making frequent library visits; eventually he’ll be ready to switch to a new favorite or expand his repertoire.

Xi’s favorite book for the past year it seems has been Elmo’s Big Life-and-Look Book. She has about 50 books in her ever growing with each grandparent visit library, but all she wants to read is this book.

I have nothing but great things to say about this book, though. It’s fabulous. It’s got a million flaps that she can open and close. I swear she learnt all her ABCs because of this book (they have a great page with all the ABCs, each with a flap for an object with that letter). She’s also learnt her numbers, shapes, colors, and opposites with this book.

I am pretty bored with this book by now (we read it EVERY NIGHT), but it’s cute to see her get excited about knowing what comes next now. I think my mother read my brother & I The Three Billy Goats  Gruff (what a weird, creepy story, upon hindsight!) for like 3 years straight or something, until we knew exactly what came next. I remember feeling so proud of myself when I could guess what happened next and I see that in Xi as she guesses the object behind the box before she opens it.

One of the many gifts of parenthood…you get to re-live the joys of your childhood again!

And yes, this is a book review of an Elmo book. In case you haven’t noticed, this is a…*shudder*…mom blog now!

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Paypal Fraud: Please Read If You Have a Paypal Account

My Paypal account got hacked today. It feels so shitty to be hacked, knowing someone had control of sensitive information like your bloody bank account. I want to post this experience so that everyone sets up additional security features on their Paypal (that I didn’t even know about) so that these m*thaf**kers can’t hack anyone else’s account again.

I got an email today informing me that I made a $27.55 “shipping label” to a gibberish address in Russia. Like literally, the address was to “bndynjdy ndtyhnd, nbdth, bhnsrtss676574 Russia”. At least be more creative, hackers!

Within 10 minutes, 3 other transactions of the same amount was made. God know how many more would have been made if I hadn’t change my password immediately after I saw those transactions. Since my Paypal had zero balance, the money will be taken from my checking account.

I called Paypal right away and they have set up an unauthorized transaction claim for each of the 4 charges.  I was assured that if my checking account gets debited, they will refund me the money.

So please, UPGRADE YOUR SECURITY ON PAYPAL NOW!

You can do so by registering your phone number on Paypal.  When you set this up, everytime you login to your Paypal, they will send a security key to your mobile so some annoying hacker in Russia who doesn’t have your phone will not be able to hack into your account. I wasn’t even aware Paypal had this feature till this happened.

Here are the instructions I got from Paypal on how to set up your phone:
You can use your mobile phone to receive text messages with a secure code on it.
Here’s how to use your mobile phone for PayPal Security Key:
Log in to your PayPal account.
Click “Profile” near the top of the page.
Click “My Settings.”
Click “Get Started” near Security key.
Click “Get security key.”
Click “Use your mobile phone.”
Enter your mobile phone number twice, and then click “Register.”
After you register your phone, we’ll send you a text message with a code. Enter the code to complete the process.

*BIG MIDDLE FINGER TO HACKERS*

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NY’s Finest

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So a big fire happened about 8 houses down from where I live yesterday on Thanksgiving Day. My visiting father-in-law was on our roof looking at the view and saw it all happened and he was one of a few ppl who called 911.

Witnessing our fire-fighters rise to action was INCREDIBLE. The first fire truck arrived within minutes and then a couple more back-ups came, followed by more firemen running down the block from 5th Avenue. A few minutes later, a man was climbing out of the window down their ladder, and we saw them hand-sawing a big hole on the roof, presumably to release the smoke.

It was definitely a big one as we saw and smelled smoke billowing down the block, but I didn’t know the extent of the fire until I read the news reports later. An infant was in cardiac arrest, and thanks to these fire-fighters and EMS, he is still alive.

HOLY SHIT, they are true HEROS! I sure do hope they get paid handsomely with amazing benefits because they sure do deserve it.

-from NY Daily News

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Kids Say The Darndest Things

The first year/year and a half of a baby’s life was all about physical development, amazingly quick growth, fine motor skills, from holding head up to sitting up to crawling to walking.

As Xi is 3 months past her 2nd birthday now, her language acquisition has been one of the most fascinating and fun things to behold. She is constantly practising her identification of objects (tree! car! blue balloon! train! airplane!), and in recent months, of emotions too (Kong Kong angry! She’s sad (when watching a movie)! Xi Xi scared! (an emotion she learnt the hard way during Halloween, and a million masks freaking her out)). Curiosity is now her main conversation item; it’s “what’s this, Mummy?” all day.

We are quickly moving on to funny stuff she says now. Remember that TV show a long time ago “Kids Say The Darndest Things“? Man, I loved that show. But we are entering that stage of daily Darndest Things now.

Case in point, yesterday morning, Xi was sitting on my bed while I was still in and out of sleep. Then she lifted her shirt and pointed to her belly and told me “Baby in there….baby’s sleeping, shhhh OK?”. I had been introducing to her my belly as her new sibling daily now, and I guess she now thinks that there is a baby in every belly!

How wonderful is it to be a parent, to re-discover discovery again.

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20 Weeks – Halfway There!

I just posted this Facebook status update:

20 weeks, +12 pounds, 20 more weeks and 20+ pounds to go. Oy! My poor feet is crying at the thought of carrying about 50% more body weight than it is used to! You women who say you enjoy pregnancy…YOU’RE MAD!

And then I saw my 20 Week post with Xiola:

I honestly can say that I am thoroughly enjoying pregnancy.

OOPS!

Perhaps this pregnancy has been harder on me. With Xi, I was in the clear by 14 weeks, and never looked back. With Thing 2, I’m still throwing up here and there, maybe every other 4 days or so now. I feel like I have been repeating myself with the last few updates. I get moments of light-at-the-end-of-tunnel joy, then every few days, I get thrown into the kill-me-now energy-less despair, which thankfully lasts for less days than the happy days. And just when I thought I was feeling better, I got hit with a ghastly cough/cold that lasted all of last week, one of those feel-like-death colds (thankfully without a fever) and still kinda kicking my ass now. I feel light-headed often with moments of feeling like my heart is pounding breathlessly. My skinny ankles are already starting to feel like they could snap from the disequilibrium of my body. And don’t get me started on the indigestion.

Or maybe it’s the stark comparison between ghastly pregnancy and joyful motherhood. Back when I was just a pregnant lady, not yet a parent (because parenthood, to me, starts at birth), I was enjoying the concept of nurturing a child in my body. Now that I am cognizant of the SUPER DUPER AMAZING BLOW YOUR MIND joys of parenthood every single day in my interactions with Xi, I’m just all, screw this big belly BS and let us have this baby already! It is particularly special now that Xi seems to understand that there is a baby in my belly and she is already connecting with her sibling. When I point to my belly, she goes “shhh…baby’s sleeping…shhh”. We do a good night to baby each night and Xi gives the belly a big hug and kiss and OMG IT’S THE SWEETEST THING IN THE WORLD! I can already tell that having a sibling for Xi will take this whole joys of parenthood thing to the next crazy awesome level.

I have serious baby fever these days. Strange right? Pregnant lady having baby fever? But whenever I see a newborn these days, my nipples start to tingle. Oh yes, I don’t even mean figuratively. All you breastfeeding moms know the tingle I’m talking about. That tingle you get when you hear a baby cry and your boobs start to leak. That one. Not that I’m leaking yet. But there is that tingle. I’m not sure if this baby fever is confused with my absolute hatred of pregnancy because I canNOT wait to not be pregnant anymore. In due time of course, in due time, not that I really want to have my baby at 20 weeks, mind you! I just want to fast forward the next 20 weeks. I have visions, fantasies, of feeling energetic again, being light and flexible, and not being a lumbering cow.

As much as I complain, it’s not all hell. Thing 2 is wayyyy more active than Xi ever was (uh oh…) and I constantly feel it kicking and turning around, which is the most sublime feeling. We had our 20 week ultrasound last Friday and Thing 2 was just swimming around in there, and it’s the best sight in the world. I wish I could have an ultrasound every day at home. At one point, the nurse chirped “wow! Long legs! And long fingers!” We have another lanky one, folks! And I know, I know, this will all be worth it, and because I’m a parent now, I am 100% sure of that. I’m just trying to get my head out of this physical shittiness and into the sphere of enjoying this for what it is, for this one last time.

Oh, and we also know the sex of Thing 2 already, but there are a few people we are waiting to tell in person, so the internet announcement will have to wait a while. Stay tuned!

Posted in Pregnancy, Xiola | 3 Comments

Trick or Treat?

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Happy Halloween from Thing 2 & I!

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Posted in Pregnancy | 2 Comments

While working on our ABCs

Me: Xi, what is this letter?

Xi: D!

Me: Good! And D is for…

Xi: D Train! (the train we often take to go home)

NYC Baby!

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Posted in Oh New York!, Xiola | 1 Comment

On Parenthood

Via Dooce, I found this wonderful post on the sublime joys of being a parent. I love it when someone writes my feelings in a far more eloquent way that my abilities allow me so I can copy and paste it in the blockquote box.

I would only say that my personal experience with parenthood has differed from Jeff’s. Mine has blessedly been 1% “incredible pain in the ass” and 99% “most sublime joy you’ve ever felt”, with that 1% “pain in the ass” portion 100% comprised of the MISERABLE HELL of first trimester pregnancy. You may think I’m exaggerating, but every single moment I have with my daughter has been the most sublime joy I’ve ever felt, every single bit. Beyond pregnancy (which I DETEST), there has been nothing I have found challenging…so far (major cavaet: I have just 26 months experience in parenthood. Let’s check in in oh, say 15 years). That whole difficult transition part I don’t get. The transition felt as easy as when I became no longer a swinging single but a significant other to my husband; it was all too obvious and too natural a progression. I have not felt my life has been terribly different than my life before parenthood, only significantly enhanced in beauty.

So here are the bits of Jeff’s post that I love and thoroughly agree with. Enjoy, fellow parents. Parts I loooove in bold. Warning: reading it might make you cry while you nod in agreement.

It’s difficult to explain children to people who don’t yet have children, because becoming a parent is an intensely personal experience. Every child is different. Every parent is different. Every culture has their own way of doing things. The experience is fundamentally different for every new parent in the world, yet children are the one universally shared thing that binds our giant collective chain letter of human beings together, regardless of nationality and language. How do you explain the unexplainable?

…Before Henry was born, I remembered Scott Hanselman writing this odd blurb about being a parent:

You think you love you wife when you marry her. Then you have a baby and you realize you’d throw your wife yourself under a bus to save your baby. You can’t love something more.

Nuts to that, I thought. Hanselman’s crazy. Well, obviously he doesn’t love his wife as much as I love mine. Sniff. Babies, whatever, sure, they’re super cute on calendars, just like puppies and kittens. Then I had a baby. And by God, he was right. I wouldn’t just throw myself under a bus for my baby, I’d happily throw my wife under that bus too – without the slightest hesitation. What the hell just happened to me?

As an adult, you may think you’ve roughly mapped the continent of love and relationships. You’ve loved your parents, a few of your friends, eventually a significant other. You have some tentative cartography to work with from your explorations. You form ideas about what love is, its borders and boundaries. Then you have a child, look up to the sky, and suddenly understand that those bright dots in the sky are whole other galaxies.

You can’t possibly know the enormity of the feelings you will have for your children.

…When I am holding Henry and I tickle him, I can feel him laughing all the way to his toes. And I realize, my God, I had forgotten, I had completely forgotten how unbelievably, inexplicably wonderful it is that any of us exist at all. Here I am with this tiny, warm body so close to me, breathing so fast he can barely catch up, sharing his newfound joy of simply being alive with me. The sublime joy of this moment, and all the other milestones – the first smile, the first laugh, the first “dada” or “mama”, the first kiss, the first time you hold hands. The highs are so incredibly high that you’ll get vertigo and wonder if you can ever reach that feeling again. But you peak ever higher and higher, with dizzying regularity.

It’s also a history lesson. The first four years of your life. Do you remember them? What’s your earliest memory? It is fascinating watching your child claw their way up the developmental ladder from baby to toddler to child. All this stuff we take for granted, but your baby will painstakingly work their way through trial and error: eating, moving, walking, talking. Arms and legs, how the hell do they work? Turns out, we human beings are kind of amazing animals. There’s no better way to understand just how amazing humans are than the front row seat a child gives you to observe it all unfold from scratch each and every day, from literal square zero. Children give the first four years of your life back to you.

I wasn’t sure how to explain meeting new people to Henry, so I decided to just tell him we’ve met a new “friend” every time. Now, understand that this is not at all the way I view the world. I’m extremely wary of strangers, and of new people in general with their agendas and biases and opinions. I’ve been burned too many times. But Henry is open to every person he meets by default. Each new person is worth greeting, worth meeting as a new experience, as a fellow human being. Henry taught me, without even trying to, that I’ve been doing it all wrong. I realized that I’m afraid of other people, and it’s only my own fear preventing me from opening up, even a little, to new people that I meet. I really should view every new person I meet as a potential friend. I’m not quite there yet; it’s still a work in progress. But with Henry’s help, I think I can. I had absolutely no idea my child would end up teaching me as much as I’m teaching him.

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Why Hello, 2nd Trimester Burst of Energy!

Yesterday evening, after work, I had a desire to go out for dinner.

Let me explain to you how significant that is. For the past 14 weeks or so, the only desire I’ve had returning from home from work is to first, throw up, then crumble into a pathetic, self-pitying mess on a bed or couch, and remain there, only to get up to throw up some more.

Suddenly, the fog lifted. About 4 weeks later than expected, but THE FOG HAS LIFTED! Walking 5 blocks to dinner and back didn’t seem impossible; it was, in fact, enjoyable! Walking has become enjoyable again! I shall completely relish this moment before I gain another 30 pounds and walking becomes excruciating once more.

This morning, I woke up, and could run, actually run, to catch a bus…AND DIDN’T DIE!

HALLELUJAH!

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Bab Al Yemen

Just wanted to do a shout-out for an outstanding restaurant in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, Bab Al Yemen. Categorized as Middle Eastern food, but it’s quite different from what we know of Middle Eastern food here, likely cos it’s focused on Yemeni cuisine (like how all American Chinese take-out places taste pretty much the same and not really Chinese food, and then you go to Flushing and eat the dumplings at Golden Mall and you are like OMG HEAVEN!). I can’t say if it’s more “authentic” because I have never been to the Middle East and I am not familiar with the different cuisines within the region, but it sure is yummy.

Have been there twice so far and have not been disappointed. The bread there is freshly made, and seemingly unlimited, and just to die for. And the hummus is, in my memory, the best I ever have. I thought Olive Vine had the best hummus, but after trying Bab Al Yemen’s, Olive Vine pales deeply in comparison. I’m not a fan of lamb, but I went with lamb fans and they told me it was fall-off-the-bone, melt-in-the-mouth outstanding. I especially love their rice and vegetable stew that comes with each entree too.

Seriously, I’d go all the way back just to eat the hummus. I wish, oh wish, they would deliver, oh about 65 blocks to Park Slope!

Highly recommended. Thanks Jenni for the recommendation!

Bab Al Yemen

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Posted in Food | 3 Comments