Teacher of life

They built a new 24hours fitness by our house last November so I've started spinning on Sunday mornings and get to know the instructor Judy pretty well. She is a great spin instructor and she really pushes everyone to the limit and emphasize on training in different zones.
Last Sunday, she shared with us that she had to take 2 weeks off which is out of character for her so she shared something personal and shocking. At 40, she recently found out that she has breast cancer. The tumor was so aggressive that it grew from the size of a grape to a golf ball in 3 weeks. They took out the tumor ASAP and the next thing is chemotherapy. She's really optimistic and a real fighter. She promised that she'll come back in 2 weeks and teach even if she'll be just telling us what to do.
The last song she played in class was "I run for life" by Melissa Etheridge. I got really choked up as I listened to the words to the song. Starting 1/30/06 she'll begin her war with cancer. I'll continue to spin and support her spirit.
Get well Judy :)

Primero's plea for pet

Primero has been presistently asking for a pet. Her latest attempt is to get a bird. She now has an imaginary parrot that pirches on her index finger and she gets very angry when I sit on it accidentally not knowing where the bird is. Now she's asking for a real bird/parrot that can flies around the house, talks and listens to her every command. Hubby and I told her that it's a lot of responsibility taking care of bird poops and we don't want bird pooping everywhere in the house or Secondo will eat it. Secondo puts everything in her mouth at this age. Primero said that it's OK, she can handle bird poops because they are so small compared to dog or cat poops. She's also under the impression that she'll be able to potty train the bird so that it'll poop on a kitty litter box that we'll have to get from Petco. We said that we're thinking about it to give her some hope. May be we'll go back to the gold fish again since we have everything but the fish and it's not hazardous for Secondo.
Secondo is crawling now so she gets into corners of the house in a blink of an eye.
Last night, Primero found a long string so she tied it on Secondo's body and told me "Mom, I got a pet now.. it's mei-mei.. She doesn't crawl when I asked her to yet."
Secondo was sitting happily eating a platic coat hanger not realizing what's going on. The good thing is now if Primero is in the mood, she's able to play with Secondo for 5-10 min.

8 Months Old

A good friend of mine took this picture when Secondo was 7 months. He had this high resolution camera that took 5 pictures/second. We kinda skipped her 6 months milestone because the receptionist made an error on the appointment date and I didn't bother to fix it. It didn't hurt to be a month or so older for those shots. She's now 28 inches long and 18 lbs. The whole family went with her to the check up and Primero was concerned about her mei-mei(little sis) getting 3 shots so she did everything to distract her sister from feeling the pain. It worked. Secondo didn't cry that much and she was only fussy the night after the shot. Her two front teeth are coming out finally.

Lunch swap

Hubby took my lunch to work by mistake today. We usually make our own lunch via taking the left overs from the night before that was cooked by mom.
Me: "You took my lunch this morning"
Hubby:"What did you bring for lunch?"
Me: "It'll be a pleasant surprise.."
Hubby: "I hope it's not dumpling with seaweed"
Those are the food he can't stand.
Fortunately, I packed beef and chinese brocolli so he should be fine.
Secondo's baby sitter is telling me that Secondo is taking toys away from her older toddler mate and making him cry. She can't really understand sharing so they'll just have to work it out somehow.
I've been letting secondo chew on oranges in the hope that she'll get enough vitamin C and not get sick as often.
I wanted to spin today but I pay so the class was packed.

Lack of updates

Sorry about low posting activities.
Balancing family, work and sleep has been the top priority.
Secondo still wakes up in the middle of the night for one feeding. She's really interested in eating our food so mom made some home made kangi and she loves them. I also give her oranges and she chews on that while we have dinner.
Primero still fells that she doesn't get enough attention from Mom so she acts like a baby to get attention. I hope she grows out of this phase soon.
The transmission in our Odessey went out in December and it was quite costly to fix the transmission.
I'l post some pictures on smugmug when I get some free time on my hand.