Eric not doing well

This morning I found Eric floating sideways. Hubby said that he isn't eating his food. We got him beta bite but he doesn't really like it. What am I suppose to do?
Primero: "Is Eric dying? Is he going to be alive when I come home from school today?"
Me: "He doesn't look healthy and he's not eating. May be we'll buy a different kind of food for him"
Primero: " Can you talk to the man and Petco and ask him why Eric isn't eating and is dying?"
Me: "I'll do that today."
:(

Meet Eric

I tried but this is the best picture I took of Eric. It was hard to focus or I'm not good at taking pictures of fish. Hubby was laughing when he saw this picture.
We are happy that he is still alive and well. He likes to hang out at the bottom of the tank and blow lots of bubbles when he's on the surface of the water.

Eric, new addition to the family

We took Primero to the pet store yesterday and looked at the birds. She went in to this one small room that had 3 bird cages in it. It had Canary, Cockiteel etc. When she came out she said "It's stinky in there mom!" We talked her in to getting a fish instead so we got a purple beta fish. We learned that Beta is a good starting fish. Primero thought it was a girl but we informed her that all beta fish are male. She names him Eric. She's careful about feeding him so that he does not die due to overeating. She gives him 1-3 pellet/feeding. Hopefully it'll last 1 week.

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.

Back Dorm Boys

Here's the link to Tian's blog with back dorm boys who are really funny. Primero's favorite is the third one from the bottom titled "Radio in my head" (Yellow and white shirt).

Primero

Saturday night, Primero woke me up @ 3 AM saying "Mom, I can't sleep... my tummy hurts.." I laid with her in the bed for a good half hour and now both of us couldn't sleep. I noticed my stomach wasn't feeling so hot either as I laid awake. Long story short we both felt better and went to sleep after we threw up and brushed our teeth. I thought we had food poisoning from my chicken carrot soup but Hubby thought that we got the flu.
On Sunday, Primero started to have fever and felt lethargic and didn't want to eat fearing that she'll throw up again. I showed her the back dorm boys video from Mir's page to cheer her up.
Today she's feeling better and she was trying on old slipper that is too small for her.
Me: "Are you trying to be Cinderella's step sister and force your feet into the slipper that's too small?"
P: "So I can marry the prince?"
Me: "You don't want to marry a prince"
P: "Why?"
Me: "There's no prince in America.."
P: "What about New Jersey?"
Me: "There's no prince there either. ((With an British accent) You may go to England and marry prince William"
She covered my mouth with her hand not wanting to listen to my bad British accent.
I feel bad that we didn't get a tree this year. She asked if we can get a tree on Friday so we'll see what happens.

Xmas shopping

I find that giving gift cards is the best way to do Xmas shopping but others argue that gift cards are bad because I didn't put any thought in to the give and the person is only worth X dollar amount. Coming from the Chinese background where I got money in the forms of Red envelope, I think it's a great idea.
Pros to giving gift cards or cash
1. They don't have to return the gift that they may not like
2. I spend less time wondering around malls guessing what people want

Glad to be home

This is what it looks like after 7-8 inches of snow from the night before. I was told that the snow is powdery, not good enough for building snow ball or snow man. I wanted to make snow angels on the ground but didn't bring the right type of clothing.
Got back from KCI late late Thursday night and by the time I got home the kids were fast asleep.
At the Airport, I met one retired man from OC who went to Missouri pick up his hunting dog from training. He sat by the window hoping to see the dog being uploaded in cargo area. I asked if it would be cold down in the cargo area. He said that Midwest has the best set up for pet and the dog will be comfortable during the flight. He also told me that it cost an extra $75 when the pet travels with a person but it'll cost $400 if the pet was to travel alone.
On the plane I sat next to a computer programmer who travel every other week to Kansas and visit client. Once he knew I was Chinese, he asked me what I know about Qi-gong and Tai-Chi. I found out that he's been practicing Qi-gong and we chated about yoga, kids and differences between airlines during the long ride home. As we landed on the ground, he called his wife right a way and found out about the Southwest incident in Chicago killing a baby girl. We were both glad that we arrived safely and able to go home to our family.

First snow of the year in Kansas

I'm in Kansas right now it snowed today. It's 11 degree F outside now but windchill is -10F and good news to all students: "No schools tomorrow". As I watched the news there were accidents on the highways just like us Californians not knowing how to drive during rainy season. Forecast says 7" of snow tonight. Beautiful, just like what you see in the movies but cold and slippery.
Note to self: Next time bring scarf, gloves, heavy winter coat and boots.

Happy Birthday Bulleye & Dad

Happy birthday Bulleye and Dad. I still remember the day Bulleye was born. I walked home with my friend and when I knocked on the door, no one was there to answer. I stand in front of the door waiting for mom to come home and it started to rain really hard. I couldn't think of anywhere else to go so I just stayed there waited. I don't remember how long I waited but one of my mom's teacher friend came and took me to her apartment on campus. I don't recalled if she explained why no one was home. I remembered that she blowed dry my hair so that I wouldn't get sick.

Secondo 6 month old

This picture of Secondo was taken today. Can't believe we've had her for half a year already. It's still not easy when both kids want your attention simultaneously. It was difficult to get her to smile so this is the best we have. She didn't sleep well last night, her nose was stuffed up so she woke up several times screaming. This morning, she didn't want any milk so we'll see how she does today at the Sitter. I hope she's not getting sick. Hubby was coughing last night so none of us slept well except for Primero.
Found out yesterday that Hubby's grandfather passed away. He had been in the hospital for weeks. At times the consesus were that he's getting better. The funeral is Saturday but not sure on the timing yet. It is strange that after being married for close to 10 years, I've never meet his grandparents so I'm not too heart broken about the situation. I wish that he could have seen the kids before his death.

Crawling combat style

Secondo is really fun to play with at 6 months old. She can sit with out support for 5 seconds and she'll fall forward or backward. One of here favorite toy is the remote control eventhough we don't let her have it. If she sees it, she'll crawl to it using mostly her upper body and her legs follows. She adores her older sister and cracks up with any little silly move Primero makes.
Secondo is doing better at the sitter. She's eating and sleeping well. Her bowel movement is back to 1 to 2 times a day. There's a 3 months old boy who the sitter calls Secondo's boyfriend. Secondo likes to crawl to him too.

Mom & Daughter hanging out

Primero (Elder daughter) and I went to see Chicken Little on Friday. The movie was OK.. I would give it a C. Primero thought it was OK too. She said Incredible was better than Chicken Little. I found the pig really annoying.

Happy Veteran's Day

I'm home with the kids today. I was hoping to sleep in but Secondo woke us up @ 6 AM with a poppy diaper then she went back to sleep until 8 AM. Unfortunately it's gloomy so Primero and will go see a movie.
My elbow started to hurt on Tuesday. I didn't bump into anything but it's all red and swolen. I went to the Dr. Wednesday because it started to send pulsating pain that can't be ignored any longer. When she was how swolen my elbow was, she asked the X-ray technician to take some pictures. She was concerned about how serious the infection was. Good news is that my bones weren't infected yet. She said that it was a good thing that I went in and if the swelling doesn't go down after 2 days, I'll have to go back again.
Secondo starts to say wa..wa..ba..ba..ba..la..la..la..
When she's on her belly she can move in a semicircle fashion if I put toys in a circle.

Amazing !!!

I'm so excited about the new and improved blog. Many thanks to Berklee who I'm sure invested lots of precious potential gaming time on my blog which now looks wonderful and professional. Credit also goes to Mir who hooked us up.
With that said, there are still some minor technical difficulties because none of the links are working yet. Unfortunately, I'm not sophisticated enough to debug the issue.

Screaming kids

Now I know how we loose our hearing as we get older. Secondo loves to scream now when she's happy and her older sister joins in the fun. After 10 minutes of screaming matches, my ears were ringing.
Thanks to Bulleye, I finally figure out how to post short movies.