The Holidays

This year the holidays just seem like they're flying by. I can't believe next week is Christmas already! We had Thanksgiving at my mom's house. My mom made her famous duck with sticky rice inside and ordered more than enough food from Chinatown restaurant. We had leftovers for the rest of the week! Cady also got well adjusted to Nathaniel. When we got there, she kept going into his room. He would be sleeping and I would pull her out, then she would just walk right back in there. Then when she wasn't in his room, she would cry out "di di, di di!" It was pretty funny.



The day after Thanksgiving (Black Friday), we end up going to Carter's and buying Cadence an entire new winter wardrobe which she will only be able to wear this winter. That drives me crazy! I'm all about buying things that will last a long time and even though all the items were cheap, they really added up really fast. And of course both me and Julian are suckers for cute baby clothes. When we see it, we sometimes just have to buy it cos it's so cute. But times have changed. This year, we bought nothing for ourselves on Black Friday. Everything was for Cady. And I'm kind of glad. Both of us admitted that we just don't want to shop anymore and there's nothing that we really want for ourselves. God's probably preparing us in case I don't work when Baby #2 comes.



Work has been really stressful the past three weeks, but it's calmed down a lot. It'll probably get really busy again after the holidays, but I'm looking forward to the next 2 weeks off. I've spent the last 3 weeks in a lot of meetings where people complain about budgeting (which is what I do). I would spend my nights working and talking to co-workers at 10pm. Whenever I get home from work, I'm too exhausted to play with the Cady even though I would think about her all day missing her. In the mean time, the house is a mess and I have to maintain the house on top of all this which is pretty much just washing the dishes. So you could imagine the rest of the house not getting any of my attention. I've had no time to Christmas shop until now. I wanted to make cookies for people and invite people over for dinner, but I've had no time.



On the other hand, Cadence vocabulary is increasing slowly. She now knows how to shay "How are you?" I don't know where she got that from. Sometimes I think she's trying to say " I love you". She can say I love you in Chinese which is "Ai ni" for short. She learned that from Leslie who is taking Chinese now in college. One thing that Cady does do now is yell whenever she wants anything. I don't like it when she does that. She'll yell then say "please". I'm trying to get her to just say "please" and stop the yelling

Cadence meets Nathaniel - November 24, 2008

Today Cadence met Nathaniel for the first time. After a while of ignoring him and not noticing that he was even there, she started to say "di di" (which means younger brother in Chinese). Her attention span isn't that long so she would notice him then go about her business. She quite enjoyed watching his diaper getting changed though. She started laughing as he squirmed and squealed as he got his diaper changed. She could probably relate.....

Something new that she did today was cry out mama, mama when I was in the bathroom at Grandma's house. I told my mom to watch her as I went to the bathroom, and all I heard was "mama, mama" over and over again. It was kind of cute, but I didn't realize how bad her separation anxiety is. The doctor said that it would get worse by 18 months so I figure it wasn't anything that I could train her to not do. After seeing a few other mom's struggle with their kids, I thought that maybe it's a stage that kids go through. Some better than others. But I didn't want to go through the pains of training her to not have separation anxiety when it's going to happen anyways. Cady was once a good baby in the church nursery who just played on her own and could care less if we left the room. Now she's the loudest crier in the room if we leave.

Festival of Lights - November 22, 2008

We decided to go to the Magnificent Mile festival of lights parade. I saw the pictures on the internet and I thought Cady would love it. Again, the holiday excitement got into me and I just wanted Cady to have fun and get excited. I knew she wasn't going to remember it, but I just wanted to see her happy and enjoy that one moment. She's almost 16 months and every month feels like a year she's grown. Meaning she's understanding a lot that we say to her now. Some of the time if I tell her to drink her milk, she knows what I'm saying and will pick up her sippy cup and drink her milk. She's just recently starting to say the words that we say. I tell her to "wait" a lot because she wants me to give her everything when she asks for it and she always repeats me. I said "shoot!" once and she repeated that. So now, I really have to watch what I say. When she climbs on the chair, I tell her to "sit". She repeats that and it comes out sounding like "s**t". I should work on her pronunciation.....

So anyways, we take the train down due to the crowds and parking. We end up standing outside for maybe and hour and no parade yet. It was freezing and Cady's cheeks and hands was getting icy and red. So we decided to warm up at the Corner Bakery nearby. To make a long story short, we missed the parade, but we got to see fireworks. She was surprised at first and started to squint her eyes like she does when she sees a dog, in fear that the dogs tail will hit her in the face. She later started to enjoy it, but not as much as I thought she would. According to Julian, we are not going to the festival of lights again...... :p

With all the changes and growing that Cadence is going through, she's also become a litte piggy. When she sees food her eyes widen and she goes "mmmmm!" It's the cutest thing! She also does that when she sees food in an ad or something. Too bad I think her eating habits are going bad. She's probably sick of the food that I'm making her.

Nathaniel Chu!

Cady has a cousin! Nathaniel was born on 11/16/08 at around 5pm. He came out 6lbs, 7oz. and is a little cutie!!!

Single Mom for a week

Last week Julian went out of town to NY, so I was a single mom for a week. It's been fun and tiring at the same time. Tiring because work has been SO busy so the days that I go into work, I'm already completely exhausted when I come home. But I've enjoyed the alone time that I have with Cadence. Cadence has been a total Daddy's girl. She loves Daddy and always wants Daddy to hold her and would cry when he leaves the room. It was a little sad in the beginning, but I've gotten use to it. And it's kind of nice that she wants Julian to hold her all the time since she's getting bigger and heavier! This week though she's been acting like that towards me and it's kind of nice. :) Cady definitely missed Daddy though. The first day was fine. Then, as I suspected, she started to say "da da" a few times and point wondering where Daddy is. The rest of the week went well also. When Daddy came home, she was really happy!

So we finally checked out Hawthorn mall. The mall which a lot of moms have raved about being the most kid friendly mall. And they were right! They have a great enclosed play area where the kids have to take off their shoes. Right outside of the play area is this Gelato store. I haven't tried it yet, but looking forward to it the next time I go. The best part about the mall is the family bathroom. Everything is new and clean. There are separate little rooms for nursing mothers. There's an area that is just made for diaper changing. There are about 10 separate stations for changing, each with diaper wipe warmers and a sink. I'm probably not describing it too well, but it's nice!!! Some added perks to this mall is the food court! They have Sarku Japan which is the chicken teriyaki place where you can get double meat for .99 extra! :D

Halloween!

This year was Cadence's first official Halloween. We dressed her up as a ladybug.

I think I was more excited than she was. For some reason, I think holidays can be so much fun for kids and I wanted to make this fun for Cadence. We got lucky because our next door neighbor is big on holiday decorations. So everytime we would drive home, she would get so excited because of all the glowing pumpkins on their house.

We didn't get as many trick or treaters this year. Maybe it was because we were outside because it was warm and some of the groups of kids passed our house. So we ended up with LOTS of leftover candy. We started with George and Benita's house. They gave out whole candybars! Cady basically took all her candy from them.

Later from across the street, Anna Maria ran over to give Cady her first award which was "Cutest Costume" award. She also gave Cady a big pumpkin to hold her candy in. They probably thought my little DOMO bag from Target was too little. I thought that was really nice of her though!!

One hour later, we pretty much made it to two other houses before it got dark. We later went to our church Fall festival where Cady got to play some games.

If you can't tell, my sister was a pumpkin for Halloween since she's pregnant. I thought that was a great idea!

October 28th, 2008 - The Morton Arboretum

Today we went to the Morton Arboretum. It was a beautiful day, but freezing!!! I wore a puffer jacket and I was still freezing!! So needless to stay, we didn't stay outside for too long. Here are some pics.

Our day off!

Me and Julian took Monday and Tuesday off to use up our vacation and to spend some fun time with Cady. Today, we went to the Shedd Aquarium and the Field museum. Both because they were free. :) Cady had a great time at both, but probably more fun at the Aquarium. Here are some pics from our day.

Terrible 1's?

I feel like Cady is going through her terrible 2's at the age of 1. :( I noticed that this started a few days ago. She's been throwing tantrums, screaming when we don't give her what she wants and when we put clothes on her and yells. I'm a little frustrated.......

Today, we went to the Pumpkin farm thanks to Wai and Christine! Even though it was really cold and started to drizzle, we had a great time. Cadence got to see a pig and little piglets eating from their mom, lots of chickens and little chicks and lots of pumpkins. It was a lot of fun and we're definitely going back next year. :)



Of course, mommy had to get her fresh kettle corn. :)

14 months

Cadence is starting to walk around like crazy. People were right when they warned me about walking. They go where they want to go and not where you want to go. And if you want them to go where you want to go, they put up a fight. She now has 9 teeth including one molar coming out. I believe she can fully understand a lot of things that we say and do. She loves it when we laugh, because she laughs when we laugh. She recognizes who her family and friends are. She can sign "more", "all done" and "eat". It all just happened one day. I said the word eat and she pointed at her mouth. I was so shocked! Consistency works even when you don't think it works.

We just came back from Texas and it was better than I anticipated. Cady slept most of the way there and back on the plane. She had a great time with Isabelle and Ethan and playing with them everyday. That's probably where she learned how to walk the most because she actually had an open space to walk around in. Our basement is still not finished yet so our house is still cluttered because everything is stored upstairs. The only bad thing is that I caught a cold while I was there which made my flight back home miserable because of my congestion. But I'm thankful that Cady was able to sleep and she didn't catch the cold until much later.

Cadence is now as playful as ever. This is probably one of the best times before she hits the terrible 2's. She laughs all the time and walks up to you with her arms out. She gives us hugs and kisses when we ask for one. Although it does take a little while, but she does. I just recently have weaned her completely from nursing. So I haven't given her milk for the last 2 nights from me. The first night was the worst. She kept crying and I felt like she felt that I was abandoning her. I later picked her up and rocked her to sleep. Luckily to fell asleep in my arms.

September 26, 2008 - Cadence is walking!

She first started to make more than one step when my aunt from Taiwan came into town. She took 3 steps total. Soon after that, I watched her walk from our shoe rack to the door. The yesterday we went to Northbrook Mall to play by the treehouse and she was walking around everywhere! She's still a little unsteady, but she does it!

We are getting ready for our next trip which is to Austin, Texas next Thursday. I'm even more nervous because this is a longer flight than NY and I'm praying that she won't cry like she did on that flight home. I'm dreading it!! It's going to sunny and 90 degrees there next weekend! For those of you that know me, I'm not a super fan of extremely hot weather. We'll definitely go swimming, but I think it might be too hot to Cady. We'll just have to bring lots of sunscreen.

September 18, 2008 - We love NY!

We just got back from our trip to NY and I can say that at least I can call this one a vacation. Cady did very well on the flight to there. She fell asleep in the Ergo as we were boarding the plane and slept most of the way. We kept her out a little late the first two nights since we were staying in NJ and it was about an hour bus ride to and from Manhattan. But Cadence had a great time at Auntie Angela's place in NJ because of all the toys!! The minute we arrived, she started to play with everything and believe me there were a lot of toys there. :) I knew she wouldn't want to go to sleep. We ended up packing the playyard and checking it in so she can sleep in it. NOT! She ended up sleeping in between us on our bed and of course kicking me off. Let's just say I ended up sleeping on the crib mattress both nights in NJ. And of course she woke up a few times so you can imagine me and Julian got no sleep at all.

The weather turned out better than I expected. The internet said that it was suppose to rain all weekend so I was a little bummed. But we got only drizzle on Saturday and sunny, hot and humid on Sunday and Monday just a little cooler. But regardless, not much rain at all! Praise God!! Here's what we did...

Saturday - Central Park (all day), then Zara :), then Chinatown at night to pick up Joe's Shanghai for dinner.

Sunday - The United Nations building, Times Square, Rockefellar Center, Greenwich Village. We ate at Pomme Frites which is this yummy fries place with a lot of different dipping sauces. As a fry lover, it was delicious!!!

Can you tell we teach Cady the proper way of sitting in the stroller....

Monday - Julian had to work, so I went with Cady to Soho. We actually took the subway. I found that a little easier than a cab because then I didn't have to collapse the stroller while holding Cady. We only stayed for there a little bit because I realized that I didn't bring any diapers for her. Darn! So we went back to the hotel then walked up and down 5th Ave and Madison Ave for like 4 hours. Good thing Cady was able to nap in the stroller. We later met up with Dou-Yih and family for dinner. After dinner, Cady was exhausted, so she ended up sleeping early of course in our bed. Since we had a king size bed, I wasn't forced to sleep on the floor at least.

On Tuesday - Our flight was at 3:30, so I decided to go back to Soho to see what I didn't get to see. I wish I had gone to Chinatown instead. The cheap and old side of me kicked in, so there wasn't anything I wanted to buy in Soho.

Our trip ended with a brutal 2 hours on the plane with Cady crying the entire time!! She's never done that. Nothing seemed to make her happy. If I took something away from her, she would cry and it just got worse. Thankfully it's only a 2 hour flight. We had to apologize to everyone around us. It had to have been the air pressure and the ears since she was just getting over a cold. poor cady... I'll have to prepare better for our next trip which is in a few weeks to Austin Texas for a wedding.

Overall, our trip was great. NY has changed so much since the first time I've been there which was about 10 years ago. People are much friendly. The first time I went, nobody in the stores would say "hi" or "thankyou". Random people would hit your car if you barely crossed the crosswalk line. This time, I got tons of hello's, thankyou's and even a random guy asked if I needed help bringing Cady down into the subway. I thought that was really nice. Cady loved saying hi to everyone and making faces at them. She brought many smiles and laughs to everyone she looked at. It was one of the best parts of the trip. :) Maybe people were nice to me because I had a baby. :p

September 10, 2008 - First Step!!

Today, Cadence took her first step! It was an unsteady one, but at least it was a step! I was just so happy that I had a chance to see it. She also said mama to me without relating it to food. :p

We're getting ready to go on our trip to NY this weekend. So far, both Cadence and I are sick with colds. Thankfully we have no fevers, just very congested. Hopefully Julian won't get sick.

The sniffles

Today, Cadence woke up with a cold. Sneezing, runny nose, but thankfully no fever. J But she’s been miserable. Her eyes are watery and she just looks miserable. On top of that she’s been teething, therefore, waking up every 2-3 hours for the past 2 nights. Tomorrow was suppose to be her first day at daycare, but now that’s not going to happen. Hopefully she’ll get over this cold by Friday in time for our trip to NY. I’m having low expectations because it says that it’s going to rain.

Today I realized that I LOVE being a mom and I LOVE Cadence as any mother would love their daughter. BUT….I don’t like (almost hate) the politics of being a mom. I feel like it’s only the beginning too and there are more surprises to come. I don’t get many comments on how to raise my daughter, only a few here and there, but nothing that has pulled my hair out. I’ve gotten a lot of “opinions” though on how I raise my daughter and that probably bugs me the most. I can tell it in someone’s tone of voice if they disagree with something that I’m doing or how I’m caring for Cadence. I think it really upsets me because I work full time and I’m not the primary care taker which means that to some extent, I don’t have full control of raising my daughter. And to have someone make a comment on how I raise my own daughter just makes it worse….

August 5, 2008 - Cadence turns 1!

Well, her party was on July 26th. What was originally a party of 35 people became a party of 65 people!! Yikes! Praise God that the weather was perfect and most of the guests and kids were able to play outside. What a perfect party! Happy Birthday Cub!

June 8, 2008

Gone are the days of Cady’s afternoon naps. :( For the past week, she has not napped in the afternoon. Instead she cries really really hard with tears and everything. I end up picking her up because I think she’s just not tired. But she needs a nap or else she’s up from 10am to 7pm which is a really long time. She has been crawling around like crazy! We can’t get any work done. So we are going to ask someone to come over every day to play with Cadence. It’ll be a big help so we can get some work done at home.

May 29, 2008 - Food...

Cady can now say the words, dada, nana/mama, baba, jaja. Of course, mama only comes out when we’re eating and when she can’t stand any longer to eat mommy’s food. I’ve upgraded her to organic free range chicken, organic broccoli and organic brown rice. I thought it was really good!! She liked it for a bit, but didn’t eat it all. I don’t get it. To be honest, I think it’s kind of cute when she starts crying/pouting when she doesn’t want anymore food. She literally fights and turns her head. Almost like she’s going to die if she ate another bite. Right now, Cady loves fruit, bananas especially and she can now eat cheerios on her own. Yay! She can take a few sips out of the sippy cup. Another yay! Also, she can now crawl….well sort of….she uses her left knee and her right foot. So she looks like she’s limping. But enough to move from one place to another. She loves to get into everything. Some of her favorite toys right now are paper, flipping the garbage can and getting into her book shelf and throwing everything off. So pretty much making a mess is her favorite thing to do

I am still working full time with part time working from home. These are the days that I wish I could take Cady to a bunch of classes and to the library for storytime. I think she’s really bored at home with just me and playing with the same old things. I think she needs some kind interaction. I feel guilty for working but thankful that I can at least work at home and see her going through all these milestones. We have half day Fridays now, so hopefully I’ll make good use of them to spend time with Cadence.

May 15, 2008 - San Francisco

Wow, one month since I’ve updated this. A lot went on this past month. Cady is still not crawling yet, but she’s getting there. I can now leave her on the floor and she can play by herself just as long as she doesn’t get into anything that will hurt her.

We recently went on a trip to SanFrancisco for two reasons. One, was Julian’s uncle of 95 years old passed away. He lived a great life and was a Christian. The other was to take a mini vacation for Mother’s day. Needless to say, this was far from being a vacation. Bringing a baby is such a different story. The flight to there, Cady slept on Julian for about 10 minutes. For the rest of the flight, Julian had to stand in the aisle holding her most of the time. That night, she didn’t sleep very well. She woke up crying because she got diarrhea!! Poor Cady. Her poo was a bright neon yellow. The doctor said to give her Pedialyte, but she hated it. But I don’t blame her. So she couldn’t eat anything except Pedialyte or breast milk. The entire time there, she didn’t take any naps because we were always out seeing family and doing stuff. So for 3 days, she was up for 8-10 hours. On Sunday, we went to Yosemite National Park and stayed in a heated tent. This was my idea since the hotel we originally booked was an hour away from the park and it wasn’t all that. The stay at the tent would have been fine if Cady slept through. She woke up a few times at night so we barely got any sleep. The park was beautiful and Julian got me a sweet little card from Cadence for Mother’s day. It was all I could ask for. :)

April 14, 2008 - Sleep training

Just when I thought I got the sleep training down packed, Cadence is starting to cry again. L I got her to the point where for her naps, I can just lay her down and she can put herself to sleep without me being there and without too much crying. Maybe it was because I traumatized her by making her nap at my moms house (which was unsuccessful). But now, it’s like I’m starting all over. She’s crying herself to sleep for her naps and the cries are sounding more sad. She’s starting to hold her arms up and lean towards me when she wants to be picked up and when I don’t, she just cries and leans towards my chest. It’s SO sad!!! I want to cry! Wahhhhh! L I just want to pick her up and hold her all day long, but I have to get back to work and she needs her nap.

April 7, 2008 - First cold

Cady has her first cold. L She’s been coughing and sneezing with snot coming out. Poor baby…..she’s also scratching everywhere on her body so she must be miserable