Perspective

Alfred attended a funeral yesterday for a friend that we lost to Luekemia. I only knew her through Alfred, as they used to work together, but on the occassions that we've had a chance to hang out, I had always found her to be a very nice person. She's a little older than us by a couple of years... had a husband and a little girl, about 3 years old.

Unfortunately, I couldn't attend the funeral. To be honest, I was a little afraid of going. I don't know if I could have handled seeing her little daughter say good-bye to her mommy for the last time. Alfred confirmed that it WAS the hardest part of the service. I'm tearing up right now just imagining it. I wasn't even there to witness it and it still makes me unbearably sad.

So then I start to think about how I've been feeling lately. A little disconnected from Alfred (which sometimes happens when we get busy with the day-to-day), a little short-tempered with the kids, a little lonely in general. I realized that instead of just stewing in these feelings, perhaps it's time to do something about it. Put forth a little more effort in repairing these negative feelings. I AM fortunate to be blessed with all that I have in my life and I should be more appreciative.

Last night, I met Alfred and the kids at Katelyn's halau and we had dinner after her hula practice. When we got home, instead of taking the kids straight upstairs to read my book while the kids watch TV and Alfred watches ESPN downstairs until HE falls asleep on the couch, I decided to hang out with my husband and listen to him play his ukelele and guitar (which I used to do way more often back in the day... and way not enough these days). He and I listened to music on my I-pod that he then tried to play on his guitar. Somehow Katelyn incorporated a pretend birthday party into what we were doing. Jacob would come over once in awhile to give us a play-by-play of the new episode of Yo Gabba Gabba that he was watching in the room next to ours (coincidentally, it was about: "FAMILY, mom!").

We had a nice night last night. I felt less disconnected, less short-tempered, less lonely... and a million times more blessed. I think Alfred felt the same. And when he asked me for a hug this morning before we left for work, that hug sure felt extra special. Sometimes it's all in the perspective.

Kids say the funniest things

In the most grown-up voice that a 5-year-old could muster, Katelyn says this to me as we are driving home from Alfred's softball game last night:

"If daddy texts you, could you please ask him if we could go to Starbucks? I think I want to have coffee for dinner. I could smell it already and it smells SO good!"

Just to clarify, Katelyn does NOT drink coffee but she does love the smell of it when we brew the flavored kinds at home (shout out to Don Francisco - Hawaiian Hazlenut and Butterscotch Toffee is our fave!). The strange thing is that I didn't have any coffee in the car last night so I'm not quite sure what she was smelling. Although, in retrospect, I think it was a little bit of delirium since she fell asleep not long after making that statement.

By the time we were on our way home from the game, it was passed 8pm and none of us had eaten dinner yet so I stopped off to pick up food. Jacob was BEGGING for noodles as though he hadn't eaten in years and years during the 5-minute drive from Panda Express to our house. By the time we got home and I opened his door to get him out, he looked at me and said:

"It smells gooooood..."

I just about died laughing! Not that I find it all that amusing that my son was starving but the growing range in his vocabulary these days always takes me by surprise. His sentences are still choppy sometimes but he's been trying to tell stories. For example, how he was trying to tell Alfred about walking on the bleachers and falling down during the softball game. Except his version was more like:

"I fall down... WALKING, DADDY!! I fall down.."

And how funny was it that every single time Alfred's team came in from the outfield, Jacob would yell, "HI, DADDY!" or "HI, UNCLE!" (when he would recognize one of his many uncles on the team) and he would look at me, point to the field and yell, "BASEBALL GAME!" What my son lacks in eloquence of speech, he definitely makes up for in enthusiasm! (Anytime I write in bold, that's him yelling. And the boy is loud. REALLY loud. Many people have commented on how deep his voice is already for a toddler... we're very interested in how much deeper his voice will be after he hits puberty.)

One of my favorite Jake-isms is how he always tells me, "Good job, mom!" when he sees me in my work out clothes. He'll congratulate me even BEFORE I start working out and then do so again AFTER. Sometimes Alfred will work out with me and try to fish for a "Good job, daddy!" from Jacob but Jake will ONLY compliment mommy... maybe because I need the encouragement more than Alfred does...! Mommy HATES working out.

I will end this with a little shout out to my brand new Kindergartener, Katelyn. Thankfully she is liking school... for now... knock on wood that it continues for the next.... 17 years (if I'm lucky, she'll be done with all by then! - ha!)

Rookie

When we were up in San Jose, visiting family and meeting my little sister's in-laws for the first time, we had decided to catch a late movie. We were going to watch my boyfriend, Johnny Depp, light up the movie screen in his portrayal of John Dillinger in Public Enemies. Anyway, this movie theater that we visited was pretty unique. Not only could you buy your standard movie fare (popcorn, candy, hot dogs, slurpees and sodas), you could also buy a STARBUCKS coffee. Yes! Not just coffee... STARBUCKS, my friends! We were so excited! We all wondered, why don't ALL movie theaters do this? It soon became evident why not.

My brother-in-law was in front of me in line ordering a drink for my sister - an ICED white mocha. For those of you who do not know, cold drinks are usually served like this:

So the kid behind the counter takes the order and goes to the back table to make the drink. I notice the kid standing there, with his back to us, as though he's deep in thought. He's reading off a piece paper, which I assume was instructions on how to make an iced coffee. I make a comment to my BIL that it didn't really look like he knew what he was doing and we just laugh it off - hahahahahahaha! Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the kid comes over to us and hands my BIL the drink. BUT it is in this cup:

For those of you who don't know, that's the cup they use for HOT drinks. No biggie. We assumed that they ran out of the clear cups that iced drinks are usually served it.

Now it's my turn and I order a Carmel Macchiato. This, my friends, is a hot drink. The kid goes to the back, stands there for awhile, scratches his head, starts concocting and after another eternity passes, he turns around and puts my cup down on the counter in front of me. My HOT drink is in this cup:

One of his co-workers happens to be near by and asks, "Is that a HOT drink???" and the kid says, "Yeah". She asks, "Why is it in THAT cup??" and he says, "What? It's my first day!" She says to me, "Um... well, if your cup starts to melt, come back and we'll give you a new drink." By this time, our movie has already started so we grab our drinks and head off. I can barely hold my plastic cup, it's so hot, and I have no idea how I'm going to actually drink it (through a straw?) The whole time, we are all CRACKING UP! Oh my gawd, I thought it was the funniest thing ever! And when I was finally able to drink my coffee, it tasted more like milk than coffee. But worth it for the great laugh!

I was reminded of this story because I went to a real, deal Starbucks this morning. The white chocolate mocha I ordered tastes like pure sugar. It's so sweet it's making me gag and giving me a headache. I can excuse the movie theater employee who didn't know how to make a Starbucks coffee - I'm sure that wasn't part of the prerequisites of being hired - but it's hard to excuse a Starbucks barsita. If I had to choose right now, the movie theater Starbucks hot coffee in the plastic cup might be the winner.

Growing up way "TWO" Fast

Jacob recently turned TWO YEARS OLD and we threw him a Yo Gabba Gabba party last weekend (pictures to follow). He had a blast! Something I noticed about Jacob is that he doesn’t seem to enjoy parties in close quarters. When we attend a party at someone’s home, he is very agitated the whole time. Very clingy and whiney. But parties at the park – watch out now! This boy loves to wander around with no care in the world. Sometimes he’ll even stroll on over to some stranger’s party that might be going down near the one we’re attending and insist on riding the kids’ bikes/trikes. And when I try to tell him he can’t ride their stuff because we don’t know them, he is not afraid to show his displeasure in me (and that’s putting it lightly!)

Anyway, to keep the kiddos busy as we were preparing for the party, I baked little cakes for them to decorate. Check out my little man, helping me bake….

I ended up making a Brobee cake for Jacob to blow his candle out on. (The rest of the party partook in the Costco cake.)

The day after his party, we had some friends/siblings over to watch the Laker game and to try to help us consume the 20 lbs of carne asada meat that we had left-over from the party. (I’m not exaggerating about the 20 lbs either! We were unsuccessful at finishing it all so I had to freeze about half of it and gave the other half to my mother-in-law!)

At one point, I realize that I hadn’t seen Jacob for awhile. I go looking for him and there he is, in the bedroom playing with his sister and the rest of the kids. Later on, he’s outside playing with the kids. It hit me right then and there… Jacob is gaining his independence. He’s becoming less of my shadow (following me everywhere I go) and is less afraid of being away from me (“bye, mom, go to wok!”). I realized that I need to really savor this time of his life because he is the last of my babies. Pretty soon he won’t be jealous anymore when his daddy sits too close to me or puts his arms around me. He won’t be yelling for me from outside, “Moooooooom!! Swiiiiiiiiiiing!! Mooooooom!” His eyes won’t light up the way they always do when he sees me after a long day at work. He won’t be running up to me, so excited for me to pick him up and give him a kiss, looking at me with eyes that are full of love, touching my face with his little hands. Some days, when Jacob is extra whiney and extra clingy, I can’t help but think, “Jeez, I can’t wait until he’s older.” But, no, that isn’t true. I can wait a lifetime if he can just stay my baby forever.

I've got so much "passion"

Thanks to Shamelessly Sassy for the gentle reminder that it has been a whole MONTH since my last post - what the heck?! In my defense, I did start a post last week and then got sidetracked. That would have made it only a mere 3 weeks since my last post. Augh - I know, I suck!

So anyway, to continue the post I began, I mentioned before my newfound love for all things NKOTB, right? Except that post did not do proper justification as to how far my obsession appreciation went. I have to admit that I was too ashamed to admit it at the time. I didn't want to admit that I listened to their new CD non-stop evey chance I got. That I changed my Google homepage to their theme. That I have a Google gadget that plays continuous loops of various NKOTB videos old and new. That I was following all the members on Twitter and having their tweets sent to my phone. That (instead of writing blog posts) I was watching NKOTB videos on YouTube. That I was contemplating selling an organ or two so that I could afford to go to the NKOTB cruise that went down a couple weeks ago. Ok, that last one was a lie. (Sort of.) Anyone who knows me knows I have this groupie/borderline-stalker mentality with anyone/anything I grow fond of. Alfred (God bless him) just rolls his eyes a lot when I get this way. My friends appreciate my "passion" for things (meaning, they still love me when I get the crazies). They know that I will eventually get over it. The thing is, when I AM caught up in my... ahem... "passions"... my poor kids go along for the ride. So now they know all the words to my favorite NKOTB songs (and they even have THEIR favorite songs):

You can't see her but you can hear Katelyn singing along in the background. She loves this song (2 IN THE MORNING) as well as SINGLE.

I was planning to take Desiree and Alana to another NKOTB concert in July (in Vegas). Katelyn is now asking if she could go too. She said "Mama? Can I go see New Kids too? Coz they are SO cute!" It is SO obvious who she takes after, right? It pains me that I can't be the hero and give in to her request. I just can't see myself spending $400 for all 4 us of to go to that concert. Heck, it hurts to be spending $300 for the three of us to go. Last time, it was just me and Desiree who went and even spending that $200 was SO hard. Then again, it might totally be worth it to see NKOTB and the Jabbawockeez - our two biggest "passions"! If you are a fan of either NKTOB and/or Jabbawockeez, you HAVE to check out the summer tour. A little birdie told me that it is going to be even better than their spring tour and that was ALREADY the biznaz! I don't want to spoil it for anyone who is planning to go to the concert but let's just say that I am SO excited about what they have in the works!

BTW - for those of you who were thinking that a NKOTB intervention was in order, I am pleased to advise that I have been listening to music other than NKOTB as of late, I have since changed my Google homepage theme to something other than NKOTB, I've changed my twitter settings so that I do NOT get their tweets via text message anymore and I haven't watched a NKOTB video on YouTube for quite some time now. Thank you for your concern.

Why can't they stay babies forever?

In one of those rare moments, Alfred and I were hanging out downstairs on the couch on Saturday morning watching TV while all four of the kids were upstairs playing Nintendo Wii in the office. We heard Jacob working his way downstairs so Alfred told me to hide under the blanket. As I was hiding, I heard Jacob asking his daddy, "Mama wok? Mama wok?" (translation: Is mom at work?) and Alfred answered, "I don't know?" and slowly pulled the blanket off so that my head was peeking out. The look on Jacob's face when his eyes met mine was priceless! His face lit up and he even did a little jig, he was that excited to see that I was NOT at "wok" but at home with him!

Later that afternoon, I was busy doing laundry and stitching warm-up pants that have been overly abused on the softball field (in retrospect, I should have just tossed it in the trash or turned them into shorts - haha!) when Jacob came up to me asking for "nas" (translation: bananas). I told him to go ask his daddy and was surprised when he answered "daddy! nas!" and took off running to look for his dad and chow down on bananas.

Late yesterday afternoon, the girls were helping their dad wash the cars while I watched Jacob roll up and down the drive-way on his little scooter. It was starting to get cold so I asked him if he wanted to go inside to watch some TV and he answered, "No... bike." When I asked if he was sure he answered, "No.... bike."

When did this happen?? When did my baby go from barely comprehendable babblings to... um... well, barely comprehendable intelligent questions, the ability to follow direction and form his own opinions?? Amazing. Next thing you know, he'll be asking me to take him to the "cathay" for some lattes. I don't think I can take it... all of my babies growing up.

Disgusting... but too funny not to post

My kids bite their nails. A really bad habit that I like to blame on Alfred since I'm pretty certain they inherited their love of keratin from him. For the last 10 years, I had never ever, ever, ever seen Alfred cut his fingernails with a nail clipper. I've seen him cut his toenails but his fingernails stay mysteriously short without the need for clippers. Alfred recently quit biting his nails and it was so weird to see his fingernails that long and to see him cutting them with a nail clipper - WEIRD, I tell ya! And don't even get me started with his new obsession to clean under his nails. I guess one obsession replaces the other? Anyway, I digress, I'm not here to talk about Alfred (although I am very proud of him for working so hard to kick that nail biting habit!! I know it was tough! And I am NOT being facetious here.) I'm here to talk about my KIDS who bite their nails. When they run out of fingernails.... they turn to... what else? Their toenails. I guess if you can reach them... why not? Besides the fact that it's absolutely disgusting and god knows where those feet have been, I guess it makes perfect sense.

My kids get pissed off when I tell them to stop biting their nails - fingers OR toes. They get U-P-S-E-T! They were fresh out of the bath in these pictures so I let them do it long enough to take the photos but, *augh*, so gross! I promised myself I would take pictures to show to their future girlfriends/boyfriends some day. You can never have enough embarrassing photos for when they grow up! Especially posted on the Internet! I'm sure they will be eternally grateful. You're welcome, my darlings.