Snowball on a ride

Mia is rising her new tricycle with her cat snowball.

2012 X'mas

Merry Christmas 2012. Mia's now posing in her X'mas outfit. She's such a big girl now. This year she's been singing Christmas carols non-stop.

Pinata

Mia's first pinata experience today was to break the little dog for grandma's 60th birthday. She was traumatized by the shattered headless dog. I wish she didn't hzve to go thru it but everything finished within seconds. She refused to see the recorded video afterwards and told me she was afraid. I should have known better.

Stop it, Leave me Alone!

Mia said "Stop it leave me alone" to Mike today. Mike called me to tell me about it. I could not believe it. She's going into the 'terrible 2' phase and becoming very hard headed. Now she's even mouthing back. She's just 22 months old.

Change of Personality

Mia had a change of personality in this semester's Music Together class. I first noticed that she did not eagerly join all the kids to pick music instruments. She'd wait and hesitate to take anything from the teacher. In the first class, she accidently tripped over a 7 month old. The baby broke out crying and probably spooked Mia. Mike attributed her shyness to her traumatic experience of thinking she might have hurt the baby. From then on it's been 6 classes, she still wouldn't venture away me much even though she's seldom that clingy at home or other places. She's generally speaking an outgoing child. Daycare teacher said she was the loudest child and was always friendly... at times strong willed. I am still trying to figure this out.

Picture Day

It's Mia's first Picture Day at the daycare today. I bought her some holiday dresses and a new pair of red shoes last night to go with the outfit. I dropped her off this morning. Principal Kae took her to the photo shoot while I rushed out to my morning appointments. I wish I stayed to see her taking the pictures. All I saw was a snowy background and a bunch of dressed up toddlers. I look forward to seeing the final product.

New dress

Today I made a dress for Mia.

Trick O Treat 2012

Today is Mia's first official Halloween. We went to get her a pumkin basket and dressed her quickly after dinner. We are pirates this year and she's the parrot on daddy's shoulder.

Getting ready to leave!  She learned to say "trick or treat" but was too shy at people's door. She also repeated "Polly wants the candy". Acrossed the street she was mistaken for a chicken!

Pumpkin Festival

We went to Cox Farm on Saturday before Hurricane Sandy comes. Mia went on the big girl slide with daddy, had pop corn for the first time, and petted baby goats.

The Marathon Fever

Mia had a flu shot last Tuesday. She was ok on Wednesday and suddenly developed a fever on Friday. It's been six days. She would range from 100 to 104, especially during the night. We gave her different medicine but none brought the fever down. Mike went in Monday morning but she did not have a fever or any infection. At night again it spiked to 103. After giving her Tylenol for over  a day since then, I took her in again this afternoon. The pediatrician ordered a CBC, a strep test and a uriine test. We await test result in suspicion of a virus. We had some sleep deprived nights this week. Yesterday at work I was in meetings from 8:30 to 6:30 without lunch break. The longest meeting which I ran took three hours at the end of the day. I was zapped. Good thing that the fever went down today below 100. I am hoping a good recovery this weekend. I still want to take her to the Pumpkin Festival.

Dialogue

Mia now can say the following sentences:

What's mommy doing?
Where did mommy go?
What's that noise?

She sings ABC. If prompted, she can go all the way to Z. She counts to 10 but misses a couple numbers. She goes 1, 2, 3, 5, 7,9,10.

It's more and more fun listening to her.

Buying pumpkins

It's that time of the year again.We went to the Farmer's market across the street and picked three pumpkins. Mia rode the little train and went on the hay slide. She busied herself moving the pumpkins up and down the wagon and enjoyed her wagon ride.

Octoberfest concert

Renaissance Festival

Aquarium

Last Saturday we took Mia to Baltimore aquarium.

Swear Jar

Mike started the swear and yelling jar a couple weeks ago. Each yelling and swearing in front of Mia would cost 20 bucks. Since then I have contributed 160 dollars. Mike had coughed up 80 bucks that he's yet to put in the jar. Unbelievable! I must tame my temper. Mia's been having so much temper tandrum since her class filled up with smaller kids. She's no longer the baby of the class and she's feeling a loss. Miss Pinky said she was acting up (whining more and not eating/napping well). She came home and threw the pillows from the couch to the floor while saying 'go away'. I think she needs more attention and is trying to adjust.

ABC

Mia sang ABC today! She went all the way to "G". I came home from work. Mom informed me that she could sing ABC. She started "A B C D E Feb... Fish" and kept repeating. She was right on the tune. I was so beyond happy. I videotaped it and would cherish this milestone forever.

Picture is from this past weekend when we celebrated great grandma's 80th birthday. She was throwig the pom pom while yellig rah rah rah.

At the Beach

Mia's Vocabulary at month 18

I calculated Mia's vocabularies today by Chinese and English. She's been able to name objects and expresssions: a total of 100 words/phrases in Chinese and about 50 in English. I am acutally quite surprised. Lately I've noticed a marked improvement. Last time I couted was about 3 weeks ago, at the time, I was able to count about 60 words in total. She has now more than doubled her mastery of language. I find it much easier to communicate with her now. She even told me about her earache several times, leading us to go to the pediatrician to treat her ear infection.

National Harbor

 

We went to National Harbor today. Mia had her first experience in the sand. It was overcast so perfect for a stroll outdoors. The temperature was in the low 90s. We had lunch at Bond 45, an Italian restaurant by the water front. We sat outdoors and saw many planes taking off and landing from the nearby National Airport. Later we stopped by a yogurt place. Mia had a few mouthful of yogurt with fresh fruit. There was a concert going on by the river called "abbey road on the river". A Beatles cover band. The National Children's Museum has a launch zone nearby so we let Mia play there for a little while. It was nice for me to go to the water and enjoy and breeze and sand too.