smile. (normally please).

                                          
My parents told me that when I was little whenever someone pointed a camera at me and said "Smile!" I would drop my jaw wide open. Thus, if you flip thru albums of me as a baby and toddler, I had my mouth wide open in many of them.
I decided I better teach Natallie how to smile on command, this would make taking photos of her so much easier. It didn't take long for Natallie to learn how to smile when I said 'smile' but for some reason, she scrunches up her shoulders. It's like she's trying to show off how many chin folds she can create. Ha ha. My friend Kristin said it's because I smile like that. Do I? Do I really? I don't think I do but she had to of learned the weird smile thing from someone! Anyways, its great that when I take photos Natallie will smile, but look at all these pictures, she has no neck in ALL these pictures, how do I get her to smile normally??

 

***

OK so after posting this blog, my friend Kristin, showed me several photos of me smiling with my shoulders shrugged up to prove that she is right that Natallie's weird smiling is because of me. And I went through some of my old photos and sadly, I have to admit that on more than one occasion I am smiling with my shoulders up. Kristin said it's suprising Natallie isn't also doing the asian peace sign when I say 'smile' too. Ha ha. Just wait til Natallie has the fine motor coordination to do that, then she'll be a gleeful replica of her shruggy smiling mom!

 

why Chinese New Year is kinda like Christmas.

Natallie is half Chinese and this weekend since it was Chinese New Year, it was a great opportunity to teach her a little bit about her Asian heritage. Not that I am very connected to my motherland and tranditions of China but Chinese New year is fun, it's kinda like Christmas. If you don't know about Chinese New Year, here is how Chinese New Year is like Christmas...

 

#1. Instead of the Santa Parade, there's the traditional Lion Dance. Don't leave our milk and cookies for the lion, he apparently prefers lettuce instead. Natallie at first was a bit freaked out by the loud drums but then she soon started clapping along with the crowd. If you had never seen a lion dance, you should watch this video of what Natallie watched with great delight at Lougheed Mall on Saturday.

                                   
                                   
#2 Instead of saying "Merry Christmas" or the politically correct version "Happy Holidays", you say "Sun Leen Fai Lok" (Happy New Year) or "Gung Hay Fat Choy" (wishing you good fortune)

#3 Instead of turkey or ham, you go out with all your relatives for "toon leen fan" which is 10 course Chinese feast of things like Peiking duck, lobster and crab, honey garlic spareribs and lettuce rice wraps. (And just like Christmas dinner, you want to wear those looser pants). Natallie ate with great delight!

                                      
                            


#4 Instead of decorating in tinsel and lights, "real" Asian people (i.e., not me) decorate their house with red firecracker thingys and the word "fok" which means good fortune. They purposely put the word upside so it "pours" the good fortune onto their house (if it were only that easy to win Lotto 649, I'm sure more people would be doing that).

#5 You get dressed up in your new clothes but instead of ugly Christmas sweaters, you wear traditional Chinese clothes. At least for girls and women, the high neck line and silk fabrics is quite pretty (just steer clear of the ones that got bedazzled too much).

Love the way the dress highlights her little pot belly

Natallie with "PoPo" in their Chinese New year outfits

#6 And my pesonal favourite growing up as a Chinese kid, instead of wrapped presents under the tree, kids get red pockets with cash from their parents (no disapointment with another pair of socks). To be specific, the parents just don't give the kids the red envelopes of money, the children are suppose to "bai leen", which means go to your parents and say nice things and wish good things upon them and then they recieve in return CASH!  This year my parents gave Natallie (and us) Winnie the Pooh and Minnie Mouse red pockets, definately not traditional but pretty cute.

                                                 
All in all, Chinese New Year is pretty much like any other holiday, it's about spending time with the people you love and being thankful for all the blessings you have. So I'm glad that I got to show Natallie a little bit of her Chinese side and glad that her not-so-Asian Dad can teach her about other things. There is no official Mennonite holiday is there? Maybe Simon will teach Natallie about the importance of the Canucks winning the Stanley Cup then....

 

 

 

SUN LEEN FAI LOK!



happy half birthday - aquarium bound.

Today Natallie is one and half. Being 18 months old seemed like a great reason to bring Natallie to the Vancouver Aquarium with all her best friend (well, my best friends too).  I think my favourite part of the day was just watching that look on face....just of awe and enchantement. She kept of pointing to the fish, sharks, dolphins, belugas with the same look of awe-struck wonder. Not many real words yet, she calls everything "da!!!" although since we got her the fish, we do hear her say "fsshhhhhh". Here's some highlights of our day:

This is the "ohhhhhhh" look that I was talking about

with her bestie Alexa (who is 6 months younger but the same size)

 

I think after today, Natallie is going to think her little Betta fish is rather lame

We spent a long time in the toddler area where they things to climb and a dress up corner!
Two cute dolphins!

Natallie also found a mirror and found her reflection quite appealing

Enchanted by the jellyfish

watching the beluga show with her friends

no fears about touching the starfish

the dolphins came right up to us

What a fun day with friends! Happy one and half birthday to my beautiful, inquisitive little girl!

Swish the fish.

Natallie is going to be 18 months old at the end of this month and I figured she was responsible enough to have her own pet. We have been going to the pet store almost every week, it's only 5 mins away from our house, it's cheaper than the aquarium and Natallie loves it. We have the same routine every time we go, we start at the aquarium and she squeals over all the fish. Then we move on to the hamsters, guinea pigs and mice. Then we look at all the birds and then the cats. The grande finale is going to the back of the store where they have big glass windows so you can see into the doggy grooming. Natallie can stand there forever watching the puppies get bathed and hair cut. It's free entertainment for a whole 30 minutes!

Today, we bought a Betta fish. I used to have one before so we already had the tank so we just had to add the fish. We named him Swish. Natallie says "fshhh" when she sees him. Simon (aka Mr. I-hate-animals-in-the-house) is OK with the fish. Small steps, maybe next time, we get the hamster and then the guinea pig and hopefully one day, we'll have a Nova Scotia Retriever. But for now, we have Swish and yes, it was Simon's idea to put a picture of the shark from Finding Nemo in the fish tank. Kinda sadistic but Swish doesn't seem to mind!

real parenting starts at 18 months.

Several months  ago, I was at the park with one of my friends who is a parent of a toddler and I was telling her how I was really enjoying this stage of parenthood. I could predict when Natallie would be tired, cranky, hungry or needed to be changed. We had passed the horrible sleepless nights of teething and she has beautiful toothy grin now. She is walking by herself now so I don’t need to hold one hand and be constantly stooped over assisting her to walk everywhere.  Yes,  my 16 month old was pretty fun and being her mom was pretty awesome. She smiled and said, “just wait until she gets to be 18 months, then that’s when the real parenting begins!” I didn’t really know what that meant but I think I am getting some good glimpses of what the toddler years to come. Natallie will be 18 months old the end of January and up until this point, being a good parent consisted solely of nurturing and protecting.  But now I see that being a good parent also requires this thing called discipline.

Meal time is going to be our first obstacle of figuring how to get Natallie to stop throwing her spoon, her fork, her bottle , her plate and all her food on our poor kitchen floor. We have tried ignoring it and then making her pick it up and clean the mess she made. Ironically, Natallie really enjoys cleaning up a big mess and is giddy with glee when I make her mop up all the spilled milk. In fact, she will purposely turn her bottle upside down to spill the milk and then ask for a towel so she can mop it up. So clearly, cleaning up the mess isn’t going to be a very effective punishment.  Simon thinks that once she throws the food or the utensil, we should just not give it back to her and if she throws her meal before she’s eaten enough she should just go to bed hungrier than usual. I’m not sure if cognitively at almost 18 months old if Natallie will know that she didn’t get all her supper because she threw it. 

happy because she is making a colossal mess

sad because she threw everything off the table and didn't get it back

 

It’s funny because I thought discipline would come so easily to me since I am a behavior analyst. Whenever I see kids engaging in problem behavior at work, I do a functional assessment and determine the cause of the behavior. There are generally four categories or what we call “functions” of behavior: Attention, Escape, Tangible (i.e., to get something they want) or Sensory (e.g., because it feels good). And it is important to correctly “diagnose” the function of behavior before coming up with a solution or the behavior plan won’t work.  For example, if the child is engaging in problem behavior because they want to get attention, the correct response would be to ignore the behavior and teach alternative and more acceptable ways of getting your attention. If you yell, "no! don't do that!" and put up a big fuss when the function of behavior is attention, the problem will just increase because the child is getting lots of attention (e.g., exactly what they wanted).

But I don’t want to be a behavior analyst with Natallie, I just want to be her mom. I don't want to get my data sheets and start tracking her behaviors and my reactions to see if I can figure out the function of her throwing. I just want to parent with common sense  and from the heart. It's so much harder to stick to consequences when its my baby girl and not just a "client".  I can forsee the next year(s) of tantrums, time-outs and tears won't be much fun. I hate seeing Natallie break out in big gasping sobs.  I guess real parenting does start now….wish me luck.

It starts with just a cardboard box...

I think appliance stores should advertise that with every washer, dryer, freezer, fridge that you can a free play house. Maybe that will help pick up sales. Maybe that will get little kids to start begging their parents, “can we please please please get a new fridge?!!”

Well we got a new washer and dryer and we had a lot of fun transforming it into a playhouse for Natallie. It was a really fun family project for the evening. Simon cut out a door with a little handle. We cut out a window.  Natallie loved it right away, she got inside and wouldn't come out. She cried when I dragged her out of the house to eat supper.

the basic house: just cut out window and door

 Then after supper we got more creative and all the home reno shows we've been watching kicked in and we added pink curtains! Natallie loves to open the curtains and play peekaboo. Simon even made a little window sill where Natallie can put her little teacups on. Simon even attached the light from a headlamp so there is a little lamp in her house!

We put her little chair inside and I decorated it with lots of plastic flowers (that Natallie loves to pull out and then say, “ohhhh!” as if it was any mystery which little munchkin plucked out the flowers!

Natallie likes to take us by the hand and lead us into her little house

Maybe after she’s done with the house we can transform it to something else! Any ideas for what wonderful adventures this cardboard box could be next?

the story of us.

 

It was summer of 2002 when one of my best friends, Rachael, mentioned to me that she knew of a guy that she wanted to set me up with. She said, “his name is Simon. He’s Christian, he’s good-looking and he snowboards.” My interest-meter to this conversation suddenly increased ten-fold. Then she said, “Too bad, I’m going away for university or I could arrange something where you could meet him.”  A little disappointed that she would bring up a potential date-able guy and then not be able to meet him, I said, “oh well, maybe I’ll meet him next summer when you’re back.”

January 2003, I was at a friend’s church when Rachael’s younger sister introduced me to her group of friends. One of the guys she pointed out was named Simon. Suddenly I had a flashback of what Rachael had said earlier in the summer and I wondered if this was the guy she was talking about. I had to find out so of course the best thing to do was walk right up to him and say, “hey, are you snowboarder Simon?” He gave me a puzzled look and said, “I snowboard if that’s what you mean.” Then I followed up with, “do you know Rachael Kaptein?” He nodded.  We chatted more and found out we both had passes to Mount Seymour which led to some awesome snowboard dates. I was positive that this was the guy Rachael had mentioned, she knew me too well, I liked this guy instantly!

Total side note but I think everyone should date on the mountain. You don’t have to worry if you look good in your outfit because everyone looks fat in a snowsuit. Plus, after you put on your helmet, goggles and neck warmer, the only thing exposed is your nose so who cares if you have no make-up on. And you sit side by side on the chairlift and don’t have to stare awkwardly across the table from each other. AND after 10 minutes on the chairlift, you get to just zip down the mountain and think of more interesting questions and topics to talk about on the next chairlift ride up.

But then Simon graduated from BCIT and moved back to Enderby. Then came the year of the Greyhound bus where once a month we took turns sitting 7-8 hours/ one way to see each other for a weekend.  

Then Simon decided to “retire-early” from Forestry and he moved out here. Hallelujah, I never wanted to get on another Greyhound bus again.

Ok now, fast forward to late November 2004. It was around 9:00pm and I had come home with my sister from kinder-gym class. My sister was the coach and I was assisting a child in the class with autism. Granted, after an hour of running around in a stinky gym with a hoard of 5 year olds, I was exhausted. The phone rang and I was glad it was Simon.  We talked for a while and then he asked me to find the “World’s best girlfriend” trophy he had given me some time ago. Puzzled, I complied and got it. He said, “Now this sounds strange but I want you to take it apart. If you carefully unscrew the trophy, it will come apart.” “Umm..OK?” I replied. I took it apart and out fell a little slip of paper that said, “Nessy, will you marry me?”. I said, “for real? Really?” Then Simon said, “I knew you wouldn’t believe me, just come downstairs to your backyard.” I replied, “What? My deck? Why? Are you here?” Simon said, “Just come downstairs!” And then I came downstairs, still in my stinky gymnastics clothes to see my awesome then-boyfriend in a tuxedo holding a bouquet of roses and on a 6 foot board in lights spelled out Nessy, will you marry me?  I can’t remember much of what he said after that, I do remember the last part though when he got down on one knee and said, “Nessy, will you step into my heart?” and he had strung together lights to make a heart on my backyard deck.  “Yes! Yes! Yes”

 

 

And Dec 17 2005 I married my soul mate.  Best decision I ever made.

 

And now, today, Dec 17 2012. 7 years together. Simon, thanks for being everything I ever wanted. Thanks for your patience with me, your constant support of everything I attempt, your thoughtfulness, your eagerness to serve and your commitment to be the best husband and dad. You are awesome.

Happily ever after doesn’t even begin to describe how blessed I feel. I just saw on the news that a lovely old couple are both turning 100 years old this week and have been married for 83 years. I hope that will be us. Praying that I will have you by my side forever and ever. AMEN!