Beach Boys vs Backstreet Boys

Joey is now a full-fledged reader. I am amazed at how much her reading ability has improved in this past year. Her teacher is recommending that she begin reading chapter books. Though I would like for her to tackle War and Peace soon, I figure we would just ease into it with some fun books like Junia B Jones, Magic Tree House, and Amelia Bedelia.

Joey has been reading Amelia Bedelia for a while now and those books bring back memories. I read Amelia Bedelia when I was younger and I remember not understanding the idioms or phrases used in the book. I didn't get the humor of the book at all though I understood the premise of the book. To a certain degree, I felt like Amelia Bedelia. Even though I was born and raised here in the states, I am definitely the child of immigrant parents and a lot of things that are so ingrained in American culture are things I am still trying to figure out.

I realized that there are some lessons learned through formal education and other lessons learned through parents. So I have decided to take it upon myself to teach our kids music. And I'm not talking about Beethoven. If our kids never learn to distinguish between Fur Elise or Clair de Lune, it's somewhat forgivable. But if our kids don't know the difference between the Beach Boys and the Backstreet Boys, they may end up as the idiot on Jay Leno's "Jay Walking" one day.

So I have been forcing the kids to listen to the radio in the car, instead of Raffi or the Wiggles (thank God I am finally free!). And whenever a song comes on that I deem worthy of retention in their mental music catalogs, I yell out the singer and title of the song. I sing along to try to get them into it, but the girls are not interested at all. Sam, on the other hand, is enjoying it for the most part. Now he asks me who is singing when we listen to the radio and he always repeats the name as if he will actually remember.

Sam: Who's this, Mommy?
Me: This is Soft Cell.
Sam: Sah Sel?
Me: Mm-hmm, Soft Cell singing Tainted Love.

Next song...
Sam: Who's this, Mommy?
Me: This is Taylor Sw...never mind. I'm sure in a few years, we'll all be over her.
Sam: Never mind?
Me: Mm-hmm, Baby, never mind.

Happy 2nd Birthday Sam!

Sam is turning two! I can't believe my baby is two. There is a part of me that wants to keep him at this age forever because he is so adorable right now (but then again, I could eat him with a spoon since birth).

Sam is 75% in height and 90% in weight and 100% in attitude! These days he continues to amaze us with his talking. He still loves his guitars and singing and dancing. He received some boy toys for his birthday and I never realized how much he loves Thomas the tank engine. He was deprived for boy toys all this time because we were too cheap to buy anything for him. So all those times I joke about him playing with his sisters' princess stuff? It's because he had nothing else to play with...now he wants me to read to him his new truck book, set up his "choo-choo" stuff daily, and his race cars. Who knew that gender-appropriate toys were so important?

Sam, we love you so much. You have completed our family. We love your goofiness--when you laugh, we all delight in your joy. We marvel at your love for music and enjoy your daily serenades. I love it that you still cuddle with your mommy and are generous with your kisses and hugs. I love that you are independent and determined to do things for yourself. You are so sweet, smart and silly and are so grateful to God for giving you to us!

Sam was annoyed with me because I kept trying to take his picture while he was enjoying his chocolate buttercream frosting.

Enjoying his birthday cake again, but this time being polite.

I didn't think that Sam would know about blowing out candles or that we were celebrating his birthday but he did!

Sam is 18 months!

So hard to believe he is one and a half. He is 75% in weight and height. And just becoming more and more of a handful. Still determined to be the youngest rock star ever. I guess he is working on the complete package with the rock star/troubled youth thing.

He is determined to do EVERYTHING on his own and I am inclined to let him. As far as I am concerned, the more independent, the better. If I can't hold him all day long, then I would rather he be able to take care of himself. He feeds himself for the most part (I just need to teach him how to use the microwave). The other day, he zippered up his pj's by himself.



We started the cloth diapers but the soggy, wet diaper doesn't seem to bother him at all. I have been sitting him on the potty every now and then, but nothing. He was about to poop so I got him on the toilet, and he held it in and got constipated. So obviously he has the muscle control. I think using the potty is just too strange of a concept for him. At some point, I will get serious about it. The cloth diapers are going well so far, so I am glad we made the switch.

His language development is great considering he hasn't learned to say no or mine yet. He hasn't learned to say much at all, but as long as he isn't saying those two words, it doesn't bother me. If anything, the first phrase he is going to learn to say (because he hears it all the time), "Oh my gosh, you are just crazy!" What really blows my mind is Elysha was speaking in full sentences by this time. I have a voicemail on my cell phone where she is saying, "I love you. I miss you. Come home soon." She was 19 months at the time. Sam says, "eeoo" for Elmo and "puh-puh" for poo-poo. I think I might be the only person who understands the ten words he has right now. Except "dah-dah" which he yells out constantly in the morning so that Chang will get him when he wakes up. It's great!

Rock Star

As I mentioned before, Sam is SO into his instruments. Daily, he picks up his little guitar and totally rocks out on it. He holds it correctly, strums in tempo and sings. I recently bought him a drum and he loves it too. But I think he is a guitarist more than a drummer (thank God).

Here Sam is mad because the girls are trying to play his drum.

Look at the expression on his face. He's really jamming and feeling it.

Here is Sam on a ukulele. So tiny and cute like him. I think he noticed that it sounded brighter than our acoustic guitar at home. He kept plucking the strings.

What Rhymes with Spit?

It's been a busy week. My in-laws have been in town, one of my closest friends was visiting from the east coast, and a very dear friend of mine is going back to her home country. So I have only had time to blog for the site that actually pays me. However, Joey said the funniest thing the other day and I just had to document it.

The girls have been into rhyming words. Oftentimes in the car, we will play the rhyming game and Joey will come up with some clever word and then Elysha will copy Joey:

Joey: Oh, I've got one. Duck/Truck. Does that rhyme Mommy?
Me: Yes it does. Good job.
Elysha: My turn, my turn! Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...duck/truck! Does that rhyme Mommy?
Joey: I just said that! You're copying me.
Elysha: No, you're copying me.
Joey: Stop copying me!
Elysha: You stop copying me!
Both: Mommyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!
Me: STOOOOOOOP IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT! Both of you just stop it before I pull this car over and ...(I refuse to actually document the things that I say to the kids that could be damaging in court).

Anyhow, usually, they actually make the effort to think of real words. But the other day, they wanted to advance their skills so they tried to rhyme more difficult words. This, however, just resulted in them making up words to rhyme with the aforementioned difficult words, like this:
Elysha: Kitchen...kitchen...bitchen! Kitchen/bitchen! Daddy, is bitchen a word?
Chang: (dying inside to suppress his laugh) Not really.

Also, the girls have been learning sign language in school. Over Valentine's day, they learned how to sign "I love you" which is the thumb, index finger and pinkie up and the two other fingers down. Joey, was counting a while back and accidentally flipped the bird. I told Joey to be careful because people do that when they don't like someone.

So the other day, Joey signed "I love you" and said, "this means I love you!" And then she proceeded to raise her middle finger and said, "and this means, I don't love you."

Elysha continues to fart and blames Sam for it.

Sam has major anger management issues. He wants to do everything the girls are doing and when he can't, he has a major meltdown. It hasn't been fun. But he is starting to speak more these days so he has been saying, nigh-nigh, poo-poo, milk in korean (though he says ah-wah), hi (though he says hieeeeeeeeeeee) and byeeeeeeeeee while waving, and today he said thank you and baby. He also loves playing the drums, piano, acoustic and electric guitar. And he dances like Austin Powers. It's hilarious.