"hewoh" and other cute stuff

have i mentioned that the cutest thing ever that hana is doing these days is putting her hand by her ear as if she talking on the phone and saying "hewoh"? aaah! i could watch her do that all day. it makes me laugh every single time. i'm chuckling just thinking about it.

one of the ladies in my mom's group arranged for a bunch of us to get the special hook up at the oakland greek festival. we really had a good time, despite the heat. and it was HOT. like the surface of the sun kinda hot. but maybe not at hot as arizona. but it was hot. did i mention the heat? seriously though, we were treated like honorary greeks practically. they had THE most AMAZING food. i swear i ate the best lamb chop i've ever had in my LIFE that day. i still think about that lamb chop and it's many days later. mmmmm. sweet little tasty lamb chop. how i miss you so.... uh. sorry. i digress. apparently this greek festival is no joke after dark. it's like a big night club with wall to wall people and dancing and everything. jon and i have been intending to come to the festival since we moved up here (almost 14 years ago!!!) so it was nice to finally do it. someday, it will be cool to experience the greek festival after dark.

it's up on the hill and there are beautiful vistas from the church, so outside of the festive atmosphere, and the amazing food, it's probably pretty to see too.

(all partied out)

and speaking of the heat, this most recent heat wave sent us in search of a baby pool. after visiting 5 stores in search of the cheap plastic shell baby pool thingy we still couldn't find one. apparently, it was not an original idea. in several places, they couldn't just say, "sorry, we're sold out". oh noo. they had to mock us. "shya... those have been gone for daaays!" so i settled on a pool that requires what feels like 50 gallons of water to fill it up. it also requires that we be on absolutely flat ground. which we are not. so before hilarity and refreshment could ensue, i had to figure out had to make this darn thing work. i could fill it so that it's only very shallow but then the sides don't stand up. and if i fill it too much, because it's not on flat ground, water is spilling out of one side, while i can barely keep the wall up on the other side. sigh. but once i sorted that out the pool did the trick.

jenny brought the twins over (party of 5!) and the kids splashed around in the pool, and they got to cool off signifigantly. which was fun until they discovered that they could bend the sides down and make huge tsunamis of water spill over the side.

i was hoping, prehaps delusionally so, that they wouldn't figure out how to undo what i'd worked so hard to correct, but i guess you just got to roll with these things. and since, the day after i bought this stupid pool we were informed that we are now under water rationing (we have to cut back our water use by 20%!) and any watering causing "run off" is strictly forbidden, i'm a little paranoid that the water police are gonna come by and give us a citation. because of our little baby tsunamis. so for now, the pool is closed.

fortunately, the weather has cooled off and the pool use doesn't seem quite so urgent. i'm hoping they sort this water thing out before the mercury surpasses 90 degrees again because we don't have air conditioning, which makes our house more akin to an easy bake oven on hot days. but i realize that too is somewhat delusional and we'll just have to pack up and head off to our friendly neighborhood lagoon on the next scorcher.

"mah baybeeeee" -- 17 months and counting

feeding a goat on a recent trip to little farm

hana has developed into a regular 28.5lb chatter box. jon and i continue to be amazed at how her language has emerged lately. almost every day, we hear her saying something new or being more responsive. it's been a lot of fun, except when she tells us to "move" because we are inconviently between her and her object of desire (which comes not from us, but her daycare provider who must quickly shuttle around a lot of kids).

over the past couple of months she has grown an attachment to certain toys and foods and asks for them by name and sign. several times a day, she asks for some "cereo" (aka cereal). that is her favorite snack/meal. reminds me of my high school days when i could eat cereal 24/7. she also has this baby doll that has grown very fond of. it's cute to see her cuddle "mah baybeeee" at night-night time. she continues to love "buhbohs" (bubbles) and asks for them every bath time. and her favorite color is "yeyow" (yellow) and every morning when i'm styling her hair she asks for yeyow clips regardless of what color she wearing. although today, when i presented another option to her because it matched her outfit better, she correctly identified it as "orncha" - although she sometimes calls it "ornt" - which shocked the heck out of me. this, of course, is orange -- she doesn't get the soft "g" sound quite yet. she also really pays special attention to the last syllable and so she really emphasizes it. at daycare, they have a color of the month. although she has always liked yellow, even before she could say it, the month of april being spent on the color yellow really solidified her love for it. this months' color is, you guessed it, ornt.





she has also begun to take interest in dressing. for months now, she's been interested in putting on mommy and daddy's shoes and walking around in them. now she sometimes, she tries to put on her own socks and shoes. she's a long, long LONG way from having the motor skills to do it but it's cute to watch... that is until she becomes frustrated and starts whining. then it's not so cute.

almost a perfect fit!

but prehaps the most exciting news, which i will freely admit is only exciting to us and other parents of small children, is that she has started to be able to notice and accurately identify when she has gone "poo poo". apparently there's another 2 year old at daycare that is starting potty training so it's starting to have an impact on her. sometimes when i ask her if she's gone poo poo, she'll say yes. sometimes when i ask her she'll say no but look at me fiendishly and run away... so i take that as a yes too. we're a long way from potty training (she can't even pull her own pants down...) but it was an encouraging sign. of course, "poo poo" is not to be confused with "boo boo" which is the way she pronounces "beebo" which is short for belly button... you follow?

saying cheese and wearing her ornt clips

mother's day

mother's day this year was a little bittersweet for me. it certainly wasn't the mother's day i was expecting to have this year with the loss of our son. so i was a little sad but i tried to focus on hana, who i often refer to as my little "pun'kin sugar muffin".

i'm so grateful for hana and she makes me smile every day. she's healthy and happy. she made the most precious card for me which was by my bedside when i awakened in the morning. then we went to brunch at the taylor's house where all the kids got to hang out together... somehow, all of the mom's ended up in the kitchen cooking but the dad's were on kid patrol so i suppose it all balanced out.

we went our separate ways for nap time only to reconvene for a survivor pajama party at nadia and paul's house. on that day, we mommies (nad, jen - party of 5! -, glenda and i) were able to reclaim a little relaxation time. paul and jon formed a sort of daddy daycare while the mommies sat on the deck sipping a fabulous wine and watching the sunlight fade out out sweeping vistas of mount diablo. when we put the kids to bed, hana and the twins were in their respective pack n' plays in the same room. after some initial screaming in protest for being put to bed in an unfamiliar location, they realized they were all in this together and after that, all we could hear was uproarious laughter coming from their room for the next 90 minutes at least. we all agreed that we would have to whisper an apologetic "she might be a little tired..." to our respective daycare providers the next day before sprinting out of there - and then hope the day was OK after all when we went to pick them up. those kids didn't fall asleep until after 9:30 p.m.! it was pretty funny.

overall it was a nice day - except the part where parvarti won survivor... i mean, really?! parvarti... ugh... i can't even talk about it... but the rest of mother's day was really nice.

elephant day at the zoo...

oakland zoo had this big elephant extravaganza... being regular patrons, we had to check it out. one of the special features of ele-palooza was a special behind the scenes tour of the elephant barn. we would have had the opportunity to get up close and personal with a 9,000 elephant. we thought this would be especially fun since elephants were the first animals she identified (besides cat, which was her first word). alas, the tours were sold out until 1:00 p.m. which would have been dangerously close to nap time. on top of that, there were no strollers allowed in the barn so not only would hana have been tired and cranky, but we would have had to carry her. personally, i would rather be trapped in a barrel with angry rattle snakes then with stand the smell of an elephant barn (and it's 9,000 elephant by product) on a hot day with a cranky toddler. besides, hana wasn't feeling her best so we thought it best not to push it. we passed on the special elephant features and just had a regular day at the zoo...

well, except we did see "circus finelli" which was a little clown show, uh, i mean animal free circus (but they will never be mistaken for cirque du soleil). it was cute and hana got her face painted. i was dubious of how she would tolerate that and i assumed it would be all over me. but actually, she did well with it and it ended up all over her crib sheet from her nap when we got home.

i mentioned that hana wasn't feeling that well that day, well, as it turned out, she was working on some little sickenss that ended up scaring the bejeezus out of jon and me. at dinner that night, we noticed her shivering but she didn't seem cold. she did feel a little febrile so i took her temprature (like 17 times) and it was 105!!!!! EEEEK! after a bath (which usually helps regulate her temperature), dressing her light for bed (to help cool her off) and me taking her temprature about 17 more times to confirm i wasn't crazy ( i wasn't) we called the doc. dr. bean sounded like he was at his usual saturday hang out - yoshi's - but he was no less patient and helpful. he even offered to see us sunday morning at his office if her fever hadn't broken by morning. we followed his advice (give tylenol and ibuprofen) and she was fine in the morning. the funny thing about it is that she didn't act abnormal at all. she was tired, but it was bed time, but she wasn't even whiny. she wanted to talk to dr. bean on the phone (she kept saying "hewoh"... so darn cute) and she stayed up about 30 minutes or so watching sesame street before drifting off to sleep.

i took her in for a follow up just so the doc could lay eyes on her. she was fine. everything was cool. she stood on the big girl scale for the first time and she weighed in at 28.5 lbs. that's mama's little beanstalk!