Thanksgiving Weekend HK Style

On the Subway to Thanksgiving at Tia Sylvia's
The weekend is, alas, over much too quickly once again.

Most of you are reading from the US and so doubtless are coming to the end of your long Thanksgiving weekends. Whether busy or relaxed, Sarah and I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving full of delicious food, time with family, and plenty to be thankful for.

We ourselves, celebrated Thanksgiving three times. Once with Joy last Saturday, once with some friends (I didn't attend - though I did get leftover turkey and fixings) on Thursday and once with some of Sarah's work colleagues on Friday evening.

Each one was special (and delicious!) in that we got to celebrate and give thanks with a separate group of friends and family. It was like we got three years worth of Thanksgivings in one week!

Being Americans away from the United States, Thanksgiving takes on even more meaning because it allows us to reconnect with our heritage and with the very meaning of the Holiday. It makes me think of the adage that you don't appreciate your home until you're away from it.

That's what celebrating Thanksgiving abroad does for me. It makes me think about what it means to be American and to appreciate being from the United States. It makes me appreciate not just friends and family (and parenthood), but the sacrifices that those Americans who came before us have made so that we can celebrate Thanksgiving.

From the Pilgrims to our veterans to my parents who immigrated to the United States, all so we, my sisters, my daughter and I could have the opportunity to grow up in an environment in which we are free to pursue the lives we wish to without fear of repression.

It's something pretty incredible which I am incredibly thankful for.

Saturday Tea Time
Margaret even managed to go to all three Thanksgivings and, for the first time, enjoy Turkey and fixings and all that this most (United States) American of holidays has to offer.

I suppose that technically it is her second Thanksgiving, but the first time, she wasn't aware of anything.

All that enjoyment and thankfulness aside, the weekend passed much too quickly.

Unfortunately, either the turkey or (more likely) something else didn't agree with Margaret and she was up for an hour starting at around 2:00 AM on Saturday. My angel of a wife stayed up, changed her, fed her and warmed her up and stayed with her for over an hour before M would go back down.

That meant that Saturday morning was daddy time with M while SAM slept off the rather debilitating sleep deprivation she suffered. M and I got to go to the park where she got to swing, slide, tunnel and climb all over the play equipment before too many bigger kids showed up lay claim to the playground.

She had an absolute blast!

Thankfully, we were all recovered in the afternoon and had tea time buffet at the Excelsior Hotel. Margaret surprised us all by rejecting the fish fingers and going straight for the sandwich.

Incredibly, she managed to eat the sandwich as an actual sandwich and managed to put down about half of it before it fell apart into its components of ham, cheese and bread. Once that happened, she was not at all interested.

Her proud parents were amazed. We're not sure where she learned to eat sandwiches, but she's got it down.

Discovering Sandwiches

Today (Sunday) was pretty slow paced, actually, because we were planning on taking Margaret to Ocean Park here in Hong Kong for a CIS event.

The morning was SAM feeding M while I made French toast for everyone (even M!). Margaret enjoyed hers very much.

Then, M took Mom to the park while I worked on my family Christmas present.

After the family afternoon nap, I got a haircut and came home in time to discover along with SAM that our family evening would have to be modified since Margaret had a slight fever.

This could either be from her vaccinations last week (she had her Vacirella, Streptococcal and flu vaccines if you will recall) or from the (so far) slight colds that SAM and I are suffering from.

This meant that SAM had to go on by herself while daddy and M stayed home to eat, take a bath and wait for the baby tylenol to kick in. Unfortunately, there would be no hotdogs and burgers for M tonight.

It's just as well, though, since I've got a sore throat and a long week ahead of me. Poor SAM, however, to have to go off on her own. Fortunately, because of this event tonight, CIS doesn't start until 11:00 tomorrow!

"Everything in its place, Daddy!"

Once the tylenol hit, M was fine, as you can see from the video above. What you see is our post dinner playtime, with Margaret hiding these little round barrels that belong to a balancing game she has called, "Coocoo the Clown." (Yes, the game is not age appropriate for M and the little barrels are choking hazards, but she was being supervised by a toy professional).

Margaret has recently become quite into organizing - everything has its place. Apparently, the little multi-colored barrels belong between our couches.

What you don't see is me periodically trying to clean up by trying to put everything back in the box, but Margaret would have none of it. I finally gave up and waited to clean up until after she had gone to sleep.

Dinner was small, but she drank a TON of milk before and after her bath. I mean, more than I've seen her drink since she was six months old. It was incredible.

By 6:30, she was asking for bath time by literally crawling into the empty bathtub. In fact, she wanted her bath so badly that she started screaming when I took her away from the filling tub to her room to get her diaper and pj's (I didn't want her to fall in headfirst and drown).

As I mentioned, the post-bath feeding was quite large, and after finishing, I saw her do something I've never seen before.

Once she was done, she waved off the bottle as usual, found the cap for the bottle and put it on (this is normal), then rolled off of me, rubbed her eyes a couple of times, then laid down and stretched out on our bed as if to to to sleep.

That one was new as usually, she's quite keen to play after her evening bottle.

I took that as a signal, and sent her right to her crib.

She went down without a peep and by 6:55, she was down for the night.

Phew.

Now for me, it's just to wait for SAM to come home and see how her evening went before we go to bed and start another week all over again.

How thankful I am, for my girls.

Random Musings On a Wednesday

Walking the Dog before bathtime

One thing Margaret started doing today was walking the dog. This morning, before heading to work, Daisy pointed out to me that M was walking around the house pulling along Toby on his leash.

Upon getting home, SAM showed me how M had graduated to simply walking around holding Toby in her hand.

I suppose you can do that if it's not a real dog.

She was really into it, though, walking all over the house, sitting down and putting Toby down when she got tired, then picking him up again to move until she got tired or tripped again.

Gettin' ready to get out of her clothes
M is now into everything and everywhere at once. I swear, for someone who just learned to walk, she runs circles around us.

Sometimes, I feel like I'm tied to the coiled end of a rope with Margaret on the other end. She'll take off, and it takes a moment for her to gain some speed and for the rope to uncoil, then there I am, having to follow as if whiplashed out of my seat for fear that she'll get into some trouble.

I'm thinking Road Runner and Wyle E. Coyote here. Beep! Beep!

Bedroom antics
Thankfully, the house is mostly baby proofed, so for the most part, we can let her be unless we ourselves have put something down that shouldn't be in her reach.

We've been lucky so far (knock on wood) that the only real crying we've had has been mostly due to her not getting what she wants or us changing her.

Not to say she hasn't bumped her head, but aside from one scare where she stuck her fingers into a socket at Joy's house, our baby seems recently to have acquired a decent sense of self preservation, even able, now, to come down off the bed bum first.

Happy, clean and groomed
Fatherhood continues to amaze me with how much fun it is. I'm exhausted at the end of every day, but this is the longest period of such incredible fun that I've ever been through.

It has changed everything in how I look at the world.

I can't recommend it highly enough.

Weekend in Review

An eventful minute
Margaret's mobility continues to improve at a rapid clip. In the video above, you will see her walk for quite awhile without needing rest, then standing up on her own without needing to pull up before finally saying, "shoes."

This was all taken five minutes before going to bed, tonight.

She is now able to change direction mid-course to go wherever she pleases, and the ability to stand up on her own enables to walk much more frequently.

I know, I know - we're the only ones who care, so this is the last walking video for a while... unless something really interesting develops!

Taking care of the baby taking care of her baby

Of course, as Sarah said, there's been a decent amount of still photography over the past few days to complement the video, but there really hasn't been time to post it.

Please see a few from Sunday, which was a fun morning of the whole family lazing around in our PJs all morning before meeting our friends Sarena and Shan for lunch.

We took it easy since we all had to recover from Saturday's very full day.

Not only did M have her 1 year checkup, which included three jabs (only a little crying) and her measurements (75th percentile head circumference, 50th percentile weight), but we went to a birthday party for a fellow one year old baby and enjoyed an early Thanksgiving dinner at my sister Joy's which, as always, involved much too much turkey, creamed spinach, stuffing, yams and desert.

She was out with us until almost 10 pm after that very full day, so she really needed two naps on Sunday to recover.

Leonard in his dotage

Thankfully, Sarah's friend Janice had given M the baby stroller as a birthday present on Saturday, so Margaret was well entertained even inside the house on Sunday morning.

As you can see, she loves it, and has learned to walk without putting too much weight on it (it collapses if you do that).

Sadly, the weekend was over much too soon. Margaret has been developing seemingly by leaps and bounds these few days, and it really feels like if you blink, you'll miss something.

"Pbtpbtpbt"

Happy to be with Mom

On the way to the park

Sunday morning

Since everyone keeps requesting video, this is a quick montage of Sunday morning at home, unedited. Watch for:

- the recent role reversal of Margaret and Leonard (formerly known as Ubi2)
- the appearance of a few new birthday presents
- Margaret's new determination to put on her own clothes (particularly one fabulous hand-knit sweater - thanks, Auntie Beth!)
- a continued interest in taking out and attempting to put in her own hair clips
- a genetic predisposition to percussion (her father is a drummer)




In the language field, Margaret's single-word utterances include a few bilingual pairs:

milk = "dede" (Tagalog) and "nainai" (Chinese)
shoes = "shoos" and "xiexie" (Chinese)

This is really cool to a language geek like me, because it shows an awareness that a single item can have more than one name. She seems to utter them indiscriminately, not filtering yet for who speaks which language. She also responds to both "paipai shou" (Chinese) and "clap your hands" by clapping. So cool.

Other single-word utterances include:

"gougou" (dog in Chinese, her first word)
"baobao" (bag in Chinese)
"dada"
"mama"
"yaya" (nanny in Tagalog)
"chiss" (cheese)

Thanks to her new birthday book, she is quite excited about animal sounds, and bounces up and down making an "oof oof" sound when she sees any animal, live or in a picture.

If you ask her "Margaret zai nali?" ("where's Margaret?") she covers her face to play peekaboo. What's funny is that the "Margaret" part doesn't really matter to her, so in the book-reading video the other day when I asked her where the cow was ("niuniu zai nali?") she covered her face to play peekaboo. I only noticed that after re watching.

There were some photos from this weekend, too, which will have to come from John's computer later in the week. Love to everyone.

Happy M Videos

Finally, it's the weekend and we have some time to rest, relax and play with our daughter.

Above, please find a video of her playing with Mommy's lunch dishes and practicing self feeding.

She's quite a happy baby.

The walking has been continuing apace (har har) even though she seems to prefer holding on to Mom's hand and walking around the house for the most part.

When she really wants to get someplace quickly, she'll still drop to her knees and crawl. It seems that independent walking is reserved for when she's in a very specific mood.

Luckily for us, she's in that mood frequently enough for us to catch it on video. Below, a short clip.

The Latest Changes

Since this weekend, there have been two major changes.

1) The Very Hungry Caterpillar was officially displaced as "favorite book" (I guess it wasn't interactive enough).
2) She's walking more and more stably.

Please see above video evidence.

Birthday!

Yes, in fact, there was a birthday.

Luckily, it didn't matter much to Margaret whether it was on a Monday or a Saturday, nor did she mind playing with the wrapped presents for a week until we had a moment of family time to open them. In fact, she had a great time pushing one very large and heavy present up and down the hallway, then bringing it back to the carpet and climbing on it.

Parcel number one came from cousin Clara. M knew immediately where the clips were supposed to go, and hasn't let them be taken out since Friday!

She immediately tried to call her cousin to thank her:

Then there was the singing card. M was so pleased by this. We also have video footage, to be shared at some point, of the look on her face when the card first opened. She danced to the music and has been opening and closing the card for the past three days:

Friday evening

Saturday morning

Finally, Saturday morning was present time.


We opened the book from Mimi first:



She liked it so much, she tried to rip the cover off. Happily, Mom managed to pull a fast distraction with the wrapping:

Then we opened THE BIG ONE:

Margaret unpacked it herself:


With a nod to the Munroe family, we stopped to read the book before unpacking any more of the present:


Our budding fashion diva was very pleased by all the new clothes, and wanted to put them right on:

"Eeaahh!"
(translation: "Mom, help please!")

"How do I look?"

"Or should I try the sweater?"

"Do please notice my shoes, as well!"

"pants, please!"

"there!"

"Do my hair clips match?"

"I love you, fabulous baby!"

Thank you to everyone who remembered Margaret's birthday and sent greetings on the day. Special thanks to Tee, who has once again outdone herself in dressing another generation of our family. Love to everyone.

She Walks!

Sarah came home from work today and Daisy asked her, "Did you know that Margaret can walk?"

Then, Daisy put Margaret gently on the ground, where she proceeded to walk five steps over to greet her just returned Mommy.

I was in a meeting this afternoon at 6:07 pm when the SMS came in, "She can walk."

I rushed home to find that Margaret was being kept awake by her mother (thank goodness!) to perform her new skill which she happily obliged to do, to my delight, with her hands held high above her head, as if in celebration.

We then spent the next twenty minutes trying to catch her walking on video, but instead managed only to record footage of her not walking. The closest we got was what you see above, which is M actually walking about three steps, but with me (and the camera) too close to actually be able to clearly see her ambulating unsupported.

Slightly more humorous was when she grabbed hold of the camera in her hands, wrested it away from Daddy, then, upon careful contemplation of its control panel, slowly and deliberately pressed the red record button. Then, as if that wasn't enough, after waving the camera around for a bit and crawling around with it in her hand, she carefully pushed the red button again to stop recording and left it on the ground. The result is the video you see below.

I call it, "Video Self Portrait of a Baby."

It's enough to induce nausea, but amusing nonetheless.



*sigh* our baby is growing up so fast!

I can only hope that she uses her new skill to walk always forward and always towards us.

It's November 17, 2008, Margaret is 1 year 1 week old exactly, and she walked for the first time today.

2nd Morning Update

Yes, it's a busy day at work, but this morning's shenanigans have me with Margaret on my mind.

That, plus I have my laptop with me at work this morning and so have all the photos accessible to post!

Here's another picture of her from yesterday, tromping around holding onto Mom's hand. She has the strength and energy to go for quite awhile while holding on to something, but seems to still not quite have the balance to really walk on her own for more than one or two truly "baby" steps.

All in good time, however, as I'm pretty sure that once she starts walking, there will be a whole new world of danger and near and actual injurious drama to be experienced.

Monday Morning Update

Sunday morning snack time

While changing a poopy diaper this morning, I was holding M's feet up to get at the mess when I felt a warm peck on my hand and a small kissing sound.

I looked down in time to catch her lift up her head and plant a second kiss on my hand which was at her face level.

She owns me.

Sometimes, I really hate having to leave the house.

To whet your appetite...

Thanks to the many patient fans who have not found a post in a while! We're emerging from jet-lag and a busy week and are even starting to celebrate M's birthday! The day itself came and went with not much more than a few choruses of Happy Birthday. We finally opened presents this morning, 5 days late :-). Photos from the birthday to follow; a few older photos in the meantime to tide you over:

helping Mom unpack her lunch bag

Her favorite page of her favorite book

"Look what I found!"

snacking with Mom

"Hi everybody!"

New England Surprises

So my New England journey draws to it's (unexpectedly late) end and I am sitting in the Continental Lounge in Newark airport waiting for my flight home (which is delayed slightly - typical).

Work was full of unexpected surprises, but we got through our meetings just fine (there's a surprising amount of work that goes into building new toys) and there was even some time at the end to take a couple of colleagues to Durgin Park near Faneuil Hall in Boston.

I haven't been there in years (since before my teens), and my US co-workers laughed when I said I wanted to go, but it is a family tradition as the place that my mom and dad would take us to whenever we were in or driving through Boston. It's place in the hierarchy of favorite and storied family restaurants is paramount.

As I sat contemplating my lobster in their now woefully empty dining room (it trades almost entirely on reputation now), I was hit hard by the realization that now it was I who would be bringing my daughter to favorite family restaurants. That family traditions were now something that I would get to influence rather than have dictated to me.

It made me feel pensive and melancholy, despite the presence and joy of my co-workers at the new experience, and it made me miss my dad. I wished I was ten again and that he was there to show me how to properly clean a steamer or dismantle a lobster rather than me being the one to show my co-workers those things.

Fortunately, the food is still decent, even if the crowds have abandoned it, and nothing can shake me out of a reverie like two lobsters.

I had a couple of old friends for dinner
So yes. Two 1 pound lobsters later, I left the restaurant completely sated. And I wasn't the only one.

My co-worker, Wayne, ordered the 32 ounce prime rib, and after polishing off the last, tender, crimson shard of meat, pronounced it, as only he could, "Reeeeaaaaaally delicious!"

Jerry's Date night at Lucy's!

Due to my need to stay an extra day through Friday, I decided to take an extra day and drive up to Arrowsic to visit Roz and the Maine Fam!

As it turns out, my timing was impeccable as it was Roz's birthday weekend.

Fortunately for me, it was Roz who gave me the gifts with two delicious lobsters greeting me when I walked into the door.

She sure does know what I like! It was quite embarrassing that I didn't have anything for her, but I'll take lobster regardless of how much guilt is attached. THAT is how much I love those little critters.

Sisters
Saturday morning involved me driving my own car again and running some errands with Roz and the afternoon was mainly hanging out at the house just relaxing.

The main event was Roz's birthday dinner at the Pieh's with everyone in the picture you see above and then some (mainly Gerry and me who are un-pictured). There was 7-Layer Dip, Zucchini Crust Pizza, Canneloni and little children to play with. There was even ice cream cake and present opening.


The evening was over much to soon, however, and before I knew it, I was back in Arrowsic getting repacked to head back to Hong Kong. With an 11:40 out of Logan, it was an early night and an early morning rush down 95 to Boston.


However, GPS made the drive go well, and I was there early enough to make it on the 9:35 AM out of Logan which, because my original flight was delayed, would make sure I would make it home even if my bags don't.

The great thing about catching the earlier flight was that a call to Jack made sure that I had a lunch partner at the airport and didn't have to eat alone.

It's been a long trip full of work, but also unexpectedly full of family and found time.

It's been a great preview for the fun to be had over the Christmas season, and I can't wait to get home to work towards the holiday season.

Dad's Away...

Miss Margaret is becoming quite the helper (when she wants to be!). Knowing Daddy and everyone else are hungry for pictures, I took out the camera today to snap some photos. Margaret helped with the lens cap:

"Here, Mom, let me help you with that"

"Hang on, I've almost got it on"

Lens cap back in place (and subsequently discretely removed again by Mom), I distracted her the best way I know how so as to really take some photos:

"Let me help you organize this mess"

"I'll just put all the bills in one pile..."

"...and the cards in another. Sort of."

Dad is back on Monday, and boy, do we miss him. As, I'm sure, do the loyal fans! All I do is sit around eating dinner by myself and crying while I watch the election speeches replayed. What a moment. I'm also commuting to Year 5 Camp, where I have blissfully been relieved of night time duties in order to meet my obligations to Miss M. John says we should hurry up and get pregnant again so I can get out of next year, too :-)