2 months since last post

A lot of things to write about and to update but haven’t got time to do it….hopefully will get to some of it by this weekend….

Cucu’s milestones
Pregnancy
Indo trip

Anakku dah bobo?

Highlight of my day this past Tuesday – pas baca email balasan dr Biby waktu aku email dengan subject di atas

 

“akhirnya…… udh dr jam brp bilang mo tidur, mo tidur di tenda biru, tenda merah, mau masukin semua cucu train dulu ke tenda merah, trus maen dulu yg laen, abis itu mo snack dulu,  trus mo susu di pei pei, plus mau air, trus udh coba bobo, bawa mikckey, minnie, bantal buzzlightyear, baru mau ditaruh trus mau vitamin, gak mau potty, yah udh ambilin vitamin, udh dpt, eh kabur turun lagi maen di cooler dia, trus katanya mo bobo di ruang belajar, trus maen lagi, mo susu lagi, minum yg banyak, abis mo bobo, lagi jalan ke kamar liat di meja dia ada strawberry yg td dingin, jd mau, pake bib bib, makan, tp ternyata cuma maen2, yah udh maen gubrak2 di meja, abis itu dia jatuhin semua tatakan gelas yg dr bambu, daddy omelin, suruh beresin, pas kebawah, bukan beresin malah tiduran, eh liat ada bulu, daddy ambil bulunya suruh beresin dulu, nangis, yah udh kasih bulu, satu tangan pegang bulu, yg satu beresin, baru ditinggal bentar, yg kedengaran cuma kampret lagi niup2 bulu, tatakannya gak diberesin, daddy ambil lagi bulunya, nangis2, yah udh kasih, skrg sambil beresin tatakan, gitu beres langsung monyet yg lagi tiup2 bulu di angkat taruh di crib. aku tinggal.lg niup2 bulu, tp abis itu tau2 udh ngorok.”

Nathan and the second half week 2 at new school

Nathan doesn’t cry anymore when I drop him off in the morning since Thursday. Not only that, he would walk to his chair in the circle time area and sat down quietly when we walked into the classroom. He didn’t ask me to stay either although he seemed to still have his guards up and mostly sitting quietly observing things around him. I came by during lunch on Friday and it spooked him to cry coz he thought I came to pick him up. So he cried saying hui jia hui jia. I was so worried that the teachers would not let me drop by anmore L It broke my heart seeing how sad he was. But I think deep down he knew I would not take him with me so he didn’t fight me when I laid him in his cot. He kept wailing softly hui jia but finally fell asleep in less than 5 minutes. He did wake up a bit telling me to wipe his nose then he passed out again

Nathan’s speech milestones

Saturday, February 12, 2011 11:40 PM

I am so sleepy right now I can fall asleep in front of the computer but if I don’t write them tonight, I probably won’t have time to write them until next week.

Just wanted to write down Nathan’s milestones with speech….he’s started doing these in the last three weeks (even before he started his new daycare):

• Singing twinkle2 little stars although he could only sing twinkle2 stars and hum the rest of it J
• Counting 1 to 4, then he would jump to 7 J
• Asking ‘what is this (zhe shi shen me)’, ‘what are you doing (ni zai zhuo shen me)’, what are you cutting when he saw me cutting the meat, ‘who is this (zhe shi shui)’ when he saw photos J

Happy Chinese New Year and Nathan’s first week at the daycare

Tuesday, February 08, 2011 10:35 PM

Happy Chinese New Year

Gong xi f acai…..xin nian kuai le….wan shi ru yi….Happy Chinese New Year…..It’s the year of cutie bunny…..hope everything goes smoothly this year and everyone is blessed with good health and prosperity.

Chinese new year was actually last Thursday, Feb 3. But well, supposedly we celebrate it for 15 days so it’s still new year now J This year celebration is not as festive as last year when we were back in my hometown in Palembang. But we had a great time here as well. We had a small reunion dinner gathering at our house on the CNY eve with Hanika, Sik and AndyMel. We had a sumptuous 8 courses take out dinner from a nearby Vietnamese/Chinese restaurant. Had fun talking and gossiping. The kids had fun running around and played together. Nathan said gong xi gong xi holding both his hands together. I was surprised he did it. I only showed him one time a day or two before while singing the gong xi song. I tried making him do it but he wouldn’t do it. But on the CNY eve he just did when asked by mel J

CNY first day we had a nice dinner at the new hot pot place Tien Wong with Nely and Indra. It was fun catching up with them and it was a really good meal as well. The hotpot soup base is not as flavorful as the ones in LA but overall it is pretty delicious, especially considering that this is the only hot pot specialty place in Phoenix area J

Oh and Nathan and I woke up to hong bao from Biby for each of us J Sweet J

 

Nathan’s first week at the new daycare.

After a smooth first day at the daycare, the reality finally hit Nathan and on the second day, he cried and screamed for more than half an hour L When I dropped him off, he was completely fine and even kissed me good bye before I left for work. I didn’t even call the school to ask thinking that he would do just fine. But it turned out I should have come see him! My poor baby cried for more than half hour right before lunch that the teachers had to take him outside to the office L And he has been crying every morning when I drop him off. The third day, which was the CNY first day, he was crying and screaming when his teacher took him from me. I missed my meeting that day coz I couldn’t bear to just leave. I ended up leaving the room while he was still crying. But I stood outside his classroom to make sure he was okay. He was still crying for another 10-15 minutes but he finally seemed to settle down a bit. Yesterday morning and this morning he was still crying when I dropped him off but not as dramatic as last week. I would wait until the second teacher came and then left to sign in at the office. Then I would go back and peek from the window after signing in just to see how he was doing. Yesterday morning, he sat down at the table but still cried and wouldn’t eat his cheerios. I told the teacher to try asking him to eat and to give him his breakfast bun instead if he wouldn’t eat the cheerios. Then I left. Today, it was better. He still cried for mommy when I gave him to the teacher, but when I came back from signing in at the office and peeked into the classroom, I saw he was following Ms. Boshra around crying but I knew that it was his usual whining while checking out things around him J The teacher asked him to bring the snack plates and other things for the snack time to the table and by the time I left, he was already smiling J When I told him these past few days that he would go to Ms. Irena, he would say no or he would just stay quiet. But when I picked him up this evening and ask him if it’s okay with him to go back there tomorrow, he just nodded J So hopefully it will be easier tomorrow and hopefully he really likes it there.

 

 

First day at new daycare

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

 

Nathan started his first day at the GGCP today. Yesterday morning he told me that he wanted to go with me to Cton and he’s been saying that for a week. So, last night I told him that he would be going to see Cton and play with him today and I think he was excited. He was happy wheeling his backpack around the house this morning.

 
 

I took him to the school and got there around 8:10. The class was doing circle time and Nathan looked confused. When the teacher held him and sat him on her lap, he was crying asking me to hold him. So I sat down with him on my lap for 5 mins and then sat him down on his own chair next to me. The teacher was telling a story but he didn’t understand since it was in English. There were a couple older kids who couldn’t sit still and started to get up. Nathan sat down not for long before he got up and went to toy area instead. When I told him I was leaving for work, he pulled my hand back to the circle area and had me sit down next to him. It was really funny when the second teacher walked into the classroom and the children got up shouting her name and went to the door to hug the teacher, Nathan got up, shouted Ms. Boschra and ran toward the teacher too But he didn’t hug her, he stopped and just stood in front of the teacher It was just very funny how he easily got into the excitement with the other kids

 
 

Afterwards he went to wash his hands and got ready for snack. I took out his breakfast sandwich and he pushed it away saying he wanted snack. He was saying yummy yummy imitating the other kids while waiting for the snack I stayed for about 25 mins there and left when he was having his snack. I thought that I would need to sneak out but he seemed fine so I told him I was leaving and he was completely okay.

 
 

Lunch time I went to see him again. He was playing with some building blocks with the other kids. The teachers told me he was doing well and didn’t cry or ask for me after I left But one of the teachers was telling me that I shouldn’t come in the middle of the day because kids usually will want to go with the parents. Well, I went coz I knew Nathan would be fine if I leave him. He did ask for me to hold him when I got there and asked me to take him outside. But when I told him it’s lunch time and he would have macaroni, he behaved and went to wash his hands. Then he sat down nicely waiting for his meal. He did pull a chair and asked me to sit next to him. I stayed there for another 15 mins to watch him eat. He was eating so slowly coz he was so afraid that he would get dirty. It wasn’t easy to eat the macaroni with spaghetti sauce with fork either since it was cooked really loosely. Everytime he got his hand or his face dirty, he would ask to wipe it. He also told me that the other kid’s face was dirty from the sauce I fed him once and he asked me to just feed him but I told him to eat by himself. He got slices of banana in its skin and he was trying to use his fork to eat it. When I told him to use his hands, he said dirty The teacher asked Cton to show him how to peel the banana off and he followed, using his both hands squeezing out the banana. Oh boy, soon he will eat like an ape too with hands and face all dirty

 
 

Oh, he picked up ‘sit down’ today We have used that with him before and I am pretty sure he already knew what it meant, but today was the first time I heard him say it when he told me to sit down next to him at lunch. He said first in Chinese several times, zuo xia lai, then he said ‘sit down’.

 
 

I asked him if he liked it there and he said ‘xi huan’ Hopefully it is a start to a good daycare he’ll enjoy going.

 

Tonight Nathan went to bed around 7.30ish! Wow! I know it’s common for other kids to be in bed by 8 but for Nathan, that’s unusual. Since he got sick last week, he’s been going to bed earlier and there were a couple of times he went to bed at 8. But he has been sleeping past 9 this past few days, so I guess he had a long day at the daycare. A lot of new things going on J

 

Nathan is two and his birthday party

January 31, 2011 12:56 AM

My little guy turned two a couple weeks ago! He’s now an active and curious little boy so full of life and curiosity. Mommy loves you baby! You will always be a baby in mommy’s heart!

We threw him an Elmo theme birthday party. Got him an elmo cake, elmo t-shirt, elmo cutouts, elmo balloons and float, elmo goody buckets, etc. He was the one who sort of picked out Elmo as the theme as we were considering either Thomas or Elmo. But when we showed both to him several times, he would pick Elmo. So we decided to go with Elmo. I was excited coz I found a big walking elmo float that stands up to about my chin height with his arms extended out like giving a hug. Apparently Nathan was excited with it too. The night before the party we went to have it filled and when we got home, Nathan was hugging it and I think he just couldn’t help himself biting the Elmo’s arm. I think he was completely ‘gregetan’ with the Elmo. Unfortunately, that was enough to send a standing elmo to a sitting elmo who couldn’t even hold up his arms L Biby tried to fill it up a bit using the hand pump and tied some balloons on his arm to lift them J Well, the Elmo didn’t last long for the party, but it was quite fun to have.

This time, we didn’t order food from the restaurant. I really do not want to have so much food wasted like last year’s first bday party. I didn’t want to stress out too much on it either. I actually had fun planning the party. I made the chicken noodle and the soy sauce pork, bought the chicken salad croissant and had Ffy made gado2. We also got some mini bagel bites and quiches. Then Nly and Idra made delicious es teler. Sik also made some mini cream puff and jelly pudding. Tt Lni and Ing also made bolu kukus. It was actually quite a lot of food J And I was worried they were not enough. I am really thankful that we had so many friends who offered to help with the food.

We had about 35 adults and 15 kids. Since the kiddos are about the same age, the goal was to let them have lots of fun. We had Ffy lead a circle time of music and movement for the kids and the kids seemed to really enjoy it. Too bad Nathan didn’t want to follow along and instead was lying on the floor making his own goofy things. Then we had some craft time at the end of the party. We got some stickers foam and we let the kids place the stickers on the goody felt buckets. We had the party from 11-2 and by 2, Nathan was already tired but he wouldn’t nap with so many people still in the house.

Nathan is sick again

My poor baby was sick again. He was completely fine at his birthday party. We even took him to the doctor a couple days after the party for his two year well visit. The doctor said he was completely healthy. Then he got a fever and threw up on the following Thursday. The daycare had to call me to get him. As I was working from Peak office and Biby was home, Biby went to get him. He also started coughing and throwing up a lot that we lost count of how many times. It was mostly the slime though so we know it was not upset stomach or anything. We took him to the doctor on Sat morning and saw Dr. Padrez. He tested him for flu and it came back negative. Since it’s Saturday we couldn’t get him an x-ray, so the doctor assumed and treated it as Bronchitis L and gave him the Omnicef/Cefdinir antibiotic in case it was bacterial bronchitis and ordered us to give him the nebulizer treatment again. The fever went away on Sunday but Nathan was still very fussy. We figured that he still wasn’t feeling well from his coughing and runny nose. I took Monday off again to stay home with him and was planning to go back to work on Tuesday. Then Tuesday morning, he spiked another fever L Took him back to the doctor and he said that it might be the virus attacking but it was not the flu since he was again tested negative for it. Biby stayed home on Wednesday to watch him and he was getting better. He was back at the daycare on Thursday and Friday. Then Friday midnite, another fever of 100.9 came L We gave him Tylenol right away and thank God that the fever went away. I really hope that it won’t come back anymore. His coughing is a lot less and he hasn’t been throwing up for the last 5 days although his runny nose seemed to get worse these past couple days L Please please God keep Nathan healthy.

Finding new daycare

We have been planning to move Nathan from his daycare when he turned two but we are more determined now after the incident of his ex-teacher calling me the day before his bday and told me those unpleasant stories L So for the past couple weeks, we have been visiting day care centers like crazy. We finally narrowed down to a couple, GG and BH. BH is definitely more superior but at it’s tuition rate, I don’t know if it is really that much better than GG. Today, we went to mass at St. Tim and found out that they now have a full time daycare center for infant and toddler! The tuition is affordable and they have nicer and newer playground than GG plus the small class size since they just opened a couple months ago. Apart from that though, the classroom is a bit small and old, we haven’t gotten a chance to meet the teacher yet and they don’t provide lunch. I can pack his lunch but they can’t even warm it up L Can’t bear to think that Nathan will have to eat the cold lunchables and cold sandwich everyday L

Since we want to withdraw him from his current chinese daycare asap, we have to just go with GG for now. Then we will find time to meet with the teacher from St Tim and visit another BH location closer to home.

December 2010 – Holiday season and 2011 New Year

Tuesday, January 04, 2011 11:17 PM

 

Happy New Year!! Year 2011….may this year be a great year for everyone.

 

I didn’t make any entry in December although it’s one of my favorite months of the year with the holiday season.

 

So many things to write about….don’t even know where to start…Didn’t even think I would have time to write tonight since Nathan has been sleeping late again. But tonight, he went to sleep at 8! He was cranky and asked to go to sleep. Yeah, he’s been doing that, although he sleeps really late, but if he is tired and wants to go to bed, he’ll tell us that he wants to shui jiao or bobo.

 

I’ll start with update on Nathan….

• Nathan still sleeps in our bedroom but in his own crib. Biby moved the crib into our room almost a couple months ago but Nathan didn’t start sleeping in it until a couple weeks ago. Biby took the side rail off and attached the crib to my side of the bed so it leaves only a small space for me to climb into the bed. I was about ready to move it out of the bedroom since Nathan didn’t want to sleep in it. I moved him to his crib one night after he fell asleep and the next night or a couple nights later he was okay with us putting him to sleep in his crib. I know that we should probably move him back to his own room. Although hard, I know Nathan can do it. Just with anything else, Nathan has been pretty easy about getting him used to something. But a part of me feels that I am not ready to let him sleep away from us J. Right now I am happy that he sleeps in his own crib in our bedroom so I can still fix his blanket or see how he is doing at night.
  
• Nathan also now takes his bath in the shower stall. He was afraid of the shower head before. I remember how he freaked out when we gave him a shower in Singapore. He also used to say pa-pa (scared) when I said I would use the shower to give him the bath. And that would totally explain why he never tried to come into the shower. He has explored almost all parts of the house but he was never interested in going into the shower. Then I think about a month ago, I jokingly asked if he wanted to take a shower with me thinking that he would say no as usual, but he nodded! So I took him into the shower and he has been taking shower with me in the stall since. He loves it now and he would say xia yi (raining).
  
• Nathan has been saying lots of words but this past month he suddenly just started saying a lot a lot more complete longer words and phrases. He has been repeating everything people say and now he can definitely communicate and let us know what he wants. Before he would say like you, night, than, but now he says thank you, good nite, Nathan clearly. He is also picking up English from other kids. He spent a couple hours playing with Mason a couple weeks ago and he said ‘don’t touch okay’ to Biby that night when Biby was going to play with his train set J
  
• He is so into train and Thomas now since we came back from New York.
  
• Starts recognizing numbers and letters. Although he doesn’t quite know which letters/numbers, but he knows that it’s a number or a letter. When he sees letters, he would start saying a, d, etc although it might not be the correct letters J He started counting too although he still skips a lot of numbers J
  

 

December 2010

 

Love this time of the year! Always feel busy although most of the time it’s unclear what I was busy with. Well, one thing for sure, busy shopping. Not because we had a lot of presents to get, but just feel the need to jump in the frenzy of holiday shopping plus of course the holiday sale J So most of the time, it is shopping for ourselves J

 

I had some fertility blood works done in December and everything checked out. Although my plan was to have another lucucu when Nathan is around 2, we didn’t feel we were ready for another one since it was a lot of work even with one kid. But the last couple months, I strongly felt like I really wanted another baby so Nathan can have a brother or sister to share with. So far though, no luck….hopefully soon….jia youJ

 

We had a nice lunch out at the Joe’s Farm Grill with Nly, Hly and Sik in early December. It was a fine day and the kids were happy running around playing in the grass area.

 

We did a family picture session for the holiday at Portrait Innovations lured by their $10 promotion. I was really planning to just do one good family picture and adding a couple of Nathan’s pics thinking it would be less than $50 in total. And we walked out paying $100…well…well…well…If I knew we would end up paying that much and we would have gotten all the pics taken during the session in the CD, I would have asked for more poses J coz when the photographer asked if we would like more shots, we were like nah we were going to pick only a few anyway J. The pics turned out good though. It was the right timing so Nathan was alert and all happy and smiling.

 

We took Nathan to the Phoenix zoo after the photo session. Sik got the free tickets that she wasn’t going to use so she kindly let us use them. We didn’t really plan on going so we were completely not dressed for a zoo trip. I was wearing a long skirt with boots and both Nathan and Biby wearing dress pants with long sleeves shirts J. We were at the zoo for only a couple hours since they were closing and getting ready for the zoo light. I think we might have been able to stay inside waiting for the zoolight, but we were already exhausted so we left shortly after they closed. This was Nathan’s second zoo trip (first one was to DC zoo). The zoo is really big and it would be nice to spend half day there but I wouldn’t pay the full price to spend a couple hours there J

 

Since Christmas fell on Saturday, I got the Friday off. We didn’t have any plan and just went to the 8 pm mass on Christmas eve. Then on Christmas day, we just relaxed and spent the morning opening presents. We took Nathan to the park to feed the ducks and play in the playground. He was having a fun time. We had KKI Christmas party at the Christensen’s on Sunday. Small gathering compared to last year’s Christmas but it was a good time. Nathan had fun playing with Msn and Krs.

 

New year’s eve I had to work in the morning. But we had fun that evening giving a surprise birthday party to Sik and spent the countdown at their house. Nathan was sleepy but he stayed up past midnight. We got out and had fun with the firecrackers although it was freezing outside and Nathan started having bad runny nose and cough earlier that day. That was Nathan’s first time playing the firecrackers. Shortly after that we left and Nathan passed out as soon as we got in the car.

 

January 1, 2011

 

Another year started. The start to another great year I hope J

 

We took Nathan to Flagstaff to play in the snow. Went with Hanika and Desy n family. Had a fun time although it was a looong drive for a 15 minutes snow playtime J It was freezing up there. And after 15 mins, Nathan was just ready to get back in the car. I asked him if he had fun and he said he did. But when I asked if he wanted to play more, he would say bu yao (no) coz it’s very cold J

 

Ehm, I should really start putting some pictures here so I have some pics to accompany the story J

 

 

Major events in 2010:

• Trip to Indonesia
  
• Trip to New York and DC
  
• New jobs for both me and Biby
  

 

Plans for 2011 (not resolutions because some of it are not within our control):

• Another lucucu
  
• Another trip to Indo for bro’s wedding
  
• Organize the house – we still have unpacked boxes from when we moved L
  

 

 

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving and Late post on Halloween events

My favorite season of the year is here!! Love the cooler az weather, holidays shopping, Christmas carols everywhere and it officially started with turkey day. We went to the thanksgiving dinner party at the N**mans as with previous years J Lots of food, warm people, it felt good J Too bad I have to work tomorrow, actually, in a few hours L so no black Friday shopping this year…..we’ll still go to the mall though, may be tomorrow after work or Saturday….got no real big ticket items planned, most are just toys for Nathan J

I haven’t written for so long (as usual – same comment on every journal I wrote J) It’s also late now, so I’ll just be brief…

A week before Halloween, we took Nathan to his first Pumpkin Patch at the Mother Nature’s Farm. It was not a huge farm, but it was just perfect for a toddler like him. He learned the word pumpkin quickly once I pointed out the pumpkins to him. Now, whenever he sees pumpkin, he would go pun-kin – that’s how he says it, pun-kin, like it’s two words. We went there with the Y*p family and Nathan had so much fun playing with Carlton. Carlton is such a sweet boy too, shy at first but he seemed to enjoy having little company to play with as well. Love his puppy round eyes J We were there from around 3.30 until 6. They got the hayride, bounce house (which Nathan loved and didn’t care that he was being bounced around by the bigger kids in it), hay maze, and each kid got a small pumpkin to decorate with stickers. Nathan fell in the hay maze and got blisters on his face, but he didn’t cry. I didn’t even know until I saw it was bleeding. We then headed to dinner at the new place at the Mekong plaza. And it was a great meal and deal J We got lobster, peking duck, whole soy sauce chicken and tofu claypot and it was less than $30 per family! Definitely cheap. Too bad it was just the grand opening special. We will definitely go back though, the peking duck and the chicken were really good.

For the Halloween, we were planning to take Nathan trick-or-treating for the first time since we didn’t even dress him up last year since we were moving last year on Halloween. Unfortunately, Nathan got a cold a few days before the Halloween. He got better on Saturday, a day before, so we took him to the Harvest Night at a church’s parking lot. We stayed only for a bit since it got pretty chilly and Nathan started having runny nose. He seemed to have good time though especially with the bouncy house they got. But we ended up not taking him trick-or-treating on Sunday since he was still having his cold. We thought that we would just let him hand out candy to the kids who came to the house. He was confused at first but after that he was enjoying giving out the candy. He did look puzzled when he saw some of the kids with scary masks. He definitely was not scared, but he kept looking at them while his hand was reaching into the candy bowl and giving them to the kids. He was probably just puzzled why they looked so different J We tried to put his costume on and took picture of him handing out the candy in the costume. But he wouldn’t even wear his costume for more than 5 minutes. It’s funny coz when I tried the costume on him a few weeks prior, he didn’t let me take if off. He didn’t want to wear it at first, but when I showed him the puppy photo on the bag, he wanted to wear it. Then he was being goofy by crawling and barking like a dog. It was really cute! Good thing we got some good pics that night and we also got some pics at the Harvest night with him wearing the costume J

Cucu was all better in less than a week, but he just got sick again last week L About three weeks after he got sick last time L He is better than a few days ago, but still has runny nose and coughs at night. Hopefully it will go away soon.

We had our Christmas tree up last week, earlier than previous years. Since Nathan now knows Santa and understands more things, I want the tree up sooner. This past week Nathan has been going to sleep past 11 and drinking less bottle. I am not sure if that’s because I stopped giving him whole milk from fearing he would throw up at night (which he did a few nights ago, 4x in a night) and he didn’t like the soy milk that we gave him. He would only drink a bit and gave the bottle back to me. Anyway, I was going to say that I saw Nathan sitting up in the bed after trying to go to sleep, paused for a few mins, then he climbed off the bed and went outside and closed the bedroom door. I was going to just sleep thinking that he would come back in when he is ready to sleep. But then I worried that he might pull the ornament off the xmas tree and the tree might fall on him. So I followed him to the living room and saw he was kneeling in front of the Christmas tree with his hands on one of the ornament. That moment just felt so sweet. A little boy in front of a xmas tree lit with lights in a dark room, it seemed almost like a picture in a children story book J

Alright, that’s it….time for bed…long day tomorrow….after work, we gotta go to the daycare open house….

NY-CT-DC Trip (September 2010)

I finally fulfilled my dream to see New York!! We went to NY for 10 days in the end of September. We left early Monday morning. We left the house around 5.30 to take the flight at 7. I had to change Nathan in bed and just carried him out. But as soon as he saw Seik who came to take us to the airport, he was wide awake J. We thought that he would fall asleep once we boarded the plane and we certainly hoped he would coz we were very tired ourselves. I only slept like 2-3 hrs the night before from packing. But Nathan was so excited although it was not his first time flying and didn’t fall asleep for the first few hours. The flight was a very long and we had a 3 hours layover in Baltimore. Nathan had so much fun with the escalator at the airport and we had to take go up and down the escalator so many times. We arrived in NY at almost 7 PM. Took the cab to Aluk’s apartment and had pizza for dinner there. If it was just the two of us, we would definitely go out but with Nathan, the whole day trip must have been very tiring for him although it was still early for Arizona time.

Well, when we made our plan to visit NY, we decided that we would take it easy and not rush it so that Nathan would have time to rest and enjoy the trip. So instead of the old travel mindset of hitting as many places as possible, we kind of planned it loosely and planned to spend more time at each place so we could stop and rest. It turned out that taking Nathan for the trip was not bad at all!! I think he was having fun and learning a lot of new stuff. He got to ride the bus for the first time, recognized taxis, buses, trains, planes. We went to Toysrus in Times Square and rode the ferris wheel  inside the store. We went to FAO Schwarz to play their big piano. We even stopped and waited almost half an hour for some street performers to start dancing on the side walk. We caught the dance just right at the end and seeing how excited Nathan was, we waited for the next dance although it took a while to get enough people before they would start dancing. It was worth it though, Nathan really enjoyed it and was so excited about it. I think he had fun and I would do it over again with him in tow. Although this time, I am so thankful that we could stay at Aluk’s place. No, not about the money coz we already set aside the budget for hotel. But the convenience and cleanliness that count. I was freaked out because NY was fighting with bedbug and I would worry about staying at a hotel. It was also great that Nathan got more space to play in than at a hotel room.

We did a lot a lot of walking during our stay there and I am sure Nathan loved sitting in his stroller while we walked around the city. We walked through Central Park from the southern entrance and came out halfway to the Met Museum. Too bad, Nathan was already tired and napped in his stroller when we strolled the park L  We thought that he would be able to run and play there, but well he was already tired that he didn’t want to come out of his stroller, and finally fell asleep. We went to Chinatown a couple of times, Times Square, UN headquarter, downtown, strolled along Park avenue, Rockefeller Center, Top of the Rock, St Patrick Cathedral, Grand Central station, and took the Long Island ferry to see the Liberty statue. We didn’t go to the Liberty island though since I read about how tight the security and the long line to board the ferry and get to the island. Furthermore, if we went, I wanted to go up the platform and the crown. But we couldn’t go up the crown with Nathan since the elevator is under renovation and there was no guarantee that we could still get the ticket with admission to the platform. So we thought about doing the Circle Line cruise that circles Manhattan. But it’s a 3.5 hr long cruise and I doubt that Nathan would have much fun sitting in a boat for so long. So, we ended up just doing the Staten Island ferry which was free, fun and kinda reminded me of the Hongkong ferry.

We left NY on Sunday and went to Stamford, CT. Our friend, Aang, drove from Stamford to pick us up to his house. His dad even cooked lunch for us. After lunch, we went to downtown Greenwich which was just a street filled with shops. Nice and quiet with a lot of boutique type stores not suitable for my wallet J

We left Stamford for Washington DC that night. We took the Amtrak to Union Station and arrived at 11 PM in DC. We took a cab ride to our hotel, Marriott in Wardman Park. Really nice hotel, but I was worried about bedbug and I also didn’t really like carpeted hotel room (which is what most hotels in the US have L) . When we stay at hotel, I always opened the comforter and flat sheet to check if the bed sheet is clean and I usually wear slippers in the room. But now with a toddler in tow, it’s not possible to have him wear slippers all the time in the room, so I kinda freaked out about getting dirty.  Enough with the whining! J Our hotel was only a few blocks from the National Zoo so we were planning to take Nathan to the zoo, but it was pouring the next day so we went to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum instead. It was interesting but he is too young to appreciate it so he was more thrilled going up and down the stairs inside the museum than looking at the fossils J From the museum we walked to the US Capitol. It was a nice walk except that it was sprinkling and a bit windy, while Nathan was taking his nap in his stroller. We went inside the US Capitol visitor center but missed the last tour for the day.  We walked to the Union Station from there and had a late lunch since we had our breakfast late. We went back to Wardman Park from there and had Chinese dinner nearby our hotel.  I wasn’t hungry but thought Nathan might get hungry later at night.

The next day, we went to the zoo in the morning. Nathan’s first trip to zoo! And mommy’s first time seeing Panda live! We were lucky that when we there, the zoo staff was feeding the pandas so they actually moved up to pretty close to us. Nathan still remembers panda and that panda was mamam (eating) J We have a panda keychain and a few days ago he found it and said ‘panda’. Good job baby! From the zoo, we walked to a Malaysian restaurant near the subway station by our hotel and Nathan fell asleep in his stroller. He woke up for lunch though and after lunch we took the metro subway to the white house. After taking some pictures, we walked from the White House to the National Monument. And Nathan was off his stroller, walking with me all the way to the National Monument. And it was definitely not a short walk, especially for a one and half year old! I had him on the baby leash so he didn’t run off to the street. He was just very happy exploring the streets and the park that we went through and he wouldn’t let me carry him at all. It was really a wonderful feeling seeing how happy he was. From the National Monument, we walked to the Reflecting Pool and Nathan also walked himself. He finally got on the stroller and fell asleep when we walked from the pool to the Lincoln Memorial. He slept for quite a bit until we came out of the Lincoln Memorial. Btw, Lincoln Memorial is just like the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial in Taipei that we went to before. I didn’t know that before…*blush* From there we went to have dinner at downtown DC, we walked past the college area of George Washington University. The area is very alive, with a lot of groups of college age students walking around. After dinner, we picked up some donuts and went back to the hotel.

With that, the vacation was overL We returned to Phoenix the day after. Our flight was at 2, but Dulles airport is still almost an hour trip away from DC so we booked our taxi for 11 o’clock and it cost $60-$65 for the cab fare! Ouch….

Well, overall impression of the trip is awesome!

I love New York!! It reminds me of San Francisco but in a more crowded, dirtier and much bigger scale. I am not sure if I want to raise family there but I sure love to live there if I were single or just couple with no kid. And well, definitely love to visit again J

I like how CT is lined with trees and bet the fall foliage must be really gorgeous there.

DC visit is usually filled with visits to the extensive choices of museums and most of them are for free. However, we only went to one since we didn’t think that Nathan would enjoy it yet. So may be another trip when he is older that will be filled with visits to museums J. DC seemed clean and organized in most parts that we went to. I loved walking on the streets and parks there. I love walking in big cities like NY, SF, but at the same time, I love strolling down the parks and more laidback neighborhood. Oh another thing is DC has very very very long escalators going into their underground subway stations!

I was also very happy that we got to see Aluk, Aang, Icha and their two little girls. I only regretted that we were all so tired and lacking sleep when we saw Aang fam that I probably appeared kinda dozed to them L We stayed up pretty late almost every night chatting with Aluk and the last night we were there, we talked until 3 in the morning.