A lost tooth at school playground

September 12, 2012
Dear Toothfairy,
My daughter M lost her second tooth at school playground today. She was crying when she came out of school bus today because her lost tooth is really "lost", and she would have no tooth for Toothfairy to come for. Please accept this fake tooth (made of mini-marshmallow) as replacement. She did really lose a tooth today and is looking forward to your visit again. By the way, thank you for your visit the first time around. She was very excited.
Thank you,
M's mom


September 13, 2012
Dear Toothfairy,
Thank you for your generosity and understanding. M was thrilled to see that you visited last night. She screamed in joy "It worked! The fake tooth worked!"  Was it the shape of fake tooth (flattened mini-marshmallow with zig-zag in the bottom, which was M's idea) that helped you, or was it the letter her mom wrote to beg your visit in desperate? Either way, in behalf of M, I wanted to thank you. She does not have any wiggly tooth right now, so you can have a little break.
Sincerely,
M's mom
p.s. Those coins (2 of each coin - 2 pennies, 2 nickels, 2 dimes, and 2 quoters - total 82 cents) were very educational. It was a good practice for her big brother to count.
p.s.s. How do you come up with how many coins for a tooth? Is it like, "first tooth for this much" kind of charts going on there?


September 14, 2012
Dear Toothfairy,
Yes, I know I said you can have a break, but I just wanted to give you a little heads-up. Now M got coins out of fake tooth (no, seriously, she really did lose her tooth and really needed a replacement that time), today she told me that she lost another tooth. Well, it was really not another tooth, it was a piece from double chocolate rice crispy treat. Yes, it was dark brown. It would not have been a very healthy tooth...
So, just to warn you, you may see some fake tooth popping out. I will try and keep you posted though. And I will sure write you a letter if she ever has to use a fake tooth again for a replacement.
Thank you,
M's mom
p.s. Do you count the number of teeth per child?
p.s.s. What do you do with those teeth? Just curious. Thanks!

Blessings of the rain

It's raining. It's been raining all day. So I decided to count the blessings of the rain.

What got me start thinking was....Let's face it, I had no excuse today NOT to clean my house. It was raining and cold outside. K and M were taking naps. J was on my computer playing a game. Yes, I could have read a book or done something else. But all the housekeeping neglect may have caught up on me and they were staring at me...

So, I decided to do some housework, which is a blessing for my family, I'm sure, even some basic ones.

Then, I started cleaning areas that I hadn't done in A LONG time, like washing window and trimming by the kitchen sink, wiping kitchen cupboards and kitchen door (something about our over 90 lb. dog's tail smearing dirt...), etc.

Then, things started more noticeable, like things needs to be put back to where they belong...(again, because of all the neglect this summer)

Of course, some of the thing didn't have places to go back, so I had to make some places for them to belong. While I was doing that, I found things that I thought I had lost long ago, like a special ice cube (stick?) tray for water bottles.

But I didn't have any space to put that in my freezer (of course, the freezer was a mess), so that lead me to clean the freezer.....

The list goes on and on....

So, here it is, the blessings of the rain;
1. keeping me inside, instead of outside playing, inspired (is that appropriate use for this?) me to do some housework, and made me think that I probably should start thinking about kids going back to school organizing things to make things run smoothly.
2. while mommy was busy cleaning, kids enjoyed their freedom of watching movies and drinking Lemonade as much as they want (blessing for them in their account). They got along, and that's a good thing.
3. my thriving garden is loving the rain and tomato plants are growing like crazy, so are the weeds....
4. used to be brown, scorched lawn are now back in lush green
5. the lawn is back in green and needs to be mowed, but it's too bad, I can't mow because of rain (that counts as a blessing, right?)
6. cool weather gave us a break from the heat and AC use
7. and I'm just plain happy for farmers! Or anyone/anything in need of water.

Well, if it rains again tomorrow, I might do more of organizimacation thingy. If it's nice, we may head out to a park! We shall see...

Summer fun list update

Since Last time I posted on our summer list, we've been playing hard! Maybe this is my first summer enjoying being a stay-at-home mom. No scheduled activity for kids. I was originally worried at the beginning, but I really like this laid-back "So, what do you want to do?" kind of days.

Now, last time I said:
 We still would like to:
- go to a local ice cream stop (I know, those who are local, we haven't done it this year yet!!)
- go to our favorite beach about 2 hours away
- go more camping trips

Yes, we did go (finally!) to the local ice cream stop - Check! (courtesy of our library's Summer Reading Program, our kids each got free soft serve)
No on the second one, unfortunately, but we have been to beaches....Ummm, I lost counts, but several times.
And yes, to the last one. We just went last weekend and will be going again in a couple of weeks.

In addition to those, this summer we have;
- had M's first visit from a tooth fairy
- completed Summer Reading Program (Yay!)
- played a lot with cousins and had a serious water gun fight!
- had boys (yes, including my husband and boys and their cousins...I need to make another post on this) blow up a watermelon
- camped with 20 some cousins (sorry, I've lost count on this as well)
- J tried on tubing (behind a boat) for the first time
- J and M become comfortable in the water (I told J I'd give him $2 if he comes in the water with life jacket and learned to float)
- watched beautiful sunsets
- went blueberry picking twice (total 26 lb!)
- and play, play, and more play!

House work? Maybe I'll resume when school starts....

K vs. a garden snake

I did not witness this, but it has to be recorded. No photo either...

 

(Ok, here is a photo of K with beach boy lock before his haircut - nothing to do with this post)

 

The other day, our 2 1/2 year-old K had his first encounter with a garden snake at our friend's place. My husband was holding it to show the kids. K's big brother J touched a little bit. Despite my husband's warning to K not to go too close to the head of the snake, K went to touch its head.

Snap! (or maybe not so much...)

Of course, the snake took a bite of K on his thumb.

K's response?

He wrapped his hand around the thumb, held for a while, then yelled at the snake
"NO! BABY ITAI ITAI!" ("ITAI" means hurt in Japanese and he calls himself "baby", so he was telling the snake that K is hurting!)

He looked at the thumb (no bleeding or anything major) again, then again
"NO! NO!! NO!!! NO ITAI ITAI!"

Got that, snake? No more hurting K!

K vs. a garden snake - a garden snake may have had an advantage of biting K, but K didn't cry....so, stay tune for the round 2! (well, hopefully not too soon for his mother's sake...)

Summer fun check list so far...

Not that I make such a list, but for a record, I wanted to write what we have done so far...(to later convince my children that summer vacation is NOT boring, we did A TON of stuff. Ok, J?)

We, so far, have:
- gone strawberry picking (which kids lasted for about 1/2 hour...)
- gone to a beach with cousins
- bought a 34-year-old pop-up camper and gone 2 night camping trip to a lake
- gone to a spray park, well actually twice so far
- joined our local library's Summer Reading Program (we are in lever 3)
- played with cousins at their lake-front house
- (this was only J and me) gone to a special event where you could experience flying a remote control airplane. J got to control a remote control airplane. We made rocket ships out of papers too.

Here is Josh learning how to use the remote control by simulation - Man, those kids with hand-eye coordination in computer games...*sigh*

- sent off their cousin flying out from an airport
- played at different parks for hours (so Mommy doesn't have to see the pile of dishes)

And of course, we have logged many hours of computer game, TV watching, popsicle  and ice cream eating, and plenty of whining and fighting time as well.

We still would like to:
- go to a local ice cream stop (I know, those who are local, we haven't done it this year yet!!)
- go to our favorite beach about 2 hours away
- go more camping trips

More to come!

Let the Summer begin!

Officially, Summer has began. 

Day 1: we played with play dough.

 J's blue Jay and her eggs.

 

M's Robin and her eggs.

J said her Robin looks like Angry Bird - M was not so happy about that....

 

And the fun with play dough ended by 9 am. 

Yes, 9 AM!  

(Phineas and Ferb, please don't tell me there is 104 days of summer vacation...)

 *sigh*

We decided to go to a spray park in the early afternoon before K's nap (no photo).

Kids had fun. They splashed, took breaks, went sliding, while I sat in the shade reading a book.

It was a nice afternoon.

Then, K got splashed (yes, we were at Spray Park where you should be sprayed by water) on his face, M fell from a slide on wood chips and scraped her knee, and their friend hit her head with one water feature. 

It was time for us to go home. 

A couple of more girls joined us in the backyard and played in the sandbox, with water. A lot of water. (again, no photo, due to my policy of not showing kids' face much on public...)

After 7 wet/sandy/muddy kids later, I had a little quiet time....

No, oh no, we are not done yet. 

 

Because my husband took older 2 monkeys to Summer Festival!

 

 They got to ride

 

and ride

 

and ride.

By the way, this was the gift for my son J's teacher Mrs. R. She was a wonderful teacher.  J asked what her favorite color was one day - it was red. So I made a pair of red themed earrings (no photo). The package and card were scraps of my paper supplies, but I thought it turned out cuter than I thought! Thank you, Mrs. R!

 

Today, on Day 2, we are taking easy. J and M are at their friends' house for a play date (Thank you, M!). K is napping. And me is trying to keep record of this precious moments. 

Happy Summer!

Now I understand...

Some of the things my mom did that I didn't understand before I became a mom:

 

Here is my mom working on her Etegami piece (December 2009)

 

Mom was able to work around the house long before eating breakfast.
That was probably because certain things had to be done before she was able to sit down to eat, like packing my lunch and ironing my school uniform.

Mom was always the last one to choose a piece from assortment of cakes.
That was probably because she loved her kids so much that she wanted them to pick their pieces first.

Mom would tell me sometimes at dinner times when we had rare delicacy, "Oh, I don't like it. You can have it."
She may not have really disliked (or maybe she did) whatever it was. She probably wanted us to have it more than she did.

Mom was always learning new things and taking lessons in cooking and crafts. I remember her working late at night.
That was probably her sliver of "Mommy time" to enrich her life and to escape from the mundane task of housekeeping. And if things need to be done, then late at night can be the only the spare time which may cutting into the precious sleep time (ahem, it is 12:25 am on my clock...).

Mom would tell me that I needed to take a nap even when I thought I was not tired (and of course I fell sleep after a while). It may have been the summer I was in Kindergarten. I remember lying on a small mat feeling cool summer breeze.
She probably knew that I needed enough rest.

Mom would tell me I needed to be quiet while she took her 15 minutes power-nap after lunch before she headed back to work.
She most likely needed it, because I know I need it sometimes so that I can make it through the day.

Thanks, Mom. Super belated, but Happy Mother's Day.
Some things are easier to write than say in person.
Hmm, maybe that's why mom writes me letters....*light bulb*