More Emmy

We were invited to Emmy's house for a barbecue Friday night and the developing bond and friendship of our girls couldn't be more clear. Jasmine was so excited before we left that she started packing all of her things.

As if she was moving out.

We quickly reminded her that we would be returning home--that night--so she could leave a few of her things behind. It was an act of congress to get her to put her jammies away and leave her assorted blankets and stuffed friends. We settled on one blanket, one animal and her usual change of clothes in case of accidents (frequent occurrence when the party gets hopping).

It didn't take the girls long before before they were cozying up for a slumber party.

On second thought, rocking in the lazy boy wasn't a bad choice either.
Pretending like they could actually lie down for the night, this prone position lasted all of 5 seconds.
There was another 2 year old at the party, and she had to be strongly encouraged to join the older 2 girls. They're a tough pair to infiltrate. When she finally did join in,
Emmy moved on to greener pastures.
The girls decided to join the grownups in the main room and spread out on the floor. This was all just a pretense to create the impression that they were getting tired. The screaming, dancing, chasing, running around the house and raiding the cupboards was the surreptitious plan all along.

Pajama day

Yesterday was "Pajama Day" at pre-school. Whoever came up with that one is brilliant--I would love to go to work in my pajamas. Jasmine was pretty excited as well and you better believe she was involved in picking out her jammies and loading up her backpack. She took 2 of her favorite blankies along with her special robe from her Nana in Ireland.




Not only did she get to wear pajamas to school, they ate freshly-cooked pancakes. Not like she doesn't get that at home, but somehow I think it's more exciting when you're surrounded by all of your 2 and 3 year old playmates. I can't imagine cleaning up syrup after that shindig. It didn't surprise me when I got home last night that I was immediately ordered to sit down while Jasmine had all of our magazines spread out on the floor and she was serving them to us, hot off the griddle.

Home life

Oh, the things that happen on the home front. I only truly can appreciate it now that I live with a 2 year old. What she manages to come up with just cracks me up to no end.
J decided to shed clothing down to her skivvies and wear only her backpack. This picture nicely illustrates not just how long-legged our girl is, but the fact that she is officially potty-trained. On the advice of many experienced parents and pre-school teachers, we skipped over the pull-ups and went straight to big-girl panties. Oh sure, we have accidents, mostly at school, but for the most part, she's good to go, even out and about in the world.
And here she is, fixated on Dora the Explorer. I made the mistake of downloading a season to our computer, having no idea what I was introducing to our home life. Forget the toys, the crayons, the blocks and babies; it's all about Dora these days. We have to work really hard to restrict her use and trust me, she's persistent to the point of obnoxious. The outfit? A new set of floaties, still unused, that we will take to the pool with us this weekend. Go figure.

Messin' around

We went to the doctor yesterday, just to be sure J's cough wasn't anything too serious. We're having some tough nights lately, and with asthma-like symptoms, I get anxious listening to her breathe. We have the world's BEST doctor, he is so gentle and personable, not to mention that he looks like Jasmine in his Asian features. I tell her he is Chinese like her and that seems to please her. It also helped that I promised her a new toy if she was cooperative. Nice that T@rget is right next door.
She picked out a playdough toy and in between her time-outs and meltdowns this weekend, we actually managed to have a little fun. It hasn't exactly been a honeymoon these last couple of days.
But here, she's having some honest-to-goodness light-hearted fun and I was as eager as she was to enjoy it.
So if she wanted to climb up on her chair and take a picture of her feet, I said "Why not?"

Making the best of it

It was a beautiful, sunny day, a break between stormy and rainy weather here on the West Coast. We took full advantage of the sunshine despite Jasmine being too sick to go to school today. She's sidelined with a bad cold, but don't expect her to admit to any of that. She practically dragged me out the door this morning wanting to "play outside, mama." Never one to miss an opportunity to be outdoors, we still needed to walk the dog, so this morning we headed off to our little pond in search of dragons. They've been spotted recently at the pond, mostly yellow, according to J, although I could swear we've seen several that are multi-colored and even spotted.

Even more enticing than the dragons, we now typically walk with Dora and her monkey, Boots. Dora is a new addition to our entertainment repertoire, and we have grown to love and hate Dora. More about that later. But with J's ever-expanding imagination, she will walk for over on hour if Dora and boots are with us, holding hands or putting Dora and Boots on her back (or all three on mine...).
We took some time to admire the sky and the passing clouds.
J eventually ended up with my hat on her head. In fact, most of my things end up on her, in her or around her. She generally wants whatever I have.

We spent the day wrapped up with each other. With Shane away working for the weekend, I cancelled my day at work to stay home with my sick girl. Clearly, our morning outing doesn't indicate how poorly she feels, but trust me, she's wheezing and coughing and generally feels lousy. She loved having me close and didn't whine or complain one bit about her ickiness. And I didn't whine and complain about her wanting to be held all day--after all, who doesn't want to be comforted when they're sick?

Me and my girl

My dad-- photographer, author, chef, geologist--catching us in a moment together.

Olympic junkies

Oh yes we are. While there are plenty of qualities that Shane and I don't share, the love of the Olympics pre-dates our relationship by decades. We have both been Olympic junkies since childhood. We love the intensity of competition, the sacrifice made by so many athletes around the world and the symbolism of Olympic pomp and circumstance. We appreciate the philosophy of the Olympic games, that athletes from around the world are representing their countries in a peaceful and joyful way. We know that it's a flawed system at times, but it sure works a lot better than most systems out there. And as a truly international family ourselves (Irish, Canadian-Hungarian-American and Chinese), we are not one-dimensional in our patriotism.

So, every 2 years (and yes, we were thrilled when the summer and winter games were offset) we stay up way too late and immerse ourselves in sports that we may know little to nothing about. We learn the names of the competitors, know what snowboard cross is about and cheer for the Chinese figure-skating pair winning their gold medal after 18 years of trying. I emerge from the bedroom in the morning to Jasmine's break-of-dawn calls, bleary-eyed from our midnight Olympic run. Midway through the games, things really start to take their toll. We start to get tired and cranky. We start counting the days until the games are over.

The creme-de-la-creme was summer 08, when the Beijing games coincided with our trip to China. It was a surreal time as we prepared to go to China, completely engrossed in the games, trying to imagine at the same time that we were on the verge of becoming parents. We lost sleep for many reasons that month as we tried to prepare for our big trip while foolishly staying up too late night after night. We're on our way to bed early tonight, out of sheer necessity. But we'll be back at it tomorrow night, no doubt, staying up too late until the games are over.