Isabel's little spot

Two pairs of adult tennis shoes: $88 total
One pair of kid size 6 Puma shoes: $43
The look on Isabel's face every time she wears them: Priceless!

We bought these shoes 10 days ago. I originally was against paying too much for kid's shoes since she will grow out of them so soon.

Her first pair of sandals was only $8 but they are not really great for walking or cold weather. So we went to Nordstoms 10 days ago to look around. They had quite a selection.

We put this pair on Isabel and the shoes sold themselves. She was so happy trotting around in them. $43 was worth every penny. Besides, unlike adults that may have dozens of pairs of shoes. She will probably only have 1 or 2 at a time. In that case, it's pretty worth it.

We smile every time she wears them, which is also priceless. Now when she sees us about to go out, she would go grab her shoes and try to put them on herself. It's so cute.

- Lei

When In Doubt

- go to Bikram yoga (great for headaches, stress release, exercise, and a calming mind) and dance classes
- talking to someone or several people (very cathartic to just vent or share. Amazing how many people are in the same boat. Helps me realize it's not such a big issue - many go through it)
- distract myself (go shopping, go dancing, go to a new music group for Isabel, watch a funny movie, do anything different from routine, also gives my analytic brain a rest)
- color (well this is more clear for "sex and the city" movie fans. I won't elaborate, but it's great for curing headaches and tense muscles :-) )
- let it take its course (life is about rhythms. There is always up and downs, but just remember whatever it is it will pass)
- remember it's ok to have flaws (not the end of the earth or a major issue. It's just insecurities)
- forget about it (don't try so hard to fix it - instead go do something fun and forget about it. The mind and the body have a natural way of working itself out)
- don't get attached to the result (just enjoy the journey, if it doesn't work out, try something else. don't force it)

So why am I writing this list? well, it's really to remind myself to read it when I am down or stuck in something negative. I have had trouble sleeping in the last week and had a headache (no more) pretty much for that long. Mostly due to silly insecurities and an overly analytical mind. Jaime and I have been working a lot on our business ideas. So I have been thinking day and night about them. Guess I haven't let my mind rest for the last few weeks and it's so tired that it forgot how to stop thinking.

At first, I tried so hard to fix it - fix my sleeping, fix my headache. I guess I am a problem solver. Well, it just made it (headache and trouble sleeping) worse - trying too hard is not always the answer. Now I am trying other things (list above). so far so good. :-)

Enjoying life with all its up and downs. ;-)

- Lei
p.s: I wrote this last night and went to sleep at 11:45pm. Fell asleep right away. I already had a back up plan to get up and read my Chinese karate book if I didn't. I was actually looking forward to it. I guess I was no longer attached to falling asleep and that's when it happened. I slept until 8am. :-) Life's lessons are sometimes hard but good to learn.

Purse Snatcher

The latest game Isabel got into is imitating mommy. She apparently realized that mommy has a lot of purses as I switch them based on outfit. I would put them on and then check the mirror to see how they look.

I then sometimes leaves my purses by the bookcase or on the table so I can use them again that week. Either way, she has managed to snatch them quick and often. These two are her latest favorites - one from Tita Tusa for my bday and one I got from LA. She would put them on and then walk to the mirror and look at herself. It's so cute until you try to take them away from her. C'est la vie. I guess I have to share my purses now and also watch what I do as I don't know what she will imitate next. Watch out for yours when you come and visit!

- Lei

A Happy Life

A Happy Life - by Wayland Henry
To live with purpose
To say the courageous thing
To celebrate the simple gift
To follow your dreams
This is a happy life

This was one the front of my bday card from Jaime. I just loved it and wanted to share. I had a great bday overall. Jaime and Agnes conspired and surprised me with two gifts as well - a sports jacket from Nike (I love it - light and functional) and a necklace and earring set with a locket (Agnes put isabel's pictures in it already). I was so surprised. They managed to do this without me noticing, which explains all the unexpected outings they had while I was at work. Sneaky sneaky.. I really appreciate it. Overall, a great bday.

- Lei

Cute Video to Share

This is just too cute. have to share



- Lei

Isabel's first words

You would think it would be mama or dada. Well, she definitely have said those words, although I don't think she knows what they mean. Now that she is 14 months old, she is beginning to articulate words where she knows the meaning.

Her first word is (drum roll please!) "Hieee." In the morning, when I wake up, she would run to me and say "Hieee." When I come back from work, she would run to me, wrap her arms around my leg and say "Hieee." When we are out and she sees another baby or toddler close to her age, she would smile say "Hieee." A very social baby!

Other than that, she also learned to shake her head to mean "I don't want." We are still trying to teach her mama and dada, although it's ok she hasn't learned it. She is smart. Imagine when she learns it and she can scream it out when she is unhappy or want something and it will be much harder to ignore her.

It's so fun to watch her learn all this.

- Lei

Benefit of One-sies

One-sies are these jumpsuit looking tops for babies that clip around the diaper like a loose leotard. I always wondered why there are so many one-sies designed for babies, even for kids older than 1 years old. Well, I found my answer yesterday.

Isabel just had some solid food for lunch. She was wearing a cute brown top and a pair of white shorts. The top is not an one-sie (not tied under the diaper) and just simply falls over the shorts. It was a warm day, so this seems like the perfect outfit for Isabel to stay cool.

As usual she was walking around everywhere and playing, while we all got ready to go out with Jaime's parents for Father's day brunch. As I was coming out of the bedroom, she was in the hallway and I saw something fall from her finger to the carpet. Since she just ate, I thought perhaps some food dropped on her clothes and she picked it up with her finger.

I picked it off the carpet and put it close to my mouth to smell it. I guess it's instinctual for humans to smell their food. Well, it was NOT food. She is now almost 14 months old and her arm is long enough to reach, I guess. Because she pooped and it was itching her. So she reached into the back of her shorts to scratch and picked out some poop, which is what I saw drop to the carpet. Oh, the joy of motherhood.

The funny thing is I wasn't grossed out at all. I just started to laugh my head off. To think, it was so close to my mouth. I guess this is what happens to moms. Her poop is just an every day affair. It just reached a new level yesterday.

Moral of the story - now I know why one-sies are so useful. It can prevent your kid from picking poop out of their diapers. Lessons learned!

- Lei

Happy Father's Day!

We had a wonderful day celebrating father's day with Jaime and his parents. We had brunch at Delancey Street. Then we had a photo shoot for Isabel as one of my good friends, JuanPablo, offered to take her pictures as her birthday present. He has about $3000 worth of equipment and we had a lot of fun. We can't wait to see the photos in a few weeks.

The best part though of Father's day is what Agnes created for all the wonderful dads for Father's day. She is becoming quite a pro at this. Enjoy!


- Lei

Any guess what Isabel is doing?

Jaime took this video while I was at work two weeks ago. It's so cute and funny. It's hard being a 1 year old. Any guess what little Isabel is doing?



- Lei

Isabel loves to dance and play on her toy cart

She literally dances to any music she hears. Here you see her move to the music of her toy cart (grandma's birthday gift). She would stop and dance to commercial music on TV and of course when we play music. It's too cute.

\

- Lei

From Crawling to Running in One Month

It's amazing how fast Isabel learned to walk and run. She took her first tentative independent steps at end of April and now she is walking and running everywhere. Here are 2 videos from mid May and end of May

She was still walking like this mid May. She is so excited to be walking


She is walking and running more like this now (end of May) and barely ever crawls. She realizes she can go faster running :-) oh trouble


- Lei

Isabel loves hide and seek

It is not all what you think. She does love it when we run around, hide away, and wait for her to find us. But what you don't know is she also love to hide everyone's stuff now that she can reach higher and open up drawers.

3 weeks ago, I realized that I can't find my MPS player. Agnes said she last saw it on our dinner table but also don't know what happened. I asked her to look everywhere with no success, so I thought I probably just lost it. We kinda gave up.

Well guess what, today while Agnes was not looking, Isabel came around holding my MPS player in her hand. I guess she gave up on us finding it, so she is like "okay, I guess I will just give it back to you. This way I can hide it again when you are not looking :-)" I couldn't believe it. I still don't know where she hid it. She apparently did the same thing to Agnes' MPS player a month ago, but we found it under the Wii Fit board after just a few days.

The morale of the story - visitors beware! All your stuff that you bring to the house is fair GAME for Isabel. She will eventually give it back I think, but we don't know when :-)

- Lei

We can all learn from a 1 year old!

I am amazed how relentless Isabel is at learning how to walk. Every day she would fall down many times and then get right back up again to try again. Her face is full of excitement as she takes more steps and now only after a few weeks, she has gone from only walking a few ginger steps slowly to practically running down the corridor.

Imagine what we adults can accomplish if we acted like a 1 year old - never giving a second thought to "falling down" but with every waking hours just keep trying and trying to reach our goals with enthusisam and vigor. There is no concept of failure or looking good to a 1 year old. There is no thoughts of regrets of the past or worry for the future to a 1 year old. Everything is the present and everything is just a journey to the next part of growing.

When and why did we "adults" lose that? Aren't we all growing still until the day we die? As we grow up to "adulthood," it seems that we have come up with many reasons to try less as well as have developed a habit of giving too much meaning to something meaningless. A bad interview or a mistake made on the job is the adult equivalent of "falling down" as we pursue our career dreams. To a 1 year old, these are just opportunities to learn how to do better next time. Many of us, however, would make it mean much more, something about our self worth or market worth, and it spirals from there.

Imagine if Isabel did the same as we adults do today. If everytime she falls down, she spends time analyzing what happened and what does it mean about herself, she may not walk until she is 5 years old.

It's up to us to recognize that in life we are sometimes the ones that actually stands in the way of our dreams. If we just try our best at every single moment and look at "falling down" as only opportunities to learn instead of failures, we can be unstoppable. Imagine what we can all accomplish!

- Lei

Isabel says "Grandma" in Chinese

Grandma in Chinese is "Laolao" for the mother's side. Agnes and I have been teaching Isabel the last month how to say it. I think she got it. :-)



- Lei

Star Trek Movie - only 3 stars

Jaime and I went to see this last night. It was entertaining but nowhere as good as I expected or as the reviews indicated. I give it a 3 star out of five
- 1 star for the action sequences which was great;
- 1 star for the clever way the story line was written to allow future sequels to be completely different from the TV series (you will know what I mean when you see it - very in the spirit of star trek fantasies)
- 1 star for the story of Spock was pretty good

On the other hand, I thought the story for Jim Kirk was too cliche and shallow. His character didn't really develop. He was a rebellious, maverick, cocky kid and he seem to still be at the end of the movie with a captain title. Also I thought the last 20 minutes of the movies was cheesy and so predictable. Lastly, (movie spoiler ahead - don't read if you don't want to know), there is no way they could have survived that last explosion since a dot of that red matter destroyed a whole planet and they detonated the entire red matter that was at least 100K times larger.

I guess I was just disappointed as I had high expectations after seeing the reviews everywhere. We still had a good time.

- Lei