Xiaoniu 小妞

Just Having Fun from xiaoniu on Vimeo.

Here is a quick video of Caitlin in an extremely playful mood. She was just happy to jump around and entertain daddy.

You can tell who is the family man when you hear a man getting excited about new appliances. No more fridge pissing on the floor. No more frozen veggies. No more bending over to pick food out of the fridge. Not to mention no more wet clothes coming out of the dryer and no more wasting water and electricity. I feel like a king with a new throne.

First up with a new fridge. Nothing fancy, but a nice, solid replacement. It has a working ice maker and keeps food properly cooled. Sold under the Kenmore name, but manufactured by LG. If you looked quickly at the new fridge you probably wouldn’t even notice that it was different, but it is. A 33 inch, French door style fridge. Cool.

A matching set of LG washer and dryer. We opted for the mid-range units. Not too fancy, we don’t need a steam washer, but not low-end either. I was planning to go for pedestals, but I’m having second thoughts. The front loaders are not too bad and with them on 16” pedestals they’ll fill up the room and I would have to move cabinetry.

The units are nice. They’re spiffy and modern, and they play a little song when a cycle is complete. I was hoping for more volume and faster washes, but I’ve learned that high efficiency does not mean fast. The washer does an excellent job washing a load of clothes with what looks like 2 quarts of water and about 2 tablespoons of soap; however, it takes about 53 minutes to complete a load. 10 minutes of just spin cycle. The clothes are quite dry when done, which is another big energy save; shorter drying cycles. In fact the dryer takes about 36-40 minutes to completely dry and cool a load of laundry.

The total time is about the same as our old appliances, but most of the time was spent in the dryer. 70-80 minutes of drying cut in half with far less water. My fingers are crossed in hope that our electric bill goes down. We already cut our gas bill by 25%, now it is time for the electric to drop.

Next up is a new dishwasher. We ordered one online and it just came in today. With snow in the forecast it may be a few days before I can bring it home and install it. Our old dishwasher is old like our other appliances (14-16 years old) and is due for retirement. In fact it’s even starting to act funny. The new unit is LG (keeping with the theme) with a black finish. Again, it is not a high end unit, but not low end either. Just the right amount of features for us.

We’ve been planning to buy these appliances for a while now, but were waiting for the government rebate. It only started about 1.5 weeks ago. So, we’ll get a few bucks back from the government just for replacing and recycling the old appliances with new, energy efficient ones. We were shooting for the big rebate, but couldn’t find the proper “high efficiency” fridge that would fit in our kitchen. All of the HE fridges were 35 inches. Oh well.

They delivery guys from Sears did a a great job. Only two minor issues. One was that they scraped my front door. Luckily it was in an inconspicuous area. I give them credit for moving all of that stuff with only that little bit of damage. Of course I already had the path cleared and doors off the hinges before they arrived. The second problem was that the compression fitting for the fridge water line leaked. I had to get pushy with the corporate people in order to get it fixed the same day. The “best they could do for me” would be to send somebody back in 2 weeks to take a look. Yeah right. The same guys came back and fixed it. Very good response in my opinion.

Caitlin Walking from xiaoniu on Vimeo.

Caitlin really has taken off walking around. She’s getting better by the day. She has improved dramatically since this video was taken. Now, she can walk around the house without falling once.

A happy and enjoyable three years. Despite all of the trouble that has given us over the years she’s a wonderful, intelligent and beautiful girl. A little too intelligent for her own good. It gets her in trouble more often than not.

I have to say that I definitely feel like a proud poppa this week. Emelia has been doing amazingly well and has for the most part been acting very mature. It’s like night and day compared to how she was behaving a few weeks ago.

Emelia has been going to bed without any trouble at all for over two weeks straight. We read a quick book, sing a couple songs and she goes to sleep quietly. No fuss and no crying whatsoever. I’m quite shocked as she just instantly stopped the fighting and began this. Amazing. She also wakes up easier too. Before she would cry for somebody to get her. Now she just calls our for “mommy” or “daddy”. We tell her to get up and she’s up for the day and doesn’t give us any trouble.

She’s doing well with her potty training too. She has been consistently doing well with going on her own and has only had a handful of accidents. Most were due to her being too caught up in playing to remember to use the potty. I can’t complain though. The next step is dealing with night time. We may need to get a “rubber sheet” just in case.

Emelia is quite the little mommy now too. She is playing the mother/older-sister role with Caitlin. It’s cute to watch. On top of that she has a renewed interest in her dolls. She carries around her Tinker Bell doll and calls it “her baby”.

Caitlin is doing really well too. She’s doing well with her sleeping and is going to bed (some days) without much trouble. Once asleep she’s good for the night. Lately, she has been getting up at a more reasonable time too. Not too many 4:30am wake up calls this week. She’s also using the bottle and formula much less. She’s just about weened off of mommy too.

What Caitlin is doing best at right now is walking. She’s really determined to get around on two feet and she grins ear-to-ear when she does a good job. She is proud of her own self. It’s fun to watch and feels great as a parent to experience again. I’ll have to post a video of her walking.

Caitlin is also very interactive and very energetic these days. She’s just like Emelia at the same age, where she needs to be constantly entertained or engaged or she’ll get out of hand. Keeping up with her is tiring, but again it is amazing to see. She’s becoming more vocal these days and makes her opinion well known by grunting, crying and body language.

I’m proud of my girls.

A messy pizza night. It’s difficult to do, but you have to let kids feed themselves. I can tell you that I spent some time cleaning up the dining room while Sue changed the kids out of saucy clothes after this meal.

Updated: Now that I look at the video again I realize how horrible Emelia’s hair looked. She had pretty braids in her hair, but decided to yank it all out. The result was a messy, mat of hair.

Pizza Night from xiaoniu on Vimeo.

Happy Birthday Caitlin and Emelia from xiaoniu on Vimeo.