Xiaoniu 小妞

Happy Thanksgiving!

It’s been a long week. I’m starting to sense a theme. Hopefully, things will start to calm down a bit. The work week was nice a short. Two days of pretty calm work.

Tuesday

Tuesday I left early to bring the little on to her 9 month checkup. All is well and she’s a great healthy baby. Still 22 pounds, but she’s stretched out to 29 inches long. That keeps her in the 90th percentile for weight and height. The pediatrician also checks her head size and she’s 50th percentile there. Thankfully, she’s not 90th for head size; no big headed baby for us.

The pediatrician made an interesting comment about Emelia when he was checking her eyes and ears. “She’s really is strong”. He was having a tough time getting her to cooperate and was fighting him off with her fists. Sue was holding her legs and I was trying to keep her calm. She has a mind of her own and seems to be a fighter. Can’t wait to see what a teenage Emelia is going to bring us. To follow up her checkup she got the first half of her flu vaccination. She goes back in four weeks for the second half.

Unrelated to the visit with the doctor, Emelia has sprouted another tooth. This time one on the top has poked through. She was in pain over the weekend and now it’s out. I think the other is coming soon. One really bad thing that Emelia did a couple times was grind her teeth. It drives me nuts and is bad for her. I have to give her a little slack since this is her first time with teeth. More will be coming.

On the way home from the pediatrician I brought Meimei to my work. It was 3:30 and most people were still there. She hasn’t been to my work in months so it was perfect timing. Emelia was a hit, as always. All the women I work with went nuts when we went in. A couple of the guys I work with (including one that has a baby her age) also got a chance to see Emelia.

Tuesday night we brought Emelia to the mall to get pictures taken both by herself and a few with James. What an adventure. That place was packed and crazy busy. Lots of families were getting their Christmas pictures taken. It took about 2.5 hours to get pictures taken and to place the order. Emelia did okay, but not great. James in a phase where he absolutely does not listen to anybody so keeping him under control was a challenge.

James starting off being well behaved.

Emelia having a good time.

The one and only picture together that is half way decent. Too bad Emelia was making a quirky face.

By the end it was tough to get Emelia happy and looking at the camera at the same time. We could usually get one or the other, but not both.

Wednesday

Tuesday we crashed. Wednesday was a big day for us. Preparation for Thanksgiving day and a whole day to catch up on chores. I started off the day at 5:30 (just like every day), Emelia went to day care on time and Sue and I got to work. I was able to actually finish a couple projects; putting insulation on the water pipes in the basement and attaching the furnace drain hose to the basement wall. Small items, but things that were started months, if not years ago. I also got a chance to start organizing all of Emelia’s toys that she has outgrown and all the yard sale stuff we’ve been collecting.

Sue began the day by cleaning the kitchen and doing laundry. By the time I finished in the basement she was off baking all kinds of goodies. She made some pie crusts from scratch and baked two pumpkin pies and one apple pie. I cleaned the house and put away stuff that seems to have collected everywhere in the house. Put some pictures in a frame and hung that on the wall, organized the new computer equipment and wires in the computer room, rearranged the small appliances in the kitchen and made a run out for groceries.

We decided the move the microwave because it shares the same electric line with the outside outlet. Having the outside Christmas lights on at the same time as the microwave was a no-no. We ended up bringing the microwave to the basement (it was the house’s original owner’s) and brought up Sue’s stainless steel one. At least we thing it is stainless. We had to polish something off of it. It looks good though. We ended up with more counter space in one spot and lost in another.

Wednesday afternoon Sue made her way out to run errands and pick up the little girl. I finished whipping up her rocky cookies and baked them. I followed those up with a batch of chocolate chip cookies, which came out like crap. They spread out really thin and ended up baking really oddly. Getting them off the cookie sheet wholly was a challenge. Dinner was a sandwich from Subway with Amy. She came over for a visit and to get some help making applesauce for the first time.

Wednesday night I broke out all the Christmas decorations. Out came the nice Lenox houses and up went the tree. I stayed up until 11:30 decorating the house and the tree. We even get to put up stockings on the fireplace mantel this year since mom gave us some hangers last year. Outside lights will have to wait until things dry up outside and I get an hour or so to put them up. My neighbors have theirs up, but I think I have the first tree inside up.

Thursday

Just like Wednesday I started off today at 5:30am. I tried to catch up on a little bit of reading, but gave up after a few minutes of not being able to concentrate. There too much more to do. Cleaning up the mess I made Wednesday night, finish the laundry and finish cleaning the house. Sue got up early to clean and get ready for breakfast.

Sue’s parents, Jason and Lily were here shortly after 9am and were eating their fill of steamed buns, rice soup and Sue’s veggie and pork dish in no time. It was a regular Chinese breakfast, except most of us washed it down with a cup of Joe. Everybody hung out for a bit, but our house was not the destination of the day.

I hopped in the van to drive the parents, Jason and Lily to the local Asian food store to stock up on goodies. From there we made our way to Amy’s house. There Sue and Amy got to work making food and plating hors d’oeuvres. Shrimp cocktail, various cheeses and crackers (I love Jarlsberg), and spinach dip. Dad, Jason and Mike got to work replacing a toilet and fixing small things around the house. I got dragged into fixing a couple small things too.

Dinner was great. The 21 pound turkey cooked nicely and wasn’t too dry. With the turkey was bread stuffing, Sue’s apple and cranberry stuffing, mashed taters, applesauce, roasted Japanese yams, cranberry sauce, dinner and butter rolls, and sauted green beans. We stuffed ourselves as tradition demands. A couple hours later we stuffed ourselves further with Sue’s pies, some fruits of the forest pies, cookies and coffee.

Right after dessert we all made our good byes. We were home resting by 6:30, which is great. Emelia had a good day and even worked in a good two hour nap. The day was pretty stress free and dad got to do the work he planned on doing while up here. You could see he was bored otherwise though. He just can’t sit still for more than 5 minutes without wanting to do something. I look forward to hitting the sack early tonight. Sorry, but I didn’t take any pictures. I decided to enjoy the day and not spend it behind a viewfinder. You’ll have to use your imagination.