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Archive for July, 2008

Mochi reactions to the previous earthquake:

Baby Mochi was on her high chair at Aunty’s house eating lunch.  The kidlets were reportedly very matter-of-fact about it asking why the ground was shaking, with the exception of one freakout after hearing the house creak – apparently he bolted.  I can just picture Baby Mochi continuing to eat while frowning in annoyance at a baby carrot and some loose grapes that weren’t behaving as they rolled.  

Big Mochi’s class was taking a nap and a few of them popped their heads up, but went right back to sleep after it was over.  The bigger kids at the school had a drill and were instructed to go under tables. 

At home up top our entertainment center, the babushka dolls I had displayed all fell down.  Is that what they’re called?  You know those Russian carved nesting egg-dolls that fit inside each other?  Anyway, they all toppled over and fell behind the tv and stuff.  3 days later, they’re still there.  I’ll get them this weekend.

The other thing was that our medicine cabinet in the bigger bathroom has a 3-part mirrored door and even though nothing fell out, all 3 doors were open.  So even though it was pretty strong and seemed to last forever, thankfully nothing was damaged and no one was hurt.

My co-worker complained that she was at a stoplight and the woman far in front of her had jumped out of her car thinking she had been rear-ended and started screaming at her.  How dumb must SHE have felt when she realized that hey, she isn’t the only one who felt a bump. 

29) If you are sorry about something, SAY SO AND MEAN IT!

The other night towards the end of dinner, Big Mochi jumped off the table and headed to the computer to play some video games (she calls this “work”).  G asked her if she was done eating and she yelled back YES!  So he asked her to come back to the table and finish her milk.  Without breaking stride, she says, “Don’t worry about it.”  I was busy with Baby Mochi but at that, I stopped and looked up at G and we both shared a How old is she, again? glance before he then commanded her to come back and finish her milk.  No arguments or fights ensued, but the 2 of us were whispering in the kitchen as we were clearing the table about how she’s growing up way too fast with comments like that!  It’s amusing, but kinda scary at the same time.

Or like how we were playing concentration last night with a full deck of cards and without me letting her, she smoked me!

28) When you’re not feeling well, a shower and your favorite comfort snack can help.  I like hot tea and a cinnabon, or milk and cookies, or hot chocolate and diamond head graham crackers (or king’s hawaiian sweet bread)… this list of mine can go on and on, but you get the picture.

Let me give you a history of me and where I am when disasters hit.  Let’s start back when I was a freshman in college living in the dorms.  Community bathrooms on each floor, right?  I am the only one in there taking a shower – just got done shampooing my hair when we get a blackout.  Did I mention I was alone?  Naked?  Yeah. 

Fast forward 2 years when I’m now living on the 15th floor in a high-rise apartment in downtown LA.  I’m asleep in my pajamas when the big Northridge earthquake hits.  Remember that one? 

Or how about when my mother-in-law got married in Las Vegas and I was in the bathtub up in my hotel room at the Imperial Palace hotel.  I got soap all over my feet and there is an earthquake and the power blinks and the water lines stop flowing.  Just in case you were wondering… soap starts to burn if you don’t wash it off after a long while.

See the trend?  I can never be fully clothed on the ground.  Always gotta be half-dressed (or naked) up in a high-rise.  Today was no different.  I’m peeing in the restroom up on the 11th floor.  Mid-stream (tmi, sorry) yelling ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!

27) You know what they say about always wearing clean underwear because you never know what might happen?  Never let yourself get in a situation where you don’t have clean underwear to wear.

Since no one turned in my necklace, my faith in humanity has not been restored.  It almost was when Lisa’s flash drive was found and then the guy made the effort to find the owner in a file and will be mailing it back to her.  How cool is he?  It would be even cooler if he was cute and single and they lived happily ever after, wouldn’t it?  But I digress…

I went to Zales during my lunchbreak to see if I could find a replacement necklace and guess what?  Not only did I find it, it was on clearance!  Then as an added bonus, everything on clearance had an additional 30%!  Stoked, I am. 

G wasn’t upset that I lost it.  He said well, you’ve had it for a long time and things happen.  Now you can go get a better one.  Even though it’s not the same one, my replacement looks exactly the same (with a smaller less fancy chain) so I’m absolutely thrilled!  Kinda reeling in the fact that it was 11 years ago when this past/present/future 3-stone campaign was launched.  And then even more so because holy cow the prices were sure inflated!

It was an ordinary day.  We drove down to Gardena Bowl and to pick up some goodies at Sakura-ya, the best mochi place on the West.  Spent the day pretty leisurely, not doing too much except laundry.  That’s always fun.  ha.

Outside, we blew bubbles while G barbecued.  When she got frustrated for not being able to blow bubbles, Baby Mochi popped the wand in her mouth and then declared, “PLAT!”  My guess is she won’t be doing that again real soon.

Inside, she decided to cruise in a basket.  Don’t ask.  When the need to crawl into tight spaces by herself beckons, it’s best not to get in the way.  Give her a bag of baked Lays and it’s all good.

Picture this.  Hair down to my waist, 4-inch roots up at the top, and big patches of gray at the hairline of my bangs.  So after months and months of people exclaiming, “Wow, your hair got so long!” and me just not being able to find the time to get it cut/dyed, I finally went and made an appointment.  4 hours later, I’m done!  It’s now a blunt mid-back cut with bright red hightlights up in the front (leaving my back very dark and plain).  Not exactly what I had in mind, but it’ll do.  They closed at 5 and since my appointment was at 1:00 and she ran out of time, I left with soaking wet hair.  Again, totally fine.

What WASN’T fine was that I removed my necklace and earrings and put them in my purse and my necklace must’ve fallen out when I pulled out my wallet because it’s GONE!!!!! 

My only hope is that some nice person will turn it in, but you and I both know that’s not going to happen. 

Oh well, nothing I can do about it now… moving on:

After all that, it was late so we fed the girls (G made pork and beans and hot dogs for them for dinner) and since they were at home all day waiting for me, we took them to the park to get tired out before it got dark.  Fun fun fun!

This is Baby Mochi in the front.  In the back you can see Big Mochi and G.  Nice family shot, ay? 

I am grumpy.  I am tired.  I am highly annoyed.  Why? 

4:00 am, alarm goes off.  After about 2 minutes of its annoying screech, I gently shake G.  He snoozes.  9 minutes later, it goes off again, I pat him.  Snooze.  9 minutes later, I tap him harder.  You get the picture.  About 4:40, I hear Baby Mochi calling a soft “Mommy.”   If I don’t let her hear me move, she’ll go back to sleep.  But of course, 9 minutes later, the damn alarm goes off again.  This time I push G.  Snooze.  Baby Mochi’s crib squeaks, and I can picture her sitting up sleepily rubbing her eyes trying to make out the things in her room in the dark.  Her eyes must’ve adjusted because she is now saying hi to Big Mochi, who doesn’t respond.  Then she realizes verbally that Big Mochi is “Sheeping.”  So she resorts to calling me again, “Mommy.  Mommy.  Mommy.”  Again, I try to be still.  I hear her flop back down.  Then the alarm goes off again.  So this time, I storm up, give G a rough shove, flick on our very very bright bedroom light, and stomp off to get Baby Mochi, who will not be going back to sleep once G is up, anyway.

I change her diaper and she happily asks me for milk and runs to the tv with an, “Oh no!  TeeBee!”  I tell her yes, it’s off because it’s 5:00 in the morning and it’s too early to watch.  I go to get her a bottle of milk, but the dishes weren’t done because I fell asleep with Big Mochi last night while putting her to bed.  So anyway,  I get Baby Mochi some toys to play with as I do the dishes.  While I’m doing them, G wakes up and greets the mochis.  Then he comes into the kitchen and I glare up at the clock.  He follows my gaze and asks why I’m up so early.  I scream, “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?  WHAT TIME DOES YOUR ALARM CLOCK GO OFF IN THE MORNING?!?!!”

Yeah… you better walk away…

Big Mochi has been at her new pre-school for a week and a half.  She comes home happy each day telling me what she did and what she ate for lunch and who she played with.  For the first few days, she kept referring to her friends as “this girl” or “this boy.”  When I asked her if she knew their names, she said no.  I explained that since this school is the one she’ll be going to for the next few years, she should get to know their names.

So yesterday I asked her who she knew and she told me the names of 3 people at school: her teacher, a classmate, and Mark, who is the guy who brings the kids their hot lunches each day! 

26)  Network.  I can’t say for sure, but I imagine that the most successful people are the ones who are skilled at networking.  The more resources you have on your side, the better!

This morning I was hungry so I stopped in at the McDonald’s drive thru to pick up a #2 without egg and orange juice.  That’s a sausage mcmuffin and hash browns.  I pay at the pay window and go to the last window to pick up my food.  I ask for 1 ketchup, and the girl hands me a handful of about 8 ketchup packs.  I take one and return the other 7 because I only have ONE hash brown.  And even if I used some for my sandwich, are there people out there who use 8 packets of ketchup for breakfast?  Yuck!

25) Smile at babies.  It’s good for them to know that the world is full of happy people.  They’ll encounter enough grief as they grow up so why not give them a good first impression of it?

Thanks to C&K for all their research (well, just K), the vacation plans have been set!  My passport application is in.  Literally took 10 minutes, pictures and all.  The post office is amazingly efficient when it comes to the passports!  Japan, here I come!

P.S.  To the deer who bit my butt in high school, look out!  I’m coming back for YOU!

The in-laws are gone, and my mom and nephew leave tomorrow.  G was nice enough to take the big kids to Boomers for a last day of fun, leaving me, Baby Mochi and mom to have a nice dinner out by ourselves.  We went to Olive Garden, which was great.  Baby Mochi loves her carbs, so it was the perfect place to go.  She ate all the little pasta shells from mom’s minestrone soup, chowed down on the yummy garlic bread sticks and had some of my mom’s spaghetti that came with her eggplant parmesan.  I just ate spinach artichoke dip and minestrone soup and was perfectly stuffed.  There was a lemony dessert thing that I wanted no part of, but mom sure went to town on it.  hahahaha.

Her vodka martini on the rocks with oliveS (emphasize that S) must’ve been extra strong because mom got extra talkative and even garnished me with the ultimate comment: Gee, for someone who never played with Barbies or had tea parties with your stuffed animals, you sure turned out to be a good mommy.     Awww, let’s get another round over here! 

Even though it was alcohol-induced, I’ll take it! 

I took my mom and nephew to visit my grand-aunty in South Central LA, just down the street from USC off of Rodeo.  This would be Ro-dee-oh Road, not THE Ro-day-oh Drive where all the celebs shop.  Big difference.  Anyway, I got off the 110 by Exposition and noticed that they are building a metro rail between USC and the Colliseum/Natural History Museum, etc.  How cool is that?!  This will be HUGE!  For the school, the games, the downtown traffic in general out to the convention center.  And it’s going west down past La Brea and all that!  You go, LA!

The nephew and I had a grand old time with a cousin and her new puppy, and we played bocce ball in the back yard while the old people caught up. 

What I missed:

• Pics of the food. I can’t believe I forgot to take a pic of the food!  It was fantabulous!
• The pinata was a little anti-climatic since G took forever to line the kids up by height (engineers gotta be exact and a couple of pairs of kids were about the same height).  Then the hatch was opened by the 3rd or 4th kid so all the others lining up were like… huh?
• We played musical pillows.  It was like musical chairs but they danced and when the music stopped, they had to sit on pillows.  The first round was awesome.  Birthday Mochi was eliminated but when she noticed everyone was sitting on a pillow, she grabbed one from outside the circle and sat on it!  Then she continued to dance during each round, but danced running in the opposite direction of everyone else around the circle.  It was just too cute!
• We also played musical hot potato and dj Uncle C inadvertantly ended up eliminating all the little kids first. 
• I was pretty proud of my favors and goodie bags. 

If you sign up for birthday emails, you get free stuff during the month of your birthday.  Since we got G and Baby Mochi born this month, we get double the amount of free ice cream from Cold Stone and Baskin Robbins.  And of course, Geoffrey the Giraffe from Toys R Us calls the birthday kid and wishes them a Happy  Birthday.  There’s also usually a $3 gift card that comes in the mail from him, which is nice, because you can get a birthday balloon, hat and loudspeaker birthday announcement when you walk in, which is pretty cool.  Black Angus gives good birthday coupons, too.

Ice cream, here we come!

Now let’s all get a good night’s sleep for tomorrow’s big birthday bash!

 I got these cool candles at the Exploratorium in San Francisco that have flames that burn the same color as the candle.  See? Orange flame!  (Granted, not as impressive as the blue or green candle, but I thought Baby g would be there for his cupcake so I had a green one for him)  I made mini cupcakes for the kids at daycare for Baby Mochi to eat today.  It’s a day late, but Aunty had an interview with a potential client yesterday and I think the last thing she needed was a bunch of kids running around strung out on sugar-highs from frosting and sprinkles (and it worked out better for me, too, because dude, I am pooped out with this party planning stuff.  The party’s on Saturday, but there is so much to do!)  There were a bunch of kids absent on this glorious party day, but I think it was for the best since Baby Mochi doesn’t dig the crowds too much. 

2 years ago yesterday, I went to the hospital to get induced.  I must be mighty comfy because my babies never want to come out – they get forced out.  After 18 hours of waiting, she finally came out.  By this time, it was past midnight.  35 minutes into the next day, to be exact, which just so happened to be G’s 34th birthday.  So from that moment on, G sacrificed all future birthday celebrations.  It would always be all about Baby Mochi.  Sure enough, he’s always kind of like a sidenote come party time.  hahahaha. 

Regardless, happy day for the family.  Happy Birthday, Baby Mochi!

…oh, and G!

Today Baby Mochi woke up on the wrong side of her crib.  She was in a bad bad mood and fought with me for every little thing.  After staving off a few mini-tantrums, I finally said I was going to label her.  She watched me with interest as I peeled off 2 labels and wrote on them: WARNING!  WOKE UP WITH A SCOWL!!!  then remained completely still and giggled as I put them on her back.  She was actually proud of her labels. 

Of course, when she got to daycare, she was a complete angel the entire day as if proving that I have no idea what I am talking about.

Today Big Mochi had her first day of “big girl school.”  I was anxious and worried for her so I took my mom with me in case I lost it.  Turns out my mochi was prepared for this for a long time coming.  She walked in like she owned the place, started playing with other kids and introduced herself to the teacher, etc.  Meanwhile, I was getting reassured by the principal who was making sure she was gonna be okay.  I barely got a good-bye from her. 

I wish I could say the same for me.  I was a wreck all day, grasping on to my cell phone everywhere I went with a death grip in case they called and she needed to be picked up.  Nope!  She was amazing!

If you have little kids, you are probably aware of their tendency to stand directly in front of the tv, blocking the view of anyone else in the room – unless that person managed to squeeze into the 3-foot gap in between the tv and that child.

So today was no different, except that Big Mochi was playing a video game on tv.  This is a very cool Disney princess video game that’s all compacted into the pink joystick that controls everything.  Baby Mochi liked the music and wanted to see what exactly she was doing – from 3 feet in front of the tv, thereby blocking Big Mochi’s view of her game.

It starts off politely, “Excuse me, I can’t see.”  No response.

Escalates to a couple of, “I can’t see, can you move, please?”s.  No response.

Then a downright very load, “Hey!  GET OUTTA MY WAY!”

At this point, Baby Mochi turns around, points at Big Mochi and yells at the top of HER lungs, “GEH OW MAWAY!” and then runs away whimpering to me as if her feelings are hurt. 

Welcome to my life.

It’s the 2nd day of the OC Fair! 

These sheep were special and were wearing clothes to keep their fleece from getting dirty.

Uhh, I guess these sheep weren’t as special, but they got to keep cool because it gets HOT!

Moo.

That’s Big Mochi getting put on the elephant ride.  You don’t realize until too late that you almost have to do the splits to get atop this guy.

This is Baby Mochi (and Aunty K’s butt) watching Big Mochi and Grandma ride bumper cars.

Grandma and my nephew rode this honking thing. 

They’re right here, in box #2.

What did you miss?  The rides, the food and the games.  Those 3 three things were probably better than all these pics but obviously I was enjoying myself too much to take pictures of them! 

Today was Big Mochi’s last day at Aunty’s house.  Next week Monday she’ll be starting “big girl school!”  She’s very excited about it!  I hope she’ll do fine.  I hope Baby Mochi will do okay without her at Aunty’s.  I’m sure she will, but as their mom, I can’t help but worry. 

I watched The Golden Compass last night.  I read the trilogy a while back.  I never thought they’d make a movie like this, though.  I thought it would have been animated.  I’m glad it’s not, though.  Daniel Craig is just so yum!

Right.  So since I was watching a movie and not doing my mommy duty baking cupcakes for Big Mochi’s last day, it was left up to G to supply the treats.  He picked up frozen fruit bars instead, which probably was a bigger hit than the cupcakes.  Go, G!

The drive home was a lot shorter than the drive up.  Probably because everyone was asleep for most of the way and I got to listen to my book on tape without interruption.  We stopped to eat at Denny’s again and made it home in record time.

I picked up Baby Mochi and she was just as happy to see me as I was to her.  It was fabulous!  That night we took everyone out to Chuck E. Cheese for a welcome home treat and had a great old time.  It’s a lot different from when I was a little kid.  For one thing, their pizza is actually pretty good, and their games are split into sections for infants, toddlers, kids, and big kids.  It was amazing!  And from what I could tell… aside from the skee ball machines which worked but ran out of balls, there were no “out of order” signs typically seen in arcades! 

Baby Mochi going up the slide.  Typical.

Since I took so many pictures from this short little trip, I figured I’d split it up into a few days worth so it’s not just one long boring list of pics.  That’s right.  Now it’s 3 boring lists, but they’re short!

This is Big Mochi at her Go to Sleep Bridge.  They made me drive across it to the other side and take pictures from that angle, too.  But I’ll spare you that since well, it’s the same thing.  And I’d rather not remember the fact that I had to drive across it – and then drive back.  Freaks me out.

Just before you hit the Bridge, there is the coolest place for kids EVER.  The Exploratorium!  Their gift shop is the best ever.  I could spend almost as much time in there as the kids did playing with all their scientific displays.  It was way cool.  I can’t wait to go back with Baby Mochi.  I think she’ll exhaust herself running around playing with everything, too!  Someone definitely needs to build one of these in LA!

This display had 2 air blowers.  You could control the force of the air and position them in any way you wanted to.  Then they threw in a bunch of blown-up balls of all shapes and sizes to float and maneuver any way you wanted to.  It’s more fun when you have control of both blowers, but she had to share.  Boo!  I mean good girl! 

This is the wave machine. 

Here is Big Mochi at the bubble bin.  Those are her arms in the lower left corner holding the metal ring that just made the beautiful bubble floating in the center of this great picture.  Yup, the whole time she was there, no other kid was able to make bubbles like hers.  But boy, did they try! 

Now that my pics have been downloaded, let’s recap all the fun things we crammed into a couple of days.  Aside from the fact that G and Baby Mochi weren’t with us, it was one of the best trips (up until I got sick, but I’ll spare you the details). 

We hit Marin County to visit my grandma’s sisters, stayed with my uncle in San Jose, visited with my aunty from Sunnyvale and my other aunty and cousins from Minnesota who were there for a national fencing tournament, drove across both the Bay Bridge AND the Golden Gate Bridge, ate at a bunch of great restaurants, and had a blast at the Exploratorium in San Francisco.  Talk about some crazy driving expeditions during this crazy gas price rise probably wasn’t the best thing to do, but ooh, sooooooo worth it!!!

Here’s a picture of my cousin fencing during a bout.  She’s the one lunging.  Yeah, I know.  She rocks!

Alas, the search was in vain.  No bugs to be found today.  So she jumped up and ran full speed to the car.

24) If you use up the last of it, replace it!  This goes for toilet paper, paper towels, when you empty the trash, and especially paper for copiers/printers/faxes!  And if the copier takes 3 full reams, put in 3 full reams for the next guy!