I know... It's been ages since my last post. So that means that now that I'm finally writing, I should have something phenomenally, fantabulously exciting to report, right? Well, no. Not really. See, the thing that's finally inspiring me to update you isn't all that exciting or important. It's not a milestone, a major occurence, or anything to really write home about. Not that there hasn't been a lot going on in our lives. Come to think of it, there have been any number of things that I could have devoted multiple blog posts to. Such as our recent trip to Hawaii.
What made this trip so remarkable was that we took it sans kids. Yup - our first vacation as a couple since our first child was born! A real grown-up vacation! One that included real grown-up meals in real grown-up restaurants followed by dimly-lit, romantic and passionate real grown-up se-- Nevermind.
We had greatly anticipated this trip for months before, so it seemed like a cruel trick that seemingly everything we saw reminded us in some way of our two rugrats. Sigh. Guess that's parenthood for you.
A week after our trip to Hawaii, we packed up the entire family for a trip to Asia. The excruciating plane ride over there deserves a blog post all its own. The thirteen hour flight broke down like this:
HOUR 1 - Calliope sleeps. I give myself a smug pat on the back and start reading People magazine.
HOUR 2 - Calliope abruptly wakes up, realizes she's in a tin can hurtling through thin air and begins to wail.
HOURS 3-8 - Calliope does an incredible impersonation of Linda Blair in the Exorcist. I alternate between feeling horrified by the realization that I am the parent of THAT screaming baby on the plane and being in awe of my daughter's sheer stamina.
HOUR 9 - Calliope passes out. I use the restroom for the first time in eight hours.
HOURS 10-12 - Calliope wakes up and stays calm enough to eat something and watch the first five minutes of all two dozen DVDs I've brought with me about five times each.
HOUR 13 - Calliope starts to get upset again and ramps up for another epic Linda Blair impersonation. Thankfully, we land before her head starts spinning.
Torturous flight notwithstanding, our stay in Taiwan was wonderful. It was great to visit with family we hadn't seen in years and introduce our relatives to Vince and the kids.
After Taiwan, we flew to Singapore, the country where I lived before going to college, and the place I consider home. We visited various museums, historical locales, famous restaurants, old friends and the world-reknowned zoo, but what did the kids love the most about Singapore?
The bed in our Four Seasons hotel room.
Aside from the bed, I think what made the biggest impression on them during our Asia trip were the various modes of transport. Forget national monuments or breathtaking natural vistas. Bring on the planes, trains, and automobiles (not to mention the subways and monorails). Speaking of modes of transport, I picked up a nice souvenir while I was in Singapore - a nice new stroller. I also got a nice new...
...tattoo! Well, technically I didn't get a NEW tattoo; I simply added onto an existing one. You see that dragon? That's the tattooI got on my last trip back to Singapore in 2001. See the cherry blossoms and the Chinese characters? That's the new part. In case you're wondering what the characters say, it's "midlife crisis." Just kidding! It's the kids' Chinese names.
I was lucky enough to have the same guy who's been tattooing me since I was a teen give me my latest one. His name's Chak, and he's the one who gave me the dragon tattoo eleven years before, as well as some of my other ink. When I first met him 18 years ago, he was just one of the artists at Johnny Two Thumbs Tattoo. Now he owns the place. I'm hoping that that means that when I go back again in another ten years, he'll still be there to add the names of all my new children to my arm. ;)
It seemed like we barely had a chance to recover from the jetlag of our Asia trip before the holiday season got into full swing.
Keeping the Asian theme going, Benjamin melted our hearts with with a spirited rendition of "Jingle Bell Wok" in the preschool holiday show.
Then before we knew it, Christmas was here! We got the best gift ever when Benjamin rode a two-wheeled bike (with no training wheels!) on Christmas Day.
Not to be outdone, Calliope decided to surprise us by giving up diapers a few days later.
Along with diapers, it looks like she also lost her sense of style. Luckily, her modeling career didn't suffer from her fashion faux pas.
Do you have any idea how terrifying it is to walk unawares into TJ Maxx and see a larger-than-life-size poster of your child hanging over your head? Most people don't realize that just because you're hired for a modeling job doesn't mean that the company that hired you tells you when or even if your photos! So believe me when I say that it was a shock to suddenly see this picture of Calliope. As for the pic on the right, that's for a costume company called Disguise. Little do they know, dressing my daughter up as a witch can hardly be called a "disguise."
The most recent of the many milestones that have happened since my last blog post was the kids' birthday. We celebrated with a rock star party at Music Stars and Masters in Westwood where Benjamin channeled Billy Joel and Calliope dressed up as an 80s fashion victim.
So you can see that a lot of pretty major things have happened, any one of which I could have devoted a blog post to. But it's not the big things that made me want to get off my butt and start writing. It's the little things.
Like the fact that Benjamin still doesn't understand a critical aspect of playing hide-and-seek.
Or my constant wonder at the size of my daughter's appetite...
...and temper. Lawd have mercy!
It's Benjamin's recent strange new creation, a creature he calls a "humpdacat."
And speaking of strange, it's Benjamin's cross-dressing tendencies. After he put this outfit on, he proclaimed that he was a Superman Princess. I find this endearing but distressing. Any child of mine should know that that cape doesn't go with that tutu!
So yes, it's the little things that want to share with you. Which brings me back to the first image in this post:
This is Calliope using a Nosefrida Snotsucker. On herself. The Nosefrida is a nasal aspirator for babies and children. The pointy end of the plastic receptacle goes in the nostril, the end of the tube goes in your mouth, you suck, and a little blue filter prevents you from gagging on your beloved's boogers. Yum! Last week, Calliope was sitting on her potty and somehow got her hands on this Nosefrida. I thought it was pretty funny that she was using it on herself, so I took a pic. A moment later, I heard the sound of bubbles blowing. I stopped and saw that she'd put the nostril end of the gadget into her potty and was blowing bubbles into her pee. WARNING: If you think that's gross, stop reading now. Ok, ready? The next thing I heard was silence, which I correctly assumed meant that she was now sucking her pee UP. EEK! I shrieked, grabbed it out of her hands, and took it apart to be cleaned. I was pleasantly surprised to find that none of her pee had made it past the filter into the tube. I guess that thing really does work!
You'd think that I'd be more excited to share stories of our world travels or my son's first bike ride than stories of my daughter sucking pee up with a nasal aspirator. But in a way, I'm not. I have a hunch that, more than these big trips, it'll be these little things which I'll remember and treasure in the years to come. You see, people take trips all the time. Everyone eventually gets potty trained (I think) and learns how to ride a bike (except for my mom who rides an adult-sized tricycle). And everyone has birthday parties. But humpdacats, Superman Princesses and unfortunate Nosefrida-pee incidents? Those are special, because those are the stories that make my babies all mine.
I'm not a girly-girl. Never have been. I'm not a big fan of ruffles, frilly undergarments, beauty pageants, or pink lip gloss. So I guess it's no surprise that my daughter would be the same. At the tender age of 19 months, Calliope already has a definite tomboy streak. Some might even say that her behavior at times is downright unladylike. Though I would prefer that she leave her pants on and refrain from using her breakfast as hair gel, and though sometimes I find that her stubborness borders on outright insubordination, I have to say that I love that my daughter is such a rough and tumble little girl.
Even so, part of me wonders what Calliope would look like with a poufy princess dress on. With her big round eyes, chubby cheeks and pigtails, she'd probably be pretty cute! So on a recent afternoon, I took her to the mall to find out. I found the biggest, poufiest, glittery-ist, most tulle-filled princess dress in the store and put it on her. Unfortunately, it didn't go over well.
Guess I forgot who I was dealing with here. :(
I realize that it's been almost two months since my last post. Yes, I feel really guilty about neglecting my blog. No, I haven't been spending all my free time torturing my daughter with tulle. I've actually been insanely busy!
For one thing, our dear friends the Ilardis came to town. As you can see, Benjamin was over the moon to see his love Kayla again.
On the days that Benjamin was in school, Calliope and Kayla had a chance to bond. I think Calliope really liked having a big sister to pal around with. And Kayla seemed to love having a little sis to take care of, too. Ahem, Marco and Sheila, I think your daughter may be trying to tell you something!
During their stay, we squeezed in a visit to Disneyland - and Calliope squeezed into a pair off too-small shorts.
My parents took a vacation and paid us a visit, too, though I'm afraid that with the amount of running around they did with the kids, it wasn't very relaxing.
The summer's been filled with birthday parties galore. It seemed that we had one almost every weekend these past six weeks. It's crazy how many kids had birthdays in September and August. Hmmm... Looks like the holidays were a popular time for getting frisky! ;)
Summer didn't seem heat up until after July, so we've been spending a lot of time at the pool...
...and at the beach.
You may notice that in all of these pics, Benjamin's mohawk is MIA. That's because he's decided that he wants hair "like Daddy's." What better way to get him Daddy's haircut than by taking him to Daddy's hairstylist, Chika Furumiya! Though Chika doesn't usually cut the hair of anyone under four feet tall, she agreed to make an exception for Benjamin. We had to improvise ways to keep him covered up while she was working on him, but the end result was well worth it. Look at that smile on the Boo's face! It says, "I'm so handsome that I'll never let you save money by cutting my hair at home again, SUCKAS!"
Though Chika didn't cut Calliope's hair, she did give her some uber-trendy feather hair extensions. They looked absolutely adorable - until Calliope ripped them out three days later. I guess hair extensions and tomboys don't mix.
To get some of that tomboy energy out (and to give her poor mother a break), Calliope is now in Mother's Day Out two days a week. One of those days she goes together with her brother. It's funny to watch them clinging to one another at drop-off, especially since by the time pick-up rolls around, they're pretending not to know one another. I suppose this is a preview of what high school will be like.
So as you can see, it's been a busy summer. But it's not just the days at the beach, trips to the pool, birthday parties, long days with the kids, commitments to the Playa Vista Moms Group/preschool/elementary school fundraising committee/Mandarin playgroup, or out-of-town visitors that have kept me busy. It's WORK.
I have been shooting up a storm these past few months. And though my eyeballs are dried out from editing, though I'm in a constant state of panic about keeping up with my clients and orders, and though some days my right hand feels like it's going to fall off if it has to click the shutter one more time, I am LOVING it. I get excited before every shoot, and as soon as it wraps, I can't wait to get home to look at the pictures.
Especially the ones of the kids! Photographing young children is exhausting, but no matter how worn out I am after a session with them, I always find myself sitting there with a dopey grin as I'm going through their pictures. Their enthusiasm and pure joie de vivre is contagious even through a photograph.
Which brings me back to my own two children.
I see them growing up, and I can't help but feel a pang. It's all happening too fast. Just four years ago, it was just me and Vince living alone in our home. Now we're a family of four. And wasn't it just the other day that I had two BABIES? Now one of them is making his own hairstyling decisions and the other is giving me attitude about what clothes she wants to wear. I love seeing them grow, but is it so wrong of me to want them to grow up just a little more slowly? I asked my mom if she remembered what it was like when my brother and I were this young.
She said that she remembered it all as if it were just yesterday.
We last traveled to Kansas City in November of 2009. Then, there were only two reasons for us to visit - my brother Leon (AKA Ree) and his wife Claire. Now, there are four more reasons to visit - my nephew Cristian and the Ilardi family -Sheila, Marco, and Benjamin's long lost love Kayla! .
Benjamin dressed for the occasion by donning the pilot uniform that Kayla got him for his third birthday. Not wanting to be left out, Calliope filched his pilot's cap, but the Boo still looked plenty official.
Official enough to get him into the cockpit, anyway.
At the KC airport, I got to meet my nephew Cristian for the first time. I'd only seen him in pictures and videos sent by his mama Claire, but in real life, he was even more adorable - a sturdy little guy with a thick shock of black hair and an impish smile. Though only a few days older than Calliope, he seemed far surer on his feet. In fact, Ree and Claire excitedly reported to us that Cristian took his very first steps in the airport while they were waiting for us to disembark!
We collected our bags and drove to my brother's place where Sheila, Marco, and Kayla would meet us and bring us to their home. I don't know what I was more excited about: seeing my good friend Sheila or watching Benjamin and Kayla be reunited after so many months apart. I envisioned tears of joy followed by a slow-motion run into one another's arms. I'm talking about Benjamin and Kayla here, not me and Sheila. What happened was a little different:
In case you didn't catch every word, here's a transcipt:
Kayla: Ben Ben!
Benjamin: Kayla!
Kayla: Doggie!
Benjamin: Doggie!
Painful separation notwithstanding, I suppose they are just three years old with three-year-old attention spans.
The next morning, all three families plus matriarch Hao Po met for breakfast at a cute little spot called Cafe Europa. As soon as we walked in, I saw the white tablecloths and porcelain plates and thought, "Oh, sh*t, this is not going to be good." After all, fine dining and rambunctious toddlers don't mix. Lucky for us, there was another table of diners with children even less well-behaved than ours. Yeah, yeah, I know that sounds petty, but come on - you parents out there know you secretly hope for the same thing when you go to a restaurant with your kids!
After breakfast, Marco and Sheila took us to see the house they just purchased and would soon be renovating (or "Sheilafying," as Vince put it). I snapped a picture of the beautiful family in front of their beautiful new home.
A beautiful Boo insisted on getting into the picture, too.
The house was very, very Sheila - classy, sassy, and Filipina. No, no that's not right! What I meant to say is that the house was spacious, modern, and had a great flow to it. It had huge rooms and large windows that looked out onto gorgeous front and back yards. As we walked through the house, Sheila rattled off the list of Sheilafications (renovations) she was planning. I was quite pleased to hear the bit about the guest suite that would be going in the basement. Yes, guest SUITE. Sweet!
That night, we had dinner with Vince's cousin Kathleen and her three kids Samantha, Tanner, and Trevor. In true Calliope form, my daughter spent the dinner making huge googly eyes at Trevor. How can a one-year-old already be a such a flirt? I'll admit that it was pretty adorable, but hopefully she'll cool it before she's a teenager.
The next day, we moseyed over to downtown KC to spend the morning with Claire, Ree, Cristian, and Hao Po. My mom was over the moon to have quality time with all three of her grandkids.
It was fun seeing how well Cristian and Calliope got along. Cristian was such a good sport about how his new playmate drooled over all his toys - both figuratively and literally!
After spending the day at Ree's, we met up with the Ilardis at a restaurant called Fritz's. Fritz's food is your run-of-the-mill diner fare, but the way in which the meals are delivered to the tables makes for a really neat experience:
I could tell that Benjamin was wondering if we could install one of those train/dumbwaiter thingys in our own home for his meals. Maybe for your birthday, Ben Ben. Ok, not really. But maybe you can convince Kayla's mommy to include it in the list of Sheilafications slated for her new house.
The next morning, we met up with Leon, Claire, Cristian, and my mom at that most American of establishments, Cracker Barrel. I love Cracker Barrel. Looove it. LOOOOOOOVE it! Truth be told, I love it so much, there should be about two thousand "O's" in there - one for each of the calories in their typical meal.
We worked off our huge breakfast at Zonkers, an indoor amusement park in a nearby mall. There were plenty of fun things for the kids (and grown-ups) to ride on.
There were a bunch of kid-friendly games to play, too.
In the end, Benjamin and Kayla won enough tickets to trade in for some prizes - a pink skateboard for Benjamin and a gold ring for Kayla.
Zonkers zonked us all out, so we went back and relaxed in the Ilardi's home theater. Sheila assured me that the movie posters on the walls belonged to the owners they're renting from, and not to her. Whew! We can still be friends.
Later, Benjamin, Kayla, and Calliope convinced Vince to start a band with them. They should be called Vince and the Pips. I managed to capture this clandestine rehearsal:
Hmmm, it looks like Kayla's the one calling the shots in this band. Maybe they should be called Kayla and the Pips. Or Kayla and the Chans.
We met up at one of the best pizza spots I've ever been to for dinner, a place called SPIN! Yes, the "!" is a part of the joint's name, and it is, indeed, supposed to be written all in caps. I wonder if I can legally change my name to LILY! Chan.
We started off our final full day in Kansas City with a trip to Oak Park Mall, where Benjamin and Calliope (with Sheila's assistance), rode the carousel. I guess the carousel wasn't exciting enough for Vince, because he decided to take a gander at this:
So the real reason he did this is because he was trying to convince Benjamin to do it, but after watching his dad in action, Benjamin opted not to.
"Too scary for me," he said. And who can blame him? The thought of being jerked 40 feet in the air by rubber bands attached to my groin area is pretty scary to me, too!
When we arrived at my brother's place, my mom had a delicious lunch of made-from-scratch Chinese dumplings waiting for us. Mmmmmm! They were the perfect antidote to the freezing weather. Calliope and Cristian wolfed down their portions then insisted on having seconds:
After Cristian and Calliope went down for their naps, Claire, Ree, Vince, Benjamin and I went down to the Plaza for a walk.
In case you can't tell, it was pretty darned cold! But no worries, because the Boo figured out a way to stay warm.
Yes, folks, he is dancing in the streets. His moves were so slick that we should've set out a tin can from him. He even had the stank face going on:
Work it, Boo. Work. It.
At dinner that night, Benjamin presented Kayla with a ring that he'd won at an arcade earlier in the day. Is it just me, or does the look on Kayla's face say that she's not quite ready to make a commitment? I don't blame, ya, Kayla - long-distance relationships suck!
After Ben Ben and Kayla were done eating, we sent them downstairs to play so the rest of us could eat in peace.
Well, relative peace, anyway.
We had to get up bright and early the next morning for our flight back to LA. Kayla put on her best princess dress for the farewell. Perhaps it was the dress, or perhaps it was just the knowledge that he was going to be parting from his best bud, but our departure was very, very hard for the Boo.
I sent Sheila this clip, which she showed to Kayla. Kayla's response? "He doesn't want to go back to LA because he wants to stay here and be my prince." All together now: AWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!
On our way to the airport, we met Leon, Claire, Cristian, and my mom for one last meal together. By then, Benjamin's sorrow over leaving Kayla had abated enough for him to be a total terror at the table. Unfortunately, none of the other kids in this restaurant were worse than ours. We scarfed down our meals, apologized for the mayhem that the children had left behind by way of a big tip, and fled to the parking lot so we could say goodbye to my family. It was really, really hard to leave them, and if it weren't for the freezing cold, I would have hugged them forever.
Before we knew it, we were back in the sunny climes of Los Angeles. As we drove home, I thought about the past week and how wonderful it had been. Meeting Cristian, spending time with friends and family, catching up with my homegirl Sheila... It's hard to pick which part of the trip was my favorite. It's even harder not to be sad thinking I might not get to see them again for a long time. Luckily, we've got email and phone calls to tide us over, not to mention pictures and video. Like this gem:
Leon, Claire, Cristian, Sheila, Marco and Kayla, thank you so much for your love, hospitality, and friendship. We can't wait to get together again for more fun and hijinks!
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