12.27.2005

Christmas Hath Gone And B-days Are A Comin'

Christmas is now over. This time last year was a down year because Fiona was in the hospital and I ended up not putting a tree up. So Jadon missed out of sorts on the holiday cheer. This year was quite different. With another year under his belt, his understanding of things have been quite dramatic.

We'll ask him "Jadon, what's Christmas?"
He'll respond "Jesus's Birthday!"
Then we'll ask "What do we do on Christmas?"
He says "Eat cake!"

That's all he has been saying. So we ended up buying him a cupcake for Christmas. I'll add that he'll also get presents too but I don't think understood that concept fully until he experienced the festivities. He kept thinking that all the wrapped presents were his.

Yesterday I told him that "Christmas is over and that in a few weeks it will be your birthday, do you know what that means?"
He responded "Presents!"

The girls had a great time opening up their presents. Actually, in typical baby fashion, they ignored the actual gift and played with the wrapping, bows, and ribbon. I think that Jadon likes their toys better then his. He keeps playing with it and tells us he loves it.

So Christmas is over but the buying isn't stopping yet. The girls' birthday is coming up in a few weeks and then Jadon's is following the next week (plus Fiona's is coming up in February). So no rest for the wallet.

12.24.2005

Christmas Eve.

Today I experienced one of those treasurable family moments. Fiona and I were lying around in the tech area/play area upstairs and the kids were using us as a jungle gym. Fiona was using me as her pillow, Natalie was pulling my hair and gouging my eyes, Vanessa was climbing all over me, and Jadon was running around. What a way to spend Christmas Eve.

12.22.2005

Damn It.....

Just started my 5 day weekend and I think I am getting sick again (second time in two weeks!). Actually the whole family is sick again. Jadon, Natalie and Vanessa for sure. So far Fiona is the lucky one.

12.20.2005

Seasons Greetings!


Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Borderline Sony Freak.

When it comes to Sony, Fiona thinks that I am a freak. I think I am just a borderline freak. I admit that my preference for electronics leans towards Sony. I explained to Fiona that it's brand loyalty (just like her preference for only Coke over Pepsi). I have never had a problem with any Sony product and I firmly believe in their quality. Sure there are probably better quality products but usually at a much higher cost. I have Sony Triniton t.v.s(2), a Sony DVD player, a Sony Playstation, a Sony digital camera, use to have Sony Car Stereo with Sony surround sound speakers, a Sony alarm clock, and a Sony Walkman. Now I am borderline because I don't have a Sony Home Entertainment System (I opted for the Bose system). I don't currently have a Sony car stereo, or Sony computer (or laptop), or Sony MP3 player. Although if Sony built cars, I would get one (or two).

Talking about Sony....

After a few days of deliberating, pestering, and being anxious like a little school boy, Fiona gave me the green light to get a new digital camera. This morning I placed an order for a new one. Guess what brand? We decided on the Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-W7 digital camera. I love our current camera but it lacks a view finder which makes it difficult to take night shots and Fiona wants a camera that shoots better quality shots since we have kiddies. I just love telling the story of how I purchased our first digital camera, Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-S50. It was about 5 years ago. My friend, Gat had just recently won a DSC-S50 and when I saw it, I knew I had to have one. One of the features that I love is the swiveling LCD screen which gives me the flexibility to take pictures at odd angles. Anyways, at the time the camera was retailing at about $600 at the time. I went online to search for the cheapest price. I found it for around $500 through Yahoo's Shopping link. But instead of ordering it online, I called the number to the website to place the order. Then I purchased a memory stick for $50 at another website. During that time Sony had a mail-in rebate offer of $50. So I was feeling pretty good about the deal that I was able to find. So as it ended up, I was never charged for the camera. I kept checking the credit card statements. After a few months I went back to the website of where I ordered the camera and it was not longer there. So I got the camera and memory stick for free!
So here's hoping for the same thing this time around....yeah right!

12.14.2005

Funny Little Vanessa.

Last night, the whole family went out for out evening outing to the Irvine Spectrum. The evening went well and the girls were angelic. On the ride home they were quite so I figured the girls fell to sleep. When we got home, I got out of the car and looked in the back seat only to find myself laughing hysterically. The girls were wearing beany hats. Natalie was wide eyed but Vanessa's look was just comical. Her beany hat was draping half her face covering her eyes. Usually she gets pissed off when this happens but in this case and she had fallen asleep. I totally wished I had my camera for that.

Fatherly Reassurance.

Everytime I punish Jadon really hard, the next day I am left wondering how will he react to me. Will he remember? Will he be scared of me? Will he not play with me? Well yesterday after work, I went to get him from his nap. I took him downstairs (the girls were still napping) and I had him sit on my lap on the couch. He kissed me, gave me a long hug, and said "I love you dadda." I was just puddy in his arms. This kid is good. He could have asked me for anything at that moment and I would have given in in a heartbeat.

12.13.2005

On A Lighter Note

Everything is in place. The tree is decorated. The presents are wrapped. The only thing that's left is the waiting. I have the Friday and Monday off of Christmas weekend (as holiday and floating holiday days) plus I am taking Thursday off (Natalie's doctor's appoinment). So I will have a 5-day weekend. Woohoo!

On a non-Christmas talk, we have already started planning Natalie and Vanessa's 1st birthday. It's tough to shop for them when Christmas and Birthdays fall so close (Not to mention Jadon's birthday falls a week after the girls'). It's strange how we have come to this historic event. They almost look like newborns still. FYI, Natalie is still 12 lbs and Vanessa is probably hovering around 14 lbs. They are still small.

Well enough blogging for now. Gotta work!

The Authoritarian

Growing up, I never would have thought myself as the authoritative parent. I always assumed that that job would be left up to Fiona. As it is turning out, I have become probably my kids' (mostly Jadon's) nightmare. Well, okay...probably not as bad as I make it sound.

Last night I put Jadon into timeout. I don't frequently put him in time outs, lately I have been averaging once a month. But when I do it, it's a huge deal. Anyways, Jadon has been crying and whining when it gets to bath time. I understand that he doesn't want to sleep (It's because when he goes over to sleep at his grandparents' they let him stay up a little bit later). So Fiona and I will offer him to go to sleep after (as oppose to before) we put his sister's to sleep. We tell him he can play with his toys, watch us give his sisters' a bath, or watch t.v. You would think that that would make him happy. Guess again. He just breaks out into tears and cries. He ends up wanting to go to take a bath and go to bed. After enduring this every night for quite sometime, and giving several warnings, I put him in timeout. We've talked to him, compromised with him, distracted his mindset but unsucessful at every option. I needed to break him out of this funk. I felt myself boil up for a few seconds but I found myself relatively calm in this timeout incident. I had even more restraint then the last time I put the bugger in the corner. This time I put a stool in the corner of his bedroom and told him to sit. He was at the top of the stairs and I was in his bedroom. I just kept telling Jadon to come to his room. He, in his usual tantrum, was jumping up and down and screaming "no." I just kept warning to come to me. In his painful cry he would try, in vain, to change the outcome. He would say "go watch t.v.....go watch baby sister take bath...." I was thinking "Sorry kiddo, too late. Your time has come for punishment." So I went and picked him up and plopped him down on his stool. I had to hold his neck and body in place. He's really strong though. I sat there holding him down by his waist. I told him, calmly, that he was staying in timeout until he calmed down. I patted his back gently and kept on reassuring him that as soon as he stopped crying and he was calm, he could come out of timeout and I'd give him a bath. The whole incident lasted ten minutes but I am sure the little tyke felt it lasted forever. After his bath and right before bed, I attempted to talk to him and tell him that there is no reason to cry every single night and that it would only lead him to timeouts and that dadda doesn't like to do that. Whether or not he was taking it to heart is another matter. He just started to tear up again. So I put him to bed and patted his back and wished him a good night.

It just breaks my heart to punish him but someone has to do it. Fiona's too much of a scaredy cat to do it. I'm guessing that over time it gets a little easier to dish out punishments (or perhaps not).

12.07.2005

Gotta Watch My Mouth.

Yesterday, Jadon kept on saying the word loser. He pronounces it "oo-sir." He was saying it around his grandma (I don't think he was calling her one) and he was saying it when we were walking around the mall. So now he's adding it to his repetoire of no-no words ("Funky ass," "Punk."). Last week I think I accidently said "Oh Shit!" and he repeated after me. I think I need to put soap in my mouth. It's not that I curse a lot. Actually I don't do it that much. Fiona actually curses more than I believe it or not.

12.05.2005

Been Too Sick To Blog

The day after Thanksgiving (11/25), Fiona got sick. The following Tuesday (11/29) I came down with something. We're still sick. Ugh. This is the worse that I have seen Fiona sick (outside of mourning sickness). Fortunately though we are on the recovery curve. It's just mostly the coughing. I have relegated myself to sleeping on the couch at nights because Fiona and I tend to make sounds in our sleep when we're sick and it wakes me up. For some reason I don't have a problem napping on the couch but when it comes to sleeping at night, it turns out to be a different uncomfortable experience. Let's just say that it sucks when your sick and you have young kids. No rest at all (or very little of it at least). Poor Vanessa is still sick. She's mostly congested and you can really hear it when she's eating. When I feed her the bottle, she'll swallow-swallow-swallow-take-a-breath-swallow.

Last Thursday, I left early because I was really out of it. I ended up taking sick time off for Friday as well. On Saturday we did some Christmas shopping for the kids (I already finished most of my shopping the prior weekend) and we got our fresh 6' Noble Christmas tree. Jadon was quite excited. I asked him "Do you know what we put on the Christmas tree?" He answered correctly with "lights." That's pretty good considering we didn't put a Christmas tree last year (Fiona was in the hospital under monitoring). We didn't decorate the tree until Sunday. Jadon kept on sniffing the tree and said "smell good."

And now here I am at work blogging. There's probably a lot of little things that I am leaving out that I could blog about but my mind is not 100% to thing about it. Hopefully I can start blogging on a regular basis.