2010-06 Father’s Day from Ether L on Vimeo.

Work-wise, he hasn’t been getting as many hours this year. Things have slowed down even more since a big project (a 2-year long project) that he was involved in is coming to an end in July. It was good in a sense that his work schedule and his awesome boss were flexible enough that he could basically take as much time off as needed. He was even able to work from home on many of the days that Kaitlyn was sick and had to stay home or go see the doctor. With the reduced hours, he’s even able to occasionally do the dishes, cook early dinners, and get grocery. Occasionally.

However, now that things are back to normal, he’s in the lookout for either more freelance work or a more stable full-time job again, here or elsewhere.

So this is what happened. My old pal Patrick happened to come down from Boston that weekend. He stayed with us for a couple of days, so we, along with Diane & Nancy, went to Ave U & had dim-sum/lunch that morning. After that, Patrick wanted to go into the city & do some shopping. “We” tried to invite him to go to dinner with us, but he insisted on us going by ourselves. Of course, I later found out that he knew about the surprise dinner all along. Both Melanie & him were just playing along when I was trying to get him to come to dinner with us.

So we went home & decided to take a nap before dinner. At that time, I still didn’t know where Melanie was “taking” me to dinner, but it didn’t really matter to me, so I didn’t ask.

By around 6, we left the house. Since I was the one driving, Melanie had to act like a GPS, tell me where to go, turn by turn, without giving away the final destination.

So we got on the Belt Parkway, everything was fine, but then all of a sudden Mel started to complain about stomach pain. She pretended to pretend to act OK, but was soon taking deep breaths! We “happened” to have just gotten off of the highway, so I asked her if she knew of any place that has a restroom she can use, since we were at least another 15 minutes away from where she told me the next turn is. So she “suggested” Diane’s place & I said let’s call her & see if she’s home. (Of course she was!) She said no problem, but wants us to bring Kaitlyn in so that Mr Kwok can see her.

Mel jumped out of the car before it came to a complete stop. Diane was outside already. I pulled into the driveway, took Kaitlyn out, & followed Diane up the steps & into the house, & that was it——SURPRISE!

Here are some pics from that day:

Here’s a video of Kaitlyn having fun with her friend Darion at the party:

*more videos on YouTube

They are things that she took from grocery stores (which we returned afterward) back in June & August.

What’s next, you ask? Well, how about swearing?

WARNING: If this is a hollywood movie, it would be rated PG-13 because of what Kaitlyn appeared to have said in it. Cover your young children’s ears or put on some headphones before playing this video. You’ve been warned! If your kids start saying the same bad word out loud at church or at your in-laws’, don’t blame us!

What are we going to do??!

*more videos on YouTube

From looking at our last post, we realized that we haven’t updated this thing for almost 2 months now! Our daily readership has probably gone all the way down from the 40s to 2 a day by now; one loyal “reader” being my parents’ computer, since its web browser’s home page is set to our blog, and the other would be my sister.

Since school started 2 months ago, Kaitlyn has had the cold 3 times, Mel got sick once for a week or so, and I got sick once for a day (weird). So, that’s why we have been kind of unavailable to put up new posts.

But today, since I’m home again with Kaitlyn because she has a cold, I decided to finally write something during her afternoon nap. As a bonus, here’s a video of her during her first couple of weeks at school. Enjoy!

*more videos on YouTube

Here’s the highlights. Enjoy!

*more videos on YouTube

Here’s a list of what she can or would do right now, and she learned a lot of it in the past 2 months.

• - say “ma-ma” & “ba-ba”
• - say both “maah-MA” & “paw-paw” (refer to “grandma” on both sides)
• - say “be-Be” (when she sees herself or babies)
• - say “hi” & wave (when she’s been told to or when she sees a friendly face)
• - say “yay” & clap (when she hears people say “yay” or clap, whether in person or on TV)
• - say “bye” & wave (when she sees people putting on coats & jackets)
• - say “nigh-nigh” (means milk)
• - say “ba-bao” (means bread; which should be pronounced “bao-bao”, but she says this basically whenever she sees any kind of food)
• - say “ba-bo” (means she want you to pick her up; which should be pronounced “po-po”)
• - say “mum-mum” (when she wants food in general)
• - say “Dees” (means “George”, but she just can’t say it; whenever she sees “Curious George”, monkeys, or any brown stuffed animals)
• - say “rau-rau-sh” (when she sees dogs or just animals that walk on all fours)
• - say “Ahh-ma, ma, ma, ma…” (means “Amen”)
• - say “tick-ku, tick-ku, tick-ku” (means “tickle”)
• - do a “raspberry”
• - blow kisses weirdly, upon command (using the back of her hand)
• - give people a wet, open-mouthed kiss on the cheek
• - dance (shake her head and/or hip side to side violently & stomp her feet; when she hears music or anything with a beat, even to the beat of trains running over a loose track in the subway station)
• - drink from a sippy cup, a straw, or just a regular cup instead of a bottle
• - play “peek-a-boo” with you
• - play “deem-chong-chong”
• - say “yai-yai” (means “naughty”)
• - say “nah-nah, nah-nah…” (which should be “no, no”; when we tell her no & she doesn’t like it)
• - pretend to give you her finger food & then take it back and then laugh at you
• - point to her nose (when you ask her where her “bei-bei”/nose is)
• - cover her ear & say “hi” (that’s her version of talking on the phone)
• - say “bees” softly with a smile (which should be “please”; when she wants something from you)
• - pat her belly (when you ask her where her “tou-dum”/belly is)
• - lie down on the changing pad when we say to her “fun-dai”/lie down (it’s still a work-in-progress; she usually ended up lying next to the pad; I have more success than Mel does at this point)

So you see, I think it’s quite a list of accomplishment for a 14-month old, and you really can’t say having a full-time mom with her has nothing to do with it!

To further prove my point, here’s a video clip taken by Melanie, with Kaitlyn showing off some of what she can do. She pretty much did whatever Mel wanted, because she just wanted to be picked up.

Here is another video of Kaitlyn snoring in her stroller at church: