last thursday took shortie to her gymboree art class.  i figured since she loves coloring all over the place – evidence is on the floors, the walls, the tv, the furniture – she would enjoy going to art classes.  she’s two and so i “forgot” that she doesn’t like to share very much.  the first activity was to play with some play dough on a plastic tray.  she was fine playing with it and doing everything the teacher was instructing them to do but when it came to rolling the dough to other people and giving back the play dough and the tray, she had a fit.  screaming and crying and yelling saying that it was “mine! mine! mine!”  after i finagled the dough and the tray from her little hands, the teacher passed out a huge piece of white paper and some markers.  the first thing we had to do was to trace the baby’s hands so that they could decorate and color the “turkey” with the other markers…  she loved that part so much.  she loved coloring and decorating so much that she got markers all over her hands and her clothing.  thank god gymboree thinks ahead and uses washable markers.  god they’re brilliant…. 

here is the turkey…  can’t you all make it out?  let me try and “decipher” for you..  right in the middle of the page, you can kind of make out the traced hand of mila.  the fingers are all reddish, the body of the turkey is orange, green and brown.  can you see it now?  heehee

after the babies were done drawing and decorating their turkeys, markers were plied out of fingers and the picture was gently taken out of the babies’ hands so that the teacher could display everyone’s beautiful artwork and give them some water and some snacks so they would have energy to create and make their next art project – an apple tree…. 

another piece of white paper was given to all the babies, a rectangular shaped piece of brown construction paper and a glue stick.  i was trying to show shortie how to put glue on the brown construction paper and place it on the piece of paper for the truck of the apple tree.  then the teacher started to put all shapes and sizes of dark green, light green and yellow tissue paper for the leaves and red circles for the apples.  i helped shortie get all the “ingredients” for a awesome apple tree.  she and i together put glue on each individual piece of paper and i asked her where she wanted to place them.  once i placed them where she instructed, we started again with the glue on the paper, etc.  you get the point right?  anyway, the end result was brilliant.  when i showed it to a coworker of mine, she said it looks like a piece of modern art.  and i smiled proudly and said, “why yes it does.  and my two year old made it.” 

isn’t her apple tree just beautiful?  i’m such a proud mommy.

sunday, we previewed the gymboree level 5 core class and she had so much fun pretending and imagining that she was flying around like a butterfly whilst holding two sheer scarves in each of her hands, jumping up and down like a caterpiller on a tree branch,  finding bugs all over the classroom and putting them in a basket and her most favorite part was when the teacher blew soap bubbles and the babies were all jumping up and down trying to catch them and pop them.  i’m glad that i’ve signed her up for these classes since it will give both ed and i a chance to engage with her in some activity together.  hopefully it helps her develop her creativity and her individuality. 

i found out on monday – halloween that a coworker of mine passed away in his sleep.  his son found him a few hours before the director told us.  it really hit me hard because i have worked with him for the past 5 years and he was always the most cheerful person.  he would always ask everyone “what’s going on?” or since i had shortie, he would ask me how i was doing, how motherhood was for me, how shortie was.  the most eerie part of this whole situation is that i had just spoken with him on saturday during the last day of quarter end / year end and now he is no longer here on earth with us. 

i know that life is very fragile.  i see it all the time with my own family – my uncle had a stroke and is in a convalescent home, my grandfather fell and hurt his hip and he is always transferred between the hospital and the convalescent home, my grandmother fell and hurt herself and is walking around with her walker and my other grandmother has cataracts and is starting to forget things when i talk to her.  all these events have made me realize that i need to really enjoy the moment and make the most out of life.  i also realize that i need to relax about stuff and not to sweat the small stuff because in the end those things i seem to get irritated by don’t really matter.  i’ve been in such a melancholy state and i know it’s affecting me because of everything.  i need to remember to love mila and ed a little more each day, not to get irritated or snap at them for things that really don’t matter, to let them and my family know even when i’m mad that i love them and they mean so much to me.  i know such is the circle of life, so i want to make sure i do all i can to make sure i did my best each and every day. 

R.I.P. my friend Bruce Carney…..

happy halloween everyone. mila, ed and i just got back from ta dashee. for those of you who don’t understand mila-nese that’s “trick ortreat”. we went across the street to the huge shopping center we liveacross from and went to a few stores to “ta da shee” for candy. ireally don’t think she understood what we were doing or what she wassupposed to do because everytime anyone let her pick candy from thecandy bowl, she would either just stare at the bowl or just keep onfilling her bunny basket with candy. and then at the end she would say”bye bye” or “ta da shee”. i didn’t think she would understand but itwas fun watching her walk around in her fairy princess costume withwings and get candy from store to store. i have to say for only goingto a few stores, mila made out with a lot of candy and “ollipops”…needless to say, she is trying to have a taste of all the candy thatshe acquired. it’s going to be a long and interesting sugar high fillednight.

here is mila getting ready to go “ta da shee”ing….
 

      posing in front of borders with some of her candy

mila has a new baby. we got her on sunday, along with two baby bottles and an umbrella stroller. it’s amazing what mila does with her baby. she strolls her around the house, stops to feed her baby, hold and talk to her. i can’t believe how much she tries to imitate everything we do with her. i guess i better more cognizant of what i say and do around her because she is going to pick those “habits” up – good or bad.

after my interesting girls night out outing, dawn and i took the kids to the pumpkin patch near the house.  i have lived in the area for about 8 years and never went before.  it’s on this huge plot of land off the freeway going towards the dumbarton bridge.  it’s actually really cool to go and search for a pumpkin to carve at home later.  afterwards we went by the house to pick ed up and headed over to the “haunted house” right across the street from my house.  there are so many things that i was not aware of that are totally kid related.  i guess i have a lot to learn from dawn.  heehee.

i finally have some pictures from mila’s second birthday that my cousin eleanor took…

                                  blowing out the candle on mila’s dora cake….

mila the only baby dancing along with chuck e. cheese

the dora cake from safeway.  so yummy…    buttercream frosting on white cake with raspberry filling in the middle…..  mila had one slice and she was bouncing off the walls at chuck e. cheese.  by the time the party was over and everyone was ready to leave, she seriously fell asleep in ed’s arms at the front door of chuck e. cheese as we were about to walk to the car.  she passed out for about 2.5 hours at home.  LOL.

this is a recent picture of the familia…..  mila aka shortie, me and ed. 

omg, a friend just sent this link to me.  apparently tom cruise and katie holmes are going to be parents soon.  let’s hope that katie holmes doesn’t get postpartum depression.  if she does, tom knows what to do since he is so well versed in female health issues – he’ll just tell her to take some vitamins and exercise….

http://et.tv.yahoo.com/newslink/etsid48750012733/

   *hugs* shammy…..

chicago…  i should have updated along time ago but i didn’t have any pictorials to illustrate myentry…  so basically, here are some highlights from my trip:

• got in saturday evening, headed to portillo’s to have an italian beef sandwich – to my surprise it was actually pretty good since ed always raves about it and how much he misses it
• got ready to go out saturday nightafter putting shortie down and headed to the ghostbar, then had an adventure trying to get to victor hotel – jerry swearing that the next street is sangamon, caroline yelling at everyone to “shut up!”, driving for what seemed like an hour down w. randolph st. looking for 311 n.sangamon and passing harpo studios (omg! it’s the oprah’s studios!) and finally asking a cabbie where the hell n. sangamon is only to find outthat it was the street after peoria, i think  
• limo ride from victor hotel to wet
• finally have a chance to dance at wet…  to “bebot” and ed twirling me around and me running like a headless chicken just to catch up to him
• eating gyros in greektown….
• mila freaking out by indy the dog and mila’s revenge by throwing indy’s squeaky toy at him (LOL!)  
• ed taking us on a tour of chicago…   and passing oprah’s residence… omg, i think i just peed my pants!!!!  
• eating hella flip food courtesy of ed’s mom & catering that iris bought
• sears tower!  awesome views of chicago
• wrigley field
• checking out where ed used tolive…  only to find out that the apt he lived in wrigleyville was on fremont st. and ironically, he now lives in fremont, ca with me and shortie.. 
• shopping on michigan ave. okay, so i only bought some stuff at h&m but damn it, they don’t have that store in cali, yet 
• giordano’s pizza… yummy.  we brought a whole pizza back home, hehe…. 

                                                   limo ride from victor hotel to wet…..

ed and i chilling at the victorhotel……