A whirlwind holiday

Whoa -- is Christmas over already? It's been a hectic few weeks! We've been busy:

• Being sick.
• Visiting with Judy, P'ng, and Kaixiang. Having four kids around has put a new slant on our family gatherings. We take comfort in the fact that we'll be able to have a nice, quiet sit-down dinner as an extended family in about fifteen years.
• Going to Talan and Tyler's birthday party. Wei Wei couldn't wait to tell Po Po that he got to see a magician, pet a bird, and got a balloon twisted to look like Elmo.
• Celebrating Christmas. We have no idea where we're going to put all of Wei Wei's new toys. I have a feeling I know the solution: his stuff will continue to take over the house. He loves all of his gifts, but has been spending extra time with the digital camera (he's unfortunately inherited our (lack of an) artistic eye, judging by his photos), Hess truck with motorcycles, crane with power tools, and race track (Jerry had to number the track pieces to be able to put it together again -- apparently we're not smarter than a five year-old).
  
  
  

Complete Wong Throng

Judy, P'ng, and Kaixiang landed last week, so the Wong Throng is represented in totality in New Jersey. Unfortunately, we haven't been the healthiest bunch. We've all been battling a combination of nasty colds, coughs, flus, and stomach viruses. The Leonia branch has had it the worse (everyone has been hit there). Poor Audrey. I really thought that we would have to celebrate the holiday through conference calls.

The only healthy ones have been Jerry and Mom. My theory is that they are too ornery to get sick.

Still, it's been a great time, although it feels a bit more hectic than usual and a lot more logistics to figure out. We were all together this afternoon and it seemed to be mass chaos . . . although maybe it was the sheer quantity of food and the food stupor we were all in.

We should have some good photos and will post some soon . . . hopefully before Memorial Day (ha-ha-ha).

Raising a 16-year old daughter

If, for some reason, Garrick is ever a 16 year-old girl I will be ready. He is currently fascinated with horses. Yep, horses. Specifically, he likes a video on Youtube posted by a 16 year-old girl. The song really makes it something every boy would love.

You really only have to see the first 30 seconds to get the idea.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUJOY7y_8QQ

and his response

Wei Wei watching his video turned out to be more fun than the actual video.

A Christmas Greeting

I was trying to have Wei Wei do a video Christmas card but I ended up with this. We hope to have more soon.

Too much time on our hands

We managed to get Wei Wei into bed at 7:30pm. That's right. 7:30pm! A short list of our activities follows:

1) ate 3/4 of a bag of Smartfood.
2) ate 2 pieces of banana bread (homemade)
3) watched an episode of Project Runway
4) talked to various Wongs on the phone
5) ate a bowl of ice cream
6) surfed the web for great things like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_3Utmj4RPU&feature=related

7) learned that Natasha Bedingfield is a white girl--this has an entire back story
8) played Snood
9) updated the blog

At least he's wearing it

There's been continued interest in underwear (good news). He's worn them to daycare for two days in a row now (good news). He's also told me that he won't use the toilet at daycare -- he only pees in the toilet at home (not-so-good news). And he's kept his word. He's wet his pants both days, though not until after lunch! That's some pretty impressive bladder control.

And we think he's been secretly reading Justine and Vasco's blog, as he's been showing some pretty impressive 'tude lately. Everything seems to be a battle. Jerry and I think we should come up with some sort of scoring system to rank the tantrums and "compete" with the twins and others in a Tantrum Tournament (we could do single-round elimination or a round-robin format).

False glimmer of hope

We're just starting on this journey of toilet-training, I think. While Wei Wei's been using the potty (to pee) here and there, he hasn't shown too much interest in it (or the many things we dangle in front of him as an incentive, though he can recite them all).

After he peed in the potty this morning, out of the blue, he said that he wanted to wear underwear.

Excuse me?
Was this it?
Was this the start?

Nope, only a false alarm. He wore underwear for a total of three minutes (no exaggeration), then wanted a diaper again.

Oh, well.