By my own account, last Thurs. was a bad day. I know I spent too much of my time yelling at the girls. After the girls went to bed, as I reflected on how the day went, I realized that I needed to loosen up a bit or else neither I nor the girls were going to survive the weekend. I resolved to not be so uptight the remainder of the weekend. It worked for the most part.
Friday, I took the girls out to the Minnesota Zoo for what was left of the morning and early afternoon. We'd just gotten to the zoo and were headed towards Discovery Bay when I thought I spied someone I knew out of the corner of my eye. I did a double-take and there was my cousin's daughter! A very unexpected coincidence. I assumed she was there with her preschool/daycare program. I said hello to her and so did the girls. We went off to explore Discovery Bay. Unfortunately, the dolphin show was on temporary hiatus due to the introduction of two new dolphins to the existing pair. I felt bad for the girls because they LOVE the dolphin show.
Then we headed over to the Tropics Trail. The girls had fun wandering through there. Though, I kind of freaked as two male gibbons proceeded to tussle with each over territory and dominance which happened to include dry humping each other along with slap fighting and chasing. Thankfully, the girls didn't ask about the dry humping because I have no f'in clue how I would have answered that question.
After the Tropics Trail, we headed to the food court for lunch. We had just sat down for lunch when I saw my cousin. That explained why her daughter was at the zoo. So, we had lunch together (with her friend and her friend's kids). It was a very nice coincidence. Completely unexpected.
We spent a little bit of time playing in a room where the kids can dress up in animal costumes and whatnot. While we were in there, two zoo volunteers came in with a rabbit that the girls got to pet and stuff. Then we went home.
Saturday was pretty mellow. Shelly had a class to teach so I took the girls to Chipotle (surprise! Not!) for lunch. When we got back, Sophie took a nice long nap and I let Julie try out the "Moon Sand" castle playset that we bought for the girls. Though, again, I think I was too tough on her about getting sand out of the inflatable sandbox and onto the floor. Might explain why she said she was done much earlier than I expected.
Sunday was kind of a gloomy day. We spent it mostly indoors. I got a brief break from home in the afternoon and went over to St. Paul to check out Familia Skateshop. I've been getting their email newsletter for awhile now and finally got around to checking out the store itself. Nice little shop. I managed to avoid buying another pair of shoes. (Those Adidas Stan Smith Skates in navy, "running white", and "sun" were so tempting!) I guess they're also one of the shops (or maybe the only shop) in the area to get US-bound limited edition Nike SB stuff, too. Not sure if it's good that I know that or not.
We also had another Skype video chat with my brother and his fiancee. That was nice too. They got to see the girls a little bit (even if the girls were total goof balls).
One thing about the past few days. Since Shelly was taking it easy, it meant we ate out more often than we usually do. Mostly because I wasn't going to do much cooking. I think the girls liked that.
I think we should be back to "normal" around the house now. Hopefully, that also means I get back to playing more video games, too.
It's all very cute. But, I miss those days of having privacy. I mean, I've gotten completely used to having an audience when I'm on the can and all (sad but true). But I look forward to the day when this gets a bit too embarrassing for all parties involved.
- Music:boxcutter "sunshine v.i.p." from "oneiric"
Here's my brother with Sophie
We didn't have much free time before we had to be at the church because we left breakfast so late in the morning. I put in a call to Griffith Park hoping that things were opening back up. It was close enough that if we could do a little bit of sightseeing there, we'd be able to kill some time that didn't involve just sitting in the hotel room staring at each other. Luckily, Travel Town Museum at Griffith Park was open!
We got there and started walking around. We found a very expansive model train layout. I'm not sure what scale it is, I think it might be an N-scale layout.
Unfortunately, it wasn't really running. The people in the room looked like they were getting things up and running again. I'm guessing that they packed up and hauled what they could out of there due to the recent fires. So, while some of the model trains were running, they would stop them frequently as they tested out portions of the track. I'd love to see this when it's fully operational. It must be a pretty impressive sight to behold.
We also took Julie on a ride on the miniature train that circles the perimeter of the park. Julie was pretty psyched about that
All aboard!
On to lunch. If there's one reason my parents will come to LA, it's for the Korean food. This time around, they had to have naeng myun. So, we went back to Il Mi and had it for lunch.
Sophie seemed to like it just fine
Back to the hotel to get cleaned up and changed for the wedding. Here's a picture of Julie in her flower girl dress with my cousin, the bride
Here we all are dressed up
Here's Julie with my other cousin, JK (the bride's sister)
The wedding was just fine and Julie did a superb job as flower girl. There was a stretch of time between the wedding and dinner at the reception. Our kids were getting hungry and apparently some of the other little kids at the wedding were too
That container of snacks was empty in about 15 minutes. Scary. I'm glad I still have my fingers.
Here's my mom keeping Sophie entertained during the long wait for dinner
It was late when dinner came. Julie was completely loopy as was Sophie. Once we got through dinner and dessert, it was much too late for the girls (9pm). We left the reception early, headed up to the room, and we all crashed.
It was a long day.
The 11th was a Friday. In the morning, we packed up our belongings, loaded them into our rental, and checked out of the Econo Lodge. The place was fine enough for the price, though, I was bothered by the spots of mold on the ceiling over the shower. Ewww.
No matter, we would be checking in elsewhere later in the day.
After a 4th consecutive breakfast at IHOP in Glendale:
we headed off for Santa Monica and the Santa Monica Pier. We wanted to take the girls to the beach even though it might be too cold for them to go swimming.
Here we are at the pier
We let the girls ride one of the coin operated rides by the arcade:
And then we decided to let Julie ride a few more because we had time to kill
until Julie got sick of it
We took the girls down to the beach and ate a lunch that Shelly had packed. Then I took Julie down to the water to test it out
while Sophie looked on
It was pretty windy that day on the beach. The water was cold! And yet, there were people swimming! Crazy, I tells ya!
We hung out for a bit, waiting for my brother and his fiancée to arrive. Well, it got later and later and we started to leave because we had to check in at our new hotel and get the girls cleaned up for the wedding rehearsal that evening. Of course, that's when my brother and his fiancée show up! So, we left the beach and got back on the freeway to go to the Hilton Garden Inn.
We got to the hotel, checked in, and got up to our room. Shelly said that the person at the desk mentioned a "mountain view". This is what we got
Not bad.
Here are the girls dressed and at the wedding rehearsal
The rehearsal ended but it was getting way too late for the girls. We weren't going to make the rehearsal dinner. So, back to the hotel room. We ordered room service. Always a fun little perk when travelling.
Not sure if you can tell in that picture, but Julie is very tired.
After dinner was over, it was off to bed!
The best thing about the Hilton over the Econo Lodge, no noisy in-room AC unit making it harder for me to sleep!
Sweet, sweet sleep!
Shelly went shopping on Sat. morning with a friend so I had the girls to myself. While Julie played, Sophie did this:
They're so cute (and easier to deal with) when they're asleep!
Sunday was pretty laid back, too. We basically hung out around the house and then decided to go out for dinner.
I did make one trip out on Sunday. I went to the cemetery where my maternal grandmother is buried. When I used to attend church, it was an Easter Sunday tradition to go out to the cemetery for a brief worship service. I hadn't been out there the past few years. So, I made a brief "visit". One of the interesting things out there is that my parents' church commissioned an art installation for the area where church members have plots. It's a piece called "The Garden of Eden" (I think) by Michael Joo. It looks like this:
All in all, it was a quiet weekend. The only thing that really ruined it was that I woke up on Saturday morning with my back in pain. I'm not even entirely sure what I did to end up like this. It pretty much meant shelving my plan to brew up another batch of homebrew. Carrying around a 6 gallon glass jar full of liquid probably isn't good for a bad back.
Why am I posting this? Oh, yeah! It's because I think I found Julie's perfect companion. Meet one of the new members of the Uglydoll family, TooDee:
Why is he perfect for Julie?
TooDee is curious about everything. If he had a nose, it would be in everything. What's this? What's that? TooDee's questions drive Jeero up the wall. We all know how much Jeero loves questions. So TooDee is going to be looking to you for all the answers. When you're pretending [to] have them all, be sure to keep a straight face and look TooDee right in the eyes.. or at his three front teeth. Oh and TooDee likes Grape Drink. No Question about that. (He's purple.)
The link for TooDee I've included is for the small size.
Sophie and Hafsa
Hafsa is the youngest daughter of friends of Shelly's (ours). They also have one older daughter. Both girls are roughly the same age as Julie and Sophie.
Julie and Sophie in their hanboks
I don't have a clue why Sophie looks like she's either freaking out or trying to make a poo.
Julie helping Sophie out
We've recently had to box up a lot of the toys that the girls (mostly Julie) play with. Most times, she would toss the toys out on the floor and then wander off and do something else. She also wouldn't pick any of them up. It's just a small example of larger behavior issues we're having with Julie. We've made it clear that if her behavior and attitude with regards to the toys improves, some more will come back out.
It sucks if we have other kids over to play. On the bright side, our living room is much less cluttered than it has ever been.
- Music:DJ Krush "Trihedron (feat. OPUS) [Stray Mix]" from "Stepping Stones: The Self-Remixed Best"
On Sat., I decided to make a quick jaunt over to the local Home Depot. I had to exchange a filter for our furnace (bought the wrong size). Since it was colder than Antarctica, we had been hunkered down at home. I figured taking Julie with me would be a good chance to stave off her cabin fever.
So, after getting her bundled up, we drove over to Home Depot. We were wandering around the store (I can't seem to got to Home Depot without wandering around a little bit), when Julie said, "I have to go potty." I asked her a second time just to make sure. She said yes and panic promptly set in.
I don't know if the females who might be reading this are aware but finding a fairly clean public restroom for men can be a crap shoot. Normally, it's not a big deal if you're just going in for the quick pee. And, normally, I don't even give it a second thought. But, this time, I had to. As we entered the men's room, I was silently praying that there would be at least one stall that was clean enough for someone to sit on it. Luckily, they all were! So, we picked the middle stall, and I sat Julie down and knelt down in front of her to talk to her.
A few moments after we got into the stall, someone else came in, entered the stall next to us, and proceeded to make all manner of noises as they did their "business". I was praying that Julie would not comment on the noises, etc. coming from next door. I've pretty much gotten used to having an audience when I'm going to the bathroom at home. Not that I enjoy it. But, when you're home alone with a toddler or pre-schooler, it's not like you can just shut the door. They can get into a lot of trouble in just a few minutes. But, obviously, not everyone has to deal with that. Luckily, Julie made no embarrassing comments. She had a false alarm so I got her dressed again, held her up so she could wash her hands, and then we high-tailed it out of there before the other guy came out.
But, it does make me think that I need to be a bit more prepared the next time I leave with Julie. She isn't completely toilet trained yet so there's always the possibility of an accident. I don't deal well with emergencies. So, I need to be more prepared.
So, lessons learned:
- At least the Home Depot by our house has relatively clean men's restrooms.
- I need to be more prepared for "accidents" when leaving the house with Julie in tow.
- Music:Madlib "Interlude" from "Mind Fusion Vol 4 Bootleg"
I'm watching the commercials on [AS]'s website and I can't shake the feeling that this looks just like one of the DVDs my brother had given to Julie when he last visited the States. But, I only knew of the character as "jjang-goo".
So, a bit more digging and looking at DVD covers over at YesAsia.com and, yup, they are one and the same!
Now, if I remember correctly, I don't think the episodes on the DVD(s) we were given had any of the ass-baring scenes like the ones in the [AS] commercials. Lucky for us because we used to let Julie watch that DVD. We haven't in awhile because we decided that without knowing what was going on in the cartoon (the DVDs were in Korean with no subtitles), we couldn't really let Julie continue to watch it.
- Music:HALCALI "Halicali Sensation" from "HALCALI Bacon"
I was showering this morning and the shower in our upstairs bathroom is on the small side. Basically a 3' x 3' x 8' space. I went to raise my arm (no, I wasn't going to wave it like I just don't care) and proceeded to knock over one of my wife's shampoo or conditioner bottles. It's a heavy thing and it fell and landed on my foot. On my little toe to be exact.
Now, my toe is sore and, man!, it feels like it did when I broke that toe several years ago. I hope I didn't break it again. That would suck.
In other news, I'm lucky enough to go away for the weekend with a few of my best friends. It's become a yearly tradition that started a few years ago. Just the guys.
While it's nice to get away for a few days and know that my only responsibilities will be to stay fed, drink plenty of beer, hang out, and have some fun, I still feel this huge amount of guilt at leaving Shelly with the girls for an entire weekend. Mainly it's because I can't reciprocate the gesture since Sophie isn't weened yet.
So, I'll go away and have fun. But, I will wonder at least a few times whether things are going OK at home or not. I'll miss them all. Without a doubt.
- Music:POLYSICS "Kaja Kaja Goo" from "Polysics Or Die!!!!"
We had rented a hotel room for the night but decided to come home instead. Which was fine, too, in the end. But, we ended up getting home around 11pm. Julie fell asleep on the 2 hour drive back but she woke up as I carried her into the house and up to bed. So, she probably didn't really go to bed until 11:30.
Having a rare day off from work that isn't tied to a holiday was nice, too. It was strange though. My wife kept suggesting that I do some "me" stuff. But, at least as of late, I've been so used to taking time off work to do work around the house that I was kind of stuck for what to do. So, I tried to make some progress in getting rid of lots of audio CDs that I no longer am interested in taking up precious space. The only problem now is that my DVD burner appears to have decided to stop burning DVDs. It seems to burn CDs without any problems and can still read CDs and DVDs, too. Grrr...
Monday means that Shelly has a knitting class so she left for that in the afternoon. While Julie ate dinner, I fed Sophie some milk. She promptly fell asleep so I put her in the crib. I prayed that she would stay asleep through Julie's bedtime routine because I knew that when she woke up she would be hungry and it always takes a few minutes to get the milk warmed up and bottled. It's nearly impossible for me to feed Sophie and read a book to Julie at the same time. Many nights when I'm alone with the kids, it's impossible for me to even sit and read stories to Julie while holding Sophie.
Wouldn't you know it, Sophie woke up right as Julie was brushing her teeth. So, I tried to get storytime in while holding the baby but she wasn't having none of it. OK. Went downstairs to start thawing milk. Went back up stairs to try and read some more to Julie (and at least keep an eye on her). Went back downstairs to find the milk had leaked out of a cut in the bag into the water I was using to thaw the milk. Tossed it out and had to start over from the beginning with the milk. Sophie was getting more and more upset. Julie, though, was putting up with this admirably. She either sat in her bed and "read" to herself or she played. By this time, Sophie was so upset that I found it nearly impossible to calm her down enough to eat. Which just made her more upset. Voila! A nice feedback loop!
I finally managed to get Sophie calmed down enough while sitting on our bed. Julie was walking around on our bed and keeping Sophie entertained. That helped a lot! Seriously. Sophie always smiles when she watches Julie doing something. So, things seemed to be getting better until Julie fell off the bed.
I heard her hit one of the nightstands and she was crying hard face down on the floor. As I went to pick her up, I was praying that there would be a bruise and no blood. Much like how everything else went that evening, it was just not my night. As I picked her up and turned her over, I see blood. All over her hands and on her pajama top. Julie's crying and asking, "What is that?" repeatedly about the blood all over her. I barely managed to not completely freak out at this point. In my head, I did say a hearty, "Motherf*ck!" I ran and grabbed some tissue and started wiping the blood off her face because I couldn't tell where it was coming from. She had a small but deep gash right above her right eye (towards the end of her eyebrow). I did my best to calm Julie down and prayed that Shelly would be home soon. I think I heard her walk through the door about 5 minutes after all this happened. I yelled for her to bring up bandages, an ice pack, and to prepare herself. I'm sure it wasn't a pretty sight when she walking into our bedroom -- Julie's pajama top and my t-shirt spattered with lots of blood and all.
Needless to say, we ended up going to the ER to have it looked at. Julie was doing OK initially. She was calm while an RN took her measurements and while we waited to actually get her looked at. But, once we got called back to the urgent care room to have this looked at, she became scared. The doc decided to put in two stiches so it required that I hold a numbing agent over the area for 15 minutes which Julie didn't like. Shelly and I sat right next to her to try and keep her calm. Everytime a staff person came in the room, Julie got scared and would ask a billion questions. Finally, it was time for the doc to do the actual work. They put Julie in a "Papoose". It's basically a board with straps to restrain children (for their safety as well as the staff's). Julie was scared about all of that more so than the stitches. The docs put in the stitches and got her cleaned up. We eventually got released and home by a little after 11pm. Shelly gave Julie a cute little monkey bandaid to cover the stitches and then read her one last story before turning the lights out.
Shelly said that Julie seemed just fine by the time she went to bed. Me, I still feel horrible. Shelly says that it's not my fault and that it could have happened even if she had been around. It was obviously an accident and it's why we constantly tell Julie to not jump on the bed, etc. But, I still feel like it's my fault. Probably because I'm the parent and I'm supposed to be looking out for her well being.
Boy, this makes for a nice run-up to Father's Day, no?
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