Christmas started the weekend before at Aunt Bernice and Uncle Mark’s house in the Berkshires.  It’s great to be away with my Grouchy Husband’s family celebrating the holiday, catching up, and of course eating.  One of the first things Aunt Bernice does when she gets to the house is put up the Christmas tree.

The girls were right at home in the Berkshires.  They love spending time with Cousin Jill.

Cousin Jason and Ilana’s new dog, Roxie, joined us for her first Berkshires Christmas.  She is such a good puppy!

The girls were active participants at present time.

My Baby somehow ended up in one of the present boxes.  Anything is possible for a 16 month old!

The girls had so much fun opening their presents.  My Princess realized this year how wonderful it is to get presents.  It’s not that she didn’t like them before, this year it just came together for her…getting a gift wrapped in fun paper, the anticipation of what’s inside, finding a fun toy to play with or new clothes to wear.

Cousin Jason, Ilana, and Jill loved watching My Baby open her presents.  Babies are sometimes the best form of entertainment.

My Baby was obsessed with the gift tags.  She would stick them on her dress.

Then unstick them from her dress…

And stick them on the tree.

And then clap for doing a good job.  Hooray!

After presents all of our full stomachs attempted to eat dessert.  The Winter Wonderland cake was so beautifully decorated.  My Princess made an apple crisp (last pie in the rectangle pan).  It baked while we were opening presents and smelled wonderful.

Christmas day began in Westchester.   The girls waited patiently for everyone to get up in the morning and my brother to come up from the City.

And within minutes all of the presents were opened and all over the room.

My Grouchy Husband worked the night before.  He stayed awake long enough to see the girls open up most of their presents.

After lunch we headed to Uncle Billy and Aunt Alice’s house in Brooklyn.  This was our Asian-American Christmas dinner…lobster Cantonese, Chilean sea bass in a ginger scallion sauce, shrimp with snow peas, spare ribs with black bean sauce, vermicelli rice noodles, corn casserole, and prime rib.

Chrissy xoxo

After sending last year’s holiday card after the new year, I promised myself I would take care of the card this year right after Thanksgiving.  I can usually disguise my chaotic disaster of a life by wearing makeup, having the girls in clean clothes and hair bows, and remembering to pack the diaper bag.  When your holiday card shows up after New Year’s, there is no disguising the fact you didn’t have it together enough to send a card out the 30 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  But that was last year…now it’s this year and a few days after Thanksgiving, we took the photo for the holiday card.  I chose to take the picture outside because of the natural light (thank goodness it was warm that day).  My Grouchy Husband had to go to work so we had exactly 7 minutes to setup and take the picture (mission impossible?).  The setting for the photo was my Princess’ outdoor kitchen.

A test shot.  As you can see everyone is in the holiday spirit (haha).  Could my Grouchy Husband be any grouchier?

How can he be grouchy holding this cutie pie?

A test shot.  A few adjustments need to be made…camera angle, camera zoom, my backside!

It was a miracle, it only took three shots to get the perfect picture.  Hooray and Happy Holidays!

A Happy Holiday Card on Time Mama,
Chrissy xoxo

The day a woman conceives she enters this invisible battle ground between working and stay-at-home moms.  It’s not a physical battle, rather a battle fought with judgement, and we have built a glass wall between ourselves.  Working moms are judged because they are not the primary caregiver to their kids.  Stay-at-home moms are judged because they have made the choice to leave their careers and be at home raising their kids.  It’s unnecessary and we as women and moms need to stop judging one another and start supporting each other’s child raising decisions. We all love, love, love our children and only want the absolute best for them.

I was a working mom and now I’m a stay-at-home mom.  People ask me all of the time which is harder and the truth is both are equally hard.  When I was working, I had more time to myself at work, but when I came home, it was a whirlwind of tasks, activities, and quality time with my baby.  Now that I’m home, I still have to do the whirlwind of tasks, activities, and quality time with my babies but I have the whole day to do it all and I don’t have the option of canceling or rescheduling any of them so that I can have a few minutes to myself.  Working moms, stay-at-home moms, all moms feel the same way…tired.

Love a very tired once working now stay-at-home mama,
Chrissy

 

This is a typical lunch with my Baby.  She doesn’t talk yet so I have translated her grunts, ooohhhs, and aaahhhs.  I probably should have named this post Spaghetti Shower.

“Mama…I really love spaghetti”

“Can I please have some more”

“Mama…I see something outside”

“Mama!  Look it’s a bird.”

(Me thinking) I can’t look outside right now because all I can think about is how dirty your hands are.

“Mama…I don’t know why you didn’t look outside.  The bird was so pretty.”

“Wow…my hair feels funny with spaghetti sauce in it.”

“Boy do I love spaghetti!”

“Mama…can you please look outside?  The bird is back.”

“Mama…the bird, the bird!”

“Wasn’t the bird so pretty!”

I actually attempted to clean the spaghetti sauce off my Baby with a wash cloth but quickly realized that she needed a full on bath.

Love a mom who should have looked at the birds earlier,
Chrissy

 

I am not a “Tiger Mom” as Amy Chua defines in “The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother”, but because I am Asian, I understand why she parents with no tolerance for failure and an undivided attention to academics and approved extracurricular activities. I too want my children to be prodigies, but will get there in an environment that is focused and includes play dates and a vacation to Disney.  Maybe I am a Buffalo Mother (the buffalo (or ox) comes before the tiger in the Chinese zodiac and is more level-headed and reasonable).

I agree with Amy Chua that “nothing is fun until you are good at it.”  It’s completely logical that you have to invest time to get good at something.   I don’t want to force my girls into something that I consider acceptable, I want them to find something they enjoy, something they are interested and passionate about and want to spend time doing.  Of course, I would love them to like the same passions I have…snowboarding, surfing, golf…it would only be perfect because I could spend time doing my favorite things with my favorite people.  But, my girl’s lives are their own and so are their interests and passions.

This past year my Princess started to really show interests in certain activities.

She loves to cook.  Real food, fake food, in her indoor kitchen, in her outdoor kitchen, any food, any kitchen.

She loves to drive.  She definitely gets this from her father.

She loves to ride horses.  I will secretly live through her if she wants to be an equestrian.

She loves to ride her bike.  It will make my husband’s life if she becomes a BMX rider.

She loves to play golf.

She loves to dance.

She is so creative.

She loves acrobatics.

I started to have anxiety ensuring I expose my girls to their soon-to-be interests and passions.  I have calmed this anxiety with a plan to (1) expose them to a wide variety of activities, (2) be attentive to the ones they enjoy and do the best at, then (3) find the best instructors and facilities to advance their skills.  As a parent who likes to be in control, I am realizing more and more as I go through raising my girls through their different stages of life that not everything will be perfect, not everything will go as planned, and to just do my very best.

Love the Buffalo Mother,
Chrissy

This summer my Princess, my Baby, and my Grouchy Husband and I went to a carnival that was in town for a couple of days.  You could see the carnival on a road I drive by often and everytime my Princess saw it, it made her even more excited to go.  She was so happy the day we planned to go…I love to see her like this.

Even my Baby was happy at the carnival.  She didn’t do much besides a lot of people watching but that was enough fun.

The Tragedy…

The first ride my Baby went on was a train.  It was slow, you could walk faster then this train moved.  She didn’t feel any of the excitement she usually feels on rides so when we asked her if she wanted to ride on the roller coaster, she jumped at the opportunity.  This would be my Baby’s first roller coaster!  It was a mini roller coaster, small enough to take on a traveling carnival.  When it was her turn in line to be measured, she was an inch shorter then the height requirement.  The parents of the other children that were not tall enough ignored the conductor’s warning and let their kids go on the ride.  I was unsure what to do.  Though I should have seen it as a sign when the conductor singled me out to personally tell me that the height requirement is to make sure their arms are long enough to grab the front bar or else they will miss it and get a bloody lip, I ended up giving into the peer pressure from the other parents and let her go on the ride.

The ride starts and within ten seconds it’s too fast and my Baby is crying.  The ride goes around a few times…she is balling.  I am trying to calm her down from behind the gates, but the roller coaster is too fast and she is scared.  The conductor finally sees her crying and stops the ride.  He helps my sobbing daughter out of the car and she has a bloody lip.  He was nice, he didn’t say “I told you so”, which just made me feel worse.

After a lot of hugs and kisses and paper towels, my Baby finally stopped crying and her lip stopped bleeding.  She didn’t want to go on anymore rides but we couldn’t leave the carnival because this tragedy might scare her from going on rides forever…even the super slow train!

After much convincing and her watching the speed of this car ride, she decides to go on.  I think it was the pink sparkly car that really convinced her.  She can’t resist anything that’s pink and sparkly.  My Baby was still a little cautious being on a ride so soon after her tragedy.

After a couple of times in the pink sparkly car the memories (or nightmares) of the roller coaster were gone and she was all smiles on the rides for the rest of the night.

What I learned at the carnival:

• I am the protector…and even if other parents are telling me it’s ok and my daughter is begging me with her puppy dog eyes, I need to trust my gut and always do what will keep my babies safe.
• The height requirement on rides is not phony.  It’s there for a reason and I should abide by it always.
• Don’t create fears.  They will come naturally so I should eliminate as many as possible by creating great experiences.

A parent who survived a tragedy at the carnival,
Chrissy xoxo

One afternoon when we were visiting my parents upstate, I built a fort for the girls using a sheet, some stools and the couch.  This fort transformed the family room into a magical kingdom where Mimi was the princess (of course), I was the queen but somehow had to let Mimi boss me around (go figure), and Moysee was the helper (or at least tried to be).  Moysee was very interested in what went on under the fort.

The blue chair (that is currently turned around) was the throne that Mimi sat in.  The pillows were for Moysee and I to sit on when Mimi was telling us what we had to do.  We had to do things like get Mimi a snack and drink, sing songs, brush her hair…she was very demanding.

Moysee was finally allowed to come under the fort.  She tried to sit on the throne but was quickly shooed away.

Since Moysee was the helper she had to hold up the fort when it started to sag.

We eventually had to stop playing under the princess fort because Moysee kept tearing it down.  I think it was her baby passive aggressive way of telling Mimi she didn’t like being bossed around.  Next time I’ll have to build a fort big enough for two princesses.

Princess fort builder, Chrissy xoxo

Mimi’s first day of preschool was yesterday.  This year, unlike the last two years, she was excited to go back to school.  This will be her third year at the Montessori school so I think that has something to do with it and though I’ve tried my best to make these few weeks in between camp and school fun, I know I can’t compete with hanging out with kids her own age….she’s only 4 and I’m already second best.  This year I decided to buy her little girl trendy clothes instead of little girl cutie clothes.  She looks so grown up in her tissue t’s, skinny pants, slim fit cords, cardigans…I might slip in a velour jumper just to keep her from growing up too fast.

Even with her mary janes she looks all grown up.

This is how she really wants to pose in front of the camera.  Jeff and I both know we are in major trouble when she’s a teenager.  Jeff’s already talking about not being able to handle boys coming to the door or boyfriends.  She’s only 4 so he has a few years to get himself together.

Mimi wanted me to take a picture of her funny pose.  Moysee is Mimi’s best audience…but I guess that’s what little sisters are for.

And she wanted me to take a picture of her dancing with her new shoes.  I love these shoes.  I wish they came in my size and I could get away with wearing them.

Mimi had a great first day of school.  She played in the playground, rode bikes in the bike yard, read a book about a kangaroo, ate trail mix, finished everything in her lunch box, took a nap, and that’s all she could remember.

I love you Mimi.  Don’t grow up too fast.  Love always, Mama xoxo

Tomorrow is Mimi’s first day of preschool and on the eve of this memorable day, I am sharing her pictures from the last day of school last year.  I wish I could share pictures from her first day of school last year but I just had Isabella and totally forgot to take her picture (I was lucky to get her to school close to on time).

Mimi: Mama…do I have to take pictures?
Me: Yes baby, you look beautiful and I am your mom so I have to.

Me: Smile!
Mimi: ok fine…Cheeesssse.
Me: Mimi! That is a totally fake smile. And stand still!

Mimi: ok!
Me: Now smile.

Me: Much better.

Outfit is cleaned and ironed, lunch is packed, nap mat is packed, camera is ready.  We are ready for preschool tomorrow!

Chrissy xoxo