My Journal:

So last Friday was a snow day for both Erika and I, which I wrote about in a previous entry, but I forgot the story that happened during lunch with Liza. We had gone to Burger King and one of the games they had suggested on the Kids Meal paper bag was to play the "Food ABC Game" which to summarize goes something like: Player 1 names a food that begins with A, Player 2 names a food that begins with B, etc. and you keep the game going.

Liza's all like: "yeah, let's play this! I'll go first-- Apples!'
I say: "B-- Bananas!"
And Erika chews her hamburger carefully, then responds, "C-- Cats!"

We try to resist bursting into laughter, and Liza makes a comment about how, y'know, is it culturally insensitive of her to ask if Asians eat cats, and should she question the fact that Erika thinks cats are food...?

I'm like "OMG we do not eat cats!!!!!" **furiously laughing/blushing**

But then yesterday (Tuesday), I was in the car with Brian and Erika, and we're driving to the mall to buy new Stride Rite sneakers for Erika, and we start up the game again, with Brian saying "Applesauce" and I say "Burgers", and then Erika goes "Cats!"

** facepalm **

For the record, other ABC items that Erika considers food: E is for "elk", L is for "lamb chops", R is for "rabbit", S is for "snake", and Z is for "zebra". In fact, I think almost all her food items involved some sort of meat... including cat!

I posted this to Facebook yesterday:

So Brian and Erika spent the late evening until 9 PM at the local speedway, watching car races.
Amelia is an easy going baby, so I played with her feet when she was awake and tried to make her laugh as many times as possible; and when she fell asleep for naps, I cleaned the floors, put away the dishes, scrubbed the pots and pans, etc.

Erika came home around 9 PM, came to give me a kiss, then ran straight for the bathroom, with a fleeting "I need to peeeeeeee....." trailing off as she disappeared around the corner.
Brian was in the kitchen, so I went over to talk to him for a bit.
Erika suddenly came running back, and interrupted with a fearful stream of babbling words. It was virtually incoherent and she was frantic, and I heard something about a "fish worm" and then she gestured with her hands wildly, and finally said: "JUST COME WITH ME AND SEE!!!" while waving her hands.


I followed her to the bathroom, looked in the toilet bowl, and burst out laughing. (Much to Erika's concerned expression.)
There, in the toilet bowl, along with her pee and some toilet paper, lay a dead, half-eaten fish that I had noticed when I was mopping the floors, scooped out of the fish tank, and dumped him in the toilet bowl, and planned to dump the mop water in before flushing, but ended up doing it in a different bathroom, and forgot about the poor dead fish. Until Erika discovered him.

This is not our toilet, but picture something like this, except with a freaked out kid standing next to the toilet.

You see, Erika in her haste to go pee, had jumped on the toilet seat, done her business, and it wasn't until she had wiped and went to flush, that
she noticed the dead fish. So she came to the logical conclusion that she must've peed this "fish worm" out of her body.

While biting my tongue to prevent further laughter, I explained the situation to her, and was met with a not-amused expression.
I basically got this:

And when I finished the story, she said: "Why didn't you flush the toilet, mama?"
I had no response, and still biting my lip to not laugh at this "fish-worm-parasite came out my vagina" story, I said "I dont know... sorry...."

I got another withering "this was not amusing!" look, and she went off to her room. But at least she did not pee out a fish worm.

Erika's grandmother said to her, "I'm sorry I couldn't come to your birthday party."
Erika responded matter-of-factly: "You weren't invited."


Taken at Windansea Restaurant in Highlands NJ; April 13, 2013

I went to pick up Erika at her new daycare today, and all the children had taken off their shoes and left them in the shoe bin by the door, as they had been playing outdoors and the shoes were muddy. Shoeless Erika comes running up to me, excited to leave, holding her lunchbox, Puppy, and running for her jacket. There are two shoebins by the door with an assortment of jumbled shoes tossed in there; I reach in and grab her purple-gray sneakers.

Erika says "ouch! They hurt! You put them on the wrong foot!" I check and the left shoe is on the left foot. Then I notice an identical pair in the other bin, but it looks just a tad too big. I check the sizes-- one pair is a size 11 and the other pair is a size 9-- and in this moment, kneeling by the shoebin, I can't remember what size Erika wears. Both seem like plausible options but I'm immediately transported into a Goldilocks scenario: Erika is complaining that the size 9s are too small, and the size 11s look still a little too roomy for being shoes that are over a month old.

I ask her to wiggle her toes, take them back off to adjust her socks, check the heel of her foot to make sure it went in properly, sizing the shoe up next to her foot to see which one fits better; but I have no answer!  The bottom line is: (a) the shoes she went to school in have reproduced asexually, and (b) now neither one fits as a result of this cloning.

I resort to asking her daycare teachers, and they indicate that the size 9 was in the "3-year old bin" (Erika's class) while the size 11 came from the "4-year old bin", so the smaller one is Erika's. So I throw them on her despite her squawking that the shoes don't fit, and we head out the door. We're halfway to the parking lot when the teacher comes flying out the front door, gesturing for us to return. We walk back (well, really Erika half-hobbles back, like she was shot in the left thigh), and the teacher's holding up a different pair of purple-gray sneakers, which I instantly recognize as Erika's. It's one of those things where, initially looking at only the one option of two identical pairs, they looked like her shoes but clearly were not, but I couldn't put my finger on it; but upon seeing her actual shoes, it's an "ah hah! That's it!" moment. Hard to explain.

See photo evidence above. There were TWO pairs of Oshkosh B'gosh "Dart G" shoes (belonging to a pair of sisters, Laila and Sophia), and one pair of Oshkosh B'gosh "Orbit" shoes (Erika's!). And apparently Erika (or someone else in the school, though it'd be weird to think it was another child) took to hiding her shoes in a different room, all by its lonesome self, by the coat hangers.  And gosh darnit, when I checked the sizes, I had even mentally noted "Oh yeah-- they are Oshkosh shoes-- which is Erika's... why isn't either shoe fitting??!?" and convinced myself if it's the right shoe brand and the right style of shoe and the right color, why is it not fitting?!?! When clearly, the "Dart-G" and "Orbit" look so different. Thanks, Oshkosh B'gosh for your clearly and vastly innovative selection of non-pink sparkly shoes for toddler girls. Erika's shoe size, by the way, is a size 10.

I did laundry when I got off from work today, before I picked Erika up from daycare, so when she came home and saw five baskets of laundry near the door, she asked "Who did our laundry?"

Feeling cheeky, I said: "Oh, pixies must've snuck in and did our laundry for us!"

Erika surveyed the room, turned to me, and very solemnly said: "I dont think so. If you didn't do it, then I think someone else's Mommy snuck in and did the laundry for us!"

Created using Xtranormal Movie Maker

I looked in the mirror today after getting dressed, and thought:

Man, am I going to miss these DD-cup breasts once I'm done breastfeeding!!

They are AWESOME! They make my tummy look flat! My arms look skinny!

I dont want my baby B-cup pre-breastfeeding boobs back!! :(

First and foremost: EVERYBODY IS FINE.

Okay, on to the story. Because this story really exemplifies my mother, really.

My mom wanted to call Malaysia to talk to her cousin, so I helped her dial the phone number and passed the phone to her, but the line was busy. She wanted to try a different number, and instead of dialing it for her, I said: "Dial 011, followed by the country code, and then the phone number."

She punched in the numbers, and then in Chinese, said: "wai? li hai mm hai ah choon, ah?" (translation: "Hello? Is this Ah Choon?") She repeated this twice, then hung up, and looked at the written phone number with a puzzled expression.

I took the phone back from her to dial it for her, when the phone rang. I picked up, and a female on the other side said: "Hello, this is 911. What is your emergency, ma'am?"

"Emergency?!" I said, confused.
"Yes, ma'am, you just called 911. What is your emergency, ma'am?"
"Oh! OH NO! I'm so sorry, my mom misdialed. I'm so so sorry!"
"So you don't have an emergency?"
"No! Oh no, I'm so sorry!" And then I hung up.

I gave my mom a look and told her she'd just dialed 911, not 011!
In case you're wondering-- yes, the buttons on Asian phones are located in exactly the same positions as our American ones...

So I dialed the right number, she got through, and she started chatting away excitedly in Chinese. I go to the bedroom to nurse Erika. Brian had been outside walking the dog, and returns home. Then the doorbell rings.

It's an hour from midnight and we're hardly expecting guests, so imagine our shock when Brian opens the door to a 6-foot-8-inch tall police officer accompanied by a detective, asking if everything is alright! Brian is completely puzzled as I hadn't had a chance to explain it to him yet, and when they tell him that they got a 911 call from our house, my mom walks into the hallway, still chatting away loudly in Chinese. She sees the two large policemen and starts waving her hands, saying "sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry!" (This is all the more hilarious because she came over looking like such a FOB, when she speaks English perfectly, but in her panic, all she could speak was Chinese and say was the word "sorry" over and over again)

The policemen break into large grins, and Brian said they gave him a sympathetic "oh, you poor thing" look before leaving for the night.

The first slide of my PowerPoint lectures just display the chapter and the chapter title; i.e. it may say "Chapter 5. Climate and Biodiversity"

Then on following slides, bulleted lists, animations, graphs, charts, and so forth. However, on these slides, instead of using font size 60, I reduce it to a reasonable font size of around 35 or so.

We started a new chapter today, and the first slide came up.
In SIZE 60 FONT.

Girl yells: "Oooh! I like it big!"

Without thinking, I say: "Don't get used to it. It's not always big, so just deal and pretend you like it."

In a classroom of seniors, there is a short pause, then hilarity ensues and nobody can breathe for a minute because we're all laughing so hard.