Roasted Duck & My Thought

Uncle Louis last night treated us with his roasted duck together with a mixed vegetable plater. They were delicious.

Whole day, we talked about our Lee’s family past and present, including a lot of our family dark side. Well, some of them, you probably know. By looking back, it was dangerous close to total disaster for me. Maybe, Mom unconscientiously helped me a lot. She probably did not realize that. Of course, maybe, it was me. I got to give me some credits 🙂

I think , upstreams are only a couple of inches away along the continental divide (ie., critical moments). But, the downstream outlets are miles apart.

Chicago

Well, you are in Chicago area with Uncle Louis. He is preparing a duck for dinner tonight.

Tomorrow, we will stay with a Mom’s long time friend in Chicago. She was a buyer for many department stores for a long time. She knew all the stuffs in a department store, fairly interesting person with a lot of store buying & selling experience.

After that, we are heading to Washington DC and SC. Happy Chinese New Year to all of you.

Therapy.

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We went to Edda’s physical therapy today. I thought it would be an uplifting session, everyone encouraging and optimistic and hopeful – we’d finally start on Edda’s individualized physical / occupational / speech therapy plan. But instead it was kind of depressing. They assessed Edda at about the 9 month-old level and that we’re suppose to start working on the 10 month-old milestones. It’s discouraging that she’s more than a year behind on her development and not yet two. All this stuff that is suppose to come naturally to kids I’m suppose to spend hours teaching Edda. It’s been such a mind warp to think about staying home with the kids full time and enough to think about homeschooling in general, but when you have to teach eye-contact skills for hours, it’s really pretty much a bummer for me!Might as well throw a pity-party for myself – where’s the gin and tonic?

OK these are the things I get to work on this week:

  • Peek-a-boo
  • Take peter rabbit or a favorite toy and she has to look at me first and then I give it to her.
  • Object permanence which means that she has to remember that something is there when she can’t see it. Hide Peter Rabbit under a blanket and ask “Where’s peter?”
  • More physical play, swing her around more.
  • Putting things that she wants out of reach and waiting for her to indicate that she wants them.
  • Getting a push toy to help her walk.
  • Getting her to feed herself more.

Bummer.

IOWA

Well, tonight, we stay at Davenport, IO. It iss pretty modern that along Iowa highway 80, all the rest areas have the wireless internet connection.

Iowa has a lot of hilly farmlands, not as flat as I thought.

We visited John Wayne’s birthplace, those covered bridges in Madison County that were in the movie featured Clint Eastwood (?) and President Herbert Hoover’s birthplace and his burial site in West Branch, IO just west of Davenport.

Guess what, Mom even won $38 in the casino along route 80 called Prairie Meadows.

My house is a disaster area. Please call FEMA.

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This is what my house looks like a lot of the time. Why is the bicycle in the middle of the living room? Well, I had to bring it inside before it got fogged with pesticide which kills mosquitos and prevents us all from having dengue fever. Vince has been playing “fort” which he, unfortunately pronounces it “fart”. Sigh.

Such a beautiful day!

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The light was so nice today, such a change from the stormy weather we’ve been having for about a month now. I took a picture of myself while waiting with Edda for the MRT. Kate and I have a weekly morning get together while Vince is in school.