Kiki is here.

Katherine made it to our apartment at 2 am last night. Ruby was so excited to see her that she jumped and jumped and one of her claws caught her skin and tore a little bloody hole. Ruby… bad girl.

The kids were really excited to see Katherine in the morning. Vince more obviously than Edda, but Edda did seem quite content to have Katherine feed her breakfast.

We dropped Edda off at school where Katherine got to sit in on her class for a little bit and then – guess where we went! TO THE SCIENCE MUSEUM! AGAIN! This time Vince had to introduce the whole thing to Katherine. It was fun. Here’s us in the helicopter. I tried to get Vince, but I missed.

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We did other stuff too, eat at the prata shop, go swimming, eat macaroni and cheese.

I used to not mind being at home by myself when Jeremy traveled, but now I’m a bit off my game, so I’m glad that Katherine is here to keep me company..

Don’t rain on my parade.

Today I am a bit blue. No hubby here and I feel like crap. I’m not
sick enough to stay in bed and I’m not really well enough to be
walking around and climbing 4 flights of stairs. Blah, blah, blah!
Vince and I went to the science museum again today. Today we flew
helicopters.
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When we left to go pick Edda up, it was pouring and I parked in
the furthest (farthest?) spot in the lot. We ran and ran to the car
laughing the whole time getting incredibly soaked. No worries. He
ran into Edda’s classroom to sing the last songs with the class and
the teachers saw how wet he was and mopped him up with a towel, took
off his wet shirt and found a spare one to lend him! They are more
prepared than me…

Cat (food) burgler.

Jeremy leaves for Germany tonight. He was sweet enough to book the
midnight flight out of Singapore so he could be home for dinner and
help put the kids to bed. I just hope for a week when no one gets
sick! He also stayed home today to prepare which allowed me to sneak
a few hours out by myself this afternoon to hang and chat with Kate
at her house which was fabulous because 1) I love hanging and
chatting (especially if it’s Kate), it really is the best thing to do
and I do so little of it with anyone else besides Jeremy and 2) it
will be 24/7 with the kids for a while.
Today, Edda started summer school which is 2 hours long instead of
the regular 3. As Vince and I walked out of her school to go eat our
daily prata, I noticed a few signs posted at in front of different
shops, each one saying:
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I was confused. Do people throw away cat food on the sidewalk? I
had never seen any cat food anywhere around Edda’s school. I just
thought it was a funny sign, so I took a picture of it. I am strange
this way. But then, 6 hours later, on the way home from my friend’s
house, miles away from where I took the picture of the sign, I see
this:
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Look! Right beneath these bikes, I cute little pile of cat food!
Ahhh, the cat food litterer must be traveling fast!

Pooping in the bushes.

Well, no photos of the kids today, somehow the camera stayed in my
purse all day. So I’m posting a picture of my sock pal Nancy’s feet
wearing the socks I knit for her. She sent a very kind email to me
thanking me for the socks which was much appreciated because I think
I underperformed. I ordered the yarn online and I thought the colors
were a little bit more subtle than they turned out, also I’m not such
a talanted knitter that I can say that there were no issues with
handiwork, but I did come through in the end and complete the pair.
So there.
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We went on our Sunday afternoon date again, it’s very nice to have
a few hours during the day without dragging the kids along. We just
got some coffee and ate lunch at a restaurant without the
whining/crying and ordering of the blandest/whitest food on the menu
and then browsed some shops. Nothing very exciting by anyone else’s
standards, but exciting enough for us. At some point, I asked Jeremy
for permission to use the potty because it usually has a hidden
meaning of, “Can I leave you a moment with two unpredictable
kids by yourself so I can pee?” But then I realized that I
didn’t have to ask for permission, because, hey! No kids! and I just
got up to find the toilet.
After dinner, we went to the park where there was one little boy
wearing no pants, which was a little strange but OK. But then later
I saw his mother holding him in the air so he could shit in the
bushes. I saw the little turds leave his butt and fall into the
bushes next to the sand pit. I’ve seen little boys/girls peeing in public before, but never before the poop. There are signs all over the park
telling one to pick up after their dogs, but nothing about picking up
after shitting kids. Hmmm, what’s also strange is that the bathrooms
were about 100 feet away from the bush!

You will get slaughtered

Sorry for not blogging yesterday, I was down with a chest cold and
I thought sleeping was better than typing.

Yesterday, Vince and Ethan had a power breakfast at McDonald’s.
Play dates wear me out – the constant negotiation about sharing
and behaving is a burden I do not like carrying, but it probably
because I was kind of sick and a little grouchy.

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And apparently the play date wore Vince out because he had a car
nap on the way to Edda’s occupational therapy appointment and woke up
in the most foul mood. Crying for 45 minutes, bringing up old, long
forgotten arguments – “Mom, I hate Chinese class, they all
speak Chinese and I don’t understand it. Whaaaaa!” Huh? You are
on summer break kiddo! You haven’t had Chinese class for 10 days and
school is out another 3 weeks! Whatever.
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Today (Saturday), we had a nice day. We went to the Science Museum
for the 3 time in 5 days. As we were in the car park (Singlish and
British for parking lot) ready to leave, we ran into our next door
neighbor (not with a car!). Jeremy asked him if he knew of a place
that would repair the scraped paint on the car. He said that he knew
of a few places not too far from here, but he cautioned Jeremy, “You
will get slaughtered.” I think he actually made chopping
motions in the air with his hands. Chop, slash, slaughtered.
Meaning, one look at a pasty white guy and the amount for the repair
may be doubled. So our neighbor will be kind enough to take me to car
shop to get a quote and disguise the fact that we aren’t locals.
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And we finally found out what was screwed up about the one, last,
excruciatingly most important genetic test. It’s only the most
important because it’s the syndrome that a bunch of professional
people think that Edda has, but that other professional people think
that it’s unlikely Edda has it. But it isn’t important immediately
because, like Down’s syndrome, there is no medical treatment to
reverse the effects (no pills, surgery, radiation, diet, injections,
etc..) – only all the therapies (occupational/physical/speech)
and Early Intervention that we are already doing and such things to
help her gain skills. In New York, our neurologist ordered a
bazillion tests and we saw this master sheet that listed all the
possible tests and we saw her check off this one particular genetic
test. We waited the appropriate 6 weeks for the results and nothing.
We called Dr. Ackman last week and asked her about it. It took a
week to find out that someone in the lab in New York overlooked the
genetic test and forgot to order it. The blood did not even leave
NY. It didn’t go to Texas. It didn’t go anywhere. So we are back
at the beginning. We’re going to go back to the Children’s Hospital
next week here and get the blood FedExed to Texas which is what we
should have done in the first place but we didn’t because we were
leaving for NY in 3 weeks (4 months ago) and we thought they would have facilities
in NY for the testing. Argh!

Mom’s Classmate

Dad and I met our classmate Frank and his wife Linda over the Mother’s day weekend. Linda was my dormitory neighbor in room 307 during the Tai Dai years. Lee Pei and I were in Room 308. We had Mother’s Day dinner togehter at Golden Bull restaurant in Gaithersburg with their daughter. She is very nice and is my alumni at JHU, majoring International Studies right now. She was a graduate of the Wharton Business School, UPenn several years back.


The left handside picture was our high school class 61 mini-reunion. Our seatings were fixed for any subject and were 33, 34 & 35. The picture was taken in Stevens, Washington State along the Columbia River.

The right hand side picture was a happy Mom with beautiful flowers from her wonderful son-in-law, daughter, son, grandson and grand daughter.

Oops, I did it…

OK guys, nobody laugh. I scratched the car today. I ran into a
pole in our parking garage and scraped the paint on the rear right
wheel-hub thing. I knew it was going to happen sooner or later. I was
just hoping it would be later rather than sooner. It’s not too bad
and Jeremy says it looks worse in this picture than it does in real
life. I hope they can just buff it out. Boo for Doris.
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But the good news is that I got to go over to someone’s house
today! I know it doesn’t sound like much, but I don’t get invited
often and since we’ve been on this whole Edda saga thing, I’ve been
isolating myself from people which – I know, I know – isn’t
good for anyone. She’s another mom from Edda’s school, so we always
run into each other (hopefully I will never literally run into
her, sheeze – one fender bender at a time) at pickup/drop off.
Tomorrow, we will gather our NT kids (NeuroTypically developing kids
– formerly known as “normal” kids) and go to
McDonald’s and swimming, while the NU (NeuroUntypically) developing
kids are at school. Hooray for Doris!
Vince took many, many photos today, here’s one of them:
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Notice the 2 bottles of Ranch Dressing. Vince will pretty much
eat anything if it has ranch dressing on it. Today he ate a whole
bowl of salad of the weediest plants I’ve ever seen without stopping
because it was covered in Ranch. Hooray for Hidden Valley!