Zoe’s Daily Funny:
As we left for our Canada trip earlier this month, we dropped off Flotsam & Jetsam with a sitter. The next morning she texted that Flotsam had jumped out of the fish bowl and commited suicide. So when we got back almost a week later I explained to Zoe that we now had 1 fish and that Jetsam was probably sad that his bff Flotsam died. So the next morning I let her feed him and she drags the bowl over to her chest to hug it and I hear her talking to him in a whisper…

Zoe: It’s ok Jetsam. Oh my goodness! Are you crying? Don’t cry. I will take care of you. There’s nothing to cry about. You’ll be alright. There there, shhhhhh. (all while caressing the bowl)

Poor Jetsam. He does look lonely though. I’m thinking about buying him a friend.
Rest in Peace Flotsam | 10.17.10 – 07.02.11

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Kayden’s had a runny nose since last friday morning. By monday morning he had a nasty cough. I hate taking the kids to the dr’s when it’s just a cold. I pay $20 bucks each time for the dr to say “you just have to wait it out.” However there was one time that Zoe had a cold when she was younger and she got this cough and it was bugging me so I took her in and the doctor did hear some fluid in her lungs so she had to be put on medication. So after I heard Kayden’s cough I made an appt and the doctor said that he could hear a crackling sound in his left lung and told me So he told me he didn’t want to take an chances and had me put him on amoxicillin for a week. He’s coughing still but it does sound a lot less phlegmy today and he actually likes eating it.

I should also not that Kayden is a mama’s boy. He can’t crawl yet. (I think soon though) but he will try to do an army crawl if that means the goal is to touch my feet and get my attention. He’s really cute. He can say ahbah (daddy) and umma (mommy) but I’m not sure if he knows that that is who we are. His thighs are massively juicy. I don’t know how much he weighs now but he’s gotten heavier for sure over the past month. He was a little bit over 17lbs at his 6 month appt. We’ll see how much fatboy weighs at his 9 month.

Oh and also I want to mention that Kayden can hold his own bottle but he’s so funny. He doesn’t want to hold it. So I do this thing when it’s feeding time where I lay him down, and hold the bottle over his mouth. He opens his mouth and waits for me to put it in. I don’t. He looks at me and we make eye contact. He purposely won’t reach for the bottle even though he’s hungry because he wants me to hold it. So he starts to make this whiney noise all the while flailing his arms around the side of the bottle being careful NOT to touch it while trying to give me “the hint”. Haha… If I make him hold it, the SECOND he sees me put my hand on the bottle he drops his hands cause he’s like “That’s right. Serve me bitch. You know who I am.” HIGH MAINTENANCE (sung in my opera voice)!

{ 07.03.11 } My Sisters and our BIG Family


And I thought it was big when it was just the 6 of us…

Zoe’s Daily Funny:
My sister and her new hubby, Matthew were over this weekend. I overheard my sister Hannah talking with Zoe about who’s pretty. The tail end of the conversation that I heard was…

Hannah: Am I pretty?
Zoe: No. You’re not pretty because you don’t have on any nail polish.
Hannah: I am too pretty.
Zoe: No. You don’t have nail polish!

But guess who did? You don’t make the Law Book of the Pretty!

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I am home today because Mr Fatty came home from school yesterday with a bump on his foot, his one hand, and his fat wrist. They look like bug bites but he had his shoes and socks on all day so that wouldn’t explain the bump on his foot. I took the kids to school this morning and I showed the director. She thinks it might be chicken pox. I called the dr. Told him about it and he doesn’t think it’s that. He thinks maybe the coxsackie virus. Zoe had that virus before and it doesn’t look like it to me. He’s in good spirits, he’s eating, and sleeping fine, no fever… So today I just watch him to be sure. Keepin’ my fingers crossed!
 
{ 07.06.11 } 6 Flags: The Great Escape
On our trip home from Canada we had planned to stay here for 2 nights. They had a Johnny Rockets right inside the hotel, and indoor water park, and an outdoor amusement park. There was this one ride that Zoe and I rode where it looks like a classic car. There was a point where they stopped the ride and Zoe and I are just sitting in the car and she’s asking me what happened. After about 5 minutes we see this tall girl going up to all the cars to give them an update. She starts walking towards us and Zoe goes “Maybe that young lady over there can tell us what happened mommy.” Young lady? Uh ok.

Funny story about the first night we checked in…
Zoe and her dad decided to check out the indoor water park. It was like early evening. They came back to the hotel room about an hour later and they’re both wet and all I hear from Zoe is…

Zoe: Ahbah you DROPPED me! You DROPPED me!

Apparently he dropped her in the water. Hahaha…He lost her trust that night.






       

                                  



                                   


        
       
 

                                  





  

       





 





                                     


       
                                    


{ 07.07.11 } Lake George
After we checked out of the hotel we decided to check out the area and take a little boat tour on the Minnie HaHa.

                 



       
 




 
       

Zoe’s Daily Funny:
Zoe loves mermaids. I remember being fascinated by them too at a young age. I mean people who are half fish living in the water? Totally interesting, hello? So recently I had just got done reading her a bedtime story and had just shut off the light. We kissed each other good night in the dark and I closed me eyes….for 10 seconds when I hear her talking to me in a soft voice…

Zoe: What are you dreaming about?
Me: Nothing. I’m not even asleep yet.
Zoe: Mommy, what are you dreaming about?
Me: I’m dreaming about going to sleep.
Zoe: Are you dreaming about mermaids?
Me: No.
Zoe: Mommy, are you dreaming about mermaids?
Me: Yes.
Zoe: Me too.

I love how she controls the conversation and also controls my responses.

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{ 07.02-05.11 } Mannah
The weekend of July 4th we drove 10 hours to Perth, Ontario (with 2 kids it felt like 20). My sister flew in from Vietnam with her fiance, Matthew to get married in Canada. On our side it was just our immediate family plus 2 of my aunts. On Matthew’s it was his immediate family, his aunt, uncle, and some cousins, and a whole bunch of friends. It was a really cute and personal ceremony. Matthews family had rented this huge lodge-like compound for everyone to stay at.

The day of the wedding fell on Sunday. The kids woke up, had breakfast and all went to play in the kiddie pool with water guns. There was a lot of laughing, and tattle telling, and fighting, and crying amongst them. Ellis was left out a lot because Zoe and Josie just wanted to play with the girls and Owen just kept bullying him but I also think it’s cause Ellis was annoying him as well. Hahaha…Poor Ellis. So he came in and we got him to color as he sat next to me. By early afternoon everyone started to get dressed for the wedding. They had the ceremony on the dock by the lake. The wedding march was played on kazoos by all the nieces and nephews (Zoe included) along with my youngest sister, her boyfriend, and Matthew’s younger brother and his wife. The bride and groom made the entrance to their ceremony on a canoe. It was really cute. I especially loved the wedding march. Zoe still sings the song now. Lucky me. The bride and groom looked awesome in the custom made (in Vietnam) attire. Nancy(youngest sister) had made Hannah her veil and my aunt had put together Hannah’s bouquet. Nancy even made the “Just Married” banner you see in the background of some of the photos out of newspapers. The ceremony was short and sweet. It rained for a bit at the beginning of the wedding but it was literally for about 10 minutes or so. After the ceremony we had hors d’ouves and drinks. Mannah gave their thank you shout-outs. There was a little pavlova (New Zealand dessert) cutting contest between the new Mr and Mrs. And the celebration went well into the night. My side of the family checked out early cause of the kids.

On Monday Zoe refused to wake up. When I got her to talk she kept saying she was tired. She didn’t even want to play with her cousins! She loves her cousins. She couldn’t wait to see them and now she just didn’t have the energy to even play with them. I thought it was a little unusual but my mom and aunts were saying she was probably just exhausted from playing so much with her cousins all day the day before. So I let her sleep. By 11 I tried to wake her to see if she would eat. The way she talked was as if she was too tired to talk but she told me “eggs over easy and bread”. So I make it. I’m back in 15 minutes and she is out again. Like she fell back asleep standing up with her feet on the floor, butt in the air, and the upper half of her body laying on the bottom bunk. So I let her sleep. By 2 I wake her again and tell her to eat. So she tells me she wants “eggs over easy and bread”. So I go make it again. I come back and she fell asleep again. I make her wake up and she eats a bit and then wants to go back to sleep. I go to put the dishes away in the kitchen and my aunt comes to tell me that Zoe threw up. That’s when I knew something wasn’t right. Ziggy mentioned that it could be heat exhaustion so we looked it up and she had all the symptoms. They said to take the child to the ER. So we left Kayden with my family and headed to the local hospital. ISN’T IT THE WORST WHEN YOUR KIDS ARE SICK ON VACATION!? She threw up a lot on the way to the hospital and then once more at the hospital. She also complained of stomach pains. They said she had ketones present in her urine which meant she was dehydrated. So we had to give her just a little bit of Pediatlie every 15 minutes so she wouldn’t throw it all up. I think it was around 7:30ish when they discharged her. She was still really weak. Poor thing. The room we were sleeping in I’m sure didn’t help the situation either because it was hot. Like sauna friggin hot! There was no AC and I think all the heat during the daytime just stayed trapped in our room. We had a fan going but that wasn’t really helping much either so we moved to another room so the kids could sleep more comfortably. Zoe threw up one more time before completely passing out for the night. Oh and I also remember passing through the kitchen and some of my sisters and their husbands were sitting around just conversing and all I heard were the guys talking about how the Lee sisters had “a tone” sometimes when we would get annoyed at the husbands. I just thought that was funny how they were comparing husband notes. My husband wasn’t there but I’m sure he would have whipped out his husband notes the length of a Harry Potter book.

Tuesday morning Zoe was still pretty out of it. She was defintiely conversing more but still wanted to sleep whenever she could. Ziggy and Nancy were really good trying to get her to converse and be more alert. I was busy packing all morning. By early afternoon we said our goodbyes and headed to the 2^nd part of our family vacation. By the time the evening started to set in she was chatting up a storm.

There was a moment at the hospital where she was dozing off and C and I were talking about how Zoe’s non-stop chatter would drive us nuts at times. This was a time where we would have given up anything to hear it. I’ve never heard her so quiet.

Congratulations to Hannah and Matthew! Matthew, welcome to our family!

 



 
                                         
        

 
                                        




 
                                        




    

 
                                         

     
                                     
 


        












The next day…
                                        










 
                                       
And on the last day…
                                       

        
(You wouldn’t know by looking at this beautiful photo of Ellis and his mommy that she’s clipping his nails)
                                      

        

Zoe’s Daily Funny:
Zoe’s friend Sean is moving to Chicago. Today is his last day. Yesterday we talked about it…

Zoe: Mommy will you come with me to visit Sean in Chicago?
Me: Um Okay.
Hubs: Chicago? How you gonna go to Chicago?!
Zoe: (in a stern voice) I’m NOT talking to you! (in a sweet voice) Mommy will you go with me?

I don’t promote her behavior but you can’t help but laugh. Even the hubs was trying not to laugh. He says it’s ok because “girls are supposed to be bitchy”. I’m all fine with that but I don’t like her tone with him at times so I try to address it when I have to.

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Zoe loves Kayden. 
She adores him and loves to brag that he’s her “baby brother”.  If he’s in the walker and she notices that he doesn’t have a toy she’ll bring him a few and put them on his tray. If he cries she’ll try to do something funny to make him laugh. Lately she’ll ask “Can I touch him? Can I touch him?” So she’ll pet him and get really close to his face and say “oh you’re so cute!” or “hi you chubby.” Haha… She only gets upset at him if he slobbers on Pink (GOD FORBID! She’ll bawl and keep saying “Kayden made Pink yucky!”) of if he runs over her foot with the walker (it really hurts).

Kayden loves Zoe.
He gets so happy when he sees her. He laughs when she tries to do something silly for him. When she jumps for him he tries to jump with her while I’m holding him up but it seriously just looks like he’s doing some Michael Flatley move. His favorite game is chasing his big sister. Sometimes Zoe will run back and forth from the living room to the kitchen and I’ll be holding Kayden while trying to chase her and he gets so excited and starts flapping his arms and just cracks up every time we catch her. Sometimes he just follows her while in the walker to see what she’s doing or why she’s laughing. Up until the 7 month mark he had no interest in her but now he’s so fascinated by her. This morning she was taking a crap in the bathroom and he’s just standing there, in his walker, in front of the open bathroom door, just watching, and waiting, and inhaling her poopy fumes.

{ 06.24.11 } I don’t remember what Zoe was saying but those 2 just kept cracking up at each other.

I know. I haven’t posted for a week. Just been super busy. Here’s a quick update…

Monday: Kayden fell off our bed. I think it was like 4 something in the am. I was sleeping with Zoe in her room and I heard Kayden(whose crib is in my room) cry once but then I fell back asleep. Then I heard the hubs putting together a bottle downstairs and then I fell back asleep again. Then I heard *thud* and I BOLTED out of Zoe’s bed with Flash Gordan speed and raced past my husband who was running up the stairs. I see Kayden on the floor facing the ceiling crying. THANK GOD FOR PLATFORM BEDS! He rolled over daddy’s make-shift pillow fortress. The hubs was like “Weren’t you sleeping?! How did you hear that?!” I was just holding Kayden trying to soothe him, “A mother knows when her child’s been hurt.” He laughed and rolled his eyes but I think he’s seriously starting to believe in mother’s intuition. Kayden’s ok. It probably hurt a little but I think it just scared him more than anything.

Wednesday: I was giving Zoe a bath and she scoops up all the suds on her body and strategically plants them on the bottom half of her face like Santa, and then with a straight face, and a deep voice says “My name is Jojo.” Ok Jojo, turn around so I can wipe your butt. Later Zoe and her dad are eating a cheesecake together while I’m doing the dishes and I can hear their conversation…

Zoe: Daddy you like Transformers’ songs?
Hubs: Yeah and so do you! You know why?
Zoe: Because we’re cool!
Hubs: Yeah! And you’re on daddy’s team right! (he’s like totally stoked by the way)
Zoe: No, I’m on mommy’s team.
Hubs: Oh why? What about daddy’s team?
Zoe: You don’t give me any space.
Hubs: What do you mean?!
Zoe: Mommy give me space on my bed.

Thursday: The hubs had a team outing and came home totally wasted. Kayden was already in his crib and sleeping in my room. I was laying down with Zoe in her room reading her a bedtime story when he stumbled in. I just took one look at him and just knew…

Zoe: Hi daddy!
Hubs: Hi Zoe! Zoe I love my family.
Zoe: I love my family too.
Hubs: I love you and I love Kayden!
Zoe: And mommy?
Hubs: Yes
Zoe: And my cousins? Do you love my cousins? What are your feelings about them?
Hubs: Eff them. I love MY family.

Hahaha I’m like “omigodgotobed”. Haha then he leaves, then he comes back a few minutes later to declare his love for us once again and then proceeds to do the running man next to Zoe’s bed.

Friday: Today I am TIRED AS HELL. After the kids went down, the hubs had also passed out and if he drinks he’s sure to snore. I was talking to my friend Hans on the phone complaining about C’s nose level (Get it? Nose level? Noise level? Oh shut up.) while hovering my cell phone above the husband’s face so that Hans could get the whole feel of the experience that is the Susan. Then I went downstairs and fished out old family photos to scan and send to my sister. I got done at 1:30. At 2:30 Kayden woke up. I fed him and got knocked out. 5:30 he woke up again. I sure is tired I is. Today I gotta go home, have dinner, bathe fatty and chatty, and then pack for our little getaway. We have a LONG ASS drive with 2 kids.

Hope you all have a happy and safe 4^th.