Well, we were supposed to celebrate EV’s birthday outside. Weather reports said 27•c and sunny but all that was dashed by a pollution report of over 300. So at the last minute, much to daddy’s dismay, we moved it to our house. While daddy, AE and chenzhen were at ch, Ayi and I quickly cleaned and decorated the house, stashing things in drawers and cabinets (which will be fun to undo later). I ordered pizzas and Coke, which is about all I could handle. No activities or games planned but thankfully the kids entertains themselves (mainly by quietly reading!). 8 families (24 kids!) celebrated together. I think S never thought we would ever be crazy to host something like that. It was good that he put a movie on in back for them. EV and Lucy, who were born a few hours apart, enjoyed playing iPad/iPhone away from the crowds. EV still can’t answer how old she is, unlike AE when she was 2, but if you ask “how old are you” and say “2?”, she’ll say “doo!” She also has learned to recognized Hello Kitty and gets excited to say “ello gitty”! She’s not good at hard consonants yet.
NÉ panicked and slept most of the time. Her eat sleep schedule got all screwed up by the excitement so she ended up being a mess yesterday. It didn’t help that I was eating pizza and laksa for the first time since confinement. S says we have opened the door for junk food again, a fit tastes good. Lp ordered a HUGE tous les jours cheesecake. Gabe blew out the candles the first time :). They always do that. When EV was supposed to do it, she looked clueless for a minute with all the kids yelling at her to blow out the candles. Finally S lifted her directly to the candle and we said “EV! Hot! Hot!”, which then makes her blow on things.
Teri left. I was nervous about having a guest stay with us so soon but she was awesome. It was lovely to catch up and the kids loved her. It makes me sad that we aren’t more in touch (and yet we are more in touch that I am with others) but it was nice that 5 days together helped catch up 15 years of not so much contact. Well, I guess she did visit me in Singapore in ’04. I’m glad she was really good with the kids… I know they will forever like her. AE said she didn’t want the Aunty to go. She was a huge blessing… Especially at a time when we are still adjusting to NÉ and weekends without Ayi.
NÉ’s conehead is starting to shrink down (or her face is getting rounder). Just now I had to wake her to do 3am feed. I had too much. It makes up for the disastrous sleep I had last night (and needed a 3 hour nap yesterday afternoon) – bad days she’ll do a 2-3 hour stretch and then wake up every 30-60 minutes after that for another 4 hours. I really hope she starts to laugh soon. Her default face is annoyed and seems pretty stuck there, even as I tickle her or make all sorts of stupid faces at her.
AE had “growing pains” in her feet again which caused her to cry in her sleep. I think it’s her new version of night terrors. Too much excitement in the day and sleeping too late.