Cur Cur B Then and Now

Well here it is: the long overdue post documenting CLM at 20/21 months.  Oh, I'm just what, 2 months late?  Better late than never I guess.

So CLM back in October of this year really liked doing certain things:

• Hides behind 爹爹 when he knowingly pissed me off
• Loves pushing buttons (dishwasher, monitor, rice cooker, woowoo 機 or any other electronic or whatnot).  As long as it has buttons, CLM's pushing 'em
• Picks up things that he's not allowed to be picking up.  When caught he says: "俾媽媽" thinking we'd believe that he picked up the item just to bring to me (sneaky)
• Favourite saying: "唔係唔係唔係唔係..."
• Loves eating "meat meat".  Chicken has been coined "gok gok meat" in my household
• Started drinking his milk from a straw and termed it 奶googoo or  奶奶goo.  Milk from the source is now 奶奶ja
• Somehow, the "but da but da" sounds just evolved into a random "拔 da 悲" here and there as he learns more words and sentences.  Sometimes CLM will still purposely make random "baby talk" babbling just for fun
• Loves clamping his little clammy cold hands onto my thighs when I change out of my pants and hearing me scream "凍凍凍!".  Proceeds to chase me around the room hoping to get more screaming from me
• Asks for 爹爹 specifically to come into the shower to 拍拍水
• Still scared of woowoo 機 (Roomba) and when we ask him "woowoo 機咬邊個?", he answers: "woowoo 機咬婆婆!!!"

Fast forward a month (November) and he talks way more, starts singing songs, loves watching 恐龍火車 (Dinosaur Train) and gets more particular on who he wants feeding him, what he wants to eat for lunch/dinner, where he wants you to sit (ie, "爹爹坐梳化!").

文生 was basically out of commission the entire month of November OT-ing so I spent most weekends out and about with marmar and CLM doing random things like grocery shopping without the Man.  We decided to check out Fairview one day and saw that the Christmas decor was exactly the same as last year so I took a picture of CLM outside of the Lego Store in front of the exact same tree.  While comparing the photos I couldn't believe how much CLM changed in the span of a year.

 

For the record, I was downtown on November 7th for a meeting and brought CLM with me to the Financial District.  He had so many firsts that day!

• Walked on a downtown street.  Never ever saw so many cars, streetcars, and woh woh's!
• Took an escalator
• Had a fat laan jaa moment (meltdown) in public at East Chinatown.  He was completely sprawled on the sidewalk, screaming.
• Ordered a "kid's meal" off the menu.  Mind you, CLM didn't finish it but it was definitely a first "outside" meal that was ordered just for him!!
• Finally sat front-facing in his car seat because my car broke down and we had to go home in my aunt's car which doesn't have UAS.  To make my life simpler, I just faced CLM forward.  He LOVED it!  So many 巴士's and 媽媽車車's to see.  By the way, all cars are 媽媽車車's apparently.  How nice.  "好多媽媽車車!!!"  Yes BB, just like how dinosaurs are woh woh's.

Sanity and Laziness

Lazy, lazy, lazy.

I come to my blog each day to tell myself I'm long overdue for a new post.  I have so much to write about but too lazy to type.  I think mostly because blog posts are boring unless accompanied by photos and I'm just too lazy to find nice photos to share.

For the last two months I've been thinking of documenting a "CLM then and now" type of post and although I run the points through my head almost daily, I haven't really gotten around to doing so.  Meanwhile, work's been a little crazy, CLM's been a little handful (and then some) and I've still got myself wondering why I don't get to sleep decent nights.  STILL.

Abandoning P365 this year after Hong Kong was probably the biggest "mistake" (or relief, whichever way you look at it).  Not having to document every single day means I have no excuse to blog.  No "me time" to get away from things, which doesn't necessarily translate into more time to sleep.  Looking back at my P365 posts and pages for last year always give me a sense of accomplishment and I'm glad I got to document CLM's first year (and life as a mom).  Although I freed up a lot of time by dropping the idea, I do regret not continuing with it this year.  As CLM grows every day, talks more, learns new things, it's a pity that I won't have anything to look back on.  At least I kept up with his "picture a day" so I can still track his facial changes even if I won't remember what happened that particular day.  I can't believe CLM's 22 months already and will be two soon!  They grow up so quickly!

Lately, I've been thinking about baking a lot.  I think I just need something to do so I can claim it as "me time" and a source for keeping my sanity.  Not that my sanity is jeopardized/compromised in any way *shifts eyes*, not at all...

文生's been working crazily for the entire month of November and finally got a weekend off so we opted to go downtown, have ramen and then hang out at Meishan's for a bit.  Ronna and Meishan picked up some Jumping Clay at the Ex this year and have been inviting me to join them to make things for a while now.  Finding out the clay smells like jasmine did it for me!  LOL~~  It's so much fun!  It doesn't stick, isn't messy, smells great, doesn't require baking, is lightweight and you can basically make whatever you want from it.

This little guy measures about 2" tall

CLM was really cooperative while I made my cutie little penguin.  All was well and I was about to make another one and then CLM fell down two steps of stairs and hit his head.  The remainder of the night was spent at Sick Kids but at least he has no fractures and seem to be himself again today.  做阿媽真係大責任.  I wasn't really freaked out until he started vomiting.  Ew...  Once again, I am grateful for great friends as Meishan, Ronna, Tinlop and Jeffrey all came to the hospital to calm our nerves and just to be with us.   Thank God CLM is fine.  I just wish I reacted a split second earlier... sigh...

On another note, the 16" x 20" stretched canvas 2014 calendar that I printed arrived and it looks great!!  Originally I was going to do a poster print and then frame it but I found a coupon code for a canvas print that was too good to pass up on so I opted for that instead.  I'm so glad I did because it's lightweight and it looks more professional!  I got them just in time before the coupon expired so I ordered a few more.  I'm pretty sure they will be well received gifts this Christmas!

Now I think I will procrastinate some more and yet again leave CLM's "then and now" post for another night...

I Need To Bake!

I have the sudden urge to bake.  Maybe because I just saw an awesome sale on a professional series KitchenAid mixer that I happen to have resisted to buy.  Again.

Or maybe it's the two egg whites sitting in the fridge that's calling to be used.  (Ahem, macarons?)

Well, I settled with making apple pies.  At 1am.  On a weeknight.  Shaped like fish.

I need sleep.  lol.

Christmas Presents Are Ready! (Almost)

Insomnia from the last week or so prompted me to have a bit of "me" time again so going down my bucket list of things to do, I decided to start on the Christmas presents (plus I don't think I'll ever get to bake that damn cake).  At first I was going to do a desktop or a monthly wall photo calendar for the grandmas but after getting some inspiration in the blogosphere, I decided to do a 16x20 framed, poster-type calendar instead.

I spent 2 full insomniac nights putting it together and I'm happy to say I'm pretty thrilled with the resulting product.  Although manually typing in each and every day from scratch wasn't exactly my idea of relaxing, seeing the poster come together nicely really gave me a sense of accomplishment.  I can't wait to have them printed and then framed and then I can be proud to say I've got my Christmas shopping started!

Just a few finishing touches, final proofreading to make sure I didn't give September 31 days (oops, lol) and off to the printers it'll go.  Can't wait to see the framed product!

I Did It!

小芬 is a little techy, a little geeky and a little handy, even if I say so myself.  Recently, I've taken apart my Roomba to service the clunking sound the brush assembly was making; I fixed a flashlight in which I removed a couple of corroded, exploded, stuck batteries; I installed two light fixtures and two dimmer switches in Tinlop's new condo; and my newest accomplishment: fix the scroll wheel of all three of my malfunctioning MS mice.

Following the powers of the interwebs, I found some pretty detailed instructions on how to tweak and fix the issues and now I have a whooping four functioning Arc mice (including the new red one).  Stupid MS just had to make things difficult by using one torx screw (out of 7, in which the other 6 were all Phillips) so I had to make a special trip out to Home Depot to pick up the right screwdriver.  So much work!  LOL~  The fix was actually really easy once the screw is out, took all of 3 minutes per mouse.

All fixed, yay!

On another note, I haven't worked a crazy opening in years nor have a worked a project where we sold out entirely in 20 hours.  Despite not having a complete APS (I had to make the schedules), no disclosure docs, faulty internet connection, computers that couldn't connect to our server, photocopier that stopped working, we still pulled off selling them all.  The paisans started lining up at 3am (yes, I was still at work) and it was funny to hear them exaggerate about being there since 2am.  Typical paisans.

Reception area of the sales office

Dining area

Kitchen - I love this kitchen

Living area - with a $15,000 upgraded fireplace built-in

Spacious 20ft wide, so atypical of a townhouse

The mob of people, angry that they didn't get a chance to even come in, let alone buy one

Time I left work on Friday - yes, I'm dedicated

Nick got us each a bottle of Veuve Clicquot for all our hard work!  We all deserved it!

Condo townhomes, 2,100sq.ft., $700,000... a little hard to swallow but people inhaled all 69 of them nonetheless.  Wish I had that kind of money to burn.