5/23 - 5/29/2022

5/23 - Monday

Kids came into bed with me, they were warm and snuggly. Jam reported that he left sometime in the night because of Ella's intense kicks (I remember some of them), and found me and Mimi cuddling cheek to cheek in the morning.

Ella: Hudson is funny, he said he'll draw a big ugly troll, and he drew a very small penguin.

5/24 - Tuesday

Ella drew a long thick line diagonally across a page, told us that was gumu gumu Luffy arm.

5/25 - Wednesday

Daniel mentioned he already talked to Anhang about Omer's absence problem. He's writing code I'm supposed to write and reporting problems I'm supposed to report, is he even 25 yet? Slightly ashamed, at least I could add on, and did. I did chat with all ITS people about Omer before I felt confident enough to write to Anhang. it was very nice to chat with each of them! From LT's story - I'm definitely not going to amazon XD. Steven & Kundan - we all came for Anhang and got Omer XD

Since last weekend Mimi had been telling me about a trick she could do on the "spider webs" at the school playground, that she wanted to show me. I promised on Wednesday, the first day of the week when we don't have after (after) school activities, we would go to the playground and she could show me. I lost track of time thinking about work and Omer. Alarm rang for 5:40 when I thought it was 4! I rushed out and caught Jam on the ride back with the kids along the main road to stormwater. I dropped him at home, and drove with the kids back to the playground. They can climb and drop down from very high up! Including the slightly barbed fence surrounding the play area :o And that was not Mimi's main trick. Met another Chinese ma, from Canada too! Her daughter one year younger is 1.2 the size of Ella/Mimi :o 

After coming home, the girls fought again. After Mimi's provocations of "haha that didn't hurt at all",  Ella held onto Mimi's hair and pounded Mimi with her little firsts while Mimi shrank into a ball. I kept Ella with me, finished dinner with her, and went upstairs to do some work. Ella played nicely behind me. I ended up talking to E about go fest and how we gotta keep Steve company while not abandoning Jam too much ^^; After a while, I realized I haven't heard Mimi in a while. I found Jam still working in his room and Mimi not there. I came downstairs and found her asleep in a pile by the couch <3

Niantic gave employees 2 free go fest tickets, I gave them to Steve and Daisy. Jam agreed daisy would use the ticket more instead of any of his friend, he's a sweetem.

At night both girls wanted to cuddle. From previous experience one of the adult will be evicted at an inconvenient time in the night by kicks or head butts. So I offered Mimi to go with baba and Ella to come with me to the guest bedroom, aka lao lao's room. The girls happily obliged. Ella snuggled so close to me, took a hand I was petting her with, and tucked it under her cheek. It was so warm and soft!!! After a while she asked "妈妈我能去拿我的小鲸么。" Of course. She went for a while, came back, said "我只找到了小豚。" She settled back down while I went to pee. I came back and tried to cuddle her, but couldn't find her head. I petted around and could only feel her dress, so I asked 这是什么, insinuating she was doing something weird, she said "这是我的小shirt." I realized I was petting her shoulder, and her soft cheek was just inches away ^^; I petted her cheeks, she had 小豚 under her cheek so didn't need my hand anymore :)

5/26 - Thursday

I kept the girls downstairs past their bedtime while I did chores on the computer. They were good company with their talks of ma eventures and ba eventures. But I ended up keeping them up too late. They were not asleep until after mightnight. They both wanted to cuddle with me, Mimi said she was not cuddling daddy today because he was mean :o I couldn't leave Jam alone, so offered them to sleep in the guest bedroom. The girls happily moved their pillows, stuffies, and blue light. After a bit they fought and I found an Ella back in her room, 小豚 laying in the hall, and Mimi peeking from the guest bedroom then quickly shut the door. I wiped Ella's tears and led her by the hand to our bedroom, intending for her to sleep with us. Ella stopped at the door and said she didn't want to sleep in our room, she wanted to sleep with Mimi. I asked if she was sure, she nodded into 小豚. She asked me to open the guest bedroom door for her. I did, and asked Mimi if she wanted Ella to come back. Mimi said "yes". They slept there until the morning.

5/27 - Friday

Niantic gave extra day off yay.  I was able to get the signature to reactivate treasury direct, schedule with another tutor, pick up lunch, hit the library, and walk a looot. Caught a hundo castform and shiny yungoos :)

Ramiza came over with Aisha, flowers, pizza, mango, watermelon, and cantelope :o The girls played so nicely together, and even ate well. I had a fun chat with Ramiza :)

Ella came to me with 小豚&小鲸 in her arms, said Mimi found 小鲸 for her, and rubbed her cheeks in them. She had been looking for her 小鲸 since yesterday :)

5/28 - Saturday

Ella requested to listen to anime music in the car today, and we were in the car a lot today - we went to the Aquarium with some detours to find parking and navigate the difficult downtown traffic (good job Jam), drove back to find meet fresh (as our Seattle desert failed), drove back to Seattle to have impromptu dinner with Frankie and George (both girls slept most of drive there), and drove home. When listening to music, Ella said "why do all the songs have someone turned away, and their hair and hat are covering their eyes". Because it is anime XD

5/29 - Sunday

Tried to work on the one line change to pass 429 error through, but blot was broken to validate the fix, and spent the whole hour when duo duo was here trying to fix it. Frustrated, time to get food instead.

We made it to the pancake house on Jam's suggestion. They removed us from the waitlist because we weren't physically there, but gave us a seat anyways on first warning. Ella threw some tantrums for not able to do the crossword puzzle on the kid's menu. But they enjoyed the food with us! 

On the way to Costco we drove through the Safeway plaza, as Jam turned into the plaza Mimi yelled "there's a lemon head". There WAS a lemon head! Where the party store was (or next door to it). Joy!

We had a relatively peaceful Costco trip, a very successful Kumon homework session, changed Ella into Elsa dress, and welcomed Ben. Ben was a handful just like last time :') We are so grateful to have our manageable girls. After Jam disciplined them through a movie, I read and played with them for the next 2 hours. While constantly reminding the girls to be a good model to Ben, and not add to the bad word use and potty talk. When Alyssa came to pick Ben up, Ben pouted and shuffled around the house, until he melted in Alyssa's arm refusing to go ^^; Alyssa asked if there was trouble, I'm not sure what Ben said but Alyssa questioned if he hit anyone. Mimi bounced to Alyssa and said "no Ben didn't hit anyone" with firm nods. Then "but he needed 3 reminders to not do something bad." When questioned, Mimi said it was the reminders I gave him for climbing the stairs from the outside, which he soon did again instead of putting on shoes XD  

We can't find the night light, so I suggested using a candle. Jam lighted it, and the girls liked it. Mimi kept saying she liked the smell of wax. She asked if wax became liquid, I said yes and most substances became liquid when heated, she said woooow. The girls kept coming into my room for tiny chats of cuteness, including the wishes they made to the candle: a kinder mom (Ella ), and to go to lao lao's house forever (Mimi). :'). And requests for doing something fun tomorrow. I ended up offering some of my stickers to them and buying more stickers online with them.