Road Trip- Zion

We are leaving to Zion tomorrow! Please pray for us to survive the 6-7 hours drive with an active toddler. :P

We scheduled to be on the road right around his nap time. So hopefully we will be able to get some peace and quiet at the first leg of the drive.

Our last trip to Napa was the same number of hours of drive back in May with a few friends. We rented a van and drove together. The drive wasn’t that bad as there were many people to talk to tune out the kids whines/ cries. This time we’re on our own. We may just have to whip out our iPad to keep him occupied. :)

Dream.

This morning at around 7:10, Gaven is still not awake. I woke him up and the first thing he said, is “I want to make waffle”. More on the waffle story on another day.

So I asked him:

Me: How was your sleep, baby? What did you dream about?

Gaven: Mommy!

Me: Oh! What was mommy doing in your dream?

Gaven: Sleeping with me.

Me: Ok. Mommy sleeping with you. What else is in your dream?

Gaven: Daddy!

Me: Daddy? What was daddy doing in your dream?

Gaven: Sleeping with me.

Me: OK. What else? What else did you dream about?

Gaven: Gaven!

Me: Gaven?

Gaven: Yeah, he sleeps with me.

Me: Okay…. what else?

Gaven: No more! No more dreams.

I like to ask him what he dreams about because my little guy talks in his sleep. He sometimes even grinds his teeth! :(

Last night in his sleep, he said in a whining sound “he take my helmet”. Don’t know what he meant by that since from my conversation with him, he dreamt about all of us sleeping with him. LOL!

I want to help you

“I want to help you” is what seems to be coming out from Gaven’s mouth lately.

He sees what you do and asks to help you. It’s nice if he is actually helping you. More often than not, he’s causing more mess than actually helping you. Not to mention the fact that he slows down your task. I am not a patient person. So often times, I would rather him not help me as it slows me down from what I was doing. John lets him help every time he asks, so I guess that could be one of the contributing factors as to why he likes his dad better

He likes to help with dishes, make rice, vacuum, dusting, and etc.

His likes to help me toast the waffle in the morning. I let him do that because that doesn’t really take my time away from my task. He puts the waffle in the toaster and waits patiently for it to pop. Then we both laugh and laugh at the waffle that popped and act like it was the scariest thing ever.

So needless to say, his breakfast lately has been waffle every morning. :)

 

Helping carry groceries

  

Help vacuuming

Toddlerhood Bedtime

…. is a nightmare! Bedtime routine takes longer and longer. When he was younger, it took about 15 min to put him down. We read stories in his room and said our good nights. He usually went to bed around 7:30-8 pm.

Ever since he turned 2.5, everything changed. It takes about 45 min and sometimes an hour to put the little guy to sleep. One story after another and another, never ending. He insists that he is not tired and not ready for bed. And when we finally put him down and turn the lights off, he screams he wants to use the potty. After several nights of pulling the potty trick, we finally had it enough. John warned him that he must really be using the potty, and if he doesn’t, we would ignore his cries next time. So he got scared and force himself to poop. He would declare with pride when he actually pooped. Most of the time, he did poop but very small amount. When brushing his teeth, we also let him know that this is the time to use the potty if he needs to. If he doesn’t want to use the potty then, we wouldn’t take him if he wants to go after the lights out. After a few nights pulling the potty trick, he stopped.

Thankfully he is still in his crib, which restricts his freedom of climbing out and getting out of the room. We are trying to keep him in his crib as long as we can just for this reason.

He goes to bed around 8:30-9 pm now. We’re hoping he will be back to his old schedule of 8 pm now that summer is over. Daylight is shorter; hopefully this can help with an earlier bedtime too.

Tonight’s Dinner

Tonight at dinnertime, Gaven said to me:

Gaven:“You stay here. Daddy and I are going to the park. You can’t go. Daddy is my best friend”.

Me: “Daddy and I are best friend. You stay here. You cannot go. You didn’t finish your food. I finished mine”

Gaven: No! Daddy and I are best friend.

This kid! I am always the bad cop at the house. I always remind him to finish his food. If he doesn’t finish his food, he can’t go to the store or the park or etc. I threaten him that we will leave him behind if he doesn’t finish his food. He heard it so many times and now, he is starting to talk back.

Sometimes he say the funniest thing. How can you stay mad at this little guy? :P

How we break his iPad habit

A couple months before our trip to Malaysia back in Feb 2013, we started introducing iPad to Gaven. We loaded the iPad up with Disney movies for him to watch. The reason was so that we can keep him occupied for the long flight to Malaysia. Like any kid, he loved his new entertainment. He was obsessed with it. We let him watch during breakfast, lunch and dinner. He would eat and watch the movies on the iPad on the dinner table. The other reason was so he would be so occupied watching the movies, that he would let us feed him anything. He would chew and swallow & watch iPad at the same time. It was an easy way to make sure he finished his food. Our mealtime was painless. No fussing and crying at dinner table. No refusing food. The downside was, we would have to feed him, which we’re ok with as long as we have a quiet meal time.

Watching iPad at meal time, would not touch his food. We have to feed him. Upside is, we can feed him anything, he would open his mouth.

The habit got so bad that he would ask for ipad at every single meal time. It’s almost like he doesn’t know what to do if he doesn’t have ipad over his meal. We knew we had to do something about it. A couple months ago, we bit the bullet and stop allowing him to watch ipad at mealtime. We told him the ipad was broken and we have to take it to the shop to fix. We switched it off so it wouldn’t light up when he tries to turn it on. He asked for it at every single meal time and we continued to tell him that the ipad is broken and we’re still trying to fix it. He whined and cried and fussed.

Ipadless first week- pushing food away, being a brat.

At mealtime, he didn’t know what to do at first without his ipad. He was playing with his food, utensils and wouldn’t sit still. He was being very difficult. It was hard, we can’t enjoy our meals. I started to bring pen and paper and would draw stuff to entertain him. That distracted him a little and slowly, after about a week, of ipadless, he stopped asking for it at every single meal time. He occasionally asked if the ipad is broken and we would say yes and he would drop it. We are so glad we’re able to break this bad habit of his. Our sacrifice is we won’t be able to use the iPad in front of him because it was supposed to be broken. We hide it so he can’t see it. Out of sight, out of mind. We would only use it after he goes to bed. When he stoped asking for it for almost a month, we slowly start using it in front of him and when he asked, we told him it won’t play movies. And he would just accept it without further questions.

Mom & Dad= 1, Gaven= 0

We win. :)      

San Diego Trip

We went to San Diego this past weekend. Took 1/2 day off work and started driving around 1+ by the time we’re ready to get on the road. We found a deal on Travelzoo for the Hilton at Torrey Pines. Seems like a good deal at the time. We booked it back it back in May. Unfortunately we don’t have a place to stay anymore this time around. Janet moved out of San Diego a couple months ago. So now, we need to find hotel deals every time we go to San Diego. We spent 2 nights at the hotel.

We arrived around 5 pm at the hotel due to bad traffic. Gaven and John spent some time at the pool before we headed out for dinner at La Jolla. We checked out some sea lions chilling at the La Jolla Cove, then checked ourselves in to an awesome seafood dinner there. Found a Groupon deal for the Crab Catcher. Great service and great food. It was a really good deal with the Groupon deal we got.

The next day, we spent all day at the Sea World. This was Gaven’s 3rd visit there but I think this time he had more fun. He understands more things and seemed to enjoy the time spent there. We’re planning to go there again before our annual pass expires in Dec.

Sunday after checking out of the hotel, we headed to Cabrillo National Monument. We’ve never been there so it was a nice visit. We stopped at Monterey Park for some Chinese food before we headed home.

 

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