I love him!

So in the last post I wrote about how Elise was complaining about Bryant leaving and saying, "I want dada!  I love him!" over and over again.  Well, I managed to capture some of it on video, but of course I didn't capture the part when she was being most dramatic about it.  I was trying to think of where the heck she got this kind of dramatic acting out, and I realized...Frozen.  There's a scene where Anna is talking about Hanz, and the way she says, "I love him!" is the same way Elise said it.  Oh boy...

Doctor nurse mama

Elise was talking about doctors and I asked her whether she wanted to be a doctor or a nurse. She thought about it for a moment and said "a doctor nurse mama".  I think that basically means she wants to be a mama. :). 

We try to pick Elise up from school around 4 but sometimes it ends up being closer to 5.  There is a huge difference in her mood if we pick her up at 4 vs 5.  If we pick her up at 4, she's always in a great mood. But if we pick her up at 5, she can be pretty cranky.  She has the worst moods when her teacher Ms. Gina is not at school that day.  The first time it happened, we couldn't figure out what was going on. But by the 3rd time, it became clear that she was upset that Ms. Gina was not at school, even though the assistant teacher is there. When we ask her if she is sad, she says no and sad she had a good time at school. It's so interesting how at even such a young age, we can be unaware of the things stressing us out.   Anyway, I hope the transition to her new teacher goes smoothly!

Bryant is out now and Elise is saying, "I want dada.  I love him" over and over.

Dirty Feet and Hairy Arms

I steam cleaned our travertine in the kitchen, which, counterintuitively, resulted in our feet turning black the next day.  Elise was the one to notice it.  Here is her verbatim response (said with her usual animated voice):

"Oh my gosh Dada, you must clean your feet.  Your feet are black!  Don’t get the black on the bed!

Also yesterday, Mar made some Korean soup, at which point Elise reminded us that she is Korean too.  I asked her, "Is Mama Korean?"  Yes.  "Is Dada Korean?"  No.  "What is Dada?"  

Her response:  "Have some hair," pointing to my arms.  So, I guess hairy arms is what makes me not Korean.    

Memorial Day Weekend highlights

- Legoland with the Liangs!  They are season pass holders and had 2 free tickets, which they generously gave to us.  We all rode in their van for the 2 hour ride to Legoland.  Elise did great but during the final 10 minutes, she threw up in the car due to motion sickness.  Otherwise, she LOVED Legoland!  I didn't think there would be much to do for a 2 year old, but it's actually pretty ideal.  Lots of rides, a huge intricate playground, and a water splash zone with slides.
- On our way up, we ate at "Yu's Garden", a hole in the wall Chinese restaurant in Irvine.  SO GOOD!
- On Monday, we went to Grace's and relaxed in her huge community resort-like pool.  We bought a floatie vest for Elise so that she was able to swim independently.  She tired everyone out and swam for a good 90 minutes.  Her favorite part was jumping off the stairs and the pool ledge.

Right now, I can hear Bryant putting her down to sleep and she is singing a song she just made up.  It goes, "Hallelujah, beep beep, hallelujah, bop bop, hallelujah, boop boop". 

I bought her a scooter, which came in the mail today.  She is going to love this thing.  She's still trying to get the hang of it and I'm glad we have our little enclosed driveway for her to safely practice riding.

She says the most hilarious things everyday but of course I forget most of it!

The Tag Inside the Cookie

Elise was just describing her Panda Express experience to Mommy:  "There was a cookie, and I broke it, and there was a tag inside!"

After dinner, I (Bry) took her to the Lacy Park playground in San Marino, which Elise knows as the "Fancy Playground"...not to be confused with the Shadow Playground (where she first discovered her shadow) or Pirate Playground (at the Rose Bowl Aquatic Center), Kidspace Playground (outside of Kidspace Museum) or NanaBaba playground (to which Nana and Baba first took her).

There is a high "treehouse," accessible by a rope ladder and with a long curving slide descending from it.  I carried Elise up there and did it with her once, and after that she was determined to do it herself, which was clearly not a good idea.  When I dragged her kicking and screaming off of the rope ladder, twice, and she was crying, I tried to explain that she could do it herself when she was four.  I asked, "how old are you now, Elise?"  With a sly smile on her face, she said, "Four!" and counted with her fingers "One, two, three, four."

Real Estate

Ever since buying a house, I have been following the real estate market as a hobby.  Not sure why it's so interesting to me.  Anyways.  We haven't even lived here a year and our home value has already raised over $100K.  That is seriously crazy.  Friends who are trying to buy now are completely shut out of the market.  It's a nationwide phenomenon, too, but latest data shows that 7 of the top 10 least affordable housing markets are in California, with Los Angeles being the second.  And within LA, apparently the Pasadena/San Gabriel area has the fewest percentage of affordable homes of all other areas, including the Westside!  I think a lot of that has to do with the sudden influx of overseas Chinese buying homes in cash.

I know things are crazy now but I do wonder what things will be like as Elise enters adulthood.  Well, she won't have to buy a house since she will live in our guesthouse forever.  ;) 

Language fun

Elise is really starting to have fun with being creative with her words and she just thinks it's hilarious.  For example, if we ask her a question, she'll say, "yes no" and then start cracking up.

OK...of course there are at least a dozen more times I know something like this has happened but I can't remember any of them!!! 

Brain freeze and Frozen on the Brain

Elise got a brain freeze while eating ice cream today, but refused to spit it out.  It was pretty funny to see her inner conflict at that moment--"it's so cold...but I don't want to spit it out!"

I (Bry) was opening all the windows this afternoon to get some fresh air after discovering a bunch of mold growing in our air "purifier" (gross!), which led Elise to announce, "Coronation Day!"  That is not what I expected to come out of her mouth at that moment, but when I remembered the scene from Frozen, it made sense.

Elise's last prayer tonight was "Thank you Jesus for Jesus!"  Pretty cute.

nap time

Elise still hadn't gone to sleep at 3:30 today, despite being very tired, so I (Bry) drove her around in the car.  Mar wanted me to pick her up a drink at "Old McDonald's" to get her through her grading, so Elise and I went to the drive through.  Elise loves the playground there (I went with her earlier this week) and when she saw it, she said "What is this place?!" knowing perfectly well what the answer was.

We proceeded to drive around, and she hung on for a good 15 minutes before falling asleep.  She kept asking me, "Where are we goning?" and "Where is Mommy and Daddy's house?"  I tried to explain to her that we would go home after she fell asleep, but I don't think she liked that answer.

After dinner, we went to Pirate Playground by the Rose Bowl and she was lusting after the Frozen balloons at some kid's birthday party.  I think someone saw her, because 5 minutes later they came and handed me all 5 gigantic Frozen balloons.  Elise just stood there in disbelief.  Then, after thinking for a few seconds, said, "I want to go show Mama!"

Just now, as I'm sitting here on the couch, Elise said "Bye" and told me she is going to Soupantation.  I told her not to eat any ice cream there, since she already had some, and she replied, "Old McDonald's has ice cream there!"

Flower Girl and Princesses

Elise is going to be a flower girl at the end of June and she can't stop talking about it.  I showed her a few Youtube videos of what her responsibility will entail and she was completely entranced.  We saw a bride taking portraits in Pasadena and Elise thought she was a flower girl and just loved it   She took her blankies and makes flower girl dresses out of them by wrapping them around her (and us).

We've never once mentioned the word "princess" to her and she does not have any princess-y items.  I'm not really into the whole princess industry and the kind of image-obsessed complex it creates for young girls.  But I think the concept of "flower girl" is basically replacing princess for her and it's interesting to see how a lot of this is just inherent.  She said the word "princess" for the time just now and alternates between the words flower girl and princess.  If the whole princess thing is something that she is initiating and really loves, then I have no problem with it. 

She also has this 100 words book where each page has a different theme (food, colors, animals, etc).  There is one page with transportation vehicles and she always wants to skip it.  It's so funny how these gender preferences are emerging on their own.

In other related news, I went to a half-day training yesterday on transgender identity and behavior development.  

Update: Elise was playing with colored cups and I asked her what her favorite color is- and she pointed to the green and light blue one (yay, those were her nursery colors).  I asked her which was one was the prettiest one and she pointed to the pink cup and said, "That one is the princess one."

Where does she get these things??  

You like this game?!

One thing that Elise does a lot is pushing boundaries in terms of what is allowable and then ask us, "You like this game?"  It's usually when Bryant or I are distracted with something and she is trying to get attention.  She will stand on her toy, suggest jumping off of something, pull something, etc, and keep asking us, "You like this game, Mama?" until we say yes or no.  If we say yes, then she will up the ante and do something more daring or bad.  If we say no, we have to explain why what she was doing was wrong.  I do not want to think about how this would translate into teenage behavior.

Another random funny-- when Elise has to use the potty, she will either say, "i have to go potty" or she will say, "I'm going to go pee-pee in my pants" and then run to the bathroom.  As she is running to the bathroom, she covers her bottom with her hand while's she's running as if her threat has real weight to it.

I'm really grateful that she is in full-time daycare because she gets bored so easily when she plays by herself and really wants full on interaction and entertainment.  She does not like toys!!  I'm amazed when some of her similar-aged friends will set for at least an hour focused on something.  She still likes playing with her stuffed animals, coloring, and moving objects from what container to and another (eventually scattering it all over the ground) but she is not really interested in toys (legos, blocks, dollhouse, dolls, kitchen, you name it, balls, sports).

Go away cross!

At our church's Good Friday service, we did stations of the cross where the final part included hammering papers into a large cross.  Elise did not like the loud banging sound and consequently got scared of the cross.  We explained to her that Jesus got owies on the cross (not really ready to discuss death).  Now whenever she sees a cross, including at church on Sundays, she always says, "Go away cross!  You don't be here cross!"

We went to Alice's wedding over the weekend, where I was a bridesmaid, and Elise did NOT like the loud music during the reception.  She covered her ears the entire time and kept saying, "I want to go byebye.  I want to go outside."  Bry had to leave early with her while I stayed until the end (great workout dancing...I was sore for 2 days). 

Bad dream

Elise is having a bad dream right now and she said, "I want to go byebye with my friends!"

Hospital visit

Elise loves going to see the doctor and the nurse.  She had a circle-ish rash (turned out to be ringworm) and so we took her to our new local urgent care center.  She was so excited and kept asking me, "Is the nurse going to give me a sticker?"  She had to use the potty at home but insisted that she wanted to go at the hospital.  When the nurse did all the vitals, Elise was smiling the whole time.  She just loved it.

While we were waiting for the doctor, she saw a stack of hospital gowns for kids and she kept asking me if she could wear one.  I told her that she could ask the doctor, which I didn't think she would do because she gets so shy with strangers.  But when he walked in, she said, "I want to wear that".  That is the boldest I've ever seen her with a stranger, haha.  He asked her what color and she boldly said, "The blue one" (she loves blue).

One trait that she has definitely inherited from me is her adventurous spirit, which is basically translated into her darting off in every which way direction in a foreign place.  Wherever we go, she just takes off running and wants to explore.  Total crazy-making.  The funny thing is that I was the same as a child and would drive my mom crazy, too.  Threats, punishment, or even getting lost does not work. 

Obama

Mar was just reading Elise the book about manners.  She read the next-to-last page, "Can you remember?" and Elise said: "Obama!"  Mar was confused, until she turned the page and it said, "Yes I can!"  We hadn't read that book to her in ages.  I don't know how she connected those dots.

Yesterday, when I put on my suit and tie for the wedding, Elise told me, "You look like Obama!"  Then she ran and got her Obama bobblehead and showed me his tie.  (Lindsay, was it you who gave that to me long ago?)

I think we have brainwashed our daughter.