Blog Moving

I decided that I was compartmentalizing way too much (at one point, I was writing in three blogs, two additional Tumblr "blogs," and two deviantArt accounts).

This blog's posts will stay, but all posts have been transferred, and all future posts will be here. Thank you :)

Chronology of the Last Week

Our family went to visit the Outer Banks of North Carolina this past week. Kylie definitely had lots of fun. We left on Saturday, June 30th. On Sunday, we went to a pier in Nags Head just to sight see and the rickety old bridge was ridiculously windy.

The next day, we loaded up in our family SUV and drove two hours to Corolla, which is basically Virginia except not quite. Once in Corolla, we tied Kylie's carseat, facing forward instead of backwards, in a Hummer/Jeep thing. We were in the vehicle for two hours around the beaches of the Virginia/NC state line and saw 17 wild horses. Kylie slept through the first seven, but for all the ones she was awake for, she watched intently and waved good-bye sadly when it was time to drive on.

On Tuesday, we drove to Roanoke Island. We visited a beautiful European-style garden, and Kylie saw butterflies. Afterwards, we went to the Outer Banks NC Aquarium (North Carolina has like three different aquariums). Kylie learned to say "turtle" and "otter." I think she already knew turtle and fish, but she kept calling the otters cats. Later this day, we climbed the sand dunes of Jockey's Ridge State Park and saw both the great Atlantic Ocean and the Sound from the same point.

Wednesday was Independence Day, so we went and saw fireworks, of course. Unlike last year, where Kylie cowered on daddy's shoulder, she sat on his lap and watched intently. Thursday, we fed birds, and Friday, as a family, we visited a lighthouse. Dad and I climbed the lighthouse and rode horses on Friday, but Kylie was too young to join us on either.

Saturday, we arrived home. Kylie is like three shades tanner, and her carseat now faces forwards in the car. She has a blue pail and a yellow shovel and really enjoyed playing with sand. She even learned how to say sand in Chinese, and how to say "big ocean" in Chinese.

Saturday

Well, Kylie's sick again. We're not sure how, but before she got sick she did have a great Saturday. I wasn't there for most of it, I was at a pool with my teammates. However, Miss Kylie buggered daddy into taking her to our neighborhood pool (or daddy offered, either way), and she went swimming!

Kylie has this adorable little ladybug floaty that you can see in the photo update from a few weeks back. When at the pool, her time is divided between prancing around in that and clinging to daddy when out of it. The float comes with this blue overhead sun-visor like thing and it keeps her from becoming drowsy due to the direct light and heat. When in daddy's arms, she gets submerged up to her shoulders, and three times according to dad's count, up to the tippy top of her head. Yep, Kylie got dunked in three times, and she seemed to enjoy every one.

When they got home, Kylie napped, snacked, and watched Elmo and Strawberry Shortcake. Then, after a delicious dinner, she hopped (climbed) into the car with daddy to go pick me up from my friend's house. After a half-hour car ride and finally retrieving me, we headed back. In the car, I sang her songs. I sang her the Wheels On The Bus, and she did her little dance to it, rolling her arms over one another. I sang her the Itsy Bitsy Spider, and her tiny fingers made pinch shapes and imitated a spider. When I was done, she piped up with a quiet but demanding "ABCD!"

Dad and I sang the ABC's probably over 15 times during that car ride. When we say, Kylie, you try, she can get, ABCDE, which is pretty awesome. She knows most of the alphabet already and can talk a lot. It's miraculous how fast she grows.

- Chichi

More Than Just A Pretty Face

I don't love my little sister because her chubby cheeks are cute, because her tiny nose is adorable, because the little ponytail she wears on the top of her head is absolutely endearing. I suppose I love her first and foremost because she's kin, but besides that, it's every new thing she learns how to do or say, every moment of self-satisfaction when she chooses to be carried by me, every time her childish soprano shrieks with happiness. Of course, my psychological deductions are neither accurate nor qualified. Turning to the never-ending fountain of scientific and behavioral knowledge, ScienceDaily, I perused through the psychology archives.

What I happened upon didn't surprise me once I finished reading it. It's all in the structure of a baby's face.There's a region of parental instinct in our minds, which Robin from How I Met Your Mother is clearly missing. Renowned zoologist Konrad Lorenz says that the big-cheeked, wide foreheaded, bulgy eyed baby facial structure is the reason our brain immediately registers it as innocent, helpless, and in need of protection.

While I'm not sure how much the zoology theory applies to adolescents and other children, I can say that I don't think I loved little kids until my baby sister was born. Yesterday, I spent most of my afternoon volunteering at our local park's dock. My duties consisted of fitting customers with life vests and helping them in and out of boats. The girl working with me remarked that I seemed to handle kids and dogs the best, with all my "sweetie" and "kiddo" and "munchkin"-ing. In my mind, every kid I saw I compared with Kylie's timeline. The ones younger, I thought of her just a few months earlier, and the ones older I observed with anticipation and excitement for when my sister would be like that. It wasn't so much their unblemished faces and innocent grins as their funny remarks and all the little actions you start to notice when you've been watching people go by for hours.

I'm not sure that I really have a point today. Everything I've written is fractal and discombobulated. Basically, I love Kylie. My mom loves Kylie, my dad and my grandma love Kylie. Why do we love Kylie? Because she'll take one look at a laptop and demand "Elmo." Because when you ask her a question of responsibility or possession, any "Who" question, her response is always herself. Because she's happy and smart. I guess, well, because she's ours.

-Chichi

Photo Timeline

Today, I just relieved my SIM card of 1.52 GB of photographs, dating back to Easter. For shutterbugs like my mom and myself, I'm really surprised that we left one card in for that long. I checked the memory space, and good thing I just cleared it, because the thin only holds 1.53 GB.

I realize that Kylie's photographs stop in about June. After this post, I'll also update the photo gallery, but here goes our lovely little timeline:

4-8-2012: Easter at the park. We went for an egg hunt...

... but it was the wrong weekend. So we hung out here instead!

4-22-2012: Kylie turns 18 months old!!

4-28-2012: On the way to an art festival. Peek-a...

Boo!!

4-28-2012: Mommy and Kylie at Lazy Daze

4-28-2012: Kylie taking a break from all the art on the slide

4-28-2012: On the way home from the festival

4-28-2012: Kylie shares her dandelion

4-29-2012: We got a bubble machine 'cause Mommy can't blow bubbles!

4-29-2012: Kylie playing with bubbles

4-30-2012: Happy birthday, Daddy!!

5-22-2012: Happy 19 months, Kylie.

5-22-2012: Look at my tummy, mommy!

5-27-2012: Kylie helps label boxes the night before we move.

6-9-2012: Kylie waving hello and good-bye to strangers coming out of Carrabba's

6-9-2012: She was fussing inside, so I brought her out. Evidently more cooperative out here!

6-9-2012: Ha-llo!!

6-10-2012: First time in the floaty

6-10-2012: Smile for mommy!

6-10-2012: Just chillin'

6-10-2012: Daddy trying to teach Kylie to swim

6-10-2012: My toys! All mine!

That took nightmarishly long to upload. They'll be up in the gallery in no time, though. Enjoy! Also, Tuesday marks our one-year anniversary of living in North Carolina.

Stages

First of all, I'm going to make an excuse for neglecting this blog last week. We were moving, and though I had access to both internet and Kylie, there just wasn't enough sit-down and write about the quirks of your little sister motivation in packing up everything and loading it in a truck. Basically, we spent the day making multiple trips between the house we were renting and the apartment we've leased. Kylie had trouble sleeping the first night here -- strange new place, who wouldn't be confused?

The week's entry has nothing to do with something Kylie did to inspire some silly anecdote out of my not-so-many years. My mom and I were talking about it in the car. What kind of stages will Kylie go through? With the way she dresses, the way she acts, the way she talks, and things. For myself, there were a few extremely distinct stages. When I was really little, I was a girly-girl. Then, I started gymnastics. I couldn't do cartwheels on the street in dresses, so I transitioned to sweatpants (can't cartwheel in jeans either). After starting middle school, I decided that sweatpants were too lazy looking for school and jeans were much cooler and I didn't need to be a little showoff and do walkovers everywhere I went.

As for attitude, I'm not such a great example. I've basically been cheerful from day one. My only rebellion came in the form of music, where I decided that pop music was too boring, that hard rock was more my thing. My classmate's little sister is currently in middle school. She's going to be a high school freshman next year, and in her grade, she's considered "popular" by everyone who knows her. My classmate and I were talking about our families, and she mentioned the sister. Apparently, her stages have been: Girly Girl, Goody Two Shoes, Horror Movie Marathon, and now, Get Out Of My Face. Their family is a bit dysfunctional, but both my friend and her sister are great.

I suppose you don't really start going through these phases until you're old enough to decide things for yourself. Like, choosing what to wear and such, not just whether or not to throw the sippy cup on the ground during a fit of rage. My prediction for Kylie: stage one will be a girly-girl. This isn't just because she's, well, a female. She really likes pink things and putting things in her hair and twirling in skirts/dresses. Unlike me as a baby, she likes being mom's dress-up/hair-experimenting doll. I'm seeing frills and fluffy things in this future!

-Chichi

The Character of the Place

Kylie knows how to say banana now. And umbrella in Chinese. And she knows the possessive word (the 's in English) in Chinese. Her sentences are almost coherent and today when Mom came inside from the backyard with Kylie perched on her hip. I almost thought she looked too big to be doing that. As a teammate pointed out last week, Kylie has grown so much since we moved here to North Carolina. Unlike me, who over ten years of her life in the peachy state of Georgia, Kylie is officially an NC kid.

North Carolina gives me the impression of being hillbilly, if that's a proper word. The Raleigh farmer's market is phenomena. The air is crisp and fresh except when it's hot and stuffy... you know what I mean, at least it's clean. Greenways, paved paths that don't allow motorized vehicles, provide safe ways for recreational exercise to the NC communities. In Georgia, we practically had a library in our backyard. I was never allowed there on my own, for two reasons. One, the walk was apparently too far, though it was less than a mile. Two, it was unsafe. And indeed it was. Despite being located in a well-off, suburban area of the greater Atlanta Area, our community has had multiple encounters with sexual predators.

A close friend's little sister is in 8th grade this year, and was approached in her neighborhood (a pretty expensive, clean, new neighborhood) by a questionable man in a ratty car. He asked her where she lived and other personal questions. The girl, very smart, ignored him and walked to her friends at the school bus stop to the local middle school. Another instance occurred when I had a friend over. We were crossing a small street to go to a local Menchie's and Kroger on a grocery run for my mom. Guys in a white truck slowed and stopped near us multiple times, whistling and yelling suggestive things, as well as asking for personal information.

I'm not implying that Cary will be unsafe. In fact, it's ranked number 43 as the best places to live in America, out of the bazillions of towns and cities we have here. I'm just wondering, what of a town isn't reflected in it's statistics? We've been here nearly a year and everything has checked out. However, we lived in our last house for 5 before anything extraordinary happened. Only time will reveal Cary's character.

-Chichi

Sissy's Purpose

Mom: "Say hi to Sissy."
Kylie: [looks away]
Me: "Hi Yaoyao! Will you say hi to Sissy?"
Kylie: [shakes head] No.
Mom: "Yaoyao, say hi to Sissy."
Kylie: No. [points to kitchen counter]
Mom: [gives her what she wants - a packet of garlic green peas]
Kylie: Oooh, dou dou! [Translate: Yay, green peas!]

When we came home from my clarinet lesson, Kylie came and greeted Mommy and I at the door. Well, she walked right by me and into Mommy's arms. Same difference. It's the beginning of the Terrible Twos, so I'm told. I always thought that the Terrible Twos were something that affected parents, not siblings.For those closer in age, what was the worst years to share with a younger or older sibling? Usually, if I ask that question, I get the answer as four or five. Agreements? Disagreements?

Currently, I perform few roles for Kylie. I cut up her dinner for her occasionally, I provide the medium on which she watches her beloved Elmo's World, and I provide the lap on which she'll plant her tiny butt while indulging in reruns of Elmo's World. I don't mind, really. It's absolutely adorable. And with her talking so much, life is just so much more interesting. Our parents like to tell a certain story of me from when I was about Kylie's age. Some lost in time naughty task was performed, and some lost in time person asked: "Who did it?" Just learning to respond and speak when prompted, I answered immediately, "Chichi did it!" Kylie's response to that right now is just "Yaoyao!" No frills, no furs, just to the point. But it's nice to think that I wasn't the only toddler stupid with her responses. Silly kids.

-Chichi

Pepper Jack Cheese

Chinese food, Indian food, Moe's queso, Flamin' Hot Cheetos. What do all of these have in common? They're often considered spicy. It's nothing extraordinary that a Chinese teenager would have a fairly high tolerance for spicy foods. After all, spicy food is delicious. However, it is a bit odd that an 18 month old baby loves spicy food almost just as much as her big sister. There are some things that I can handle but she can't, but she's 18 months old, for goodness sakes.

Target's brand, Market Pantry, sells these pepper jack cheese sticks. I personally think they're the most amazing things on the planet. I eat one with my salad for lunch every week day, if there are enough in the refrigerator.  Kylie has her own cheese. Kraft American, 2%. After dinner, if we're wrapping up leftovers and the refrigerator gets open, Kylie will undoubtedly poke her head in. She'll eye the contents for a moment, ignore our requests for her to come out and close the door, and turn to look at us sweetly. "Cheese," she'll assert, pointing at the pepper jack.

Once she sees it, she won't allow denial. Because sometimes she doesn't finish it, and sometimes we try to leave enough for me to have it with my lunch the rest of the week, we'll try to offer her other things. "How about Yaoyao's cheese?" Grandma will call. "Come eat watermelon," Mommy will coax. "Kylie, get your head out of there," I'll yell from the sink two feet away, where I might be doing dishes if my mom is lucky. Our words always fall to deaf ears. Kylie will ignore our sadly inefficacious work and toddle up to someone. She'll hold up the cheese stick and plead, with her eyes, for it to be opened.

This pepper jack cheese isn't exactly the world's mildest. Even our mom thinks it's a bit too much. Today, just a little bit after dinner, Kylie spotted it and asked for it. Our grandmother tried to distract her, but finally relented and held it just out of Kylie's standing reach. Kylie actually jumped to grab it, giggling the whole way and and down. Honestly, I didn't even know she knew how to jump. Ah, well, there's one more cheese stick in the bag. She can have it. I'll eat an apple with my lunch tomorrow instead.

-Chichi

Mosquito Magnet

A hummingbird can beat it's wings up to 600 times per minute. A mosquito beats it's wings between 300 and 600 times per second. Mosquitoes fly at 1 to 1.5 miles per hour and beat their wings in synchronization with their lovers. Personally, I also consider them the biggest pests on the planet.

When I get bitten by mosquitoes, the bite will swell to the size of that bone on the outside of my wrist. My wrists are pretty skinny, so that bone sticks out quite a bit. Kylie currently has two mosquito bites on her face as well as a scab from one she most likely had a mild allergic reaction to on her leg. Mosquitoes have been deemed by my family as the worst of pests, worse than large flies, worse than the mice that live in our crawlspace and visit once in a while, worse than roaches and termites. At least, these sentiments are shared by my mother, myself, and surely Kylie.

Mosquitoes are the deadliest animals on earth. This isn't exclusively to humans; mosquitoes can carry a huge number of viruses, some of which are more harmful to animals like your dog and cat than yourself. They all require water to breed. Want to kill mosquitoes? Suck the moisture out of your house and wait 5 to 6 months, the lifespan of an average adult mosquito.

In the nature camp I attended 5 or 6 years ago, they required us to have DEET containing bug spray. An adventure club I was a part of in middle school also did. So what exactly is DEET? DEET doesn't actually kill the bugs. It doesn't even work well for every kind of mosquito. But DEET is safe to use on skin and clothes. It stands for N,N-Diethyl-meta-Toluamide, and even after decades of research, scientists are still unsure of how DEET works. It's assumed that they impair the insects' ability to detect life. Mosquitoes are able to sense carbon dioxide (that we output) from 75 feet away. 

Despite their bad eyesight, other senses are sharp. Sense of smell is one of them, and mosquitoes use it well to their advantage. It's probably not as simple as using the awful sent to cover the scent of carbon dioxide, but something along those lines makes your number of mosquito bites decrease exponentially. I don't know, perhaps its as effective as claimed perhaps not. I, however, like to spray Kylie's surroundings and my clothes when going out summer evenings. I don't like to spray it directly on her because of her more sensitive toddler skin. Off! smells awful, but it's far more attractive than huge red bug bites.


-Chichi

Progress Report

This post is going to be short. Kylie turned 18 months old on the 22nd of this month, which was Sunday. When I was this old 13 years ago, I was on a plane to America with my mom. I was about to meet my dad for the first time since I was 7 months old. Of course, I don't remember any of this, but we watched a video of me from a few days before moving then. Kylie pointed at the screen and said "baby" in Chinese every time she saw me, and even recognized my mom from 1999. I thought it was about time to make a list of <i>everything</i> she knows how to say while it's still compilable.

Words she can say in Chinese:
- Mom, dad, sissy, grandma, Kylie
- Car
- Bird
- Meat
- Corn
- Wash
- Dry
- Hold/Give me
- Horse
- Dog
- Duck
- Pen/pencil/writing utensil
- Eat
- Shoes
- Thank you
- Socks
- Nose
- Baby/Doll

Words she can say in English:
- Hi
- Byebye
- Kylie
- Chichi
- Daddy
- Dog
- Duck
- A, B, C, D (can almost read them!)
- Uh-oh
- No (accompanied by vigorous head-shaking)
- Truck
- Bus
- Beep beep
- Names of some of her classmates at daycare
- Ball
- Sit
- Shoe
- Nose (Nose-y, actually)
- Baby

I'm sure I'm missing things. She knows so much already. She understand far more, but can't put it all to words. She can say some more things just by copying our sounds, but she doesn't know what they mean. In the house, our family has had to start being careful about what we say around her, because currently, her favorite word is N-O. We try not to say N-O out loud because it just reminds her of how much she enjoys shaking her head like a maniac and saying no.

-Chichi

Heat Wave

Here in North Carolina, really in all of Bible Belt America, it's been heating up. The last 3 days have been some of the hottest days we've had all year. My little sister, recovering from yet another ear infection, has not been happy.

Today's entry is about the in-between. Everyone knows and hates the in-between, when it's still pollen-y outside, air full of allergens, yet the sun is beating on our backs and torturing us with 90 degree weather, and mosquitoes start sneaking into the house. Neighborhood pools aren't yet open (though I don't think ours even has a pool). Here in the south, droughts have been recurring for the past few years, so no beautiful sprinklers either. What is there to do when the blithering sun is languishing even the most energetic of us?

My family and I took my little sister to the playground near our house a couple of times this weekend. Before it's too dark and too much of bug territory, we sneak a few hours in the sun. But those few hours have to be before noon or around 3 or 4. They must be oh-so-precisely timed or we'll be stuck in the heat on the walk back. Once we get to the playground, the slide is hot, the swing sets are as well.

In fact, everywhere is hot. Today, I struggled and winced my way into opening a doorknob to get into the studio at which I take music lessons. Kylie's car seat buckles, black colored plastic, is hot to the touch while buckling. I'm honestly surprised that she hasn't protested because of it, yet. The worst thing about all of this is that the worse has yet to come. Summer's not even begun, and we're already suffocating under the sun.

On another note, our grandmother arrived from China last Thursday. She'll be spending 6 months with us, primarily to help care for Kylie. She cared for Kylie between Kylie's 2 months and 8 months old, but Kylie's pretty much just re-met her. One of the shiest babies' I know, it took her less than 2 days to completely warm up to our grandmother. ♥

-Chichi

Being A Good Influence

I have a friend who has a little sister also. A while ago, we had the following exchange:

Me:
Your sister is freaking adorable. Be a good influence :)
Him:So I taught her how to open a safe without getting caught today.

And she almost has the word "[expletive]" down.

I'm so proud of her.

He said this as sarcastically as he could in an IM (at least, I'd hope it was sarcasm), but this reminded me of an issue that should have some light shone on it. How much can you do around a babbling, wordless younger sibling without being a bad influence? And how much does what you do really influence your sibling at all?

When I understood absolutely nothing about how life and the world worked, even less than I do now, I looked up to my parents. I watched them, observed, asked questions, learned, picked things up subconsciously, etc. As parents, they had the ability to pretty much control everything I did and all the habits I have now. Between always remembering to turn off the lights when I leave the room and putting my dirty dish in the sink after dinner, good habits are the things that remain clearest and most automatic.

As Kylie is growing up, I'm going to strive to prevent myself from accidentally teaching her bad habits or letting her pick up on my bad habits. From baby habits to big kid habits like speaking before you think, I've done all the bad stuff and corrected most of it. No yelling or screaming or loud noises in the house, no complimenting her or encouraging it when she makes such noises, and never say swear words. As a high school student, I obviously have potty-mouthed friends. Whatever happens, they will not be the ones teaching my baby sister foul language. I think she'll have the power to resist it as a habit even once she does get to that age. I have faith in her.

More recently than the first exchange, another question came up between the two of us. "Where do you get your moral compass?" I'm a very non-religious person. In fact, I avoid religion almost at all costs. My family is not affiliated with any religions either. I, personally, am an advocate for LGBT rights, and would categorize myself as one who bases her ideas off of proof and science, not divine intervention. Freethinker. However, with a childhood education that sprouted in a college town in the Deep South, Christian influence was extremely prevalent until I was about eight. From ages eight to thirteen, last summer, we lived in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia that had up to 6 churches on a major street. Where we live now, where Kylie is going to grow up, I've only counted 3 churches in the area total. Of course, my parents were stronger navigators of the moral compass than the community around us, it probably would be beneficial to have the extra reinforcement of the common sense kind of right or wrong within the community.

-Chichi

The Polka Dotted Raincoat

This past weekend, our family was grocery shopping. At Target, my mom and I browse the baby section, like we do on every trip. We decide that Kylie needs some new little outfit, like we do nearly every week. This time, it was some raincoats that caught our eyes. After choosing, we narrowed it down to two: a pink on with white polka dots or a classic but cute solid yellow one. We couldn't decide ourselves, so I went over to where Kylie was playing with one of those shopping carts that have the fun little area for kids in the front.

First, we asked her which one she liked better, as always. She didn't really pay much attention, so I dressed her in the pink one. We saw her in it, and as I started to take it off, she resisted just a bit. Then we put the yellow one on her. My mom and I agreed that the yellow one would be easier to match with pants, demonstrated quite obviously by the fact that the polka dots clashed with her cheetah print pants. We took it off of her, put it in the shopping cart, and started taking the other one back. The whole time, though, Kylie had been eyeing and grabbing at the pink one.

At this point, Kylie is starting to fidget a lot more. She chased after mommy and clawed the air for the pink one. Laughing, my mom took the two and held them both at Kylie's eye level. I held her back until my mom had them even. When I let her go, she flew straight for the pink coat and practically tackle-hugged it. She carried it back to me and made the motion that asked me to put it on her. Take account of the fact that the day was very hot, and the rest of us were sweating in our short-sleeved shirts.

At the cash register, Kylie still refused to take off her new raincoat. The little fashionista finally relented when we left the protection of AC inside the building for the egg frying heat of the sun. When I was a toddler, I never chose my own clothes out shopping. Even now, shopping isn't something I enjoy. Kylie, however, has made it very clear very early on that we will not be the ones choosing her outfits in the future.

This is the jacket (much cuter in person, though)

-Chichi

Sisterhood in the Hunger Games

This weekend, some friends and I went to celebrate one of their birthdays by seeing a movie that just recently came out, the Hunger Games. The movie itself drew a ton of hype. Honestly, it really didn't live up to my expectations, but that's not my point here.

In the book and movie, Katniss goes off to fight as a tribute in the 74th annual district Hunger Games because her younger sister was at first chosen as the tribute. Katniss volunteered to replace Primrose as the female representative from their district. It is because of this action that eventually leads to a revolution in the districts (sorry, that's a spoiler for Catching Fire and Mockingjay!). Today, I was speaking with the birthday boy, and he asked me if it were me and Kylie, would I have volunteered for my baby sister? Would I volunteer to replace anyone?

Without experiencing what is going on in the fictional world that Suzanne Collins created for us, I can't accurately predict my own actions or judge the actions of the characters. I'd like to say that I'm sure I would volunteer for anyone younger than myself, anyone with more promise and opportunity and deserves to live to see as least as much as I have. However, I can only truthfully say that the only person I'm positive that I'd undoubtedly volunteer to replace is my baby sister.

Assuming that I'm 19 and she's 7 (not in the age eligibility range in the series). If, out of oh so many names it's hers that is chosen, though I wouldn't be nearly as dramatic as Katniss, I would not allow, under any circumstance, my baby sister to go into cruel, blood-shedding combat with other kids. There's so much violence, danger, and thirst for fame and power that even if she survived and won, she'd be traumatized out of her mind or turned into a monster. What little kid wouldn't, if they were to watch people get decapitated by spears?

If it were your sibling, what would you do?

-Chichi

Deception and Deceit

Before they really know what's going on, toddlers are so easy to fool. Sure, it sounds cruel, but sometimes it's necessary. Two examples:

I ate a bag of vegetable chips because I was heading out and needed to eat first. Kylie had a yogurt and an egg coming up. She spotted my chips and did a double take. After pointing and asking for them to no avail, she strolled over to the box, lugged the box out of the corner, nearly fell in face first putting it down, and took one bag out. Handing it to mommy, she said, loud and clear, "da da," which is baby talk for "open" in Chinese. Mommy hands it back and tells her to go ask sissy, who snatches it and tosses it back into the box, makes the box disappear, and confuses Kylie. She ended up happy watching a video of herself on mommy's cell phone (she loves those), and I was able to finish my snack in peace.

Another example is of her fussing at the dinner table last night. She sits next to daddy and diagonal from mommy (mommy sits at the head), and I sit across from her with no one next to me. I washed her hands for her and put her down to finish washing my own. She immediately bounces over to my chair and pats it, as if trying to get on it. I tried to put her into her own seat, but she did NOT like that. She and I wrestled for a good 2 minutes before I got her buckled in. She still wouldn't quiet, so I switched her chair and my chair, putting her where I was sitting and me where she was sitting. She quieted for a bit and ate a few bites. This distraction wasn't enough, but it did work for the few bites that it allowed.

Sure, sure, big sissy is evil for being a lying meanie to baby sis. But it's quite necessary very often. Dinner time! Distract her so she'll eat. Snack? No, it's not healthy. Pretend it's empty. Mommy and sissy need to go somewhere! Daddy, make sure she doesn't see us go out the door without her. The kid is smart, and soon enough she won't fall for our silly tricks. 'Til then, we can keep her away from making a mess with the chocolate and pretzel cereal bars.

-Chichi

Also, HAPPY SPRING!

Knowledge is Power; Innocence is Bliss

You tell Kylie to say "bye bye," and she'll wave and say bye bye. She knows what it means to go "pick up sissy" , and she'll readily crash into daddy's arms when he says it. She knows how to "go to mommy/daddy/sissy" and "give this to mommy/daddy sissy." She'll lean in her chubby cheek if you say "kissy" in Chinese or English, and as I mentioned before, she readily gives everyone high fives. She can't really talk yet, but some of the words she's experimenting with are the Chinese words for mommy, daddy, sissy, horsey, and cat, and dog, apple, hug, and llama in English.

At just over 16 months old, Kylie is undoubtedly in one of the fastest-paced learning, most innocent, enriched-experience points of her childhood. She's just starting to understand how life and all it's little pieces work, the clockwork of her brain just beginning to click and whir. Because she's just beginning to understand, she's in a state of perfect bliss. The low points of her day are having to go to nap-time and when mommy doesn't want to hold her. With this in mind, I'd like to state my wish for Kylie when she grows up.

There is a race to "need" to know everything you possibly can leading up to the adolescent years, starting in 4th or 5th grade. In those years, kids start trying to catch the sex jokes on late night TV from Fridays and Saturdays, start experimenting with foul language, and wish to act rebellious. Kylie's hunger to learn won't fade for a long, long time, and eventually, her path will cross the evils. I promise to myself and my baby sister that once she starts getting exposed to these things, I pledge to be a positive influence and steer her away. Knowledge about health and safety from the mundane busy-work given to preteens and teens during "Health Week" or just any health class isn't really busy-work; such knowledge is power, and completely necessary for one's safety. However, knowledge of perverted, dirty, and young child inappropriate phrases, jokes, and discussion in general is NOT power.

At this point in time, there is also a race for popularity. Most of the guys and girls at the top of the food chain fall under a category of folk who know the correct answers to suggestive questions. The athletic, good looking, perverted-joke-makers aren't necessarily going to be the best off in the future. In fact, they may not be the smartest or the happiest right then. The more fakeness, the more stress, the more likely to have to hide behind something to "keep up your cool."

As her older sister, I'll of course support all of her level-headed decisions. There is, however, one expectation I've already set for her: stay innocent as best as you can, for as long as you can. Never ever feel the need fall behind a facade. Masked people aren't as happy as they can be, and I wish for you to be as happy as you can be. Be a strong girl, Kylie, and be happy and amazing and generous and love with all your heart.

As sappy and sentimental as this post may sound, it's something that people need to hear more often. Here in high school, teenagers with raging hormones and crazy ideas act dramatic and rambunctious daily. They get lost in the sea of pituitary glands. They lose themselves and their honesty towards themselves. They develop facades behind which they hide what they think are true feelings, and the facades make them generally miserable. They fight and claw and bite their ways up the coolness pyramid that also happens to be full of sex jokes. I'm one of the lucky few that truly believes that I live a great life. And there's absolutely nothing more than true happiness, even in her "rebel years," that I can wish for Kylie as she grows up.

-Chichi

Stranger Danger

I'm not qualified to assess the accuracy or precision of Kylie's StrangerMeter, or even how active it is now. When she was only a few months old, Kylie was extremely wary of strangers. I imagine any baby would be. I mean, when you're that small, and the world is that big... I'm a dedicated athlete. I'm at gymnastics practice 13 - 15 hours a week, plus six or seven competitions per year that require us to stay on the premises for sometimes up to 6 hours. Kylie loves coming to the gym to pick me up after practices. She really likes one of my teammates. A while ago, she started high five-ing all the team girls. After that, she started giving them hugs or patting them when prompted. But before she was comfortable enough with all of that, she let the teammate that she likes hold her hand and walk her to come find me at the back of the gym.

Kylie likes kids. My dad says that all little kids like other little kids. I suppose it's because the size is less intimidating. Even at 14 years old, I still prefer being around kids my size (on the short side) than towering giants, gentle ones included. This past weekend, I had a gymnastics competition. During the awards ceremony, Kylie was struggling to climb out from mommy's arms to come sit with my team and I. We finally convinced mom to let her down, and she came and sat with us. My level was called up first, so while I was on the award podium, Kylie sat in my teammate's lap. The teammate even got her to clap for me!

Obviously, in my little sister's naive baby's mind, her favorite teammate is no longer a stranger. But she waves bye bye to people she's never met. She high fives anyone who asks. If you tried to hold her, forget about it. Sit next to her in the car? Fat chance. But her StrangerMeter stops there. She's a friendly little social butterfly.

-Chichi

Sick Judy Moody

Mom's gone on a business trip, so it's just Kylie, sissy, and daddy for few days. Of course, the moment mommy's plane takes off (or around that time), Miss Kylie decides to get super moody. A few hours later, right about when mommy calls to tell us she's at her hotel, daddy and I take her temperature and she's 38 Celsius (100.4 F), right on for fever.

Kylie jabbered into the phone with mommy for a while, and ran around in her PJs playing with her train and her little baby-proof music player (I think I got it as a prize for reading a lot of books when I was younger...) and she and I waited for daddy to go get her Tylenol. We actually had some just in case, but apparently it had expired already, so it had already been thrown out. The one night where there's only one adult at home, she decides to get sick. Poor baby.

When daddy was home again, we read her one of her Llama Llama books and put her straight to bed, only gonna give medicine if she feels bad at night. When she wakes up later, she'll probably drink more of the watered down juice I put in her sippy cup and cry and refuse to go back to sleep cause she feels bad. So right now we're being super duper quiet for her to get the best sleep she can before her temperature rises too far.

-Chichi

Snow Day and Music

Getting hit with snowballs by daddy!
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Last night, after Kylie's bath, mommy dressed her in a pink onesie with a snowman on it. While she and mommy were asleep, daddy and I watched nearly two inches of powdery white snow accumulate on our back porch. Now this isn't the midwest. We live in North Carolina. Before moving to North Carolina, we lived in Georgia. Kylie has never been further north than Washington, D.C., and never lived anywhere but the southeast. This isn't her first encounter with snow, but it's her first time being allowed out while it was there. We were home because today was President's Day; I didn't have school and Kylie's daycare was closed.

The baby has a thing for music. Bob Carlisle's Butterfly Kisses album can silence her on a fussy car trip. She'll shake and dance every time she hears some melody pop up. For several (too many) years, I took piano lessons. I still like to bang around on the keys once in a while, and more often than not, Kylie will come toddling in. She'd ask for permission to play by pointing up at the keys and then making this questioning sound. I usually bring her up onto my lap, but when I don't, she rarely fusses. She usually just ends up sitting in my little piano nook and playing with the old books and sheet music scattered on the floor.

Musically, her most recent discovery is glissandos (glissandi?). I personally despise the musical tool. It's overused in modern band music and sounds silly on the piano unless you use the pedal, which the music sometimes doesn't allow. My baby sister, however, is completely riveted by them. When my thumb starts a gliss, she'll stop smashing the keys and watch. Then she'll place her palms on the keys, fingers facing the higher notes, and brush them down the keyboard, as if doing her own. The keys are too heavy for her to be able to make sound in a gliss by herself. Also, they really hurt your fingers when you're little (at least they hurt mine, which is why I hated them at ages 9 and 10 and below). Naturally, she was unable to produce the gliding staircase sound of the gliss, but the fact that she understood the motions and enjoyed listening/trying was magnificent enough.

-Chichi

Baby Eating Habits

Kylie, on the itty bitty side, has a pretty big tummy and a decent sized appetite. Some dinners, she literally eats more than me, not accounting for our body sizes.

When she was a newborn, Kylie never drank enough milk. I remember that my mom once made a graph of how much milk she drank every day. It was supposed to be steadily increasing, but Kylie's looked more like the cardiograph diagram of a heartbeat. The amount she took was really inconsistent. When time came for jar food, Kylie definitely had preferences. She hated prunes and peas and carrots, but she liked bananas and some of the other more natural tasting ones (yes, I did try some). She really liked the breakfast flavored ones for stage 2 jar food. But there were few things she hated more than the packaged food that you microwave, jarred meat, and jarred soup. Sometimes, in order to force her to down the food for it's nutrition value, my dad and I tricked her. We'd either tease her into laughing with her mouth open or we'd put something else like a pretzel or a cracker on her lips to get her to open her mouth; it would allow us to stick in that spoonful of food.

Now, Kylie eats everything as finger food-sized. For dinner, we tear up her meat and veggies, and give her small chunks of sticky rice. In Chinese, tang means too hot. She understands what it means, when we say tang tang, but sometimes she'll still screech and cry until we give her the rice or the vegetable that was cooling in her view. She's gone past the phase of hating milk, and now we give it to her instead of water. If she's thirsty, that's what she's gonna drink. She loves Chobani Greek Yogurt, or probably any yogurt (we get Chobani because of its high fat content), and does okay with avocados. I go with my dad to pick her up from daycare every day of the week, and if it's not Monday, we don't head straight home. On those other days, we drive for 10 more minutes to drop me off at gymnastics practice. In the car on those days, Kylie will question my sanity with her tiny eyes and give me facial expressions and funny sounds if I don't bring her a snack. Whether it be veggie chips (not exactly health food for babies there, but she likes them), a whole milk cheese slice with some crackers, or a cup of yogurt, as long as there is a snack, she's happy.

-Chichi

EDIT: And of course, 40 minutes after I hit publish, she tries a new food. Today, Kylie discovered the magic of hard mini pretzels. She's having a hard time sinking in her teeth, but she thinks they're delicious, and is extremely persistent in finishing each one. But oddly, she keeps putting it on the ground and re-picking it up...

Kylie and Chichi

My baby sister is named Kylie. Currently, I'm watching her chug milk from the sippy cup that she's balancing with one hand and pick at a plate of egg-bits with the other. She was born on October 22, 2010, and is currently 15 months old. She and I are 12 years and 8 months apart, and I love her with all of my heart.

For the almost 13 years before Kylie was born, I was an only child. As I got older, our schedule completely revolved around me and my extracurriculars. When my mom told me that she was pregnant, I didn't believe it. Literally. I thought she was joking. I thought she was far too old to have another baby. When reality hit, I'll admit, I had my doubts about having a sibling. How was I supposed to go from the only kid to the older kid? Sister? That word was foreign to me. Would we be close? Would she do gymnastics like me? What happens if she asks me to do her hair? I could barely do my own. For a few weeks, those were the only thoughts that ran through my mind. The one friend I told about her nicknamed her "the baby cow" completely by chance. I gave updates like, the cow kicked today! or the cow is 20 weeks old! Mutual friends would look at us like we were crazy. The day that Kylie was born, my science teacher gave me permission to text my dad to ask for pictures during class. He sent two, of her laying inside a little NICU, and the moment I saw them, I knew I had the most beautiful baby sister in the world.

At 15 months old, Kylie can walk, almost run, clap her hands, and say about a dozen words in Chinese and English. Her shining eyes are brown-black, and her hair is thin, short (we shaved it twice so she'd have full, healthy hair in the future - it's a long backstory), and also brown-black. She's petite for her age, and she likes to be tickled. She loves reading books and pointing to the pictures to ask you what they are. She knows how to share her toys. She loves sliding. Her favorite part of stuffed animals are the eyes and the tag. She likes to copy the sounds that you make. She dances when she hears music. I could go on for days about her, but at her 15 months old, our adventures together are just beginning.

-Chichi