The first motherhood conspiracy I realized after I had Darren was there’s no such thing as “sleeping like a baby”. Darren used to grunt and make all sorts of loud weird noises as a newborn and he was the hardest one in the newborn playgroup that I joined to put down to sleep, especially naps. Then came the sleep training, which I certainly didn’t recall any of my long-time mommy friends sharing horror stories about.
The second motherhood conspiracy I found was all the abuse a mom has to take from her kids. As an example, whenever I take Darren to the potty at a public place and we have to share a small stall, after he’s done with the potty, it’d go something like this, which was totally what happened tonight: his head bumped into mine while I was using the potty, then his finger barely missed my eye, but luckily only poked my forehead, and then when we were finally out of the confined space, he kicked me in the shins with his shoes while I held him up to wash his hands.
Cameron hasn’t entered this “abusive” phase just yet, but while we were waiting in line at Disneyland today, he decided to “play” with my face. I actually remember doing this once with my dad’s face when I was little, so I guess it’s my turn to take the abuse!
The lines at Disneyland indeed weren’t too bad. This one for Dumbo was one of the longest we waited in, but I think it was less than 30 minutes. The two lessons I’ve learned from going to these amusement parks: patience is a virtue and don’t forget your sunhats at home!
Cameron’s lovey is a Mickey Mouse, a gift straight from Disneyland. So we’ve been wanting to go to Disneyland again—we took him to the Disneyland in Hong Kong but he was only barely one year old then. We thought about going last Christmas, but a friend warned us Disneyland could get really crowded during the holidays, so we ended up going to Legoland for Christmas—as well as this week.
The same friend visited Disneyland a few days ago and said the lines weren’t that bad, so we made a spontaneous trip today for our little Cameron! Our first stop once we got to Disneyland was Mickey’s house of course! As expected, as much as Cameron loves Mickey Mouse, he was a little scared of the life-size character. When we were at SeaWorld over Christmas, we waited in line for a photo op with Elmo, but once it was our turn, Cameron started crying, so only Darren took the picture. So it’s a testament to Cameron’s love for Mickey that we got this picture with the famous mouse!
We’ve never seen Legoland this empty. After we exhausted all the rides that we’re familiar with, we started exploring the parts of Legoland that we usually don’t even get to and it turns out there are lots of fun rides we’ve been missing out on! One of these is a ride for four through an Indiana Jones-type adventure where you get to shoot targets with a laser gun and score points before you reach the treasure at the end. I went with Cameron a couple times before Vincent and Darren joined us. The first time all four of us rode together, I scored higher than Vincent, but Vincent got competitive of course and outscored me every time afterwards. Part of my “underperformance” was because Darren who was sitting next to me couldn’t aim and got really frustrated and wanted me to use his laser gun so that he wouldn’t end up with a zero score. To be fair, Darren did shoot one target on his first ride and scored 30 points—beginner’s luck I guess! Cameron though actually scored 60 points twice! It might have something to do with his focused and steady handling of his laser gun, which was right up against his face the whole time! 😉
We also got annual passes to SeaWorld at our last visit. SeaWorld reminds me of Ocean Park in Hong Kong. I think I used to go to Ocean Park almost every summer as a teenager. I loved their animal shows, which never got old for me, so at SeaWorld, of course we went back to the Shamu show. Last time Cameron was pretty restless during the show, but this time he was more interested. In fact, afterwards we went to the dolphin show and Cameron was really into it!
We missed the belugas on our last visit, but this time we saw the baby beluga with the mama beluga just like one of the kids’ favorite books and songs “Baby Beluga” have it. It actually got a little too real-life when the mama beluga pooped and then it was the baby beluga’s turn too! Yikes!
The last time we went to Legoland Cameron was a little too short even for the lowest height requirement. Not this time! He just made it. However, he still likes to play with the blocks in the kiddie area. I had to drag him out when Mom called me to get him to a surprisingly short line at Safari Trek. I just hope that he maintains this interest as he grows up. It’s easy to be entertained instead of creating one’s own entertainment.
Yes we’re back at Legoland again! We finally splurged for annual passes after two visits in the last six months (once over Labor Day weekend and another over Christmas weekend.) Since we have the annual passes, we actually headed straight to Legoland after we checked into the hotel even though we only had one hour there till closing time! It turned out to be a great week to be at Legoland. We’d never seen lines this short, so we actually discovered lots of new rides that we never had time for on our past visits!
But even on rides we’d been on many times before, the kids still get excited as if it were their first time and enjoy the sights and sounds all over again! (Dad on the other hand is just a good actor!)
I’ve posted Cameron’s singing and dancing to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in Mandarin a couple times already, so it’s time for his rendition in English. 🙂 I actually tried to video him a couple days ago but since we’re always sitting under the big Gymboree parachute (to create the starry sky) for this song, it was hard to do in the tight space and without getting in other people’s way. So today I decided to video Cameron while he’s sitting in my lap. He didn’t sing as much as I’d like, but I’m still so glad I caught a bit of this “routine”. It’s easy to think we’re at Gymboree yet again, doing the same thing each class until he graduates to the next level (and then it’s the same thing for that new class), but he really is growing up so fast and if I don’t have these videos, I won’t remember his baby looks, movements, and moments.
Another song Cameron likes a lot is 兩隻老虎 (Two Tigers). I love the way he runs with his two little fists swinging back and forth—he looks so cute and funny.
Today he said “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse” over and over again and “Chip and Dale” once. It’s probably because we’ve been reading Mickey Mouse books—Cameron LOVES Mickey Mouse. Little does he know we’re going to Disneyland next week—it’ll be his first time to the Disneyland here!
Several weeks ago, at Cameron’s weekly swim class, he all of a sudden got it figured out. He was kicking and kicking and holding his breath. I kept backing up away from him and realized he could swim really far! From that day on, I had my eye on the first achievement award he could get—the green ribbon, which requires swimming six feet in a horizontal body position, using paddling arms and proper breath control. It took us a while—the biggest reason was Cameron had to learn to paddle as well besides just kicking, but then the teacher would be out sick and the substitute teacher wouldn’t be in the position to grant awards or Cameron would be gun shy and underperform when the teacher tested him. But two or three weeks ago, even a mom in Cameron’s swim class said, “Give it to Cameron already!”
Well, today Cameron finally got it!
I can’t remember exactly when Darren got his green ribbon, but judging by the post on Darren’s blog, he was probably 27 months old. Cameron is 25 months old. Actually when I told Darren that Cameron got his green ribbon, even Darren said “Whoa!” Congratulations Cameron!
