two birthday parties today:

jeremy - our friend’s son had his 6th birthday party at the new park in evergreen. pretty park! it was a warm day filled with lots of activity and tons of food. we hadn’t seen ray and the guys in awhile so it was great to catch up even if it was only for a little bit. these kids are growing so fast!

jaryd - right after jeremy’s we headed to jaryd’s 5th birthday at lunar golf in milpitas. everything glowed in the dark in there..even my pedicure! hahaha the kids had an awesome time running around and playing with all the glowing things! tied off the evening by hanging out at my sister-in-law’s house and of course more eating…burp! hahaha

this past week was busy as usual but not in that hectic way it normally is. it was the kind of busy that i miss, the kind of busy where you actually enjoy the things that you are doing and don’t really feel drained from it.

progress at last! last week i received a text from ramel saying that tobey participated in his taekwondo class without any hesitation. … yay! he had trouble adjusting in the first few classes and thankfully a breakthrough occurred during this last visit. the streak has continued this week as he is now excited to go to class!

the timing was perfect as it coincided with a special trip with his cousins from stockton. venus planned the trip and it started off with us meeting them for lunch. we then headed to micke grove zoo..the kids were soooo excited! the sea lion and monkeys were popular with the 4 cousins! we then headed to fun town (amusement park next door) and spent the afternoon on a few of the rides. tobey’s favorite was the scrambler! the weather was beautiful so we spent some time relaxing by the picnic tables while the kiddos ran around and did relay races..hahaha…great way to tire them out because as soon as we got into the car..BAM…zzzzz city!

it was a pretty relaxing week - work was actually manageable and the week’s activities were enjoyable.

i just had to start tracking stuff like this down because you hear ‘em, you laugh and then you try to remember what they said when you tell people and completely forget so here’s my resolution to that!

* 7/21/08 - “i’m a slurpee, drink me!”
—> we were on 880 and all of a sudden tobey breaks out with this line…hahaha

* 7/17/08 - “does she have to go potty?
—> tobey referring to the short, “healthy” looking lady he saw running across the street towards the store

just when you think you have parenting sorta figured out, little kids have a way of reminding you there is still lots to learn!

preschool is pretty much year round but this year we decided to pull tobey out for a few weeks so he can have a summer vacation before he starts kindergarten. not really being keen on having him spend summer days watching tv and playing on the computer, we thought we’d try him out with a few activities.

(1) gymnastics - we enrolled him in a toddlers class and were happily surprised when his teacher told us that he was actually more advanced than we thought. she thought maybe he would be able to go into the developmental class which is an iinvitation only prep class for competitive gymnastics. although he was hesitant to join the class at first, he did great and we were told that although he would be the youngest in his class, he had no problems keeping up. he would not be able to compete til he is 6 yrs old but that was ok as long as he was learning the physical and mental skills needed. due to scheduling conflicts, we could not commit to the class so his teacher suggested he do the boys level 1 class. he is currently doing a combo of the toddlers class (he’ll learn listening and focus skills) and the level 1 class (he’ll learn advanced skills and therefore won’t be bored). although he had that one meltdown in the first week, he is excited to attend and cannot wait to get to class!

(2) martial arts - this activity proved to be the opposite for tobey. we enrolled him in hopes to teach him focus, discipline, control, etc. and our initial meeting was not ideal. he refused to put on the uniform and it took about 15 minutes before we were able to get him into the interview process where he received his first private lesson. he was very excited working one on one with the instructor and in the end broke his first board! thinking he would adjust as he did in gymnastics, we signed him up (commitment of 6 months). his next lesson would be in a class setting and papa bruno brought him. according to grandpa, he did not want to go into class and one of the assistants ended up giving him a private lesson. the 2nd class would be a little more successful. he did not want to get into the car with papa so i took him and he at first was a little scared but realized that his friend cortez was in the class which made him feel better. he attended the full 30 minutes and everything seemed great again! 3rd class - complete meltdown! he refused and never attended the class nor got any training that day. it was truly very disappointing and frustrating. his 4th class today proved a little promising. he was in uniform complete with gear but it took him 15 minutes to get on the mat and even then he refused to get into the class. stephen worked with him and finally convinced him to go into class the last 5 minutes. if he didn’t like the class altogether it would be easy to pull him out. but instead there are days where he’s ready to go and practices at home everything he learned or heard and then clams up when we get to class. he has said everything from, he doesn’t like the class to i don’t have everything to he doesn’t like the yelling as excuses to not attend. i don’t want to feel like we’re forcing him but also want to teach him that when you commit to something, you try it a few times before quitting. the karate place has been very patient and supportive letting us know that they have kids that do that sometimes and sometimes even cry the whole time or yell and scream to get their way. we are giving it one month to get adjusted in hopes that he will get some confidence in himself and not have “stage fright”. keep your fingers crossed!

(3) tennis and golf - this was a no-brainer…my whole family plays tennis and/or golf so there was no question that we would have my dad work with him. tobey enjoys it and looks forward to it every time! we hope that he continues to enjoy it!

we want him to enjoy all these activities and i know that there will be ones he will not want to do and ones he will completely embrace. perhaps it’s timing and it just depends on their interests at that time. ramel and i have realized that the first four years with tobey have been easy as he followed instructions and adjusted fairly well to whatever was thrown at him. now we are facing defiance and resistance, something very new to ramel and i so we too are learning to adjust.

we don’t want to force him but do want to teach him about making an attempt at something and the concept of commitment. some may say..hello he’s not even 5 give him a break…and that’s fine. every parent teaches and raises their kids differently, please don’t judge. judgments have that boomerang action and tends to smack those judgmental people not necessarily upside the head but in other ways…

okay..that was me venting..phew i’m done for today!

we slept in on saturday, something we hadn’t done in a while. mel woke up at 1030am and i woke up close to noon! we spent saturday lounging around and then started unpacking some boxes..yes, we’re still unpacking! that of course took and is taking forever…ugh!

jump to sunday - a craving for dim sum brought us to san jose where we met up with edwin, edison and jenn. we haven’t had dim sum in a while so we scarfed! a target run followed by a halo-halo run rounded off the afternoon before we headed to see the movie “Wanted”. ok, i’m still recovering from the whole brad-angelina-jennifer thing and didn’t think i’d enjoy it but it was actually pretty good.

we had intended on having a quiet 4th of july and were just going to swing by robbie and jenny’s house for a bit to help them move a few things. we arrived close to noon i think and left close to midnight! hahaha by the time we arrived, a lot had been done already since they started the day before. it seemed like it was only the little things left but having moved 4 times myself i should have known it’s moving the little things that take longer than you think! while ramel was helping robbie, martie and jenny, i stayed at the rental with doll to help watch the kids.

the kids decided to go swimming and tobey really wanted to get in the water so i let him. he started by sitting down and just getting his feet wet. then he started walking on the step that runs across the 4 ft end of the pool. while he was doing a thought entered my mind - what if he misses the step and accidentally falls in…he is 40 inches tall while the pool was 48 inches deep. and of course just as i thought it, it happened. everything happened so quickly but yet seemed like it was going very slow. as he was waving his arms in the air trying to stay afloat, i looked around to see if any of the other kids would grab for him to pull his head above water. no one really did, probably out of sheer shock at what we were seeing so without even thinking i jumped in to pull his head above water. it was probably literally 5 seconds of watching him before i realized what was going on and jumped in. luckily it was 4 feet deep otherwise someone would have had to come in and pull me out too hahahha! he wasn’t freaked out, he was more confused kind of wondering “hmm, how did that happen?” and i realized i was in denim shorts, a t-shirt, watch and jewelry on when i jumped in. we just cracked up because i was soaking wet just standing there trying to get dry!

i watched tobey and he seemed a little hesitant to go back into the 4ft side and opted to stay in the jacuzzi side. when i was little, a similar thing happened to me and since then i’ve been afraid to step in a pool deeper than my height. not wanting the same thing for my child, i jumped back in fully clothed to encourage him to get back into the water to try swimming around. he was a little scared at first but jumped back in anyway as we practiced floating and kicks and just trying to get him more comfortable with the water. i know he won’t forget what happened because he now says that he doesn’t want to go back to kuya paolo’s house for awhile hahhahah. i told him he didn’t always have to go into the pool everytime he goes back there and that we will slowly get back into the water to get him comfortable again.

i went home to change and when i got back they had talked about BBQing for dinner. neil and rowena had arrived as well to pick up some things jenny was passing on to them and for some more help for robbie. we ended up staying for dinner, watching the fireworks from their backyard and literally shooting the s— for the next few hours until we realized it was 1130pm! hahahaha so much for our quiet and simple 4th - spontaneous gatherings are the best!