Some things that happen when you put all 4 of us in the same room for 3 nights

1. Bye bye to sleep training. We have babies who wake at erratic hours. For some reason, Linus is getting up at about midnight and crying out perhaps at the notion of himself being in a crib other than his back home. But it has not been that bad. Takes me a couple of minutes to settle him back in. The usual strategies do not work whilst on vacation as you want to shush a baby quickly for fear of waking the other hotel guests.

2. I get to hear Lucas talk and sing to himself (in bed) which is extremely entertaining I must say. But I have to restrain from engaging with him so he knows he is not getting any attention and goes to bed.

3. My wake-up call is the tune of "oh macdonald had a cow..E-YA-E-YA-OH!"

4. We find ingenious ways to keep a busy toddler entertained in the confines of the room lest he starts emptying our suitcases, and putting things where they do not belong.

What Lucas is saying these days:
"Go Mommy's car? Sleep first"
"Where is Toby, Daddy?"
"Be careful, Daddy" - when the car drove over a steep bump on the road.
"Don't cry, Linus"

Lucas is really sweet with his little brother and it's great to see them play together now.

We arrived in San Francisco

It was quite a pretty drive down from Medford, OR to San Francisco. Surrounded by mountains, vast green pastures and many good-looking cows, sheeps and horses. I thought I did pretty well in packing light but it still took up the entire trunk space of the car.

I have no idea what I was doing. But the air was remarkably fresh and I was visibly very happy.

There is something about me and trees.

Voted the best lunch spot. Cozy, friendly restaurant. Only thing we came out smelling like BBQ chicken and roast beef.

Stopping by historic Woodland for lunch. We are still pretty much on the road today.

After snapping repeatedly on my camera...

Besides singing and pointing out the cows, horses, sheep and trains to Linus, Lucas is keeping himself and Linus entertained any way he can..

A tiring day today. We arrived in San Francisco in the afternoon and spent the half of the afternoon visiting some of my prospective clients in the City. Wandered around Chinatown, had dinner and headed back to the hotel.

More fun stuff tomorrow and finally, no more long distance driving for a few days!

On the road again

No wait at the border. We sailed through without getting out of the car!Thank you for the toys, Carolyn! He LOVES them and it is perfect for the trip! I devoured your cookies VERY quickly too!

The essential Lunch BoxDon't leave home without these. What he does best.Rest stop.The only thing that traumatised me today was Linus' bruised face that greeted me this morning.Thank you, Stephanie for the Kueh Bangkit!I eat when I am bored. Thank you for the ginormous cookies, Atsuko!

In our hotel room

Boys x 3 asleep. Me working from my laptop. Perfect bliss.

We are in Medford, Oregon. Our first stopover on our way to San Francisco tomorrow. 9 hours of drive and covered 1000km today.

It was a very smooth drive in sunny weather. Boys were very well-behaved despite it being such a long first leg of our journey. We were surprised we were able to drive all the way from home to Portland without getting out of the car. We finally took a break for lunch in Portland at about 12 noon after 5 hours of drive. I took over the wheel in the second half of our journey to give Edwin a break.

Back in the hotel, (we bidded for this hotel on priceline.com and got a great rate). Suite with full kitchen. Perfect for small family. But we are only staying over for one night and heading to SFO tomorrow morning. After dinner in the room, we were wondering where to put Linus' crib. He is now sleeping in the closet..erm..yes..with the door slightly ajar.

I am so glad the kids went to bed early and without fuss. Great first day! Looking forward to landing in SFO tomorrow!

It will be Christmas again in 9 months

I have been buried in my work recently. I have no time to think about our upcoming second road trip, or ponder over how long the renovation of our guest bath room will take (it is currently under demolition), and certainly no energy to engage in a physical or verbal tussle as to who is going to take down the Christmas tree. Thank you, Elly for reminding me that it is now February and who has their Christmas tree up in February? Us. I can just imagine Edwin telling me that it is just 9 more months and we will have to put it up again anyway. Just like how he tells me I don't have to make the bed since we are going to go to bed the same night anyway.

Anyway...on the lighter side of matters, I have to update on my 2 beautiful boys.
Lucas is back to his usual mischief and it is so good to see him so energetic, cheerful and noisy. He is really chatty these days and it is so fun now to have him try to engage in a conversation with us.

Linus finally pooped on the potty last week. We started him on the potty at about the same time as with Lucas, around 6.5-7months. There are still poopy diapers with Linus but I am trying to find the right time to bring him regularly so we have less of a poop to clean up! But with our upcoming road trip, we could be thrown off balance anyway! He has been really good with sleeping too and we now have 2 boys both asleep by 7pm. This was critical for me to achieve because I needed the time to do my work at night and I am really happy the boys have been good.

Well now..back to work.

Back in order..well, almost

When the kids fall sick, it throws me slightly out of sync. Lucas had a very high fever last week which lasted about 3 days and vomitted twice in 3 days. The regular infant tylenol did not seem to do anything for him and sponging only made it a little better temporarily. What made me very nervous was how he listless he looked and his extremely low energy level.

Much as I dislike the ER, we did eventually bring him to the ER at the hospital. It was bedtime, and we had to bring Linus with us and waited for almost 2 hours before we were seen by the Doc. It was brutal. Turned out the fever was his body's reaction to fighting a viral infection, possibly a flu virus. They gave him some advil and sent us home.

He is so much better today although he still looked tired. It's so sad to see him so quiet and I actually miss the noise, and him running around the house in his usual mischief.

I am a little out of sync since I have been very busy cleaning up, scrubbing every corner and doing tons of laundry to eradicate any ounce of vomit even though it's probably all gone by now but I do have a very vivid wild imagination and a highly sensitive nose.

Thankfully Edwin has been around these last couple of days to help me with the boys so that I can catch up with my work at the same time.

Weekend to celebrate the Lunar New Year

We had a busy weekend last week. Visiting friends and eating to celebrate the Lunar New Year. We are very fortunate to still be able to experience 'Lou Hei' here in Canada with friends who had this authentic dish specially flown in and prepared.

Watching Lucas run around and happily treating himself to the treats and goodies reminds me a little of myself when I was a little kid.

Linus' first go at Baby Mum Mums

He is loving it. The second time we gave this baby biscuit to him, he chomped it down very quickly. Linus is doing well in the feeding department. He is a smart cookie too, only choosing to eat real food like chicken, rice, vegetables etc pureed and none of the rice cereal from a box.

Family photos during Chinese New Year

More photos of our get-together with friends over Chinese New Year to follow soon. This is one of my favourite time of the year when we get together with friends and feast on goodies.

Whilst I was hibernating

Lucas learned to dribble.And to pick hoops that matched his outfit.Someone tells me that Linus' head is bigger than Lucas'.

He doesn't care if his brother is wearing the same size diaper as he is.

I didn't know this (poking at a block of snow) can be so much fun.

Lucas likes to play "boss" when playing fetch with Abby.