The more verbal Abigail becomes, the more she has been able to teach us the many preschool songs she's been learning. Here are lyrics to a couple of my favorites.

Herman the Worm (or "Hermy," according to Abby)

Sitting on the sidewalk
Chewing my bubble gum (pretend to chew)
Playing with my yoyo - WOO WOO (act like you are playing with a yoyo
And along comes Herman the worm. (do your index finger like it is crawling like a worm)
And he was this big (hold your fingers a few inches apart)
I said, "Herman, what happened?" (Abby's version: I said, "Hermy, what's wrong?")
And he said, "I ate an apple"

Sitting on the sidewalk
Chewing my bubble gum (pretend to chew)
Playing with my yoyo - WOO WOO (act like you are playing with a yoyo
And along comes Herman the worm. (do your index finger like it is crawling like a worm)
And he was this big (hold your hands a foot apart)
I said, "Herman, what happened?"
And he said, "I ate a banana"

Sitting on the sidewalk
Chewing my bubble gum (pretend to chew)
Playing with my yoyo - WOO WOO (act like you are playing with a yoyo
And along comes Herman the worm. (do your index finger like it is crawling like a worm)
And he was this big (hold your hands about 4 feet apart)
I said, "Herman, what happened?"
And he said, "I ate a watermelon"

Sitting on the sidewalk
Chewing my bubble gum (pretend to chew)
Playing with my yoyo - WOO WOO (act like you are playing with a yoyo
And along comes Herman the worm. (do your index finger like it is crawling like a worm)
And he was this big (hold you hands or fingers close together)
I said, "Herman, what happened?"
And he said, "I burped"

Slippery Fish (a song Abby likes to sing when washing her hands)

(Put your hands together in a prayer position to resemble a fish and wiggle them together as if swimming)
Slippery fish, slippery fish, sliding through the water,
Slippery fish, slippery fish, Gulp, Gulp, Gulp!
Oh, no! It’s been eaten by an …

(Wave your arms up and down like the flailing arms of an octopus.)
Octopus, octopus, squiggling in the water
Octopus, octopus, Gulp, Gulp, Gulp!
Oh, no! It’s been eaten by a …

(Put your hands together with your figners slightly bent and spread, keeping your palms touching each other. Open and close your hands as you sing.)
Tuna fish, tuna fish, flashing in the water,
Tuna fish, tuna fish, Gulp, Gulp, Gulp!
Oh, no! It’s been eaten by a …

(Place one hand, with fingers straight upwards, on top of your head.)
Great white shark, great white shark, lurking in the water,
Great white shark, great white shark, Gulp, Gulp, Gulp!
Oh, no! It’s been eaten by a …

(Make big upward motions with your arms to resemble the spouting of water by a whale.)
Humongous whale, humongous whale, spouting in the water,
Humongous whale, humongous whale,
Gulp! … Gulp! … Gulp! … BURP!
(Cover your mouth.) Pardon me!

There are many, many online tutorials for making a simple, dress-up tutu for kids. Since we have found Abby running around daycare with a tutu and refusing to leave because she didn't want to take it off many many times, I had been checking consignment stores and online stores in an effort to get one for her. However, the simplest tutu costs anywhere from $20 to $45!

Last week, though, I came across a tutu tutorial in the archives of Design Mom, a blog I frequently visit. The instructions for making a no-sew, elastic waist-band tutu were really easy to follow and made me think, "I can do that!"

A few more internet searches turned up various other no-sew instructions for tutus - some made with a ribbon waist-band, details on figuring out the right waist size for child, length of tutu, embellishment ideas, etc.

We went to Jo-Ann Fabrics yesterday and came away with 3 rolls (25 yards each) of 6-inch wide, different colored tulle, chosen by Abby, and a package of 1/2-inch wide elastic, said to be the perfect width for baby/toddler tutus. The material can easily make 2 toddler tutus of the fullness you'll see in the pictures below. I cut 16 2-feet long strips of each color and tied them along the elastic, alternating colors. (The elastic band was cut to 20.5 inches, recommended for kids in the 2T -3T size.) Once all the tulle got tied on, I did need to thread a needle and sew the two ends of the elastic together to form the waist band. A bit of scrunching was required to fluff the tutu to the fullness it needed.

The project started when Abby went down for a nap and was complete well before she woke up. She absolutely LOVES the tutu and starts twirling around the house with it on. What a girly-girl! I had some spare green ribbon, which I used for embellishment.


Total cost of project: ~$7 and 2 hours of labor, even though I was not able to get anything on sale.

A few notes on what I would do differently next time:

1) To make a "fairy" tutu, I might cut the ends of the tulle strips at a point, rather than straight across. The straight cut makes it more like a ballerina tutu.
2) If she was a bit older, I would have used a ribbon for the waistband rather than the elastic. Elastic makes it a lot easier for her to put on and take off by herself, but with stretching, the tulle knots pull out of place and need to be adjusted every now and then.
3) No-sew is nice, but the tulle strips will pull loose after time, so a few stitches per strip would be very useful.
4) I do not like the ribbon embellishment and the silk ribbon I used keeps coming loose, so I'm thinking of finding some cute silk flowers to glue on with a hot-glue gun. Pom-poms might also be fun. If I keep the ribbons, either add a few stitches to hold the knots in place or tie with a more permanent knot.
5) If I can find cheap, shimmering tulle, that would have been awesome. Maybe next time for a Halloween costume I'll invest in it.
6) Since Abby wants to wear this thing for hours on end and in the car and for naps, I think I could have gone with a less fluffy tutu - maybe 1/3 fewer strips. I like the way this one looks, but for playing around the house, it is a tad inconvenient.

***The following has a lot of potty training details, so consider yourself warned.***

Last Saturday, Paul and I decided we had put it off long enough and that we needed to finally brave the Potty Training Test of Parental Patience and Persistence. Even though Abby had been ready for awhile, Paul and I were not. When do we start? How do we start? Where do we find the extra patience? What if we screw it all up?!

Well, we never found any satisfactory answers as the experience seems to be different for every child and every parent. So, we decided to take a deep breath and just go for it! Abby turned 2 years and 6 months earlier that week.

We started Saturday afternoon after Abby's nap. The plan was to try to get her to drink as much as possible and put her on the potty every 30-45 minutes to see if she would go. This would allow her to associate the feeling of going with using the potty. We were armed with both a toilet seat insert (one that fits over a regular toilet, but had handles to allow her a place to hold on) and a "kid-size" potty chair. We gave her the choice of what she wanted to use every time. We watched a lot of Disney movies that afternoon, but saw no results. At dinner time, she finally said she needed to use the potty and we ushered her to the bathroom, but she had a small accident right by the toilet. Less than half an hour later, she had another small accident, but we couldn't get her to finish going on the toilet. Another half hour later, we were getting ready for bed and she said she needed to go potty, so we let her try again and.....success! She was so proud of herself and we gave her a lot of hugs and kisses, plus a few stickers. That night, she went to bed with just training pants.

Sunday morning, she woke up dry and as we were putting on her pair of princess underwear, she claimed she needed to use the potty and again was successful! Keeping her princess dry (as Abby calls it) lasted ALL DAY! At night, we rewarded her by letting her watch the movie, "Up." She loved the movie so much that she wouldn't allow us to pause it for a potty break. Unfortunately, this led to a strange bout of tantrums after the movie ended because she couldn't handle the urgency of having to use the bathroom. She didn't know what to do and ran around the house screaming. We suspected she needed to use the potty, so we took her to the bathroom and yet she continued to cry and scream. Finally, I asked if she wanted a diaper. That immediately calmed her down, but a second later, she had an accident right next to the toilet. We were able to pick her up and allow her to finish on the potty. Having the accident really upset her, but we talked her through it and let her know it was ok to have accidents and we have been so proud of her successes all day!

Monday was incredibly stressful for me because I didn't know how she would do at daycare. Would she speak up and let the teachers know if she needed to go? Would she do #2 in the potty, which we had yet to experience? However, I had no need to worry as she came home dry and had successfully used the potty twice at school!

Fast forward to now. We have not put a diaper on Abby since last Saturday morning. Abby is wearing training pants at night, but has not wet a single one yet. She has been 100% accident-free since Sunday night. She is able to handle having a bowel movement in the potty without a problem (the first time she hesitated, but when she did it successfully, we gave her a lot of praise and it brushed away her fears). And finally, it took her only 2 days to figure out going when it's convenient (like before leaving the house) versus only going when she feels the need to go, which we have been told - and have read - could takes months before kids figure it out.

We are so proud of Abby for achieving this huge accomplishment so quickly. Paul and I never imagined we could have gotten off so easily!! I think the key was really never pushing her to learn too quickly. Right after she turned two, we bought the potty chair and started to talk to her about using the toilet, but only every now and then. When several classmates at daycare were potty training, she showed interest and actually managed to use the toilet a couple of times. However, as these older classmates move up in class, Abby's interest in potty training dwindled and we didn't insist on her making progress. Around the holidays, Abby moved up to the next class and was once again in a class where several kids were training or were trained. By this time, Paul and I were finally ready to accept that we needed to give potty training a fair try. We were prepared to take many backwards steps in reaching this milestone, but I am pretty sure Abby was so ready by now to move on that she was willing to focus and push through it as soon as we let her.

Me: Who did you play with at school today?
Abby: Larissa, Payton, and 'livia. [Her eyebrows scrunch together in a look of concern.] 'Livia won't stand next to me.
Me: Olivia won't stand next to you?
Abby: Uh-huh!
Me: That doesn't feel nice, huh? Why won't Olivia stand next to you?

[I am beginning to feel sorry for Abby at this point, seeing the hurt look on her face.]

Abby: 'Cuz she comes by me and I run away!

Normally very sensitive to her friends, I'm quite frankly stunned at her confession to poor social etiquette. We will need to keep reinforcing the concept of inclusiveness.

We are smack in the middle of winter right now, enjoying high temperatures in the teens, but Abby and I had a heated debate yesterday where she insisted that it was summer already!

[In the car, as we're driving home from dinner. It had snowed lightly yesterday, but roads are all clear.]

Abby: Mama?
Me: Yes?
Abby: It's summer!
Me: No it's not, it's wintertime. It's freezing. See the snow on the ground?

[Abby pauses to look at the clear road in front of the car.]

Abby: There's no snow. There's sun! It's summer.
Me: Abby, it's 7pm, there's no sun and it's not summertime.
Abby: Yes, it is! Sun is just down. See? [points out the window] See the stars? That means sun is down. I wake up, the sun will be up 'cuz it's summer 'cuz sun will be out!
Me: The sun comes up everyday and it doesn't necessarily mean it's summer.
Abby: NO! NOOOO!!

At that point, I realized I had lost the argument and she wasn't going to give in. I'll let her win this time and we'll work on learning more about the seasons.

I realized just today that I have not written a single post yet about this second pregnancy! It certainly is not because we are not excited about it, but the time has just gone by so fast that I have not had the chance to formulate my thoughts about the pregnancy into a sensible post. I blame the fact that we have our hands full with an extremely active 2.5 year old!

This pregnancy officially began on Abby's 2nd birthday - 7/7/09.

The first trimester can be summed up as utterly uneventful. Not a single craving, discomfort, or ill-feeling of any sort. I prepared myself for the few weeks of exhaustion I felt during the first pregnancy, which saw me in bed shortly after 7pm every night. However, perhaps because Abby needed me, but I only experienced a week and a half of feeling "a bit more tired than usual" around 10 pm.

Last Friday marked week 24 of this pregnancy. I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes during week 10 of my pregnancy with Abby, but so far, all tests have been normal this second time around. So, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will remain so until delivery. I have since found out that Asians on average are more than 4 times as likely to develop GD as Caucasians, with the Chinese and Koreans having an even slightly higher probability. Oh well, genetics will have its say and we can only be informed and prepared to deal with any potential problems which may arise.

Second trimester has been just as uneventful as the first so far. Everyone says that you start showing a lot earlier with the second pregnancy and that has definitely been the case for me! With Abby, I had more than one co-worker in shock the day I left on maternity leave because they actually didn't realize I was pregnant! I started showing just a bit around 28 weeks, though. This time, an instantaneously change happened over the course of one week and I became noticeably pregnant at 20 weeks. And now 4 short weeks later, I have transformed into a whale! (At least that's what it feels like.) The best invention in the world - the BellyBand - has been my lifesaver, allowing me to continue to wear my normal work clothes until I need to dig up the maternity stuff!

At 20 weeks, we found out we are having another GIRL!!! I honestly had been hoping for a boy since we found out about the pregnancy because I want the experience of raising one of each gender. I thought for sure I would be sad or disappointed if it turned out to be a girl, but when the ultrasound technician first said "she", all I felt was excitement. So, we are really looking forward to another sweet baby girl in April, watching Abby bond with her as only sisters may experience.

Abby's reaction to this pregnancy has been pretty funny. She is absolutely convinced that she is also carrying a baby in her belly. I tickled her tummy the other day and she screamed, "No, no! I have a baby brother in my belly. Don't tickle me. You have a baby sister in your belly and I have a baby brother in MY belly!" Abby does understand that she needs to wait until the baby grows bigger before she can come out and play with her, so in that respect, she has been pretty patient in waiting for her playmate. We just need to help her understand that even after her sister is born, it will be awhile before she can actually play with her!

Below is our ultrasound video, if you are inclined to watch some indescribable blobs blobbing around the screen. It's over 5 minutes long because we had such a hard time trying to get a 3D shot of her face. We never did, unfortunately, as she tried to hide behind her hand the whole time! Must be a shy baby.

Happy New Year!

Around the holiday season, as the year draws to a close, it is important to look back and recognize the people and events who helped mark the year for you with significance. For Paul, Abby, and me this year has been packed with change, but all of the changes were focused on one goal - family. Being closer to our parents, so that we can be there for each other and we can raise a family where our children know their grandparents and have a lot more opportunities to know their extended family. Most of you following this blog know all about these changes, so I won't reflect on them. Instead of talking about change, I want to reflect on some year-end traditions that are so ingrained that they have not changed in decades.

At the end of each year, as a tradition for my side of the family for as long as I can remember, we have gathered with our good friends of whom we consider our extended family.

These friends of nearly 3 decades are three families - the Yehs, Hsiehs, and Wongs. Our parents have known each other since they were in their late twenties and some in grad school! Us kids grew up with one another and we are more or less each others' extended families. Each of the eldest child within the family is 30 years old (yes, I'm that old!) and the siblings range from ages 28 through 21.

Since the parents live in Colorado, the three families have a chance to gather around the holidays and this year was no exception. What made this year even more special was that all of the spouses and significant others were in town as well, so the gathering was even more festive.

This year we gathered for our usual game of Mafia - a role-playing game of "whodunit?" - and going along with traditions, also attempted the annual human pyramid. We started the pyramids when I was in middle school! Some traditions are hard to break, no matter how dorky they may seem as we get older! However, that's what makes them even more fun.

As always, our gatherings are full of laughter, non-stop chatter as we catch up with one another, and, of course, mountains of delicious food. I feel so blessed to have these wonderful friends, with whom I have shared so much over the years.

No matter the amount of change in my life, there are these friends who are a constant reminder of the love and history we all share.

Looking forward to 2010!

This past week, we kept finding footprints in the snow trekking back and forth across our backyard. We don't have a fence up, so we expect we will wind up with trespassers every now and then, but the snow on the ground has recorded an increasing amount of traffic!

At the same time, our cats - especially Tigger - has displayed some unusually anxious behavior sitting by our back door.


Luckily, we have since discovered who our little trespasser is and we can expect to find him somewhere in our yard several times a day.


I do not suspect he will do any harm in our yard and we welcome his visits!

It has been a few years since we have been able to celebrate the year-end holidays without needing to travel. Paul and I are very thankful to be back in Colorado with both sets of parents.

This year, we spent the night in Colorado Springs with Paul's parents and brother's family on Christmas Eve so that Abby and her cousin, Annette, could open presents together Christmas morning. Although the girls had a lot of fun decorating cookies and playing together, sadly, the Newell Christmas tradition of someone getting sick and generously sharing with the rest of the family continued.

Nonetheless, the family time was special and is what celebrating the holidays is all about, right?

One thing I tried this year was crafting some of the gifts myself - making clay figurines and sweet munchies. I started small and made only stocking stuffers, but I had so much fun doing it I may consider continuing this effort for the years to come....if time and patience permit.

As expected, Abby received a TON of stuff, leaving Paul and me to wonder where we can possibly store everything. Our living room currently looks like the Walmart toy aisles - toys strewn all over the floor with no visible ground to maneuver!

Enjoy a few of our Christmas photos below. I hear Abby whimpering over the monitor and I should go check on her. She has been wheezing, coughing, and running a high temperature and we're keeping a close eye on her, especially at night. Her symptoms started Christmas day - a virus she most likely contracted from Annette - and although she has stopped wheezing, her breathing is still shallow, requiring her to take Albuterol with a nebulizer twice a day. Last night, the fevers started and it turns out she has developed a sinus infection as well.

When Abby was 10 months old, she tested positive to being allergic to eggs and wheat.

Well, wheat turned out to be a non-issue, thankfully, but eggs were a problem. Abby broke out with fairly severe rashes when ingesting products that contained even small amounts of egg, so no cake, no waffles, no pastas of certain kinds and we became food-label-reading dependent.

When we first moved to Colorado, Abby and I stayed with my parents for about 9 months. During this time, my mom discovered that Abby could tolerate organic eggs, but not regular ones.

My mom used a method called pendulum dowsing to discover this. A part of pendulum dowsing is "a therapy used to locate the underlying cause of bodily or emotional imbalance that leads to ailments and physical reactions such as allergies or disease." The more the method is practiced, the more accurate it is. My mom had been practicing dowsing for several years and have successfully helped members of our family with various ailments. She has a friend who's baby had a hopeless number of allergies and doctors were at a loss for what to do. My mom managed to identify all of his triggers and the child is now able to manage his allergies and lead a normal life. The key is that she is able to identify very specific triggers rather than the generic categories which the traditional allergy blood tests or skin-prick tests reveal.

So, we bought some organic eggs. Abby tried a few bites of egg whites and had no reaction. A few days later, we tried the whole egg. Again, no reaction! The experimenting continued and we carefully monitored Abby every time she ate eggs, but she never had a reaction at home.

Yet, Abby was still unable to handle regular eggs. Sometime during that winter, Abby was accidentally given regular egg noodles at daycare and she broke out in such a bad rash her teachers had to call me.

We talked to her pediatricians who couldn't understand why she could eat organic eggs but not regular ones. We did some online research and read that egg allergies can be outgrown and many kids do. So, we became determined to keep exposing Abby to organic eggs in hopes that her body will learn to eventually tolerate all types of eggs.

By the time we moved out of my parents house (Abby was almost 2 years old at this point), Abby could eat two whole organic eggs (probably more if we would let her) without any reaction AND was able to eat regular eggs straight up! What this meant was that she can handle regular eggs found in other products without a problem.

She now eats egg noodles regularly and is the biggest fan of pancakes. We still buy organic eggs and dairy at our house, but we have not had an egg-related allergy incident for almost a year and we let her eat eggs whenever we do.