kitchen is a good place to sleep

Ming Ming suddenly shows a lot of interest in her clothes. The other day she insisted on putting on her raincoat even though it was not rainning. These two days she loves going to her closet and then choose something: either a coat or a hat or a pair of mitten, something totally random, and she is all happy as soon as we put it on, and it is not easy to remove it from her (she wore her big coat for a long time at home, refusing each time when I suggested that we took it off).

Ming Ming eating spinach black bean tortilla (a recipe from Ashley) and fish ... she loves it, but when I packed it as lunch for her, she did not even touch them. why??

Thanksgiving holiday, no school... She did not nap well at home today, so around 5pm when I was preparing dinner, Ming Ming moved her doudou, dolls, and animals to the kitchen, lined them up in sleeping positions (all faced down like herself), and then joined the line herself... It was so funny!!

Ming Ming recognizing animals

Pig and monkey is in English, frog and dog in Chinese, the rest in French. I think she will speak more in Chinese if it is me who ask her.

"I am one and double" - Ginkgo tree /原來這就是銀杏樹

“Ginkgo Biloba” J. W. von Goethe

This leaf from a tree in the East,

Has been given to my garden.

It reveals a certain secret,

Which pleases me and thoughtful people.

Does it represent One living creature

Which has divided itself?

Or are these Two, which have decided,

That they should be as One?

To reply to such a Question,

I found the right answer:

Do you notice in my songs and verses

That I am One and Double?

晶瑩

Dancing with papa and mama

feter le Beaujolais nouveau chez Elizabeth

Charlottesville holiday tradition parade!

Ming Ming and Julian did not really care about the parade, more interested at the chocolate candies they got from the parade people.

About candies, so we got a medium bag of candies from trick-or-treating in the downtown mall, Ming Ming does not know that they are candies and that they are edible, so I thought that we could just keep them around as toys. But these days she is obsessed with opening stuff, a passion initiated by opening her bottle of moisturizing cream. She loves turning the cap and trying to open all the bottles she can lay her hands at. Now her new favourite word is 打開 (pronounced dakai, meaning open), and she would ask me to open everything she suspects "openable", ranging from banana and apple to books and containers, and the candies from Halloween, of course! Finally I throw out all the candies because she kept asking me to open them. Luckily her little figures are not dexterous enought to do the task herself yet, so I guess candy remains a mystery. Probably not for long though, I imagine with all the chocolate and her more experienced cousins around at Christmas, Ming Ming will discover very soon the new thing that will replace 餅乾 (biscuits) - that is what she asks for now.

last but not least - Santa! But Ming Ming was afraid of Santa, she looked at him with a fair amount of suspicious and refused to go to him for pictures. And Julian, who was all excited about Santa and insisted that we followed his cart to see more of him, did not want to go to him either!

Lighting up the tree

very excited to touch the christmas balls on the tree

it is lit up!

learning that the tree can hurt one's little figures..

doctor's office

She was still smiling in this video, but few minuts later, she started crying once the doctor entered the room. The fear for doctors started when she got that ear infection, the examination must be pretty painful then. The memory really stays with her and whenever we enter into her pediatrician's office, she recognizes the room and would start crying right away. This time she was less tense because we did not see her usual pediatrician but another doctor in the same practice, so the room is different.

Oh I took her to the doctor's because she was coughing really bad. But the doctor said it was nothing.

Visiting James Monore's Highland residence

a peacock wondering around

Ming Ming following the visiting tour (well, only the very last part of it)

calling the cows from papa's shoulder

beautiful portrait

First try with play-doh, Ming Ming ate a small bite. It is written that it is non-toxic, but she is probably too young for this.

Sat - Music class + discovery museum

Julian is hugging another girl, is Ming Ming jealous?

happy daycare

Dropping Ming Ming off at the day care feels very different now. For a week, she did not cry anymore when I left her in the morning. I still stayed with her for about half an hour (until her Miss Danielle arrived), but now she went around and played with the others even while I was there (before she would just stay with me). And Friday afternoon, when I arrived to pick her up, she went to give everyone a hug, she even went back to seek out Dahlia who was playing quietly in a corner and hugged her, and then come back to me and told me "jia jia" (go home"). It was incredibly sweet!

霜葉紅于二月花

Charlottesville becomes nostalgic in a rainy day in the Fall..

hide and seek with papa

home alone with papa

I was away for a conference in California for three days. This is the first time I left Ming Ming alone with Antoine (there was always my mum before). Okay I got a lot of phone calls during my conference, popo wanted to know if everything went fine with Ming Ming back home, but could not communicate with Antoine, etc... But actually thing went rather well according to Antoine. Ming Ming portested a little bit the first night when Antoine did all the bedtime routines with her, and did not want to be bathed or go to sleep. (For the last two nights, Antoine just brought her to bed with him.) And apparently she did not eat much in school, but had too much pizza at dinner with her dad (result: no poop for the entire Saturday). But other than that, she was happy to be with Antoine. She prefered Antoine over me when she woke up at the middle of the night, knowing that her dad would bring her to bed with him but I won't.

And for me, the separation was not too hard either. I did not think too much about her or feel too bad about it, except one evening when I called and Antoine put Ming Ming on the phone, she kept saying "mama bao Ming Ming" (mama hold Ming Ming), and then went straight to the door, thinking that I must be outside. When I did not appear behind the door, she started crying. I dared not talking to her in the phone for the rest of the trip.

look at my earring!

father and daughter grew closer together...

that is how Ming Ming likes to be transported these days...

Halloween - trick or treat at downtown