Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Happy Chinese New Year! 2009 is the year of the Ox. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_New_Year

To celebrate Chinese New Year, we had Chinese food for dinner. When Bill and Michael stopped to pick it up on their way home from speech therapy, the girl behind the counter asked if Michael was from China. Bill told her that he was. She went in the back and came out with a red envelope. We opened it when he got home. There was a dollar bill in it. Children in China receive red envelopes with lucky money to celebrate the new year. We will be saving it for him and putting it in a scrapbook for when he gets older.

The past few couple of weeks have been busy as usual. For about a week, we had to fill out an accident report at school every other day for Michael. He fell and got rug burn on his forehead. They were playing limbo and another kid fell into him which caused him to fall into a book case. He ended up with a huge goose egg on the side of his head. Finally, he ended up with a scratch under his eye. Besides the injuries at school, he has had many bumps and bruises at home from being fearless and one from the cat. Boys will be boys!

Michael is talking up a storm. There are so many new words that we are having a hard time keeping up. The newest phrase is one we are trying to break him of. We are guessing that he learned it at daycare. When he first said it, we laughed because it was to the cat. Now, he says it to people and we are having to tell him that it is not nice. At first, he said, "O away at." That meant "Go away cat." Now, he is telling other people to "o away." It is hard explaining to a 2 year old that even though he is wants someone to leave him alone it is not nice to tell them to go away.

Michael is also growing very fast as most kids do. His feet are extra wide, so there are only a few places that I can find shoes for him. Plus, they are not the cheapest shoes in the world. On Friday, we went to a store that I buy his shoes at. The mall is an outdoor mall. Since it was a nice evening, we decided to walk around. Michael was in his stroller when we were approached by the elderly mall security guard. Michael had waved and said hi to him, so he talked to Michael. He said hi and told him how cute he was. He proceeded to ask Michael where he got his looks from, his mommy or his daddy. He then said bye and we all went on our way. It was funny because he never looked at us and didn't realize what he had asked. We get a lot of looks and are noticed for our differences. It was nice because he just saw us as another family out for a stroll around the mall.

Here are a couple of pictures:

Trying to fill Baba's shoes

One of his boo-boos

Doing what he loves
Eating and laughing
(see the bandage on his cheek)