Happy year of the Ox

I spoke with my good friend KC who moved to Japan. She says in Japan, it's actually the year of the cow. Potatoes, Potaaatoes... I know, but there is a big difference between a cow and an ox; not to mention a water buffalo. I tell people I'm the boar, not the pig. Boars are big, wild; a dangerous intelligent creature to be wary of - whereas the perception of a pig is pure domestication - which would you rather be called?

On the news front, my sister had a baby girl - Phoebe Nguyen born on January 29th at 4:37am weighing in at 7lbs 15 oz. What a monster. I was expecting her to have very little hair, but fortunately for Phoebe, she didn't join the "No Hair" baby club that Aesha chairs. She's a little cutie - you can check out her blog at http://y-tien.blogspot.com/.

What else is new? Aesha is almost weaned. Doesn't mean she doesn't gets mad when I don't give her the nipple. When I'm too tired to negotiate with her, I give her the nipple and within 5 minutes, she asks for the bottle b/c ain't much for her to get. She's been drinking a ton of milk, which is great, but unfortunately, I'm still having to get up every 2 hours to warm the milk in a bottle for her (because no way in hell she's drinking cold milk or even tepid milk. It has to be the right temperature, not too hot, not too cold.) The last two nights have been brutal. The night before, she woke up 5 times and drank 5 bottles of milk. Last night, I couldn't get the bottle warmed up fast enough, and she let me have it for 30 minutes. Finally, I was too exhausted to care and let her cry it out to sleep while holding her. Otherwise, she's been an angel.

More words... Yesterday after swim class, she actually said "water." Other words in her vocabulary: Moooooon; noonooo (noodle), bubba (bubble), dada.... but her favorite word is still no and momma. Momma is used for everything - she says momma when she wants to know where I am, when she wants something to eat, when she wants to be picked up, and when she's dreaming. It's both heart warming and exhausting. During these times when I think about having another, I age 10 more years.

The family is scheduled for our first vacation. We are heading to New Orleans and luckily it just so happens to fall on the weekend before the culmination of Mardi Gras. It's perfect. We will fly in Feb. 10th and leave on the 15th. Mardi Gras festivies begin on the 14th. We'll be there 2 days into it and leave right before the craziness begins. Unfortunately for me, crawfish season doesn't start until March, so my dreams of eating 2lbs of crawfish per sitting won't be fulfilled. I'll have a beignet instead.