3P

Arnold has been sleeping with us ever since last week. He refuses to sleep in his own bed these days. He gets most joyful being held or playing with us.

Even a California King bed doesn't feel big when sleeping with a baby. He constantly sits up, turns, twists his body, comes over to me for milk, snuffs around Biajee or falls on his back.

Biajee was worried that Arnold has sleeping disorders, but Arnold still sleeps through the night if he is in our bed.

What upsets me more is that after I finally mastered all the tunes and lyrics of the songs taught in Gymboree classes, the teacher started a new session with different poems to memorize. I'll turn this task to Biajee tomorrow to learn all the singings in class so that we can sing to Arnold at home.

We're faced with a busy Saturday: both cars need oil change, I need a haircut, Biajee will take Arnold to Gymboree class and we'll go to Toll Brothers' event to understand construction of new houses.

Itinerary

I finalized our itinerary on Lufthansa's website yesterday. Most flights are sold out already due to the summer vacation. Yahoo Travel and Orbitz could not process multiple carrier flights because there is no baggage agreement between different airlines. I found http://www.sidestep.com a useful place for booking air fare and hotels.

It looks like my insurance company may be able to cover 1/3 of the loss of my wedding ring and engagement ring last year in C&L Burger Bar, Castle Rock, WA. They were interested to know why I didn't file a claim earlier.

"I wasn't aware that this will be covered by my policy." I told them.

As a matter of fact, I understood my home insurance policy better after reviewing it over the phone with my insurance agent. It doesn't hurt to talk to people at all. I always learn about new things through casual conversations.

No Soccer

It's been raining for the whole day. I've never seen Denver area with so much precipitation. We should have a soccer game at 5:45 pm, but it just got canceled due to the weather. Looks like it's going to be rescheduled to May 10th.

I wouldn't play in 35 degree windy and rainy weather. It's going to turn into a snow/rain mix tonight.

We tied a game on Sunday 2-2. We almost won that game until one guy elbowed another player inside the box and we got a PK. What a stupid and lazy defense method!

My boss was supposed to come back in the office this afternoon. His flight from Dallas already got postponed twice due to weather condition in Denver. He will definitely not make it to the office today. I've never missed him so much. I was going to discuss with him about the itinerary of our trip to Greece and book plane tickets after his approval. Everything comes to a stop before he makes his way back to Colorado.

Greece

We're going to Greece for 2 weeks next month. My mother was buried there in 2004 and we need to take her relics back home. It's the Orthodox tradition to bury dead people instead of cremating them.

Biajee and I have submitted visa applications to Los Angeles and we hope to get our passports back some time this week so that we can buy plane tickets.

The Consulate of Greece doesn't have a very user-friendly website. I could not find the amount of visa fee online anywhere. When I called and obtained the information from the answering machine, they told us that the amount was outdated so we had to overnight another money order to the Visa Department.

Greek people do not value punctuality either. While we were there in 2004, people from the funeral company were always more than an hour late for our appointments. It'll be interesting to observe their behavior this time.

Family Night

Our Executive Vice President decided to take the whole department out for a team building event at the beginning of the year. It finally evolved into a family bowling night today. We were told to bring our immediately family. Obviously Biajee and Arnold qualify for this. Pizza, beer and wine would be served. The most beautiful thing is that we're going to leave work early than usual.

Biajee will have an eye exam at Costco today so that he could get a pair of new glasses. Arnold had broken dad's frame two weeks ago. Fortunately Biajee has a spare pair. It's a great idea to get a new pair since most costs will be covered by insurance.

We didn't get the snow that was forecasted last weekend. "These weather forecasts are so inaccurate." Biajee complained.

"They are carried out by a group by Physics PhDs." I sneered.

"They're Geophysics people. Geophysics is not real physics."

Side Effects - Terrible Saturday

Zithromax has side effects: nausea, vomitting and diarrhea that only occur in 5% of the population. Arnold got all the symptoms since Saturday. Obviously he was among the top 5% of human population. He was fussy because of dizziness. He threw up everything in his stomache for four times. He pooped green liquid all day long.

Biajee and I were desperate. Nobody had told us that he need to get all these new problems in order to get rid of pneumonia.

I still took him to the Gymboree class, which he didn't enjoy at all. We went for the neighborhood egg hunt. Arnold sat on the grass, looking miserable all the time while I picked up some cute eggs for him and took his pictures.

When we finally got home in the afternoon, he vomitted all over our bed. The linens had to be changed and completely washed. Arnold was screaming because he wanted to be held when he was uncomfortable. Biajee tried to get on the phone with me in the mean time talking about dinner recipe.

The three of us took turns sleeping for the whole day on Sunday. I have a gut feeling that our weekends will be like this for another year.

Easter Egg Hunt

Easter Sunday was last week. Our neighbors had tried to organize an Egg Hunt event for 19 kids in our community on Saturday, but got canceled due to the snow.

I decided to let Arnold get a taste of Egg Hunt at home so that he won't feel that he's missed out something fun after he grows up. I asked Biajee whether I should hide an egg behind the toilet bowl.

"He is too young to understand it." Biajee shrugged at me.

"I can even put one dollar in that egg as a bonus."

"I think it's more practical to take some pictures of him and the eggs."

The neighborhood egg hunt was rescheduled to this Saturday, but I don't think it can be carried out either due to the weather.

Arnold had a disgusting runny nose with thick green mucus flowing around. Every time Biajee and I tried to clean it up for him, he started to scream. This is the most gross part of a baby so far. It's a lot worse than his poop because you see it all the time.

Zithromax

Zithromax, or Azithromycin, is the antibiotics Arnold is taking currently. He took 3 ML yesterday and 1.5 ML this morning. He'll take it once a day for 1.5 ML till Saturday and then we can throw the rest of it away. The drug is taking effect. Arnold is feeling a lot better and is willing to eat.

Pictures for proof of his interaction with other girls in his Gymboree class were posted. He expresses an obvious interest in playing with girls.

A snowstorm is about to hit Denver. Winter storm warning is throughout the state from midnight today till 6pm Mountain Time on Friday. Flights to, from and through Colorado can be rescheduled once without any fees. This could be as serious as what had happened in December.

I just hope that our soccer game tonight will be canceled due to weather. Only a 4 girls can make it and there will not be sub for men. We may have to play 2 down if the game is on.

Pneumonia

The scariest thing finally happened. Arnold got Pneumonia. None of us had been sleeping since Monday. We were up every 2 hours each night. I called Dr. C's nurse on Monday, but she said it was normal cold. The fever did not go away. They finally decided to see Arnold and prescribed drugs for him to take.

He could have started on the medicine 2 days earlier. He cannot go to school now. Biajee took yesterday off to stay home with him and took him to work today. We have so much going on with our lives lately. Dr. C said the pneumonia will go away in about a week and she would see Arnold next Wednesday for follow up check.

The little man's weight dropped below 20 lbs. He hasn't been eating well since Saturday. This is not a good sign. Biajee and I are very worried. All we can do for him now is to feed him a lot of water and keep him warm.

The weather here has been changing drastically. We went from yesterday's 70 degrees to today's 30 degrees. We'll not sleep for the rest of the week till Arnold gets better.

Rebate

We ordered 2 years' supply of contact lens from Costco yesterday with the coupon from my eye doctor. It says that if we order one year's supply, we'll get $80 rebate. Since I only need it for one eye, we'd have to purchase 4 boxes to qualify for the rebate.

I submitted the forms for rebate, reimbursement from insurance company and possible claim from Flexible Spending Account. We'll make $33.56 if all the rebates and reimbursement come back on the contact lenses. We can make $51.44 more if I had put enough money in FSA. I guess we have found this profitable business - buying contact lenses and making money!

The little euphoria was followed by a huge poo-poo: we received a letter from IRS last night. We didn't claim the research fund and scholarship Biajee made from City University of New York as taxable income in 2005 and Uncle Sam is asking for $1,058 of tax money that we owed to US Treasury. This is a battle we don't want to pick up. We swallowed our pride and wrote a check.

Whenever we start to have a little breathe financially, there'll be somewhere to spend big money. We're never able to save...

Pirates of the Caribbean

These are GOOD movies. We haven't expected them to be so well made. Most of the time when people tell us, "This is a good movie." We watch it and think, "This movie sucks."

The Pirates of the Caribbean series certainly beat expectations in all aspects. We watched the first one, The Curse of the Black Pearl last week. Johnny Depp did such a great job being Captain Jack Sparrow. These two movies alleviated his level of an actor in Hollywood. Biajee fell asleep 20 minutes into the 2nd movie, Dead Man's Chest. We hit the pause button so that we could continue watching it today.

It generally takes us three nights to finish a 2.5 hour movie. This is how tired we always are. By the time we finish feeding Arnold, bathing him and putting him to sleep, it's already past 8 pm.

Of course Arnold did not help at all. He woke up once during the night and started crying sitting in his crib. He usually kneels down or sits these days waiting for us after he wakes up, which gives us no excuse not to tend to him.

Tie

We tied the game at 1:1 yesterday morning. Our team was obviously not the best team. Biajee and Arnold watched the whole thing as usual. We even had a sub for the women during the first half, but then she left for church.

We played at the Pleasant View field, the best field in Boulder. A coworker from our side separated his arms during the 1st half and had to go to the hospital. Arnold crawled on the grass and tried to feed himself some dirt, soil and grass. He'll probably turn into a donkey soon.

The guys on our team were not the strongest, most skillful soccer players. They constantly need subs and they couldn't run faster than I do. But when I asked them whether I could sign up Biajee for this team, they told me they had enough men and didn't need more.

I feel so sore today. We partied on Saturday night till 1 am in the morning. I almost didn't want to go to play. I didn't think I was to be blamed either if I didn't show up because it was April Fool's Day.