My birthday was on Saturday and normally I like to have something nice and low-key (with the exception of #29 when Mark threw a surprise birthday dinner party for me…and #30 in Thailand…but really, they are usually low-key). For some reason, for the better part of this year I thought that I was turning 33. So when I actually did the math and realized I was only 32, I felt like I had gained a year and was pretty happy with that already. Bad math aside, Mark knows that eating also makes me pretty happy so he planned my birthday around some pretty good meals.

First of all, there was some sleeping in. I’m not sure in what part of the universe waking up at 9 am is considered “sleeping in” but apparently I live in that part of it. Mark and Noah left so Noah could do some birthday present shopping for me, so Julian and I had a nice, leisurely morning by ourselves. At noon I met up with Mark and Noah at Sevva, one of Mark’s favorite restaurants, where we had lunch reservations. Noah was pretty tired from all the shopping so he kind of conked out in our booth, but not before he presented me with the gift that he had picked out — a modernized friendship bracelet in silver and pink:

Of course, Noah woke up in time for my birthday cake — the Marie Antoinette Crave cake. Yes, my cake comes with its own name, but then again, if you were a cake and you looked like this:

well, you’d probably want your own name too. It was a pistachio layer cake with a light raspberry cream filling, studded with different types of macaroon cookies and topped with a huge mound of cotton candy.  Naturally we all had massive stomachaches afterwards…but it was totally worth it.

Mark and I had dinner reservations later at Spoon (which is one of my favorite places…in the whole world) but we seriously needed an eating break.  So after spending some time with the kiddos at home, Mark and I did a little pre-dinner shopping.  I had seen a coat at Ted Baker a few days ago that I loved but had resigned to “strictly covet only” status, but with Mark alongside me (and more importantly, his credit card), I got to pick it up as my birthday present:

I seriously love this thing.  Seriously. There’s nothing about it that I don’t drool over — double-breasted, military-style trenchcoat with a twirly lower half — how could you not love that? And it’s red! And even the lining is cute. Of course, the cold spell has ended (for now) and we’re back to running the A/C again but this gives me just one more reason to look forward to winter.

So it’s safe to say that Mark done good. Leave it to him to find a way to make aging less painful.

Hooray! School pictures arrived today and Noah is not flashing his squishy face (which has its merits…but not for school pictures):

For about 300 days of the year, I’m usually complaining about the heat and humidity out here in Hong Kong.  So when a cold front moved in earlier this week, for the most part it was a welcome change.  Well, welcome except for one thing — we are seriously lacking in the cold weather clothing area.  I took Julian out for our regular morning stroll on Monday and popped on the only cap he hasn’t outgrown.  It was cute, but made him look like a pudgy little longshoreman:

So for the last couple of days, I’ve been working on bulking up our winter gear. This includes an alligator scarf for Noah:

A little brimmed cap for Julian:

As well as an aviator style helmet complete with strap to ensure that it actually stays on his head:

For me, I need to complete the right hand for this pair of gloves:

And for Mark, a scarf. I haven’t gotten around to starting it yet — Mark wanted to design it himself so I’ve got to come up with and test out the pattern on my own so this might take a while, but hopefully it will be done in time to be worn during this winter. And on top of that, there are Christmas gifts and baby things to be knitted so if I’m not around much, well, now you know why.

Generally when people ask me these days how my kids are doing, my answer is usually, “Well, one of them doesn’t sleep and the other one doesn’t stop talking.”  At this point I’m not sure which is worse.

In case you didn’t guess, Julian is my non-sleeper.  Poor little guy.  He even has the really dark undereye circles going on.  See?

As you can imagine, he can get pretty cranky from time to time, but overall he’s still my happy-go-lucky baby:

If you were to ask me to describe Julian right now, I would tell you that he’s cheerful and happy, very mellow but at the same time he loves attention and looking at people. This means that if we happen to leave Julian in a room by himself, he’ll make a noise that sounds like two cats fighting until someone comes over to him and then he’ll just be the most chilled out guy ever and will sit in your lap quietly observing until he needs something else (and then cue banshee-screaming).  It’s actually quite cute. And funny since Noah was not like that at all when he was a baby.

Noah, on the other hand, sleeps…but just doesn’t shut up when he’s awake.  It’s gotten to the point where it feels like my ears are bleeding from hearing the words, “Hey Mommy!  Hey Mommy!  Hey Mommy!” over and over.  He’s also at that age where he tries to be funny, but his attempts at it are funny in an unintentional way.  Like when he tells jokes:

Noah: Hey Mommy. I have a joke for you. The chicken crossed the street. (Laughter — him because he thinks the joke is funny and me because he has just butchered the easiest riddle in the world.)

Last week at his school it was Artists In Residence week. The school had six visiting artists (a dancer, an actor, a painter, an illustrator, a storyteller and a composer) for the week and they got to work with each of the classes. Noah’s class worked with storyteller JoAnne Lower and composer/pianist Warren Wills during the week and at Monday’s school assembly, his class got up on stage and sang the song they had composed together as a class with Warren (“The Elephant’s Child” which was based on a story told by JoAnne).

Noah was just amazing to watch onstage. He was comfortable, he wasn’t shy and he sang. Loudly. When I asked him afterwards if he liked being on stage, he told me he did and that he wasn’t nervous. Keep in mind this was in front of the entire student body (preschool through high school), including parents. I was so proud of him and I hope he never loses that fearlessness.

And speaking of not being afraid, here are some pictures from last Sunday’s Peak Market:

Hey Munoz 05! That’s a nice necklace you got there. Why don’t you turn around and show it to us:

Ahhhhh! Snake! The kickass shirt, by the way, is courtesy of my awesome friend Cristina. She also sent over a matching onesie (™!!!) with Munoz 09 on it for Julian.  Ok, Noah, we get it…you’re not afraid of snakes:

But hedgehogs, on the other hand, are a totally different matter…

Oh, and my PSA this week…you know all those reports about Crocs-wearing kids getting their toes eaten by escalators? Yeah…those are for reals. Noah had a close call at Ocean Park the other day. No blood drawn, but we did end up with one very scared child and an incredibly panic-stricken mom. So watch those feet!

That’s what I keep telling myself but, really, I dislike change.  Change is uncomfortable and messy and scary.  I prefer routine and stability — much like a toddler.  There’s just something comforting about being able to rely on something…like that you’ll eat turkey on Thanksgiving and open presents on Christmas Eve after drunken karaoke.  Still, even I have a limit to how much predictability I can take.  Such as having pretty much the same haircut for about two years.

Which is how I end up with bangs every now and then:

This is also the first haircut I’ve gotten in Hong Kong (I tried once a couple of years ago — I walked into the salon and asked for a haircut but got a blow out instead and afterward considered it a narrow escape if the language barrier was so huge that my stylist did not understand the English word for ‘haircut’) so hooray me for jumping on the change-wagon.  Of course, now I remember what a huge pain in the butt it was to grow these things out the last time I had them.  Which is why, whenever the mood for change strikes again, I’m going to need someone to remind me that having bangs is actually kind of sucky after the novelty wears off.

As much as I would like to continue on, I’ve decided that I can’t do NaBloPoMo this year for no better reason than I’d really rather just be knitting. It was getting to a point where I was really starting to resent my blog.  Each post takes on average two hours for me to write (I get distracted very easily) and over a one month period that’s 60 hours I could’ve spent knitting instead.  Two and a half days!  Just writing!  No thanks.  Hong Kong has about a three-month window where wearing a sweater isn’t a completely insane thing to do so I’ve got some sweaters and other cold weather stuff to knit before it warms up again.  But really, I couldn’t do all this alone.  I have help — a group of enablers if you will.  Like…

Enabler #1: My mom.  Who, when she came to visit last month, brought me about 60 balls of yarns, a knitting magazine, blocking wires, and a mini sewing machine (for steeking).

I know it doesn’t look like much now, but you’re really looking at two sweaters, a blanket and a pair of gloves. (If you squint really hard you might be able to see it)

Enabler #2: My knitting group. Yes, I go to a weekly knitting group (don’t laugh) where I sit for two to three hours and knit and talk and eat yummy pastas and cakes with a small group of awesome and diverse women. Besides the dedicated knitting time, these women also provide me with some much needed grown up time that I never really had before and it’s a part of the week that I’ve come to really look forward to.

Enabler #3: Traveller’s Yarn. Who is one of the women in my knitting circle (at least until the end of this month when she moves back to Australia) but who also runs an online yarn store and is pretty much responsible for getting me interested in dyeing my own yarn:

And on top of the gazillion balls of yarn my mom brought over (which is in addition to the mini-yarn shop that currently masquerades as my stash) I keep ordering more balls from her store for me to dye.

Finally, the biggest enabler of all: Mark.  He is incredibly supportive of my knitting problem habit hobby — he always has a kind word for anything I’ve knit (and turns a blind eye to whatever mistakes are in it); he never tells me to stop buying more yarn, needles or patterns despite the fact that my knitting space at home has metastasized from one bulging basket to an entire closet; he doesn’t nag me about the zillions of knitting projects I have going on and instead pretends not to see half-finished projects, yarn and needles lying around everywhere in the house.  One day I might even actually knit something for him.

So there you go.  That’s why I’ve decided not to blog daily anymore.  But you really aren’t missing much anyway.

I tend to think of myself as a rather cynical person.  Despite this, I am also a little bit of an optimist.  So while I don’t really take things at face value and can be rather pessimistic when I think about outcomes, at the same time I can usually find an upside to whatever misfortune might have befallen me.

Annoying.

And so while this week has been a little on the rough side for me — single parenting an active preschooler and a baby with sleeping issues — there were some good things about it as well.

• Tomorrow Mark comes home after a week in TX.  And while HK to TX tends to be his roughest trips, at the very least he got four nights of uninterrupted sleep.  Color me jealous.
• And if everything goes as planned, this trip will have been Mark’s last business trip for the year.  Fingers crossed!  (Although now I’ve probably just jinxed myself).
• Sleep deprivation for me usually means daily trips to Starbucks.  And had I not been so tired this week and so terribly in need of coffee all the time, then I wouldn’t have found out that Starbucks is offering their holiday lattes again.  Yay!  Plus in keeping with trying to live just a smidge greener, I bought my own Starbucks tumbler so now every time I buy a latte that’s one less cup that goes into a landfill (not to mention I save HK$3 on my coffee).  So technically the more I drink, the more money I save and the better it is for the environment.  It’s the kind of logic that guys tend not to understand (“So I spent $100 on a new pair of shoes but they were half-priced so really I saved you $100″) but it’s how my mind works so there you go.
• Because Mark arrives tomorrow morning, I signed him up for a spa day in the afternoon which means I’ll be single parenting again for half the day.  To be honest, I’m a little burned out and not looking that forward to it and I’ve been racking my brain trying to think of something low maintenance to do with the kiddos for about five hours.  But had I not been looking then I wouldn’t have found out that Clockenflap, a big music and arts festival, is going on this weekend at Cyberport so we’ll probably check that out.  By no means will it be low maintenance — outdoor concerts with two kids in tow — but at least it’s just down the street from us so if I need to check out early it won’t be too bad.  And as an added bonus I have an automatic blog topic for Sunday.
• I had been slightly worried about Julian’s eating the last few weeks because it seemed like he went from eating 8 times a day to just 5 times now in a rather short amount of time.  His 4-month appointment today confirmed what I had suspected — he’s lost some weight.  But his weight is still in the 75th percentile (vs. 98th percentile at 2 months) which is where his height is as well so I guess that means he’s proportional now.  At least I don’t have to hear from his doctor that he’s overweight anymore.  And at least she stopped comparing him to her dog this month (although the nurse kept mentioning that he looked like a girl.  But no one pays attention to nurses anyway.  Just kidding if you’re one of my nurse friends.)

Anyway, that’s about all the optimism I can muster for one evening.

I realize I’m only on day 6 but this blogging every day for a month thing is getting to be a pain in the butt. Mostly it’s because I’m so tired. Julian decided this week that sleeping at night is purely optional and naturally this coincides during one of Mark’s longer business trips so I have no backup to help out with those sleepless nights. And sadly, I looked at him this afternoon and he had some really dark circles under his eyes. Poor guy — so worn out for a four-month-old. So in lieu of a real post, here’s a picture of Julian instead. Asleep. You know, wishful thinking and all that good stuff…

I recently downloaded a children’s album from iTunes by They Might Be Giants.  We have an older one from them called Here Come the ABCs which Noah could really care less about but their latest one is Here Comes Science and it came with video versions of all their songs so I thought it might be worth a shot.  Noah loves watching the videos (they’re animated so no surprise there) but the cool part is that he’s actually picking up a couple of things.  His favorite song is Speed and Velocity so now he knows that velocity is speed plus direction; thanks to Meet the Elements he knows that people are made up of elements (although he sometimes slips and says people are made of elephants…they are quite close in pronunciation…); and that paleontologists study dinosaur bones, mass extinction and dig up fossils (thanks I Am A Paleontologist).  Still, there’s only so much science you can pick up from music videos.  Take this conversation we had at lunch today…

Noah: Mom, a shooting star is not a star.
Me: That’s right Noah. Do you know what it is?
Noah: It’s a meteor that’s falling down in the sky.
Me: Yup. And do you know why it shines like a star?
Noah: …um…well…like in Ben 10 the shooting star was falling and it changed direction because it wasn’t a star, it was the Omnitrix and it almost landed on Ben and a watch jumped out and he could turn into so many aliens.*

Uh, I guess so.

*Correct answer: The friction as it travels through air produces heat and light.

Julian, as soon as he turned three months old, magically stopped being a super high maintenance baby and is now the most chilled out, happy baby I’ve ever met (with the exception of nighttime when he is still quite the crankypants).  This coincided with my parent’s visit to us so I don’t think they quite believed me when I said that Julian was difficult.  Whereas before it was rare that I could catch his smile on camera, now I’ve got a ton of pictures of him laughing and smiling.  And just as miraculously, his hair stopped sticking straight up.  On top of this are the usual milestones — holding his head up, almost holding up his bottle by himself, being able to support his weight with his legs, blah blah blah.  But I’m sure no one really wants to hear about that (you want to know more about his hair, right?).  With each new skill he picks up or masters, as happy as I am, I’m also half-sad that he’s growing up so fast — this Saturday he goes in for his 4 month appointment and in two more months he starts solids.  Really?!  Already?!  The crazy part of me wants to have a third baby and then the sleep-deprived part of me mentally slaps the crazy one and then they have it out for a while in my head.  Usually sleep-deprivation (and an unwillingness to contribute to the planet’s overpopulation by producing more than two offspring) wins out over baby nostalgia, so in the meantime that translates into taking a lot of pictures of the baby while he’s still as baby as possible.