The Acne of Love Is to See Past Other's Flaws

Evangelina & I were reviewing some photos and videos in my phone, including of a recent Christmas Eve children's choir performance.  Apparently there was a boy who stood in the row behind her who she says possibly "likes her," so she spent considerable time during the video looking to see whether he was "looking at me."

I thought it was funny the way she was zooming in on that boy in the group as they sang.

I did notice another boy next to the one she had been talking about who was head and shoulders above the rest, and assumming he was a teenager helping out with the choir, I asked how old he was.

"Oh that boy?  He's eleven, but he's already hit acne."

(Mom and Jadon have been busy in the last year or so working on his skin health, trying out different products with varying rates of success.)

Safety First... (taking the first two lines from Dad/Akong; English translation with the help of Evangelina)

An-choan te-it,

Pang-sai ai chhit;

Kha-chhng kui jit

Long chhau, che su-sit!

Chhit liau chheng-khi,

Na hoe-e phang bi.

Chit-e oe-seng lim-si,

Tan au-lai-e toa tai-chi!

Safety First!

Butt-wiping's the worst!

Else it will stink all day,

That's the truth, I say!

After cleaning it well,

It'll have fragrant flower smell,

Yet this hygiene only lasts

Until the next poo-poo blasts!

a new riddle we formulated together: right v. left, chosen v. left, right v. wrong

If there is RIGHT and LEFT, and you chose LEFT & were right, why is RIGHT which is left wrong?

Happy Flatulence-giving Day!

Unsurprisingly, the normal limits of physiology are still something our daughter is learning.  After I passed gas next to her (unfortunately not an uncommon occurrence in our home, bless her heart) today, she asked, "Why do you fart every day?"

"Well you do."

"Well, that's because I get it from you!"

Our Renaissance Wife and Mother

Evangelina worked hard at her gymnastics today at home with a good attitude working with Mom, so Mom asked me to give her a massage for parts of her body that seemed strained, including her groin and back.

We started at her groin area, and I reminded her that nobody should be looking or touching her there except Dad and Mom, and if the doctor needed to touch there then either Dad or Mom would need to be there with her.

"But why would the doctor need to touch there?"

I explained, "Sometimes they might have to check there or maybe do therapy like stretching."

"But I can just get that at home."

"We'll that's because you're lucky," I offered. "Daddy is a doctor, and Mommy is…"

Evangelina completed the sentence, "professional teacher of everything."

I couldn't help but agree!

Heart rending 10/25/2021

I feel hurt when someone else hurts people I love.

Mathematics, Linguistics, and Civics

After Jadon's piano competition today we were talking about whom he saw while there. He mentioned that he saw a longtime competitor who strangely didn't even acknowledge him or say hello even though they had been friendly before at past competitions. Her mother, however, greeted Jadon and briefly answered the question Jadon had asked her daughter about the piece she was playing.

JJ also mentioned that the mother also briefly greeted her, though "Not much, just 'I-su, I-su.' Just to say that she didn't fail to greet us."

We noted the curiosity of the the Taiwanese expression "I-us, I-su" as it literally means "meaning, meaning" even though it can be translated "just for looks or outward appearances," i.e. without much meaning at all.

JJ commented that putting the two words right together was probably a sarcastic way of making the meaning opposite.

Evangelina chimed with her own mathematical analogy, "Oh, kinda like 'negative, negative' makes it positive."

Aimless potty talk

E (in the shower while I stand nearby using the toilet): You guys are lucky.

D: What do you mean?

E: You have a long hose to pee, especially on long car trips.

D: I'll have to agree with you on that one!

E: When we [females] have to go outside, we have no "aimer"!

A very beautiful proposal

One of the beautiful things we got to see on our recent trip to the Northwest was the unexpected occurrence of marriage proposals, the first of which was during our visit to the Seattle Space Tower, and another the next day at the West Point Lighthouse in Seattle's Discovery Park. Both the kids were amazed and excited by seeing such events, and they even prompted our little one to ask us about our own proposal for marriage. The most heartwarming part of it all for me was the spontaneous and earnest suggestion from Jadon that we pray together for the marriage of the people we saw just get engaged. We of course happily obliged.

Different weighs of looking at it

During a road trip we had a lot of time for conversation. JJ was telling us about a friend who encouraged her to apply to Columbia University, in part because he intended to go there. She of course attended Columbia while her friend, JJ recalled, ended up getting waitlisted. 

"Why?" Evangelina asked.  

JJ explained that he was put on a list of people who would be allowed to attend only in case others who had been accepted already decided not to go to Columbia.  

"Ohhh, I thought it was because he was really fat!"

Hard Boiled, Scrambled, or Over Easy?

Conversation on the way north on a road trip:

Mommy: how many kids do you guys want to have in the future?
J: I'm going to have 10 kids, eight biological and two adopted.
Daddy: You're going to have to find a very special woman for that Jadon.
E: yeah, with a lot of eggs.

discriminatory trim?

The other evening as per my custom I cut my own hair, and I did so in the upstairs bathroom as usual.  I was cleaning up when Evangelina came home from gymnastics, and when she saw what I had swept up and put into the trash, she complained, "Daaad, you cut all your black hairs!  You were supposed to cut just the GRAY hairs!"

Re: A-Z dictionary

Song 送
送這個字的意思是把東西給別人。你想送給你的家人什麼禮物？母親節快到了。我們要送給媽媽一些東西。她喜歡什麼？

Sent from my iPhone

> On May 3, 2021, at 9:57 PM, Sidney Wu <sidneywu@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> P： 我的哥哥喜歡pian我和我的爸爸和我的表姊和表哥。可是我的表姐不喜歡他騙她。我也喜歡騙我的爸爸和媽媽因為他們嚇一跳的時候，他們看起來很奇怪。
>
> Q：我喜歡養護我的錢所以我可以買東西給我的爸爸和媽媽和我的哥哥。我也喜歡幫我的家人去超級市場買東西吃。我的爺爺和奶奶給我錢我生日的時候。我也可以用錢買生日禮物給我的朋友。錢很重要，但是不是世界最重要的東西。
>
> R：你知道我覺得什麼考試很容易嗎？我想拼寫英文單詞考試很容易。我每天用單詞 寫新的句子。這樣子我每天練習拼寫英文單詞。你自己覺得哪個考試是最容易呢？
>
> Sent from my iPhone

A-Z dictionary

P： 我的哥哥喜歡pian我和我的爸爸和我的表姊和表哥。可是我的表姐不喜歡他騙她。我也喜歡騙我的爸爸和媽媽因為他們嚇一跳的時候，他們看起來很奇怪。

Q：我喜歡養護我的錢所以我可以買東西給我的爸爸和媽媽和我的哥哥。我也喜歡幫我的家人去超級市場買東西吃。我的爺爺和奶奶給我錢我生日的時候。我也可以用錢買生日禮物給我的朋友。錢很重要，但是不是世界最重要的東西。

R：你知道我覺得什麼考試很容易嗎？我想拼寫英文單詞考試很容易。我每天用單詞 寫新的句子。這樣子我每天練習拼寫英文單詞。你自己覺得哪個考試是最容易呢？

Sent from my iPhone

The Birds & the Bees... No Peeping Toms Please!

We've shared a very limited, age-appropriate amount of information regarding "the birds & the bees" with Evangelina, but it's still funny to hear her own iteration of the process.

Earlier I went to tuck her back into bed when she'd gotten up (to pee), and as one who loves BIG HUGS, she asked me to hug her from on top of her, to which I told her "No, that's not appropriate.  I'll leave that to your husband.  I'll just hug you from the side here."

She thought about it for a moment, then responded, "When my husband & I are trying to make a baby, you can just monitor us."

One brain, Two bodies (FOR MINA'S BLOG)

From: Jadon Wu <Jadon.Wu@ocsarts.net>
Date: April 2, 2021 at 5:10:04 PM 
Subject: One brain, Two bodies (FOR MINA'S BLOG)

Written by Jadon

Recently, Mina and I were eating, me sitting at the table in the sunroom, and Mina quietly sitting at the table in the kitchen. I was happily doing my Ardent while drinking some orange juice when I suddenly and obnoxiously burped. Less than one second after I burped (I was just about to say "excuse me"), Mina said "Sorry." I looked at her and she was intently paying attention to her Zoom class. Then, she added, "Excuse me." 

Getting UP with Messed-DOWN Words

Our little lady has a really funny, oblivious way with words sometimes.  A few days ago on our way upstairs, she asked me, "Hey Dad, you wanna do a hammer-up?"

"A 'hammer-up'???" I asked,  "what's a --"

And then I realized what she meant.  A few days ago I introduced her to the old improvisational comedy television show "Who's Line Is It Anyway?" in which various comedians spontaneously make up dramas or ditties based on cues and suggestions from the audience.  Evangelina & I have long had fun with rhymes and spontaneous poetic chants, and she's had a funny knack for it, so I thought she might take a special liking to one of the TV show's games called "Hoedown," in which the comedians have to make up lines to a given hoedown song on a spontaneously given topic.  

Apparently, she'd forgotten what the game was called!

Maybe I'll sing this not-quite-so-spontaneous hoe-down for her tomorrow:

On our way upstairs, my girl looked up at me,

"Can we sing together, oh please oh please Daddy?

Let do that thing that often makes us rather stumped

I forget now what it's called, was it a 'Hammer-Up'?

sample of the show: Whose line is it anyway - Season 1 hoedowns part 1

Whose line is it anyway - Season 1 hoedowns part 1

A sticky situation