Hug

"Let me show you what I wrote," said K-bao, leading K-Pop to her room.

"You are going to give me a big hug," she predicted. And she was right.

Grandfolks Fang

Hooray! The K-grandfolks are in town. Here she is getting a squeeze from K-grandmum. As K-bao knew full well from an early age, she'll be hard pressed to find anyone who loves her with more grace and patience.

Here, she learns advanced cooking and kneading skills from a master chef.

Vicissitudes

K-bao's days comprise of a series of mini booms and busts - shrieks of joy turning to tears of desperation and anguish in seconds, only to return to mischievous giggles a moment later. Such is the life of the emotionally (over)expressive 4-year old.

Today, her highs included (i) snuggling with her (sometimes reluctant) sister in the morning; (ii) taking a queen off of K-Pop in a morning game of chess (which led to shouts of acclamation and the triumphant play-by-play for K-Mum, immediately); and (iii) a thoroughly enjoyable birthday party this afternoon for one of her SLS friends, where she overindulged on cake, pizza and tattoos. K-bao is such an epicurean that at one point she was quite content to sit alone in a room savoring her last bites of cake while her friends dashed off to play - because, doggone it, she was not going to be rushed from her treats.

Her lows included (i) being deprived of additional sweets (i.e. being forced to hand over the madeleine she brought home from the party to K-Pop); (ii) getting a queen taken by K-Pop in an afternoon game of chess (where K-Pop's refusal to allow her to take back her move elicited a complete meltdown); and (iii) K-Mum deciding to skip the bedtime story and threatening to withhold a good night hug given her delay in getting to bed on time.

So in short, snuggles, sweets and success (in chess) - these are the ebbs and flows of our little one, circa 2013. We'll see what the next few decades bring.

Academy

It's been a little while since K-bao has visited the California Academy of Sciences (see the last documented visit here). Here she shows her peeps - the Liu Sisters and Sammy Liu - the old hood.

By the way, Little Sam-I-Am had a blast with all the female attention. Check out the ladies' man beaming from ear to ear and getting in some extra hugs from the girls.

Good to see you too

K-Pop's favorite 10 seconds of the day.

Wine Country

Last weekend we took K-bao to Sonoma wine country and spent some time hanging out at Viansa, a charming winery specializing in Italian grape varieties. Below is K-bao running around on the grass by the villa, trying to be stand-offish but ultimately unable to resist K-Mum's charms.