The Empress of China

...is wearing a monkey suit.



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Friends

K-bao has been blessed with some good friends in her young toddler life, though with her Too Cool For You schtick (how does a 3 year old have a schtick?!) these days she doesn't always readily acknowledge it.

For example, a big part of her adjustment to Sunday School has been the presence of a trio of benevolent and affectionate sisters, G, R & M, who embraced young K-bao at an early age and made sure she felt welcome each and every week. Indeed, when K-bao learned she was going to have a little sister, her chosen name - which she stuck with for months, literally until we told her C-bao's real name - was "G, R, M Hu."

Today she was lucky enought to share a post-church burger lunch with her buddies (also including Gillian, whom we covered in a prior interview).

Here's an older pic of K-bao with M, who may have been the first non-adult to give her a hug:

Here she is getting a high speed whirlwind tour from R after class today:



Growing some extra ears:

Learning from G the difference between indoor voice and outdoor voice:

Messy

Personal neatness is not particularly high on our little 3-year old's list of priorities. Neither, apparently, is submission to parental authority. In ordering K-bao to clean up her room, and not to emerge until it was clean, K-Pop encountered the following ten excuses, diversions, arguments, general extenuations and mitigants, over the course of about 30 minutes.

• "I'm a little bit hungry right now, can I come out and get something to eat?"
• "I very, very, VERY don't like clean up, can I not clean up PLEASE?"
• "But Mommy is not cleaning up"
• "Can YOU help me clean up? Just a little bit?"
• "I have a tummy ache, Daddy, I need to lie down"
• "I don't want to clean up right now, but before I nap I promise, very, VERY promise, to clean up this whole, wide mess!"
• "I'm tired right now, I can't clean up, I need to take a nap"
• "Why aren't YOU cleaning up?"
• "I need to go pee-pee"
• "I'm cleaning up, but I'm too hungry Daddy"

Ah, good ole' Original Sin. There's nothing quite like a toddler to help elucidate theological truths.

K-Pop found himself in the unenviable position of being exasperated while simultaneously admiring his daughter's tenacious creativity in avoiding the task at hand. 

Woe to the one who will have to make this little rebel do homework and obey curfews in the future! O wait.

Don't Laugh

K-bao isn't too good at the Don't Laugh game, as she recently discovered. "I need to smile, I don't know how to "Don't Smile!" she lamented in the below video. Her best effort, at 0:42, is priceless; K-Pop would like to bottle that one up and save it for a rainy day.

This little episode reminded K-Pop of the "Can't Touch This" game that K-Mum used to play with K-bao back in 2009. K-bao's sunny personality shined through even back then; here is the old clip, which the K-folks have never tired of.

K-bao, Meet C-bao

And she's here!

K-bao could not wait to see her younger sister C-bao, and finally the patience paid off with a "Big Sister Party" at the hospital this past weekend.

There was a gift exchange (thanks to some great work by Xiao Jiu (Uncle Calvin) and Xiao Ah-yi (Auntie Christina) - notice the balloons and toy for C-bao - placed strategically by K-bao near her sister's head), some cuddling, and lots of smiles.

All signs are pointing toward strong sisterly (and perhaps even maternal) instincts. Unfortunately for K-bao, she promptly got sick and over the last few days has had to keep her distance. Hopefully she'll get well soon - because the K-folks have plenty of helping chores lined up for her to do...and cannot wait for her to develop some coordination to assist with those diapers.

Please visit C-bao at her own blog here. 

Three

K-bao made K-Pop super happy today.

K-bao: "How many stickers do I have? Three?"
K-Pop: "That's funny, K-bao. How many do you have?"
K-bao: "Six."
K-Pop: "So what if you took three stickers away? What would you have left? What's 6 - 3?"
K-bao: "Three. Because three plus three equals six."

Two beaming people. K-bao has been doing simple arithmetic for a while but she's never put addition and subtraction concepts together.

Disco

K-bao decided to relive some Disco Times with a little gear borrowed from Little Aunt (Xiao Ah-Yi). You can instinctively hear Kool & the Gang's "Fresh" thumping in the background.