And so it begins…

You've been complaining to me since last week that the shoes above are baby shoes. I didn't think anything of it, but today I found out the real reason why you didn't want to wear these shoes. 

We were just about to leave the house in the morning and I asked you to wear your running shoes. You said to me, "Mommy, I want to wear my white shoes, not the black shoes. The black shoes are baby shoes." I said that the black shoes weren't baby shoes and that Kendall's shoes were baby shoes and you said that Daniel B told him that it was. I asked you why Daniel B told you your shoes were baby shoes and you said that he thought it looked small and that's why he said they were baby shoes. You are pretty small for your age and it has always worried me a little, but you were visibly upset when you were telling me this. You were insistent on not wearing your black shoes. Even though your white Adidas shoes were the same size, I guess you thought they were a different shoe and that Daniel B wouldn't make fun of you anymore. It really tore me up inside. I wanted to go to your daycare and confront Daniel B and give him a piece of my mind. I also wanted to take you shopping to buy you new shoes. Shoes that you would be confident in wearing. I hate that what your peers say matter to you now. I want to protect you from everything, but I know that I can't. The whole day, this whole incident was bothering me. I haven't told daddy yet because all he would say is, "Yeah, Aidan needs to eat more. He's a runt."

On another note, I have a little bit of good news. I took your Toronto grandpa, my father, to the doctor's appointment this morning. We found out earlier this week from his biopsy results, that he had a very rare form of cancer- neuroendocrine cancer. It's the same type of cancer that Steve Jobs had. It's a much slower-growing tumour so the prognosis is much better. But today, we found out that he has another even rarer type of tumour on top of the neuroendocrine tumour called acinar. We are still finding more about this type of cancer and how the doctors will treat my dad, but it's very good news. His cancer cells also shrunk by 30%. 

Noelle's 100-Day Celebration

With all that's going on with your Toronto halbi's health, your Toronto halmi insisted that Auntie Jessica throw Noelle a 100-day "Baek Il" party. Nothing fancy, but for Noelle to be the centre of attention. Auntie Jessica has been working at the store every day since your halbi got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer so Noelle's been away from her mom ever since. Her paternal grandparent's have been taking care of her during the day. We ended up going to a Korean restaurant for dinner with just the family. It was nice getting dressed up and seeing everyone together. I wanted to take pictures at the restaurant, but it's so hectic when I have to take care of you two. Plus, Uncle Wayne's younger brother, Will, was taking many candid shots at the restaurant. After dinner, we went back to halbi and halmi's house to have dduk cake and Will took our family portrait shots. We've always wanted to do that so it was really special.

I dressed you up in your new coat that Auntie Jessica bought you for Christmas.
Haha, look at Aidan in the background.

My leather jacket-wearing lil dude.

And my little princess.

When I was tying your hair in my bathroom, you kept pretending to brush your teeth with mommy's
toothbrush. I guess all those days of watching mommy brush Aidan and your teeth paid off.

On our way to the party. Look how cute you look!

Tomorrow…

Tomorrow morning (8:45am) is Toronto halbi's oncology appointment. Tomorrow is where we will find out the severity of the cancer and what treatment options halbi has. Tomorrow will be our new reality. 

Mommy and Kendall day

Last Friday I took a day off from work because Aidan had a doctor's appointment in the morning. I decided to make the day 'mommy and Aidan day.' I took Aidan trampolining afterwards and it was just a great day. Today was your 18-month checkup so I thought I would do the same- take a day off and make it 'mommy and Kendall day.' However, it didn't quite turn out the way I wanted it to be. First off, you were sick and just cranky in general. It didn't help that you hate going to the doctors. As soon as the doctor told me to take off your clothes to weigh you, you started crying hysterically. The doctor couldn't even check your tonsils and check your hips because you were that bad. When the doctor checked your ears she noticed that you had quite a build-up of wax and you were actually suffering from an ear infection. Oh brother… She ended up not giving you your shots (because you were sick) and she told me to come back in a week. I hate when that happens! It was so stressful being there that by the time I left I was sweating like a madman. I couldn't even take down your measurements because it was that stressful. I think you weighed just over 9 kg. 

I wanted to take you to get your first haircut because your hair has been an unruly mess ever since you were born. I wanted the hair stylist to trim down your sides and just clean up your hair. However, because of your bad experience at the doctors office, you were just in a terrible mood and didn't want anything to do with getting your hair cut. I had to change position a million times to get the stylist to trim your hair. And your hair cut turned out to be a total disaster! You looked like a boy. You also had a bruise on your right cheek from falling on a table in our basement last night so imagine how bad you looked. I had planned on doing a little shopping afterwards (I wanted to pick up a few craft items for making your Valentine's Day cards this year) and maybe go for a nice mommy and daughter lunch, but the stress of the day just made me want to go home and crash. I ended up just going home, putting you down for a nap and cleaning the house. Not a nice way to spend a day off!

This was you passed out in the car after your doctors appointment. I would be too if I screamed for 20 minutes
straight. You were so upset that you actually peed on the doctor and farted on her while she was checking
your hips.

And this is your new haircut. Totally awful, no? The stylist gave you blunt bangs and didn't trim much
off of the sides. I can picture this cute if you had long hair, but now you just look like a North Korean boy.

Ms Helmut Head

More bad news

So now I know what's wrong with you. The good news is that what you've been suffering from was NOT an allergic reaction (thank god!), but it was actually Strep Throat. More specifically Scarlet Fever. That's why you were so red all over. I think you may have got it when we went to an indoor playground on Sunday. I also got myself checked out and the doctor said I have Strep Throat. We're both taking antibiotics, but that means we are contagious and can't go to work/daycare. I've been wanting to visit my parents for a while, but with all this sickness I couldn't. And now, I don't know when I can… 

The worst news of all is that my dad's tumour has spread to his liver and lymph nodes. Auntie Jessica has been working at their café all this week and plans to until they sell their store. Everything is happening so fast that it's frightening. I'm just so scared of what the future holds. 

Kendall had Wacky Hair Day at school so this is what I came up with. She already has wacky hair so this
was easy.

Kendall also got bit on the nose at daycare yesterday. I don't know if you can tell in this photo.
It's like things just keep going downhill…

Kendall kissing Rosco goodbye before leaving for daycare. That girl just loves Rosco,

This was the pile of snow that fell today. It's been the worst so far. 

Our urn covered in snow.

It took me an hour to shovel our driveway because my car got stuck trying to go in the driveway.

Allergic reaction?

When it rains it pours…

Despite being stressed and not being able to sleep because of your Toronto halbi, you got an allergic reaction. On Sunday night while Nate and his family were over for a play date, Nate's mom commented that your cheeks were getting red. I didn't think anything of it, but after they left, I noticed that it was getting redder.  I was worried that you had an allergic reaction to something earlier that day so I slept with you in your bed to keep an eye on you. By the morning you were still a bit red, but not as red as the night before so I thought you were fine to go to school. I was wrong. Around 10:30am, I got a call from daycare saying you had a fever and were scratching your body uncontrollably. They were saying you probably had an allergic reaction. They told me to come ASAP. Because I'm all the way downtown I told them it would take me at least an hour to get there. By the time I got to you it was just past 11:30am. You were eating lunch, but looking very red and out-of-it. The teachers pulled me aside and told me that I would need to have someone on the emergency pickup list that was closer by because they couldn't afford to wait that long for me to get there. I just felt terrible. I took you to the walk-in and the doctor said that you probably had a reaction to something, but just in case they took a swab of your throat. They said you weren't well enough to go back to school and they couldn't write a note until they were sure that you were well. They advised me to come back tomorrow- which is today. 

Well, you still aren't well enough. Your cheeks are redder now and the doctor told me to come back again tomorrow. Now I'm feeling sick. My throat is all swollen and I have body aches and a throbbing headache. I got myself checked out while the doctor was checking on you. I also got a swab taken. We're supposed to get your results back tomorrow and my results back on Thursday.

Here are your symptoms. Your cheeks were actually a lot redder than they appear on this photo.

You seemed a bit better though. You were posing while I was taking photos of you.

Mommy and Aidan day

I had a carryover day from 2013 so I decided to take today off since you already had your annual physical exam today. I decided that we would make today Mommy and Aidan day. I was super busy at work for the past 2 weeks so I was so glad that I could spend a whole day with you. My co-worker had gone to an indoor trampoline place for a Forever21 event and I thought that was such a good place to take you. You can be a bit of a scared-y cat (actually, you're a BIG scared-y cat!) so I wasn't sure how open you would be to it, but I prepared you by telling you in advance where we were going so you wouldn't be overwhelmed.

We started the day by going to your doctor's appointment at 10am. Usually you are so good at the doctors, but for some weird reason you were in a silly mood. Whenever the doctor told you to do something you would fool around and not listen. For example, when the doctor was checking your tonsils, she lightly touched your chin. You screamed aloud, "She's tickling me!" and started giggling like crazy. Then when she was checking your eyes with a doctors light and told you to open your eyes really wide, you raised your arms, opened your eyes really wide and then stuck out your tongue and shook your head like a crazy person. Yes, I was annoyed, but more than anything I wanted to crack up laughing. You were so hilarious! The funniest was when she was checking your private parts. She got you down to your underwear and told you to lie on your back. She put on rubber gloves and pulled down your underwear to check down there. As soon as she lowered your underwear, you yelled out, "Mommy, she's touching my gotchu!!! (gotchu means penis in Korean)" I started laughing, but had to stop because I knew that would get you to act more silly.

Here's where you at right now:

Weight: 39.5 lbs

Height: 33.5"

The start of a hilarious checkup.

Your appointment ended sooner than I thought. Your trampoline time slot started at 1pm so we had a bit of time to kill. I thought that it would be a great idea to visit your Toronto grandparent's store since we hadn't seen them for a long time and since halbi is sick. You were so excited to go. When I saw halbi he lost so much weight… His eyes were also a bit yellow. I'm just praying that he is ok. He has his specialist doctors appointment on Monday at 3:30pm. I'm going to pray hard.

Halbi trying to get you to eat a ham and cheese sandwich. You loved it. You told me that halmi
was a great cook.

You said you wanted to be a "cooker" like halmi and halbi. Apparently you thought they were
cookers because they had on aprons. You kept yelling out your orders to them.

Just being silly all day long.

We had to leave pretty quickly because halmi and halbi's sandwich store was getting so busy because it was lunch time. And plus, we wanted to get to our trampoline place on time :-)

Mommy bought these Sky Socks for jumping. It has these special grips at the bottom that make
it really easy for you to jump.

You were pretty excited, but nervous at the same time.

I thought that I could jump beside you, but there was a bit of a separation between an adult jump pad and a kid jump pad. You were being pretty shy at first by trying to get me to come close to you, but it didn't take you long to really get into it.

All in all, it was an amazing day. You sweated a lot, I sweated a lot and we just had a blast
spending time together. Next Friday I have Kendall for mommy and Kendall day. I'm not sure
what I'll do with her, but I'm so looking forward to it.

I can't sleep

I talked to my parents today because Auntie Sara told me that your Toronto halbi was feeling sick. Auntie Sara said your halbi lost a lot of weight and he just had low hemoglobin levels and was just super tired. When I talked to halmi on the way home from work (around 6pm) she said that your halbi had a doctor's appointment at 3:30pm today. This appointment happened before I talked to Auntie Sara, but she hadn't heard what the results were. Halmi said that the doctor found 2 tumors in halbi's pancreas… 2. Immediately I started freaking out inside. My colleague at work lost her dad to pancreatic cancer recently. It's called the "silent killer" because it goes undetected for a long time until it's too late and almost 85% of patients die within the first year. I know it's still too early as halbi is seeing a specialist at Sunnybrook Hospital ASAP to find out if this tumor is benign or malignant, but I can't help but worry. I'm just so worried that I'm shaking. I'm so worried for my mom because she is so dependant on my dad…

Chicken pox?

Daddy texted me this afternoon saying that your daycare called him saying that you were covered in spots and to take her to the doctors right away. At first I panicked because I thought you got chicken pox. I was in production at work so I was working late almost every day so I knew I couldn't afford to take any days off. But then I remembered that you got your chicken pox vaccine a few months ago. I told daddy about it, but he decided to pick you up anyways. When he got home he sent me a video trying to show me your body where all the spots were, but you were acting all shy and not having any of it. I think you had a reaction of some sort. I have a suspicion that you may be allergic to some fish as you also broke out in hives when I gave you salmon a few days ago. I'm going to have to ask your doctor during your 18-month checkup in a few weeks. I'm hoping that it's not, but we shall see!

Ice storm

Our city and most of Eastern Canada was hit with a terrible ice storm on Saturday. We lost power for a few minutes, but got it back soon after. We didn't think anything of it until we started hearing that many people across the city had lost power and hydro Ontario was saying they might not get power back until after Christmas! Crazy… 

Well, soon after the storm that turned the whole city to ice this is what my neighbourhood looked like.

The whole street was a skating rink. Literally. There were some people that were skating across
their street because it was that icy.

All the trees were covered in ice and some older trees in the city had fallen down because of the
sheer weight of the ice. If you can see our car at the bottom of this photo, you can see that it
was just covered in ice. Daddy tried to scrape off the ice and it took him hours. And he wasn't even
able to clear it 100%. 

Another look at our street from our 2nd story window.

You were not feeling well so I've been carrying around the thermometer to keep reading your
temperature. You even grabbed it at some point and held it to your ear because that's how
I get the reading. So cute!

You look so cute here with your hair tucked behind your ears. This was just after your bath
so that's why your hair looks so neat. Usually it's one big, hot mess.

Not feeling your 100% self.

So guess who's also allergy to nuts?

I was almost certain that you wouldn't be allergy to peanuts or nuts in general because you don't have eczema like Aidan. Your skin is actually really soft. I feel like eczema and nut allergies are connected in a way because all the kids that I know that have suffered from severe eczema have peanut allergies. But I was wrong. I got you tested for any allergies today because I just wanted to make sure. When the doctor told me you had 100% peanut allergy (your swelling was the biggest where she tested you for peanuts) I was shocked. She even said you may have allergies to tree nuts. The swelling wasn't that big so she wants to test you again in a year's time. Great… Now I have to get daycare epipens…

I asked the doctor if there was anything that I did during my pregnancy to cause the nut allergy since both daddy and I don't have any cases of nut allergy in the family, but she said it just happens sometimes. She actually got mad at me for thinking that I did something. She said when the older sibling has a nut allergy, it's most likely that the younger sibling also has a nut allergy… Thanks Aidan.

It's hard to tell in this photo, but the peanut allergy test caused the biggest swelling.

Such a cute girl. I just want to eat you sometimes because you're so cute!

Mom sal (translated from Korean, meaning body ache)

What a day I had! I experienced the little monsters to the extreme today :-S

I took a day off today because Kendall had her 15-month checkup today at 9:45am. I decided to just take a day off and spend time with Kendall (since I hardly see her during the work week). 

I dropped you off at daycare in the morning with Kendall and it was all fine. Kendall was surprisingly pretty good when I first got to the doctor's office. It's always very stressful when it's the checkup appointment because the doctor measures everything and the appointment usually involves getting shots. As soon as I took off Kendall's shoes, she started crying uncontrollably. I couldn't even get her to calm down even when I gave her veggie chips. Every single thing that the doctor told me to do- take of Kendall's clothes (to weigh her), hold her down (to measure her length), open her mouth (to check the back of her mouth), hold her head (to see inside her ears), etc. involved a fight. At one point, Kendall was kicking the doctors upper body while the doctor was trying to see inside her mouth. Kendall was crying to much that it took a good 15 minutes for the doctor to see her pupils- her eyes were closed shut crying. By the time it was all over I was in a ball of sweat and Kendall got the hiccups from crying so much. 

Here's where she is at right now:

Weight: 8.32kg or 18.34lbs (down from 8.37kg last time)

Head circumference: 44 cm (same as last time)

Height: 74cm (up from 70cm last time) 

And the bad news? Kendall lost weight and because she was experiencing diarrhea, the doctor couldn't administer the vaccination shots. The doctor told me I would have to come back in 2 weeks to give Kendall her shots. AND, she will most likely be weighing her again since the doctor was concerned about Kendall's weight. ACK! I'm definitely not looking forward to the follow-up appointment. 

When I got out of the appointment, daddy had texted me saying that he was leaving work early and meeting us at the doctor's office. We ended up having a nice lunch and doing errands- grocery shopping and picking up prescription medication (Kendall had an ear infection). I can't wait for the day when I can just do… nothing. No running errands, not making dinner, not picking up kids, not grocery shopping, the list goes on and on. I didn't realize being a parent was SO HARD.

Here's Kendall walking with daddy after the doctor's appointment. You wouldn't know it from this video that just a few minutes before she was a crying mess.

I guess all the crying made Kendall pass out in the car. She almost never sleeps in the car. She actually fell asleep holding onto her veggie chips. Aigoo, aigoo.

We stopped by a ramen place to have a quick bite to eat. Look how cute you are!

Drinking water, all by herself.

Such a good eater… That's why it puzzles me that you lost weight. I was sure you gained weight.

Waiting for more food.

Pretty Kendall.

So by the time everything was done and we got home, it was close to 3pm and time to pick up the original monster- monster 1. Tonight was your daycare's Halloween party so I wanted to make sure you got a bath, ate dinner and had time to change into your costume before heading out. You were looking forward to this party for a whole week now so I thought you would be loving it. Or so I thought…

The Halloween party was at a high school and the teachers converted the whole main floor into a
Halloween-themed room. It was AMAZING!

They had stations set up for activities. 

I present you Iron Man!
I don't know if the new environment made you anxious, but you were quiet, clingy and just not
looking like you were enjoying yourself. When teachers walked by and said hi to you, you just
turned away and said nothing. I hate that!

More of the Halloween decor.

There were close to 500 people at the party. 

All the teachers dressed up in costumes. It was pretty cool.

And the best part of this party? Why, it was the entertainment, of course! They had hired Bounce Entertainment and they were soooooo good! All the kids were on the dance floor dancing like crazy. I was so impressed and I thought you would be all over it seeing that they were playing all the songs that you knew on the radio and I know how much you love to dance. However, you just stood there sulking and you didn't do anything. I think you were the only kid that didn't dance. I kept encouraging you to have a good time, but you were so clingy to me. Eventually you loosened up a bit and actually danced a little bit, but not much. You decided in the end that you wanted to go back to the activity tables and we did some of that, but when the party drew to a close you started throwing a huge tantrum because you didn't want to leave. You actually ran away and when I didn't follow you, you came back and hit me! I was so angry! I tried putting on your jacket and your tantrums got even bigger. I couldn't even get it on and by that time you were screaming and crying. All the parents were looking at me and I was so embarrassed. By the time we got to the car I was about to explode. I screamed at you all the way home. I'm so upset that you aren't like the other kids and it frustrates me that maybe it's something I'm doing wrong. Why is it that you don't say hi to people? Why are you such a snob?? Why do you go crazy when things aren't going your way? Every single thing has to be a challenge for me. I constantly have to think of ways to get you to move onto another thing because once you get into something, it's like you are in a trance. 

When we got home, I was so mad that I didn't even want to see you. I told daddy what had happened and he got so mad. He tried to put you in time out, but that obviously doesn't work with you. Daddy gave you so much memme. I took a quick video of when you are in your tantrum stage.