Hot Pot Dinner

So on Monday our friend Jessica who lives down the street invited us over for dinner. Her in-laws are Chinese and live with her and her husband and son, so they prepared a Hot Pot dinner. Hot Pot is sort of like fondue. Monday night was the last official night of the Spring Festival holiday time (FINALLY!!!), so it was kind of fun to experience a home cooked Chinese meal. Jessica's mother in law even made homemade dumplings. On our way home there were fireworks everywhere you looked. Of course Timmy said, "Boom! Boom!" all the way home.

New Words & Skills

As of today Timmy has started actually addressing me as MaMa. This is fantastic. Thanks to Chinese New Year, he has also learned to say Boom. So everytime he hears firecrackers (which this week has been every two minutes), he says Boom! Other new words in his vocabulary are dog, blocks, meow, and yeah. So for those of you that keep asking us if he is talking yet, I think the answer is yes.

Also, he won't let me feed him at all anymore. This makes for some fun meal time messes (see pictures from previous blog post Getting Busy). Next on our list of things to teach this kid: How To Use Chopsticks. I guess I need to get better at it first.

Year of the Ox

So last night was a New Year's Eve like we've never experienced. At about 6pm as it was mostly dark out, the fire works began. Well, they actually had been going on and off since last week, but the for real fireworks started when it got dark on Sunday. Now, when I think of the average guy in the US setting off fireworks, I tend to think of my dad setting off Black Cats and some spinny things and sparklers in the back yard. China is the birthplace of fireworks and they are not illegal here so that means it was intense. These were the kind of fireworks that the city of Chicago sets off. The main difference is that these were being set off directly outside our window by ALL of our neighbors. It seems that pretty much every family in the entire city was setting off their own show. At 11:50pm or so, it got loud enough that we all woke up and sat in our bed with the drapes open watching. Timmy was more scared and more excited than I have ever seen him. He was pointing and yelling and smiling and shaking all at once. It was amazing. Video will be posted soon on Facebook, but it doesn't do it justice.