Z's World

词语篇

可爱篇

有天半夜小Z肚子饿了，妈妈拿了奶进他房间，因为里面黑咕隆咚的，妈妈看不到小Z，就问：“人在那里？”“人在这里！”黑暗中小Z大声回答。

小Z剃完头会用Lint Roller 清自己衣服上的小头发，清完后就把它用来当轮子在地上滚。

小Z看牙医一直在哭，但医生一停，爸爸抱他起来，他就不哭了，高兴地大声说：“Yay!”

某天早上起来小Z说什么话都是什么什么的：小Z喝奶的，妈妈讲故事的，爸爸上班的……

爸爸做小Z规矩。小Z生爸爸的气。问他最喜欢谁，他说妈妈，奶奶（他的Nanny），小Z，甚至 Thomas Train。就是不说爸爸，故意气爸爸。

他的新Train Table 有四个随带的木头小火车。爸爸叫小Z不要开这些小破车，去开他的Thomas& Friends火车。 可是小Z觉得新鲜，嚷着：“小Z要开小破车！”

有天小Z在床上给妈妈讲故事：“大家都睡觉了：面包车睡觉了，吉普车睡觉了， Thomas睡觉了，Toby睡觉了，Percy也睡觉了…… ”说着说着没声音了，小Z也睡觉了。

小Z最喜欢的字母自然是Z，他指着Z就说：“小Z！”。他也喜欢O，不过指着O不说O，而说：“圈圈！”

看到胖胖乖乖的YaYa妹妹，妈妈问小Z：“喜欢YaYa妹妹吗？““喜欢！”小Z点点头。

看到上窜下跳的AnAn妹妹，妈妈问小Z：“喜欢AnAn妹妹吗？”小Z猛摇头。

马屁篇

妈妈找了张明星照片要去照着她的发型剪头发。爸爸说妈妈很像这个明星。妈妈就拿给小Z看，小Z说是阿姨。妈妈再拿自己照片给小Z看，小Z说是妈妈。看来小Z看得明白。妈妈有点失望。妈妈剪完头发后，一进家门，小Z就说妈妈是阿姨。问他到底是妈妈还是阿姨，小Z说是妈妈阿姨。妈妈心里乐滋滋的。

妈妈问小Z：“你喜欢童童妹妹， Phoebe妹妹，还是YaYa妹妹？”

小Z毫不犹豫地回答：“小Z喜欢妈妈！“

每次问小Z谁是帅帅，他都会说小Z是帅帅。一点不谦虚。有一天爸爸穿了一件新毛衣，小Z说：“爸爸衣服好看！”妈妈问：“爸爸帅还是小Z帅？”小Z答道：“小Z帅！爸爸帅！” 

哭笑不得篇

有一次妈妈把小Z的牛奶打翻了，心里很烦。小Z唯恐天下不乱嚷道：“啊喔，完蛋了（跟天线宝宝学的）！牛奶打翻了，妈妈擦！擦！擦！”

有一次换尿布时爸爸突然说：“啊呀！糟糕！”小Z笑道：“没有涂油油！”

有一次隔壁有人不停敲门很吵。小Z像大楼总管一样大声问道：“是谁呀？是谁在敲门门？干嘛？”

有一天小Z午觉睡醒找爸爸：“爸爸爸爸！”

“爸爸去买菜了！”妈妈告诉他。

“小Z不饿，爸爸不要去买菜！”小Z很不乐意地答道。

小Z只会在家里称大王，“欺负”爸爸妈妈。在外面胆小的很，不敢离开爸妈一步。爸爸问：“在家是条龙，出门是条蛇，是谁？”“是爸爸！”小Z诡秘地答道。

小Z硬是要跟着妈妈上洗手间。“妈妈臭臭！”小Z捂着鼻子说。“那你自己起厅里玩嘛！”妈妈赶他走。“没关系！”小Z就是赖着不走。

妈妈打了个喷嚏。爸爸教小Z跟妈妈说长命百岁。妈妈又打了喷嚏。爸爸看看小Z问：“要跟妈妈说什么？”小Z想了想对着妈妈说：“妈妈不要打喷嚏！”

妈妈突然闻到一股臭味问：“小Z是不是放屁?”小Z说：“ 没有！不是小Z！是小Z的车车！”

小Z常常早上缠着爸爸，不让他去上班。爸爸简单地给他解释了一下厉害关系。他马上明白了说：

“爸爸上班换钱钱，妈妈买火车，小Z开！”。

From now on, I have to check the next age box: 35-39. I just googled age 35. It seemed to be a big deal: it’s easy to gain weight for those over 35; it’s hard to stay hip; it’s considered high risk for those pregnant… When I turned 30, I thought 30 something was pretty sexy. Now I’m a little scared. I don’t feel I’m still 30 something, but more towards 40.

James took a day off and took me to an Italian restaurant called Bello. It’s on the first floor of the Stonehenge building on the corner of 56^th street and 9^th avenue, where we used to live. Can you believe that we never went to Bello before? Every time we thought about going there, we told ourselves: ”Why this time? It’s just downstairs. We can go there anytime we like.” I guess we just take everything for granted sometimes. We took a nice walk in Columbus Circle after lunch. All the sweet memories came back. Then we watched a movie called Rachel Getting Married like in the old times. Coming out of the movie, James started walking towards the subway station. “Hey, we don’t live in the City anymore! We have to take the path.” I reminded him. Then we both realized that we had to hurry to pick up Z from the babysitter. Thinking about Z, the little bit of regret for not living in the City was totally gone.

A friend asked me how my life had become after having a baby. It’s busier, crazier, tougher, more complicated… I had to say, but it’s more meaningful. When I look back at the end of every year, I may have done nothing, but my son is one year older. I may be afraid of getting old, but the thought of Z getting bigger when I’m getting older makes me happy and relieved. When James and Z helped me blow my birthday candles after a sweet dinner at home, I felt so grateful. Isn’t this what life is about? So these three things remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love (1 Corinthians 13:13).

Miranda

The original title of this blog was I love New York, but… We took a family trip to the Central Park before James’s parents went back to Shanghai a few weeks ago. It was supposed to be a fun and nice trip, but it turned into a big disaster!

First, it took us more than an hour to get in the city because of the traffic. It was only 6 miles away from Newport to Midtown. The streets and high ways are so complicated in Jersey that it’s easy to get lost even with a GPS. Most street names are all numbers in the city, it’s not difficult to find the place, but sometimes you can never get there even you know you’re almost there. There’re no left turns, no U turns, one-way streets everywhere. So it took us another half hour after coming out of Lincoln Tunnel to finally get to the Central Park. The next problem was parking. Though we saw a lot of muni parking signs, none of them said where the actual parking spots were or explained time restrictions. James decided to park in a public parking garage to avoid more hassle. We missed the early bird special (before 10am). So we had to pay more.  We walked a lot in the park. It was hot and crowded. The food in the zoo cafe wasn’t good and totally over priced. We’re all a little disappointed, the even worse thing happened later. We lost our new camera and all the pictures we took in the past two weeks. The master card ad can be applied for the situation perfectly. Central Park trip: Lincoln Tunnel toll - $8. Gas - $10. Parking - $20. Lunch - $50. Canon camera - $200. Family photos lost - priceless.

I guess this is New York. Sometime I can’t describe how much I love it in words, but sometimes I just hate it. I bet New York is one of the most exciting cities and one of the most depressing cities in the world. There was a famous saying from a famous Chinese TV series called Bejing People in New York. It said if you love someone, take him/her to New York because it’s heaven; if you hate someone, take him/her to New York because it’s hell.

Since we moved back to New York, James and I have been busy meeting old friends and Z has been busy meeting new friends. Fortunately, I uploaded most of Z’s pictures to our computer. (We now have a Macbook and Mac doesn’t support MSN well. That’s why it has taken me a while to update this blog). Here are the links.

Visiting the Winter Garden at the World Financial Center (James works in one of the buildings there).

Playing at the Liberty Science Center with Christopher.

Watching the kids show with Claire in the Madison Square Park.

Enjoying the live concert with Benjamin in Newport.

Meeting Claire for the first time in Seaport.

BTW, Z is quite a dancer. Every time he hears music, he'll start dancing. I'll post some of his dancing videos later.

Miranda