I was involved into a car accident in the past weekend. We are all fine, so as the other party. The main thing is both cars got some damage. It’s funny when I drove the broken car on the road, I got quite a few “look back” from other drivers. And yesterday, at McDonald parking lot, the lady who looks after the parking lot, said “what happened to your car”. Not to mention, our daughter Serenity volunteered to repair the car.

Last but not least, my wife insisted I declare “Minjie is the one who got involved in the accident”

Fun aside, we are truly blessed we were not hurt.

My wife started as purchase assistant job at a local manufacturing company, the main task is communicate with Chinese suppliers, involves both Chinese language and mechanical engineering. As I was ME major, I got opportunity to talk to my wife about some of her tasks. Back to ME.

Baby is still a very important part of our life. She grew quite a bit, in terms of language (both Chinese and English), and other skills. We think the Hope Montessori Toddler program (Creve Coeur) helped quite a bit. It helped her be more confident as a person.

In my spare time, I still pay attention to the stock market, US politics, and last but not least, volunteer (serve) in Church. I have a change of heart on politics: in the past I think the government should take care of at least two things: health care and education. Now I think the family and individual should take more responsibility. Also I felt some of the welfare program is not necessarily good for the recipients in the long term. As I read from the news one welfare recipient (woman) is alleged helping her husband kill another person (lady) in Maine. On the tax, it seems local tax is always rising as time goes, and the federal deficit cannot sustain if we don’t raise the overall rate for all the tax payers. The buffett rule (have the rich pay a little more) is just a cup of water on the fire.

Last but not least, we bought a new car (Camry, our first), I like the blue booth audio very much, besides its signature smoothness.

More later…

Today, after we put her to crib, when my wife and I both read iPhone on bed (her crib is next to our bed), she said “在看什么呀？(what are you reading)?”…Later, she also said “what are you doing?”

(Original) Youyou is a 18 month and 18 days old. She started the program on Aug 29, and 4 weeks has passed. She has transformed from “crying when mom left her in the school” to today “she no longer cries when mom drop her”.

She can say quite a few Chinese words and some sentences. She has good memory probably due to genetic reason (we are both good at memorizing things). She also can feed herself a bit, and be much more proactive when playing with us. For instance, she came to grab me for dinner when I was on phone last Sunday evening (mom did not ask her). Not to mention grabbing my glasses (she is very fast). When I go to work, she will usually say “Mao Zi” which means “wear a cap”, and say “bye bye” (which she learned a while ago).

I attended a class offered by David (the head of Hope Toddler program) this morning, Dave is quite enthusiastic and I think the No. 1 thing for me is learn, because kid is learning from parents, all the time.

Baby is definitely getting more active and interesting: her favorite thing these days is flip over as soon as we put her down. And she will smile at us sometimes when we “found out”.

In addition to baby, I spent some time working on myNestEgg, my first iPhone app, a retirement savings calculator. I am wrapping it up and hope to submit it very soon.

Ohio 529 plan update
I received 9 referrals, plus my own contribution (taking advantage of recent market volatility), the total contribution is $875 as of today 6/16/2010. You can take advantage of my Amazon gift card offer if you enroll the Ohio plan using my referral code 2568778 by 6/30, details here.

After taking a few vaccine shots, she was a bit fussy in the evening, but slept well in the night. She is also got interested in the mobile set. She is more vocal nowadays, making a lot more noises, and sometimes in conversation with her mom.

We also ordered the official birth certificate from local authority.

Toy

We bought this mobile (music with moving stuff animals) from Amazon (recommended by ToddlerRecipe). But she seems like the black and white pictures her mom printed off the web better. She seems don’t care too much about the music and the stuff animals. It’s interesting the free stuff works better than the $36 toy. I guess love is more important: her mom put a lot effort searching and print the black white pattern pictures. From scientific point of view, the baby of her age is more sensitive to black/white than the colorful stuff animals. The soothing music does calm her down.

Yesterday we took her to St. Louis Botanical Garden, understandably she slept much of the time. Because the weather is a bit chilly, we wrap her around big blankets, and don’t want to expose her to the cold wind. She got a ride on our newly bought Maclaren triumph stroller. We saw quite a few babies at botanical garden, due to nice weather and family friendliness of the place.

Guess that’s all relative. When I first met my wife 3.5 years ago, I felt her face is small and lovely at the time. Now of course all the attention are reserved for our baby. But I think it’s would be good we reserve some time for us.