Inseparable OG

(New Readers - This is the Final part of a 4 part series/CLICK on Label OG's)
Echoing throughout the last three parts of the OG stories was a recuring theme of just how attached my son is to the OG's and especially BB-OG. A true story happened last December. On an ordinary Friday evening shortly after dinner, my little boy complained of a stomach-ache. Normally, it would be a minor thing for any outgoing and monkey-like little boy. However in my little boy's case, this ache did take exceptions. We called his doctor for precaution due to his recent medical history of kidney ailments. Long story short, our doctor didn't take this ache lightly and ordered us to take him to the emergency room. This transpired into a series of events escalating to a point that my son was admitted to the ICU after several days of deterioration. His condition was worsening further, and a week before Christmas, his fragile little body was plugged up with tubes. As a three-year rookie father, this was really hard to swallow. My little guy was going through the utmost physical test in his short three years of life. He couldn't drink water due to our doctor's order even though he begged for anything liquid (including his favorite Chinese homemade soups) for almost two days under a severe water retention period. His body was swollen up with more than 10+ pounds literally in a matter of days due to kidney failure. Hopeful words from the doctors were that his condition would turn the corner naturally with some medicinal help. But in the next few days, the medicines from the tubes did not do what they were meant to. Finally, our doctor said he would need physical help to get rid of all the excess water in his body, because at that point, his kidney had completely collapsed. They needed to operate on him and insert a tube to serve as an articial filtration device. I wasn't sure what to think or say at the time. Before we could gather our thoughts, the nurses came and wheeled him into the operation room. It was a chilling moment followed by chilling thoughts. All the "what if" questions in the world started popping up in the back of my mind. When the operation was finally over and as they wheeled him out of the operating room, I noticed hidden under the white blankets was little BB-OG. No more than a cotton-filled stuff dog, BB-OG was the only thing my son was holding on to after going through days of no liquid until he almost lost his voice and the eventual operation. OG was with him throughout the whole ordeal. Thanks be to God, my little boy is much better today and BB-OG remains to be his most cherished treasure.

In my earlier articles title "Egg, Giraffe and Tree". The giraffe represents me, wishing to be a anchor holding on to the calm hundred-year-old tree next to me, overlooking the distance at a fragile yet strong little egg.

-M

Finding Daddy OG (Part III to BB OG)

(New Readers - This is the Third part of a 4 part series/CLICK on Label OG's)
Picture above - Daddy OG is Bat Dog? or bad Dog?
I once again found myself traveling on a cold winter night. It was Christmas Eve at New York's JFK airport. I was battling the crowd trying to get home to my little boy. At the check-in counter, I found my flight delayed for another 3 hours due to bad weather with the potential of the flight being cancelled. With no where to go and a dreadful thought of my little boy's reaction on Christmas' morn without daddy being there, I felt a deep sense of guilt. I found myself once again wandering into the airport gift shop. This time, this proud looking stuff dog caught my eye. I found Daddy-OG! It looks the same as BB-OG except it is bigger in size.
The truth of the matter was that nothing dramatic like the above happened. It wasn't even Christmas eve. Nonetheless, I did find Daddy-OG in another airport stop-over. It wasn't Christmas but rather April Fools. I remember giving Daddy-OG to my son the next day and his reaction immediately was, WOW..Daddy-OG!
Like my make-believe senario above, I often overheard my son's make-believe conversation between BB-OG and Daddy-OG. The same questions would be posed by BB-OG to Daddy-OG, such as "Are you going to work," "Is it Saturday Morning" etc. It's a good thing that these stuff animals are washable especially Daddy-OG. My son is three and half but not fully potty trained yet when he sleeps. Since he is the biggest in size, Daddy-OG often gets the wettest "shower" in the middle of the nite. :) My son is inseparable with the family of three (OGs). They are his own family and own world. He gets to dictate when BB-OG gets to play and when Daddy-OG goes to work. He insists on including them as part of our overall family. We (the real BB, Mommy and Daddy with the OGs) often pray in circles at night before bed holding our "paws" together. I would do voices for all three OGs.

Stay Tuned for the final chapter of OG in the Operation room...
-M

OG's Obsession? (Part II to BB-OG)

(New Readers - This is the second part of a 4 part series/CLICK on Label OG's)
My little boy is so attached to his first D-O-G. He would take him EVERYWHERE he goes. He absolutely will not sleep without it. The very first time he spent the night outside of home, I made sure D-OG was with him. That very first time, he spent the whole night holding on to D-OG tightly and talking to his first big brother friend name DJ. DJ later told us, he wouldn't let go of D-OG even after he fell asleep. It was his security. A weird habit he picked up was that he would nibble on D-OG's ear before he falls asleep. D-OG had become to him like Skip to Willie.
I decided to look for another D-OG for backup, just in case the first one gets too drooled upon and needs to be burned down due to contamination. Little boys are sweet but they are dirty as well. At another airport stop, I strolled in to a gift shop and to my delight, I found a similar D-OG. The only difference was the color and pattern. I took it home and gave it to my son to gauge his reaction. At this point, he had not made any connection yet between his first D-O-G and this new one that I brought home. He knew they were different due to the pattern and colors. He did not warm up to this D-OG until much later when we discovered that he had named the new D-OG "Mommy OG." Both OG's would be at his side everywhere and yes for a period of a few weeks they even had a place on our dinner table. We actually held "paws" together to say grace prior to meals.
Grandpa somehow found out about the OG's and shared with me that I too had a stuff bear that I couldn't live without. That stuff bear was somehow omitted from my memory. I do however hope that my little boy will remember all of his stuff animal obsession when he grows up!


This is why I write.....
Stay tuned for Daddy-OG's! more to come...
-M

BB-OG

What is a perfect pet? How about a pet that does not need any shots, feeding, never gets sick and is generally low maintenance! Well, I got one for you. My little boy has been clinging on to a stuff dog since he was 6 months old In many ways this dog has played a similar role to a real dog in the movie My Dog Skip. In that movie, the dog had a strong influence on the main character Willie, a shy and awkward 9 year old Southern boy. Willie's life was later transformed by Skip's outgoing personality, and Skip eventually helped him to break in to the neighborhood's circle of boys. I was quite taken by this small town good old American boy and his little dog story.
At the aiport from a business trip three years ago, I casually took a browse at the airport gift shop. Unexpectedly, a little stuff dog caught my eyes which reminded me so much of Skip, and I couldn't resist taking it home. I arrived home late that night and, my then 6 months old boy was already asleep. I placed the little stuff animal dog next to his crib, kissed him good nite and went to bed. The next morning I found him holding on to the stuff animal in one hand, a milk bottle on the other and was already drooling all over the stuff dog. Just like Skip, we wanted to give it a name. I thought it would be great if we could name the dog, De-O-G (You need to pronounce it several time out loud to get it. The "E" is silent) Since then, little De-O-G has never left his sight. My little boy would take him everywhere just like Willie with Skip.
Our son's teacher even told us about a conversation our son had with his classmates one day. A few of his classmates were somehow announcing and bragging on the fact that they had cute baby brother/sister. Being competitive but not knowing what a baby brother or sister is (because he doesn't have one), my little boy blurted out "I have De-OG too!"


Stay tune for The coming of Mommy De-OG...TO BE CONTINUED....

-M

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Soup Ocean

In our household, there are no better comfort food than a bowl of warm Chinese soup. My son loves soup. He needs to have soup at each meal. It brings comfort to me that my little boy still prefers Chinese thin soup versus thick and hearty American can soup. This assures me at least for now, that our culture is still in tact.
A thick bowl of soup is when a spoon is able to stand on it's own when you sink it in to the bowl. There is no way you can do that with a bowl of Chinese soup. The first sentence, my dad used to tell us when we begin each meal is "Yum Tong ah" which means drink the soup. It's almost customary for us to have the soup first then the actual meal. It is meant to wet or marinate our taste buds first prior to the actual meal. At my dinner table now days, I don't even have to tell my little guy, "Yum Tong ah" because even before I say that, the soup is gone.
My hope is for him not to outgrow this habit because as he gets older, sooner or later he is going to find out the ingredients used to make these soup!(Pig brain, Intestines,Chicken feet, mushroom, fish heads, Fish eyeballs and etc. Remember the scene from Indiana Jones when he was at the Indian Village where the eyeballs float up from the soup they were having?) By then, he may not even allowed me to utter the words "Yum Tong ah" but instead he would say "Campbell please...!!!"


-M

Eggs, Giraffe and a Tree

Two of my son's favorite thing to ask me is "Daddy, are you going to work today?" and "Is it Saturday morning yet?" In my son's world, he wishes everyday is Saturday morning. A once famous quote states. "All fathers are invisible in daytime; daytime is ruled by mothers and fathers come out at night. Darkness brings home fathers, with their real, unspeakable power. There is more to fathers than meets the eye."
A normal Saturday morning would be for my little boy to climb in to my bed at about 8.30am jumping up and down yelling...daddy daddy Wake UP! It's Saturday morning!
I LOVE hearing his voice calling out Daddy daddy! at this time. After waking up, we would have our usual breakfast of eggs and toast. I notice something similar that perhaps it is ingrained in to our molecular genes. He would eat his egg the same way I used to eat when I was his age. Being a father is such an amazing thing. Little things such as discovering how your little son eats can even be classified as a discovery or amazement. As a kid my dad used to tell his friend about me and particularly highlighting the fact on my strange rituals of eating eggs. My mom would cook me a boiled egg,I would put the boiled egg in a small bowl, used a spoon to cut up the eggs in to smaller pieces but not small enough to be mushy, then I would pour some ketchup to mix in with the egg. I would scoop up the egg mix in to the ketchup and eat it with a grin of satisfaction. It was my own special way of eating boiled eggs. With the similarity between me and my son, I sometimes find myself aligning my thoughts to this quote below. "One night a father overheard his son pray: Dear God, Make me the kind of man my Daddy is. Later that night, the Father prayed, Dear God, You know what my son prayed for right? Can you Make me the kind of man my son wants me to be."

I will end with my own quote - An egg is maybe an egg, however it is not an egg without ketchup.

Can you guess what the giraffe and Tree symbolize?

-M

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Someone from the Past

Dear Readers,

It's been 5+ years since the last time I saw my friend tonite. One day out of the blue, my sister sent me a link from tag.com. I accidentally click on it and turns out it sent a message to everybody in my address book. Although, bad at first for thinking how many people did I just disturb and intrude on, it turned out to be a pleasant blessing. Several of the links made it to some of my long lost friends. One of them wrote me back 2 weeks ago and told me he will be around our area tonite. He is a child-hood friend. I was an young foreign student who came to the states to study almost 20+ years ago. Being a foreign student, naturally language was a barrier. I had to stick with people I felt comfortable.

The person I met tonite was one of the few I went thru together during my early years as a foreign student in this foreign land. We used to talk about dreams, girls, careers, how much money we want to make, who is the better basketball player, who is the better tennis player, who can beat each other on NFL madden and on. We had a competitive spirit all through out our teen and growing years. We did sort of went our separate ways in college but found ourselves re-kindle again tonite about the past. The thing that made it so special tonite, was that he too has a 2 year old boy. We watch our boys meet for the first time and play together for the first time. It brings back the past. It was a pleasant memory. When we parted tonite, our boys actually hug each other. We both felt a sense of pride and something else in describable but even though it can't be express by words, it was certainly felt deeply in our hearts.

-M

Toy Frog

Dear Readers,

My son is 3 and half right now. He recently learn to speak more and had quickly graduated to the realm of being quite the chatter box. He is really in to correcting us all the time on things we said. Just the other day, I mistakenly call one of his toy's the wrong name. He told me, Daddy!! NO...that's Thomas and not Henry. My son is a big Thomas the train fan. Even though he can't recognize words yet, at 3 years old, I am confident to say he can beat anybody in a naming contest of all the hundreds of trains within the Thomas the Tank Engine community. He lives and dreams about Thomas the tank Engine. I dare not miss call his trains by name. This brought me back to a story, just 12 - 16 months ago when my son was still in the midst of learning to speak. He had some trouble pronouncing words that started with "F". One of his favorite bath toy at the time, was his Froggy mitten soap scrubber. He always wanted me to use that scrubber as a puppet play during his bath times. Some time had past and it was time to go to the doctors for a quick check up. Of course in any normal Doctors visit, the pediatrician would always try to be friend the child and to make him feel comfortable since going to the Doctors could only mean a few things. A big needle poke or bad tasting medicine afterwards. It's imprinted in the child's mind, these two conditions would always be the result. Our pediatrician, did the same and try to befriend my son. He said to him, Hello!, How are you? My son reply gingerly "fine". Good! said the doctor, the doctor ask again, would you like a balloon afterwards? My son reply a little louder this time, "Yes!"
The next question that follows was "what is your favorite Toy?" My son reply too quickly and blurted out a word that would get him detention for a few days if he had said it at school. The word was "F@*#". That's my little boy at 2 and a half year old.
I told my dad the story of his grandchild miss pronouncing froggy. He told me growing up, I too had trouble pronouncing words that starts with "F" I guess it's like father like son after all.

Do you have a favorite memory to share regarding your time with your sons or daughters? Let me know and do share.

-M

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