The first words ever from Isaac,"Papa, Jie Jie hit me!"

Isaac will be turning two at the end of February. He is a very active boy and he is on par with other kids in his age when it comes to development. However, he is lagging quite a bit behind his sister in terms of language development. Meredith was fully conversational when she was one and half year old but Isaac only knows how to utter a few individual words. He cannot put words into a complete sentence so far. That is until yesterday. Much to our surprise, Isaac uttered his first complete sentence yesterday. He ran to me, while crying, “Papa, Jie Jie tah yoh!” and pointed towards Meredith. He was saying “my sister hit me!” in Chinese.

The first full sentence of Isaac life is truly memorable (being bullied by his sister, Meredith), I just hope this would not be the recurring theme of his childhood.

Gong Xi Fatt Choy from New Orleans

Gong Xi Fatt Choy and Happy Chinese New Year from New Orleans! There is not much chinese new year celebration in New Orleans because everyone is so consumed with Mardi Gras and the chinese community here is quite small.

We tried extremely hard to find a lion dance for Meredith and Isaac to watch. The vietnamese village in West Bank of New Orleans had a lion dance celebration but we missed it. And then there is a chinese church here that put together a 15minutes lion dance celebration as well, we also missed that lion dance performance by 15minutes. So this year the only lion dance Meredith and Isaac saw are from Youtube.

New Orleans Saints won the Superbowl!

New Orleans Saints won the superbowl! The whole city almost went crazy. The neighborhood that we lived was transformed from a sleepy suburban street into an eruption of cars honking each other, neighbors running outside and cheering each other and setting off fireworks.

The Tuesday after Superbowl, there was a victory parade in downtown New Orleans to celebrate the Saints victory. It is estimated that almost a million people showed up to cheer the Saints. I went to the parade after work since it took place near our office. It was a big mistake. I left the parade halfway and expect to beat the traffic leaving downtown. It took me one hour and 15 minutes to drive 0.5miles in order to get on I-10 freeway to go home.

See video clips below that I took at the Saints victory parade

Fellow Malaysians watching the parade


There is no line in front of this restroom because it costs $2 per use. I ended up paying $2 to use this restroom since the line at the other free restroom is about 50 people long.

Isaac also got asthma meh?

Isaac was sick for the last two weeks. We took him to the pediatrician and the doctor wanted us to give him some inhaled medication to help relieve his congested lung.So we let isaac used the same nebulizer inhaler that Meredith used for her asthma treatment. Isaac was very coorperative, he quickly put on the face mask and he looks excited to be able to do something that her sister does everyday.

Meredith looks very amused when she saw Isaac using the inhaler. She said, "Isaac also got asthma meh?" Like all good Malaysian, she doesn't forget to add 'meh' to the end of her sentence.

It's carnival time in New Orleans!

Mardi Gras is here! It's february in New Orleans, the temperature is in the mild 40-50s fahrenheits but carnival and party atmosphere is heating up. This is after all the Mardi Gras capital and the New Orleans football team The Saints has made it to the Superbowl for the first time in history. On average, there are about six parades every day of the weekends in February leading up to Mardi Gras. There are parades in downtown, uptown and Metairie (near our house).

I took Meredith and Isaac to the Excalibur parade in Metairie this last Friday night. The parade is very family friendly and the crowd is just the right size, we don't have to jostle for space and Meredith can walk right up to the parades when people on the float wanted to throw her a toys. This is a far cry from the very raunchy Mardi Gras celebration in downtown New orleans where someone will be embarassed to bring along their mother.

Meredith and Isaac was initially unfamiliar with what to do at the parade. Meredith warmed up to the parade pretty quickly, she was jumping up and down with her hands raised screaming "give me beads!" as the parade roll through. I hold Isaac in my arm and isaac is a magnet for soft toys. People on the floats started throwing him soft toys like octopus, ducks and heart shape pillow. Meredith started to learn making eye contact with people on the float and pretty soon she is hauling in her share of toys. Meredith said Mardi Gras is just like Halloween, instead of free candies, she is getting free beads and free toys thrown at her.

Isaac dressed up warmly for the parade

We went to another parade in Metairie on Saturday night.

Isaac and Meredith with the beads and soft toys they collected at the Friday night parade

Very family friendly parade in Metairie