Since early summer, Dan started to sing “A ba dee… A ba dee” and clapped his hands or swing them up and down. The song has a nice melody. Even Dao and I started to sing along, but we had no idea what the song was about. I thought it was a Jewish song that he learned at summer camp. I asked his teachers and no one knew what Dan was singing about either.

Last weekend, my wife cracked the code and discovered that “A Ba Dee” is Dan’s unique rendition of “Happy Birthday.” If you ask him to sing “Happy Birthday,” he would sing “A Ba Dee.” If you listen closely you can hear the similarity. Dan has the tendency to skip words and somehow he hears things differently. He still says “fucker” instead of “tractor.”

I am not sure if this is his gift or his curse. On one hand, it’s hard to understand the things he says. On the other hand, he completely invented a new melody from such a familiar song. In a way, that is what jazz musicians had done most of the time when they reinterpreted a standard. I am finding this development from Dan to be quite fascinating. I can’t wait to sing “A Ba Dee” when he turns two.

Our little guy is approach two and he is unstoppable. He has endless energy and no sense of fear. Whenever the three of us (without mom) hang out, I have to focus most of my attention on Dan and that makes me feel bad for Dao. If I keep on eye off him something would happened like falling off the playground, diving off the couch to the hardwood floor or getting his hand stuck in the elevator door. Yet he never learned his lesson.

He is starting to talk quite a bit as well. Some words he could say very clearly, but some he couldn’t. Dao was spot on whatever word he heard or said. Even when repeating something I said, Dan could not said it correctly. For example, we were looking at the book on cars last night and I said to him “tractor.” He repeated, “fucker.” I was like, “No, no, no, not that. It’s tractor.” He repeated again, “fucker.” I gave up and switched to Vietnamese.

We were at Costco yesterday and Dan screamed when I didn’t let him get the books with toys that he wanted. He was sitting in the shopping cart and bawling so I went to the front of the cart to find a tissue. An Asian teenage boy came right up to Dan and did something to Dan. I couldn’t tell what he did because I was looking into the bag for something to wipe Dan’s face, but Dan stopped crying instantly. He could have smacked Dan’s face lightly or just put his hand on his mouth. I gave the kid that what-the-fuck-did-you-just-do look. As soon as he saw me staring at him, he realized he must have done something wrong. He stopped giggling and walked off sniffing new clothes on the display. I then realized that he isn’t a normal kid.

It was hysterical because Dan just sat there quiet the entire time. He didn’t scream or want the toys anymore. At the same time, it was a lesson learned. What if the kid was really screwed up and he knocked the fuck out of my kid. If I stood right by Dan, he wouldn’t had done that to him. I looked around to find the kid’s parents, but I couldn’t spot them. The incident confirmed me that you can never be too overprotective of your kids.

After hearing me sing “Con Chim Non” to Dan so many times, Dao picked up the lyrics and sang to grandpa. Notice how clear he enunciates the words. He has a really good ear for nuances. I think he would be good at learning different languages. Over the weekend, he saw the police stopped someone, he told his mom, “Mẹ, police phạt-“ing” người ta.”

Dan, on the other hand, is still babbling quite a bit. He speaks a lot, but very hard to understand. One time he said, “water fountain” and I could not understood him until he pointed me to the water fountain. He hasn’t been able to sing “Con Chim Non” yet, but he got the melody down. When he said “đi (go)”, he would sing the melody, “đi đi đi… đi đì đi… đí đí đi…” Yesterday, he pushed the elevator button and stated to sing, “bâm bâm bâm… bâm bầm bâm… bấm bấm bâm.” It’s quite funny how he turns every word into a tune.

After taking the boys home from daycare, gave them a bath, Dao asked me, “Where is mommy? Why is she not home yet?” I joked, “Mommy got captured by the police.” He started bawling and requested, “Daddy, can you go get her? I want her to be free.” I felt horrible so I said, “I was just kidding, baby. Mommy will be home soon. She’s running a bit late to buy us some food.” He was fine with that.

At bed time, he asked me to go to sleep with him. He wanted both me and his mom to sleep with him. He didn’t fall asleep so I started to. As I was snoring, he kicked me out. He told me, “Daddy, can you go to sleep with em? I just want mommy to sleep with me.” I felt jilted. Can’t compete with mama’s boy.

Redesigned the pages for Dao and Dan. Made it responsive with the minimal amount of CSS. I also added a handful of new photos in their Google album.

The other night around 10pm Dana kept yelling at Dao to tell him to hurry up with his milk so he could go to bed. He responded, “Mẹ, tomorrow is going to be a better day.” Dana and I looked at each other and just laughed.

Last Friday when we came to pick up Dan at daycare, he ran out of the playroom as soon as he saw us. It was hilarious watching him waving and saying goodbye to his friends and teachers as he dashed to the door.

Dan is now approaching his terrible-two phase and he is much worst than Dao. He is fearless and full of energy. He jumped off the bed and stairs. He busted his head several times and he had yet to learn to be careful. Looking after him is exhausting. He even started to hit Dao and smiled. No matter how hard I try to tell him that hitting is inappropriate, he always responded with a smile. Poor Dao just let his little brother hit him. Dao used to hit Dan, but now it’s the other way around. I told him to protect himself and do not let Dan hit him.

In term of speaking development, Dan is much slower than Dao. At two, Dao spoke very clearly. Dan talks a lot too nowadays, but mostly babbling. For instance, he would say “tuties” instead of smoothie. The other day he kept saying the four syllables that I could not understand until he pointed to the “water fountain.” The words he could speak clearly are: daddy, mommy, Dao and sữa (milk).

As much as I love seeing my kids grow, I can’t wait to see them get past the terrible-two period.

Tuần rồi ngồi nhậu với ông chú vợ, chú nhắc nhở là cho tụi nhỏ nó ngủ riêng chớ không là phải ngủ với tụi nó đến 18 tuổi. Bây giờ thì thằng Đạo bám sát mẹ nó không rời tay. Tối ngủ phải có mẹ ôm mới ngủ. Còn tôi thì ngủ với thằng Đán.

Hôm tối Chủ Nhật sau khi ru cho thằng Đán ngủ tôi qua phòng kế bên ngủ một mình. Giữa khuya thức giấc tôi cứ tưởng như nó đang khóc. Chạy vội qua phòng thì thấy nó vẫn ngủ ngon lành. Định quây về phòng bên kia nhưng nhớ nó quá nên nán lại ngủ với nó.

Thì ra tôi không thể thiếu nó chứ không phải nó không thể thiếu tôi. Thôi thì chừng nào nó muốn ngủ một mình thì để nó tự quyết định.

I asked Dao if he would like to have a baby sister and he replied, “Yes, I want a baby girl.” Then he asked his mom, “Mommy, can we have a baby girl tomorrow?” Not so sure how to response to that other than laughed out loud. Looking around our family, the chance of us having a baby girl is probably less than 10%. Still adding one more boy to the family is the merrier. The first kid was tough, especially a boy.

True, things do get a bit crazy sometimes with two boys, but they are quite enjoyable. Or maybe after the second kid, you realize that there’s no denial. You either enjoy the time with them or they’ll make you miserable. If you choose to go with the former, you might get to live your life. As a result, a third boy is not going to be any worse than what we have now.

As they always say, you’re already on the tiger’s back. Just ride her out. No pun intended. Tiger mom.

We managed to miss Dan’s 18-month checkup. He’s 19 months now. With his good appetite, Dan is in the 75 percentile. He’s 34 inches tall, 27 pounds and 13 ounces with 19 1/4 HC. The poor kid got four shots today in both thighs. He cried for a bit.

He is outgrowing some allergies including whole milk, avocado and some seafood. He’s still not into certain things like Dao, but does seem to have some musical talent. He can jam when he hears the beat. He plays the keyboard with both hands and reaches out to every keys. Last night, he hummed the melody of “Con Chim Non” several times before going to bed.

His daycare is going well. He’s adjusting much quicker than Dao in the new environment. Dao started daycare at one and it took him almost a year to stop crying every time we dropped him off. Dan started at 18-month and he’s still crying when I dropped him off, but it only lasted for a minute.

Dan’s talking skill is good, but nowhere near Dao. It seems like Dao started to talk a very long time ago and has not been able to stop. Dao picked things up really fast and now he applies new words as much as he can. Before, he always told me that he saw a car with “no roof.” After I taught him the word “convertible,” he’s now saying, “Daddy, I saw a convertible.” Whenever we’re in the car, he would describe to me what he’s watching. For instance, he told me, “Daddy, Tom hits Jerry with a pan. Tom is not nice.”

I am sure Dan will pick up his communication skills as well very soon. I can’t wait to hear him talk in longer sentences.