After publishing the post about my lovely boy, I went upstairs and lay next to him. I was having trouble settling down because I still had many things on my mind. Around 1am, he got up and vomited all over the bed. We cleaned up and put on new sheets.

I went to the basement to do the laundry. Dao stayed with his mom, but didn’t fall back to sleep. He dozed off a bit, but then wanted milk. At first we didn’t let him because he was just vomited, but then we gave in just so he could go back to sleep. As I was pouring milk downstairs, I heard Dana through the walkie talkie saying that he threw up again. We cleaned up once again and moved to another bedroom because we ran out of sheets.

I went to the basement again to do laundry at 3 something in the morning. I called off work the next day because Dao was not ready to go back to daycare. Yesterday I also stayed him with him half of a day and then Dana stayed with him the second half. Poor fellow. I am hoping that he could return to daycare today. We’ll see.

Some funny Vietlish he said:

“so hot dao an khong duoc (so hot Dao cannot eat)”
“Dao khong want roi (Dao doesn’t want it anymore)”

I notice that he uses third person a lot. He hardly uses I, me or “con.” Not sure why that is.

With classes, I get home two hours later than working schedule, but I still can spend some time with Dao. We have dinner together then I get to give him a bath. We watch a bit of Bob the Builder before brushing his teeth. In bed, we read a few books before I turn out the lights. We hold on to each other and then we would go to sleep.

I have a light cough for a couple of days now. While I was changing him, I started to cough. Then our conversation began:

Dao: “Are you ok, daddy?” He ran to the table, picked up the cup of water and said to me, “Drink some water daddy.”
Me: “Thank you Dao. Daddy bi ho (Daddy has a cough).”
Dao: “Daddy bi ho, daddy di bac si (daddy go to the doctor).”
Me:: “Ba khong sao, cam on Dao (I am ok, thank you).”

These are some of the best moments being a father.

Dao gets to stand against the wall quite often nowadays for his misbehaving. I usually give him three chances to cooperate. If he refused I would make him stand against the wall. Seeing him standing and crying breaks my heart, but I have to do it. At two he needs to be disciplined. In the past two years, I have failed getting him to listen without making him standing against the wall. I tried to talk to him and also tried to minimize the punishment, but it was been really hard.

Once I got him to get still against the wall, I tried to explain to him what he had done wrong. He seemed to be responsive. Here’s how the conversation went recently:

Me: “Dao co ngoan khong (Are you going to be good)?”
Dao: “Yeah”
Me: “Dao xin loi mommy (Say sorry to your mom)”
Dao: “Sorry mommy.” Still crying and went on, “Dao muon di (I want to go).”
Me: “Dao muon di dau (Where do you want to go)?”
Dao: “Di vong vong (go around).” Before I could dismiss him, he stepped toward me and gave me a hug. He got me.

Labor Day weekend, we were at my sister’s house and Dao acted him when we tried to brush his teeth in the morning. He was kicking and biting hard on the brush. I made him stand against the wall while Eric stood and watched. Ten minutes later after I let Dao go, Eric came up to me with two plastic knives in his hands. He looked at me with his red, teary eyes and said, “I saw what you did.” He was about to fight me for what I did to his cousin.

Being home for a week sets Dao back to morning crying. Yesterday and today, he clung on to me like a monkey holding on to a tree branch. His arms and legs wrapped tight around my leg. This morning I stayed with him for a bit trying to get him to play with toys, but still didn’t work. I just had to hand him over to his new teacher, Ms. Amanda.

By the time I left his daycare, the parking lot at the Metro was full. I had to drop by the nearby Starbucks to work remotely until 10 o’clock when the reserved spaces were freed to park. The rain was pouring hard. I got to work all wet.

These days Dao and I sleep together. He got up several times looking for my arms. I had to get up to wrap him around me or else he wouldn’t go back to sleep. The problem is that he fell back to sleep much easier than I could.

We were watching choo choo train on YouTube together yesterday after dinner. Dao rested his cheek on my arm and uttered, “I love you, daddy.” That was the first time ever he said those words to me. I was touched.

Over the weekend, Dao met his niece who is four months younger than him. He held her hand and give her kisses. He also spent time with his cousins Eric and Sammy. They enjoyed mini-golf.

Dao’s summer camp ended last Friday. His teachers sent some photos of him singing, dancing and playing with the water. Dao made some impressive progression over the summer.

Dao no longer cried when we dropped him off in the morning. He could sing the entire “ABC” song and six bars of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” He also mastered “The Wheels on the Bus.” He could count in Vietnamese from 1-8 and 10 (he still leaves out the 9). In English, he counted “1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16.” I am sure he’ll fill in the missing numbers one of these days.

What impressed me the most is his manner in communication. For example, when he wants to play with the iPod, he would ask, “Ba, ba cho Dao muon iPod, please” [Daddy, daddy, let me borrow the iPod, please]. As much as I try to restrict him from using the iPod, I cannot say no to that. When I handed over the iPod to him, he would response, “Thank you, daddy.” We no longer have to reminded him that.

Whenever one of us sneeze, he would say, “bless you.” When I coughed, he said, “Ba, ba, be careful.” Earlier today, Dana expressed some pain and he asked, “Mommy, are you ok?” I rested my leg against the table, he said, “excuse me,” as he tried to walk by. Whenever he needed me to do something for him, he would tell me, “Ba, ba, help Dao.” The other day I spilled milk on the floor. He ran into the kitchen, picked up the towel, wiped up the milk and said, “Dao help daddy clean up.” The only thing I could do at such moment was held him tight and gave him a big kiss. What a sweet boy.vSure there are sweet moments like that as well as not so sweet moments that I just wanted to spank him, but kids are kids.

I am really glad that he’s picking up quite a few good manners over the summer. I also think that he’ll be a great big brother. He gets along well with other kids and has not have any problems like fighting for arguing with his peers. As seem in this video, his treated his six-month cousin with love and kiss.

A few weeks ago, I played Jazz for Kids: Sing Clap Wiggle & Shake in the car hoping Cu Dao would like it. He was hooked immediately, but only to the opening track, Ella Fitzgerald’s playful rendition of “Old McDonald.” As soon as the song is over, he would request, “Daddy, daddy, McDonald please.” The song has been repeat whenever we’re in the car.

Yesterday, I finally was able to draw his attention away from the song by playing Clark Terry’s “Mumbles.” He started to imitate the scatting and sounded hilarious. I wish I had the camcorder with me. Dao has learned to sing “ABC” and the first four bars of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” He sang and danced every night before going to bed.

On a different note, I moved his photos from Flickr to Picasa.

It’s 10:42p.m. and Dao finally went to sleep. He napped almost four hours today in the stroller at the mall. Dung went shopping and I read a whole book. I was so happy that when he woke up I wanted to take him to play some golf, but the rain was pouring. We took him golfing last weekend and he loved it even though he was having a hard time getting the ball in.

On Saturday we went to a friend’s cookout. One of Dung’s old friend has a six-year-old boy. She told us that her son keeps asking her why he doesn’t have a brother to play with. So they are working hard to fulfill his request. The poor guy was bored at the party because most of the kids were girl. Dao is too young for him. So he just stayed with him mom the whole time.

Soon Dao will have a brother to play with so he won’t be a loner. Last night we asked him, “Em cua Dao dau [Where is your lil brother]?” He responded, “Day ne [here]” and pointed to his belly. We corrected him so now he’s pointing to his mommy’s belly.

Speaking of the new baby, he didn’t seem to like pho today, probably because of too much MSG at Pho 75. I have been thinking about the boy’s name, but the only one came to mind is “Duc.” I told my wife that we will named the following kid “Gia” so that we’ll have “Dao Duc Gia [fake morals].”

In a serious note, I would love a Vietnamese name that would be easy to say in both Vietnamese and English. Dao turns out be quite an easy name to say in both languages. Even his friends and his teachers could say his name correctly. His nickname, Duke, is now rarely used. He even refers to himself as Dao like, “Dao is smart,” which is his new compliment to himself.

The ultrasound result is in. Dao will have a little brother by the end of the year. The little fellow is doing well, no anomalies observed. He’s weighing in at 11 oz (41%). Unlike his older brother who moved around constantly, he stayed calm during the ultrasound.

Dana is also doing well. Her cervix is about 3.7cm long and appears closed. The doctor wants her to gain at least one pound a week. That’s not going to be a problem. I already feed her a huge burrito at Chipotle. We’ll just have to hit Cheesecake Factory for some hamburgers and revisit Blue Pearl buffets more often.

When Dana was carrying Dao, we used to hit iHop in the middle of the night for stack of pancakes or hit the diners for some late-night chicken wings. Now that we have Dao, we won’t be able to do that with the second baby. Maybe I’ll just buy stuff home for us, but it won’t be the same as experiencing the night life.

I got home a bit late last night so we decided to eat out. I suggested Cheesecake Factory because it locates about five minutes from our house and I was craving for its Glamburgers. After we sat down and made our orders, I took Dao to the family restroom to change him and to wash his hands.

After putting on a new diaper for him, I told him, “Dao dung day doi Daddy dai nhe [Dao, stand here wait for Daddy to take a leak.” As I was doing my thing, he stood aside and cheered, “Daddy dai, daddy dai, daddy dai.” His voice grew louder and louder and he was jumping up and down clapping his hands as if he was a cheerleader. After I finished, he ran up and flushed the toilet. That was the first time in life I was being cheered for taking a piss. Only being a parent gets this kind of weird joy I guess.

So I had a banging wild mushroom burger with the ultimate glass of margarita and Dana had a delicious plate of shrimp pasta. Dao shared the pasta and my fries. We finished everything and even shared a slice of the original cheesecake. After that we all fell sleepy and didn’t want to do anything when we got home. Not bad for a Wednesday evening.