an afternoon with ah-tai.

phil’s mom was here to help out for two weeks- giving me a total of five weeks’ worth of help after jonah was born.  this was the most help i’ve had after any of the kids were born, and it was wonderful.  anyway, while she was here, we drove over one afternoon to spend some time with phil’s side of the family.

little known fact- phil’s mom comes from a family of eight girls.  you read that right.  eight!!  to keep everyone straight, the sisters often refer to themselves as their birth order number.  so this is auntie #2 holding jonah with phil’s mom, #4, looking on.

and this is the woman who gave birth to the eight girls- phil’s ah-ma (grandma in taiwanese) and our kids’ ah-tai (great-grandma).  and that’s #2’s husband, phil’s uncle, in the background.

ah-tai looks good for 93!  she has the sweetest sounding voice i’ve ever heard.  doesn’t matter that i can’t understand what she’s saying (she doesn’t speak english though she does speak taiwanese, mandarin, and japanese), the kindness in her voice is universally understood.

back when he was in college, phil used to drive out regularly to have dinner with his ah-ma.  such a good boy.

the oldest living relative holding the hands of the youngest.  love that.

because it had been two years since phil’s mom had seen her family, we all went out to have lunch together, then came back and settled in to ah-tai’s apartment in order to give them time for a nice long visit.

there wasn’t much to do in the small apartment.  which made it a perfect picture-taking time!

because i found a spot with sweet afternoon light pouring in, and because there aren’t that many pictures of me with the kids, i decided to get a shot with each one.  me and my allie-girl.

me and my sweet mikey.  how come he is so much darker than me?  or put another way, when did i get so pale-looking?

me and my spunky lauren.

me and my baby jonut.

ok, so that’s quite enough pictures with me in them.  the relatives were in for a LONG visit, which meant time for even more pictures!

time for some brotherly affection.

time for loving gazes.

time for a pretend haircut.

time to try new foods.  like red bean mochi.  (allie loved it.)  or not quite ripe mulberries.  or durian chips.  (the kids liked it.  but phil questioned the logic of going to so much effort to take a nasty-tasting fruit and end up making it taste like cardboard.)  suffice it to say that i’m very glad our kids are way more adventurous eaters than i was.  am.

time to check if jonah still has his newborn reflexes.

he does.

time to look for good veins in which to place a hypothetical IV.

here’s one.

time to bond with daddy.  and time to be very thankful that this little one has never had occasion to need an IV.

time to kiss these sweet cheeks again.  and time to come up with yet another nickname.  jonutter-butter.  because of the butter-smelling poops he emits.  or because of my weird affinity for the banana  song.  just ask bobena.  or ballie.  or bikey.  or mickle-pickle.  huh?  strangely, they’ll all answer to the quirky names i call them.  they just seem to know their mother is a little odd.

this is the best i’m gonna get at a group shot.

time with family.  good stuff.  thank you God for creating families.  and thank you for letting me be part of this one.