Huaihao had a chance to be alone in the house on my birthday. Dad went out not knowing I left the house in the morning with zhi. And Huaihao ended up being alone.

He called me and cried. It was his first, being home, alone.

And there’s the weekend morning runs and competitions, and Huaihao would do his best to win so as to get an açai on his own. One day, I said to Huaihao, who has won before: shall we let zhi have a taste of being the first? And he said, that is unfair to ask of him, because he would be working hard on his own and would want to see how far he can go too. One time he ran his best and won but afterwards ended up vomiting on the expressway, I held his hand and walked with him.

And typically we would eat after the runs and be goofing around somewhere

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And we did popsicles at home

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One morning Huaihao went bicycling with dad

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And we had a picnic by the beach

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His current faves at this point

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At bedtime, HuaiHao asked if I feel better now that I am not working. I said yes and no because there’s the finances part which I might have to be careful about

And he said, “but what’s the point of money if you do not feel free ? There is no point in earning money right if you don’t even have time to eat lunch or do what you like. ”

Then he cupped my face in his hands and said “ keep well mommy”

I asked why and he said , “ because you are cute”

He says that daddy is always in a dungeon and in his own cave and he finds it hard to express himself. But why? “Just spit it out!”

When he saw me scratching my keloids, he said, “ don’t scratch, just breathe and think of other things “

On my birthday,Huaihao came to kiss me good morning and say happy birthday this morning.

I remember how huaihao sang the loudest when we have the cake and I kept looking at huaihao and he kept looking at me. At bedtime he said it was because its my birthday so of course he had to look at me.

And I told him that i almost felt emotional and want to cry and i felt like if i continued looking at him, we were almost locking eyes,, he would too.

To my surprise, Huaihao said, “let it out, don’t keep it inside, emotions are like the clouds and they will be blown away by the winds. So let it out, don’t keep on to them.”

We chat. Huaihao was saying happy birthday to me —with so much love and i felt so cherished —-at almost every juncture he could find. He told me about how he planned for my birthday.

“I told papa that mommy’s birthday is coming tomorrow so what should we get? Then I said mommy likes to write so maybe we can get a book. We went to Popular but did not find anything nice, I told papa, can we get something better for mommy?

HuaiHao chose this present for me because I told him I liked to write and that he told me I should do the things I like.

Love you so much!