Everyone Say Cheese!

I'm sure we all know how difficult it is to take pictures of children and animals. They are so unpredictable. We tried taking a picture of 3 children and it didn't work out so well. Our friends Justin and Tenaya and their kids Belle, 3.5 yrs, and Cedar, 10 months, came to visit us and we thought it'd be a great idea to line them all up and take a picture. Belle was a great older sister and offered to help hold Anderson up "because he's just a baby and needs help." (She'd been helping hold him all weekend so she was a pro at it) We didn't get the perfect picture we were hoping to get but I love the series of pictures we did end up with. I think they are too funny:

Why is your baby so small?

If you can believe it, someone did actually ask me that. It was last week when Anderson was 5 weeks old. Our friends Chad and Shana and their 5 month old son Aaron came to visit us. We all went out to lunch where the hostess ooh and awwed over our babies and asked us how old they were. Again, more oohing and awwing. Lunch went pretty well, but towards the end, Anderson started fussing and so I picked him up and started walking. Since the entrance to the restaurant where everyone waits was empty, I started pacing there as he started calming down. Then the hostess comes to see my baby again and I am happy to oblige since no mother can ever get enough of someone telling her how cute her baby is. But then she says "Why is your baby so small?" I respond, "Oh, he's only 5 weeks." To which she then replies, "I know. But why is your baby so small??" I look at her befuddled and very offended! Don't talk about my baby like that! He is not too small! I quickly responded that he was born 2.5 weeks early, a response she seemed satisfied with, and quickly left. If you're going to insult my baby, then you can no longer look at him!!

The funny thing is, I think my baby is so big now! And that every other baby I see has come from the land of the Jolly Green Giant.

Case in point - Aaron, Chad and Shana's son, looks huge to me. Yes, I understand that he is 4 months older than Anderson and a normal sized baby and maybe even a little tall for his age. Look at how small my guy looks compared to Aaron. I'm also seeing how tan he looks!


Here's one pic of father and son:



Oh, and by the way, my baby is not small. You're just too big!

One Month

It's hard to believe that a month has already gone by and that our boy is growing so fast. He's literally changing right before our eyes. Must be all that HGH that's coursing through his veins....

So what's he like these days? He loves looking around at things and people. He loves being upright and on the move which proves to be somewhat tiresome on his parents at times. His favorite songs so far are "I'm a little teapot" and "When you're happy and you know it."

He's definitely a boy as he burps and farts loud. It's surprising to hear such a loud noise come out of someone so small! In the beginning, he used to turn on his sprinkler many times during diaper changes but luckily, that has died down quite a bit. It happened so frequently that we had to put down a small rug around the changing station which we dubbed "The Splash Zone".

As you can see from his recent pics, he's filled out quite a bit and our boy is getting chubby!

Sammy

How is Sammy adjusting to his new brother? Pretty well. Obviously this was a cause of concern for us but Sammy has been nothing but loving towards Anderson. In fact, for the first couple of days, he wanted to help out. He would wake up with us at all hours of the night and sat with us while we fed, changed, and burped Anderson. And when we were done, we would all head back into the bedroom to go back to sleep. However, he soon realized that we would be doing this all the time and no longer bats an eyelash when he hears Anderson cries. He does like to sneak in little kisses to Anderson's feet when he can (or when we're not looking). And so he doesn't get jealous of the overwhelming number of pics of his brother on this blog already, here is one of our little pup:

2 Weeks

The first 2 weeks, Anderson was pretty predictable. He would eat, poop, then sleep. Rinse and repeat. We however were adjusting to our new lives as parents and adjusting to our new sleeping schedule (or lack thereof!). At 2 weeks, Anderson weighed 7lbs. 5.5 oz. He's already a good eater that I'm pretty sure he got from his father.

Some pics from the first 2 weeks:



This is his favorite face to make, which we affectionately call "Blue Steel"

What's in a name?

So we've gotten a couple of inquiries as to how we came up with the name Anderson. First of all - NO, we did not name him after Anderson Cooper OR Anderson "the Spider" Silva (from UFC). We actually had his name picked even before we knew we were expecting!

Last August, we were driving up to Bend, OR to visit our friends Jeff and Laura. We were driving up I-5 and drove through Anderson Valley and thought that would be a really nice name if we ever had a son. Ironically, it also met both our families patterns for first names. In Wilson's family, everyone has "son" in their name. And in my family, both my name and my brother's name starts with "A". It was perfect! And it was the only name that both of us really liked.

As for his middle name, we first wanted to use Wilson as the middle name but it just didn't sound right, so we went with the closest name, William, to give a nod to his father.

One last note: It's Anderson. Not Andy. It's Anderson.

Introducing....

What did we do over our summer vacation? We had a baby! Here is the last picture of me pregnant

And our last picture of us as parents to be:
On July 9, 2008 at 4:56am, Anderson William Jang was born, weighing in at 6lbs 13 oz and 19.5 inches long. He came into this world screaming his little head off for a good 10 minutes! Apparently he was not too happy that he was suddenly thrushed into this real world...don't blame you buddy.

From the first time we laid eyes on him, we were smitten and completely in love with our new son. How could you not love this face?



Despite receiving a perfect Apgar Score (already the overachiever!) the little guy had a slight infection and we had to stay in the hospital so he could receive a full course of antibiotics. He also had a slight case of jaundice and the doctors decided to treat it at the hospital since we were staying there anyway. The jaundice treatment is phototherapy where the lights are supposed to break down the bilirubin in his body. To us, it looked like a baby tanning salon: (Wilson thought he looked like he was receiving gamma rays and would turn into the Incredible Hulk)

After 5 long days, he finally received a clean bill of health and we were all able to head home!