Monterey

In the middle of March, my mom, Anderson and I headed down to Monterey. I had a Genetics conference down there and they joined me for the little vacation. It was a little cool but really beautiful. All of us had a great time being in the sun, seeing the ocean, showing Anderson the birds, water and sea otters. He was just fascinated by everything. He even got to touch the Pacific Ocean for the first time (it didn't go well in case you were wondering. The Pacific Ocean is very, very cold.) It was fun seeing how he excited he was about everything and being able to see things through his eyes. I was there for work so I was in meetings for about 6 hours a day, but I did have breaks in the middle of the day where we would go for lunch and head out to Monterey or Carmel and just see the sights. It was really great just spending time with Anderson and Grandma. Grandma taught him a bunch of new things (kicking the ball, clapping different objects together). Here are some pics from the trip.

My mom, Anderson and I in Pacific Grove


Anderson about to touch the Pacific Ocean for the first time. "Careful Grandma! I hear this ocean is cold!"



Anderson and I on the beach (As a side note, we quickly learned that Anderson's lack of hair means that he must wear a hat on sunny days. Poor little guy has no hair to protect his head)

Grandma and Anderson at Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey

And lastly, in case you didn't know, this is how Anderson rolls in his stroller
"Laid back. With my mind on my money and my money on my mind."

8 and 9 Month Update

I know I've been a little behind in updating the blog but I really hope to make it up in the next couple of days. I have been taking his monthly pictures though and intend to post as many pics as I can. Anyway, on to the update.

A lot has happened in these past couple of months. Our little baby is turning into a little boy! He seems to have suddenly grown so much in these past few weeks. I think the best way to recap all that has gone on and he's accomplished is to break it up...

Here are his stats real quick. At his 9 month well-baby appointment (which was actually 5 days past his 9 month birthday) he weighed in at 17lbs 6oz and 27.25 inches. Still a small little guy but still mighty cute.

First, here is his 8 month picture:

And a series of his 9 month picture:






As you can see, he can't sit still anymore. He is always on the move, or at least trying to move. He doesn't crawl yet but is trying. He can get on all fours and rocks back and forth. And then he either lunges towards something (usually we try to put one of his toys just out of reach so that he'll have to work to move to get it) or he'll just fall onto his belly and roll over. He's really close now and I can tell that one day, he'll just figure out to do it and amaze is.

One thing he is really good at is standing! The boy has always wanted to stand since he could hold his head. Seriously. It's quite possibly his favorite thing to do. And now he can pull him self up to standing if you're holding his hands. When he's lying on the floor, we hold out our hands and say "Anderson, hold on to our hands." Then he grab them while we pull him up to sitting position. Then, he'll pull your hands so that they are above his head and pull himself up to a standing position! He's really proud of himself every single time he does it and smiles and laughs. When he falls down, he'll just grab your hands again, put them above his head and repeat the process. Once he got mad at me because I wanted to clap instead of helping him stand. Just recently (meaning the last few days) he's been able to take a few steps while standing. He doesn't do it all the time but he's beginning to understand the concept of moving his feet while standing. He can't pull himself up to standing while holding onto other stationary objects (ie coffee table, sofa, etc..) So far it's only while we're holding his hands that he's able to do it. He seems much more interested in standing/walking than crawling. Who knows? Maybe he'll be one of those babies that skips crawling and goes straight to walking.

Okay, if there's anything he likes better than standing, it's eating. This boy LOVES to eat. Seriously LOVES to eat. He's still eating purees but finger foods is his real love. We started finger foods around 7 months with the puffs. Then we moved on to crackers only because I got so frustrated feeding him purees one night that I gave him a teeny tiny bit of my multi-grain cracker that I was snacking on before dinner. Well, he loved it and we haven't turned back since. He is quite the self-feeder. He's very good at it if I say so myself. Of course it took awhile for him to figure it out and get it into his mouth everytime, but at 9 months and 6 days, he's a pro at it. He would rather eat finger foods than purees so we're really trying to find and make different foods for him to eat. Stuff we've tried and he's loved are puffs (of course) bananas, avocados, pasta, mac and cheese, grated cheese, carrots, tofu (either plain or dusted with crushed crackers), graham crackers, turkey-apple meatloaf, sweet potato pancakes, peaches, bread, egg yolk, and today we tried cottage cheese. He seemed to like it but I think the jury is still out. Oh, he also tried so raspberry frozen yogurt.....and, uh, he liked it. He usually doesn't like cold things and usually scrunches up his nose, but then he tasted it and thought, Wow. Cold things can be yummy! We are constantly looking and searching for other finger foods that he can eat because 1) he likes it better than purees and 2) it gives us time to eat too since he's busy feeding himself. He still gets most of his veggies through puree but I think we're going to try and find some veggies he can eat. Here's a pic of the boy at work eating some cheese



Did I mention how happy Anderson is when he eats? He is always smiling, laughing, talking, screaming, and kicking his legs when he eats. He truly, truly loves food. Just like mommy and daddy ;)

When he was 8.5 months old, he finally cut his first tooth. It wasn't too bad but he was mighty cranky for a couple of days. Soon after, he cut his second tooth. Both are on the bottom. No more goofy toothless smile :(

Hmm...what else is he doing? For some reason, he's gotten into hitting himself on the head. No idea where that came from. He also shakes his head as if he's saying "no, no, no". I don't think he actually knows what "no" means, but when we say No, no, no, he'll shake his head. He likes to spit, which is real fun when you're trying to feed him purees. LOVES to drink water. We tried with the sippy cup but we just didn't have the patience so he just drinks from a cup. He love playing with balls. He'll pick them up and bang them together (something my mom taught him). He can even play catch with you! He can throw the ball towards you (he's really good if you're playing with the O-ball) and if you throw/roll it back, he'll pick it up and throw it again. He can also kick the ball (another thing my mom taught him). Just this past weekend, he learned how to high five and wave bye-bye. He's not waving every single time we do it, but he's good at the high-five.

All in all, the past couple of months we've seen him grow so much. We're having so much fun with him and are head over heals in love with our little guy. He is so happy and smiley and such an easy going baby. I can't believe 9 months has already passed. It goes by so quickly. My little baby is growing up to a little boy. But, at times, he still is our little baby


I'm sure there is so much more I can say about him and who he is but I think I'd be here forever.

The Bite

It happened on Monday. I received a call from the daycare's principal at around 3:30pm. Right away, she informed me that this was not an emergency. Anderson is fine. But he's been involved in an incident. Okay......What kind of incident? Well, another child bit him on the cheek. What?! The skin didn't break and there is no blood. We washed the bite area very well and now they have some ice on his cheek. Is he okay? He's calmed down quite a bit since it was time for his bottle anyway. He seems pretty upset about the ice though.

So what happened?

According to his teachers, an older girl (but still under one since they are in the infant class) was trying to give Anderson a kiss on the cheek but ended up biting him instead. Secretly, I was smiling because it sounded like a really cute story. All the best intentions, but the plan wasn't executed well. Plus, I thought How hard could a little baby bite? Uhhh....hard.

I called Wilson and alerted him of the situation but since he had a conference call he couldn't pick up Anderson quite yet. Plus, they assured me that he was doing well and didn't need to be picked up immediately.

I get home and right away Wilson said, it's worse than we originally thought it would be. But he seems okay. I see my little boy smiling and walk around to see his left cheek. And there it is. The bite. This little girl CHOMPED on my son's perfect little cheek. I can even count how many teeth there are (4 on top, 2 on the bottom). And 2 days later, it's STILL there. We've put neosporin on it to help heal. It has helped, but it's definitely still there. Luckily, he has no recollection of it and it's sad to think that his first kiss went so awry. But like grandma said "It's because he is too cute. I'm sure he'll get many more kisses."

Later that night, I was trying to bite down on my arm to see how hard this girl had to bite to make that mark. I couldn't do it. All my bites went away after 5-10 minutes. The next day, I told Anderson that it was okay to do whatever he felt was necessary to keep that girl at bay. Push her, shove her, slap her. Mommy will back you up if you get called into the principal's office. You were provoked! She was coming at you with those chompers again going for the other cheek!

So here's the bite. It's not a very good picture but you can see it here.

Growth Report I

One of the nice things about being at a daycare center is that it is very much treated like a school. We get a daily report of what he ate, drank, pooped and how much he slept. It might be overkill but it is nice to know what went on during the day.

This past week, we received his first report card. Or "Growth Report" as they call it. It's for Infant -18 months and they evaluate his skills and see if he is developing on schedule or in the normal range. Here is his report (and my comments in italics):

Language and Literacy: Anderson laughs out loud and is able to smile at his teachers. Anderson responds to his name and is able to follow objects with his eyes from side to side, focusing both eyes at the same time. (He definitely laughs out loud and will smile at pretty much everybody. He'll respond to his name if he isn't too busy chomping on his toys or trying to get the remote control.)

Wellness: Anderson is able to roll from his side to his back and is able to sit with support. (He is still only rolling towards one side and I've only seen him roll the other way once or twice. And he can sit up without support, but like I said in the previous post, if he leans too much one way, he'll end up rolling on the floor.) Anderson reaches for toys and is able to hold and shake a rattle. (Chewing a rattle is more like it)

The World and Me: Anderson expresses his feelings by making sounds. (This is my FAVORITE comment! What a PC way to say that my child screams when he's pissed, squeals and laughs when's happy, cries when he's annoyed or tired, and a dozen other noises for everything in between. He "makes sounds." Love it.) He notices strangers that come inside the room and eats baby food from a spoon.

7 Month Update

It really does go by fast. Our little guy is 7 months old! As you can see in his monthly picture, the biggest new thing is that he can sit up on his own. He's still a little wobbly at times. If he reaches too far to the left/right for a toy, down he goes. Sometimes he gets a little too excited, throws his arms in the air over his head, and down he goes. But no worries. Once he's on the ground, he'll just roll with it.



There's been a lot of talk about his hair (or lack of it). He's got my hair. It won't come in for 2 years, but once it's in, he'll have it for life. And lots of it. We've also had a few inquiries of whether or not we cut it. That's a no. But in the past couple of months, we've noticed that he's grown quite a bit! Relatively speaking of course. When you have almost no hair at birth, any hair is a lot! In fact, we've even taken a picture of it as proof. Here it is, in all it's glory. His little tuft of hair. Before you know it, he'll be asking daddy for some hair product!



Unfortunately, this past month he's been plagued with illness. He's had a cold and ear infections. Two ear infections to be exact. (But I'm not convinced that the first ear infection really went away.) This past weekend, he had just been diagnosed with an ear infection and given a course of antibiotics, but they weren't working and his fever was skyrocking. So our pediatrician advised us to go to Urgent Care (it was a Saturday) to get him checked out. After testing for influenza and his oxygen levels, they concluded that his antibiotics weren't working and we were given a new prescription. So far, it seems to be working out. The nice thing is that these medicines are tasty and he's more than willing to take them. In fact, he even cried once because there was no more medicine left. (I'm pretty certain that these antibiotics are more sugar than actual antibiotic.) Unfortunately, because he has been sick for...the past month, he's lost weight and is looking pretty skinny. Hopefully, he'll kick this ear infection and cold pretty soon and starting bulking up again.

Another big milestone is that we've started him on puffs! Those puff cereal for babies that dissolve in their mouth. We started him a week ago and he loves them! We break each piece in half because he's not quite ready for a whole one and he does great with them. The first time he tried it, he wrinkled his nose as if to say "Mama, what IS this?" but after a few seconds, he broke out into his toothless grin and opened his mouth for more. We've given him a whole piece a handful of times but to play it safe, we're still giving him half pieces. One of the times we gave him a whole piece, it didn't quite make it into his mouth all the way and it looked like he had little baby fangs!



Don't worry. He learned how to push the rest of it in with his hand. Ah, there we go...



He's also starting to interact with Sammy a little more. For the most part, we've kept Sammy at bay because all he wants to do is give the little guy kisses. Anderson is so intrigued with Sammy. He finds it hilarious when Sammy follows us around (while we're carrying him around the house). He even wanted to share one of his toys with Sammy one day when they were both playing on the ground. Too bad mommy wouldn't allow it. They do seem to have a lot to chat about though.





And here's one more pic just because I think it's so cute



All photo for this month's pictures (except for the monthly picture) was taken by Wilson.

NFL Superstar in the Making

Wilson and I have always joked long before Anderson was born that he was going to make it to the NFL as the first and greatest Asian punter. I'm sure you're asking, Why punter? Well, you still make a very good salary. You can play for a longer amount of time since there is less contact. And you don't have to play for very long on the field, again making for a longer career. Also, there is a penalty for roughing the kicker so the chance of injury is much lower for any of the kicker positions. (no one better mess with my boy!)

So imagine our surprise one day when we're giving Anderson a bath and lo and behold, he's figured out the football hold all by himself using his little baby duck!


And he wouldn't let go. We tried to bat it away, but he held on tight! Good boy!

Spell with Flickr

Look at this new tool I found! Spell with flickr. You just type in the word/name you want to spell and tada!! And if you want to change the letter into something different, you just click on it and it'll give you a different picture for that letter.

Here on Nested, they printed each letter out, framed it individually, and used it as art.