2011.12.22 Let there be light, please!

Our backyard gets nearly no sunshine in the coldest days of winter.  Why?  Because our neighbor's yard has lined our common fence with 20+ foot trees and the sunlight can't penetrate these trees.  To make matters worse, two of our trees had overgrown into their yard and in some places taller than even their trees.  In an effort to let in some sunlight, I started cutting down the tops of our trees that had grown into their yard.  After 3.5 hrs of nonstop cutting and probably 500+ lbs of severed tree branches, I managed to cut most of the top of one tree and a little of the 2nd.  The difference in the view is dramatic but we wont know if sunlight will actually shine through until tomorrow.  It'll probably take 2 - 3 weeks to dispose of today's cuttings.  What remains to be cut are the thick trunks which I probably can't really do with a manual saw, so I've ordered a chainsaw for that. 

2011.12.22 When do babies say "no"?

Evan turned 15 months two days ago and is cuter than ever.  In addition to his vocabulary of probably 100 words, Evan has recently started to express himself with gestures. The most prominent gesture is his shaking of the head when expressing "no" or something in the negative.  For example, when looking at pages of a book, I can ask him if "moo moo" (cow) is there.  And he would shake his head emphatically and say "no".  For "yes", he doesn't yet nod his head. Instead, he'll confirm what you ask.  So with the cow example, if he see a cow in the pages, he'll say "moo moo, moo moo" and point to the cow.  Too cute!   If he is unsure of something or curious of what he's seeing, he'll tilt his head sideways and say "hmm?" or "huh?"  With physical and verbal gestures of yes/no, it's now a lot easier to communicate with him.  Like we'll now know if he really wants to eat something, or not..  He'll sometimes even say "bao", meaning he's full, and start taking off his bib to indicate that he's done eating and wants to get off the high chair.  What will he do next??

2011.12.13 Hazard zone?

For some reason, Evan found the word 'zone' very amusing, so he started laughing nonstop, so we took this video after he had already been laughing for about 2 minutes.

11.26.2011 Evan potty training

 Here's Evan sitting on a toddler toilet seat, more for fun than actual potty training.  It's just to let him get used to the idea of sitting.  He's only 14 months old so we'll probably not start real training for a while.  The good thing is that he doesn't seem to mind sitting and didn't try to get off as soon as we put him on it.  Hopefully that bodes well for real training later.

11.25.2011 Evan reciting poems

At 14 months, Evan has started to say quite a few words.  He can say about 15 animals' names, mostly in chinese, but can understand at least 20-25 in both chinese/english.  He can say 30-40 other words and understand quite a few more.  He's learning at least 5 words a day, and his pronunciation is getting better every day.  Although not a super outgoing baby, he's not shy about trying to say words that he hears.  As is the case here when he hears mom reading poems, he would just repeat the last word of each line. It's interesting that babies this young knows how to pace himself and only repeat/learn as much as he knows he can handle.

11.22.2011 Evan laughing in tub

Although Evan's had a cold for almost 3 weeks by this point, he still laughed often and in the following clip, he spontaneously laughing heartedly when we poked at an air bubble protrusion from the tub's cloth lining.  His laughs are infectious!

11.18.2011 Evan's favorite first words

At nearly 14 months, Evan has become a pretty good walker and in recent days started to talk a lot more than before, and picking up new words like nobody's business! In a single day, he can learn 5 to 10 or more words, though some words are still easier for him to pick up than others. So far, he's been uttering single syllable words in one or multiple instances, i.e. Moo Moo (his favorite animal the cow), but last night he started saying "Turtle" fairly clearly. His "turtle" is in this video as well, enjoy!

Here's a pic of Evan sleeping in his crib (11/16/2011). He's wearing 3 layers: a 12months pajama in the innermost layer, a 18 months pajama in the middle, and a sleeping bag we bought for him when he was about 6 months old - we cut a few holes for his legs now that he's bigger.

11.16.2011 Evan's 2nd plane ride

On November 12, 2011, Evan took his first plane ride from SFO (San Francisco, CA) to EWR (Newark, NJ).  It was a close-to 5.5 hour flight because of bad weather.  Evan was an awesome little trooper though.  He sat on our laps (he didn't have his own seat) and for the most part behaved very well.  He slept twice and during the times that he wasn't sleeping, he sat quietly or played with his toy cow/tractor/farmer/chickens.  On the way back to SF on 11/16, he was a little bit more cranky but still quite well-behaved.  The following pics were taken at the Newark airport while waiting to board and on the plane itself. 

 

10.31.2011 Evan's first Halloween

 Evan was a pumpkin for his first Halloween. Well, technically it's his second since he's 13 months old, but it's his first being out there. He trick-or-treated 8 or 9 houses and wasn't spooked by even the scariest of the decorations! We went around the neighboring streets which had quite a few extremely well-decorated houses with zombies, giant spiders, ghosts and goblins, etc. Evan was quite intrigued by everything he saw. He collected maybe a pound of candy which we'll probably not let him eat at all for quite a while.

For more photos, go here.  Below is a composite video, including footages of fabulously decorated houses:

10.30.2011 Warriors Dash - a 5k run through mud

This is a summary video of an event called Warrior Dash. It's the first race of any kind that I've participated in. It was a lot of fun and not too difficult at all actually. It's a 5k run but has 12 obstacles ranging from simple plank walks to muddy mud pits. And after the race, you get to shower with other participants out in the open space by a firetruck. What can beat that on a Sunday morning in California? Definitely worth doing again!!

The location of this particular race was in Pacheco Pass Hwy., Hollister, CA 95023, but similar races are held throughout the country.

Sorry about the quality of the video - ipod nanos aren't exactly made for these kinds of things.

For larger sizes of the pictures (although still fuzzy), go here.

10.26.2011 Evan walking

After months of taking one or two steps by himself, Evan's been taking multiple steps alone lately and progressing really quickly.  Here's a video of a few trips that Evan took on 10/26 - when Evan was 13 months old.

10.22.2011 Oakland Zoo

On a beautiful Saturday, we took Evan to Oakland Zoo.  We were a little hesitant to go that 'far' but were quite glad we did.  It only took about 40 minutes to get there as there wasn't any traffic.  The parking was $7 (no discount) and the admission totaled $14 for the two adults (half off as a result of displaying Happy Hollow Zoo [SJ] membership).  The first exhibit we saw once inside the zoo were the flamingos and spoonbill.  Everything was uphill from then on!  We saw Siamangs, gibbons, alligators, lions, tigers, elephants, giraffes, etc.  These were all animals that Happy Hollow Zoo didn't have, so it was great to see them.  The zoo itself is extremely clean and well-maintained, and beautiful, with its many hills and hollows. We're definitely looking forward to coming back here!

For more photos, go here.

10.18.2011 A baby liking carrots?

Talk about instilling good eating habits for the children.  Here Evan's munching on a raw carrot stick and apparently liking it quite a bit.  Might be because it's soothing for his 8 baby teeth!

10.09.2011 Ardenwood Farm Fall Harvest Festival

We were at first going to go to Half Moon bay to see the pumpkins, but since the pumpkin festival was next weekend, we went to Ardenwood Farm instead.  It was our first time there and were pleasantly surprised at how much fun it is.  It was full of kids from young to old, with numbers easily in the hundreds, perhaps into the several thousands.  But it's a big place so it didn't feel that crowded at all.  The biggest attraction this weekend were the pumpkin fields and the corn picking.  As you can see from the photos below, there were thousands of pumpkins to pick from (they even supply the wheel barrels and kiddie pull carts), a pyramid made of straw bales, a maze made of the same, and lots of corn to pick.  The corn were of two types: indian and popcorn.  The indian corn is just for decoration (though I suppose you could grind it down to cornmeal if you had the machinery), and the popcorn corn could be popped once they've dried (6-8 weeks from now).  There were old fashion tractors that Evan really liked, people in colonial times apparel, corn husk doll workshops, magic shows, etc.  Oh, and train and tractor rides which we didn't do this time.  It's a fun place and we're likely to come back in the future. 

09.15.2011 Evan's sleep and milk odyssey 2

Evan's not been eating dinner very well lately.  We've tried giving him new foods each of the last few days but he seems uninterested in them.  Last night, I steamed some sea bass with carrots, peas, sweet potato, tofu, and a bit of unsalted butter.  Then pureed it.  He didn't like it and so I tried quickly steaming egg cake for him but he only finished about 3/4 of that.  He did have some steamed cauliflower but that's hardly enough.  So i gave him some milk, but he didn't drink much (maybe 2-3 oz) of that either.  This morning, he woke up just before 7 and although I tried to coax him back to sleep, and he did lie down on the bed with me, he never did fall asleep.  I even placed him back in his own crib (he didn't protest as long as I was sitting next to the crib in the glider chair) and read him some fun facts about animals.  He laid quietly but kept his eyes open.  I had to leave by 7:40 so hopefully the grandparents were able to coax him to sleep a little longer.  He did poop again (i didn't know) when I was trying to read him to sleep, so maybe that's what kept him from falling asleep quickly. 

Other than the meal thing (i'm going to try more finger foods tonight), he's been an extremely good baby, especially when it comes to sleeping at night.  Last night after the struggles with food, I gave him a bath and right afterwards put him in the crib with his tube of toothpaste (to play with).  He was wide awake but did not protest or whine at all.  After reading a book to him for about 10 minutes, he drifted off to sleep (it was only about 8:40 pm). 

09.12.2011 Evan's sleep and milk odyssey

Yesterday morning, Evan woke up around 7:20 a and was clearly still sleepy.  I put him on our bed and looked through one of his favorite books (The Moon Shines Down).  He tossed and turned a bit, but was clearly sleepy and did not pay much attention to the book.  In fact, he slapped at it, turning one page to next without really stopping to look at the pictures.  It took me a while to realize that he wanted to move the book out of the way.  When I did that, he quieted down and fell asleep (8am), and slept for another 50 minutes or so.  Having gone to bed at 8:50 pm the night before, this meant he had about 11.3 hrs of sleep, so he was in especially good mood and spirit when he finally woke. 

I put him in the high chair in the kitchen and warmed up some milk (organic whole, not formula) in his yellow straw sippy cup.  Then I gave him the bottle and had him hold it himself while he watched me cook some eggs.  He started drinking the milk and I on purposely did not look his way too often.  When i did look to see what he was doing, he was focused on drinking the milk while following my moves with the egg and spatula.  And he was drinking the milk fast!  Before I knew it, he had finished half, then a few minutes later, almost the entire amount that I had poured (~ 7 oz).  I was so ecstatic because for the past month or so, he had pretty much stopped drinking formula (and then regular milk as well).  In the end, he drank about 6 oz in the morning.  Then for lunch, I stirred about 3 oz milk with rice cereal, which he happily ate up (as long as I gave him something to grab as well like pieces of watermelon or mango).  And at 3pm (after a nap and 4th visit to Happy Hollow park & zoo), he had a serving of vanilla yogurt for babies.  And for dinner, he had about 1.5 egg and silken tofu steamed together (carrots and sweet potato on the side), so he basically had about 20-oz milk-equivalent, so plenty of calcium for once.  This morning, he had about 4.5 oz of milk, so not a bad start either.

Last night after his bath at around 8:30 pm, he didn't seem too sleepy yet but was not very attentive to the book we were going through.  After about 10 minutes, he crawled to the side of the crib and touched it, almost like he was signaling that he wanted to go in.  This was the firs time he had ever done that and I wasn't entirely sure what to do.  But since he had been sleeping so well lately, I thought I would try putting him in the crib and see what he does.  If he started crying, I would just take him out and hold him a while till he calmed down and slept.  I picked him up and slowly put him into the crib.  He did not cry even though he was wide awake.  He did not get up and stand holding on to the crib panel either.  He was on his tummy or side, one thumb in the mouth, and moving around the crib as if he was looking for a comfortable position.  He did not fall asleep rightaway.  I didn't give him much attention either, but instead I opened a book (herbivore mammals) and started reading on the rocking chair.  He tossed and turned for quite a while, I was afraid he would get up, but he didn't!  After about 10 minutes, he finally stopped moving about and fell asleep.  I gave it another few minutes and then put a blanket on him and turned out the light.  Hopefully this will become the norm and not just an aberration. 

09.07.2011 Evan's Caterpillar earth mover

Evan's favorite toy right now is a Caterpillar earth mover truck that he picked out while roaming the aisles of Costco.  At first he was a little scared of the loud noise (of the simulated engine), but soon grew to love its vibrations and moving action.   One button makes the truck move/roll. The other button makes the truck yell out "Move that dirt!" and other hard-rock-like music, he loves it!

09.05.2011 Rancho San Antonio

This must be like the 10th time we've taken Evan to Rancho San Antonio... today (9/5 Labor Day) was extremely crowded as everyone piled into the park on the last unofficial day of summer (before schools everyone reopened).  We saw a deer this time, just before arriving at the farm, which was closed today.  But we still saw a calf, goats, sheep, and piglets.  Some pics below (for all, go here).

He ate really well today, downing tomatoes, cheese, egg, mango, carrots, etc:

 

Here's a video of the animals at Racho San Antonio:

09.03.2011 Happy Hollow Park & Zoo, visit #3

About a month ago, we took Evan to Happy Hollow Park & Zoo in San Jose for the first time.  We got there at around 12 noon and it was pretty crowded already.  But more importantly, it got too warm too quickly and before we saw very much, Evan was sleepy and tired.  We did get to see some wild animals and rode in the carousel and thought it worthwhile to come back, but wasn't overly thrilled with the first visit.  A few weeks after that, we went for the 2nd time, this time getting there before it opened, just before 10am.  This second time we had much more fun as we discovered the farm animal part of the park as well as the slides.  We got something to eat from the cafeteria (not too expensive, esp with 10% member discount, but not great food) and so had lunch there.  Afterwards, we went next door to the Japanese Friendship Garden and all took a nap on one of the benches.  On Saturday (9/3), we went for the 3rd time.  We saw more wild animals this time as some of the exhibits reopened (leopard, capybara, etc).  Here are some pics from the 3rd visit:

 

More photos here.