7/2/2012 Giving 'sick to the stomach' its due

On Saturday night, we went to dinner at one of the chinese restaurants.  The food was not unexpectedly greasy but 'decent'.  Evan didn't like it though and ate very little.  A few hours later, Evan threw up most everything that was in his stomach.  We thought maybe the culprit was some food from lunchtime, perhaps even soymilk.  June and I felt ok for now.  The next morning, around 6 am, I woke up with sudden feeling of diarrhea and ran to the bathroom and relieved myself.  I thought that would be it, but then about 3 hours later, I woke up with not just a feeling of diarrhea but also wanting to vomit.  And before I could get myself to the bathroom, I grabbed a towel and emptied my entire stomach's contents.  It was the most rancid feeling I've ever felt, after which I totally collapsed as all of my energy was completely gone.  I could barely stand or sit up.  Evan, having vomited the night before, seemed to be feeling better but still lethargic so we tried to cajole him to sleep more with us.  He sort of did but by 11am'ish, was ready to get up.  June cooked us some porridge and both Evan and I had a bit, but I was still extremely exhausted and wanted to keep sleeping.  June was now getting a little nauseated as well.  She took Evan for a stroll to the local park while I tried to sleep a bit more.  After they came back after about half an hour, June was getting really really tired, so I started to be more active.  A few hours later, June threw up as well and remained very weak for the rest of the day.  By about 10pm, I had become a bit better and then after a fairly good night's sleep, I felt much better this morning, as did June. 

5/21/2012 Evan's sayings

Evan just turned 20 months yesterday and his verbal skills are developing very quickly.  He's grasping concepts as well as individual words quickly and is clearly 'thinking' before reacting/responding.  We play some kids songs on youtube on the iphone/itube and after 2 or 3 notes, he would smile as he realizes what song was being played (Muffin man, Bingo, Old Macdonalds the latest).  If we play a youtube clip that he's never heard before, he would keep his head really still and listen to the notes and try to determine if it's something he's heard before, and if not, he would listen carefully to see what was in the song.  If the lyrics were clear and slow enough, he would sing along a bit after 5 or so tries.  If he's not interested, he would announce another song title that he would rather listen to.

He understands when I'm talking about something in the past.  Like if I asked him what we saw at San Antonio yesterday, he would say pigs, horse, rooster, etc, and no-cows (we got there too late, the farm was closed).  He said we also saw horse's poo, something new I showed him yesterday.  Speaking of San Antonio, I took him there yesterday, so it was just him and me.  We went up the PGE trail but just a few feet into the trail, he ran to the front of the stroller and said he wanted to sit (in the stroller), because the trail was really steep.  I obliged but when the trail leveled out, I got him off the stroller and little by little, he walked with me, often many paces behind and then running to catch up as other hikers/runners passed by and startled him a bit.  He walked quite a bit more than he usually did on weekends and that was obvious when he slept till past 8am this morning.  As we hiked around, Evan got more comfortable and started to sing his favorite songs.  I asked him to see a few new songs, too: Looby Loo, Goodnight Eeyore.  He's learning new songs so quickly that it's a bit of a challenge to teach him new ones as we dont know many ourselves.

Another thing Evan has learned to do recently is to divert a task we ask of him to someone else. For example, if I ask him to sing a song and he's either too tired or dont know how to sing it, he would say 'mama sing', or 'papa sing', meaning that we should sing it instead.  Or if we gave him something he didn't really want to eat or if he's really happy with what he's eating, he would give some to us and ask us to eat it. 

Somewhere someone taught him what it meant to ride a horse on someone back, so whenever we lie on our stomachs on the carpet during his bedtime, he would tell us he wants to 'ride horse' and proceed to get on our backs. 

Strawberries: he likes the fresh ones that can be picked right off the plant. He doesnt like strawberries that we've bought from stores and have been in the fridge.  So whenever he wanted strawberries, he would say he wants to go outside for strawberries.

5/15/2012 - more songs by Evan

Evan loves to sing and bounce/dance to the songs as he's singing.  In this video, he is 19 months old and singing 5 different tunes, not all of them clearly :)  It's such a joy to watch and listen to him enjoying himself with the songs!

5/8/2012 - Evan and daddy

Here's a nice portrait of Evan and me, with Evan drooling over strawberries!

4/30/2012 - evan uses substitution in songs

Evan has been singing a lot lately, whether out walking, eating, or just around the house, he would sing various songs to himself.  His more-often-sung songs lately has been: 1) (chinese) mama is the best in the world, 2) twinkle-twinkle little star [chinese & english], 3) old macdonalds had a farm, 4) row row row your boat.  This morning, he did something new.  Instead of singing the lyrics, he sang "bao" for every note to the tune of Old Macdonalds (i think).  He learned to do that on his own, we hadn't taught him that!  His language skills are developing really quickly lately.  He understands most of what we say and if it's something new, he can guess at the meaning after just once or twice.  He's still not counting conceptually or recognizing the concept of colors but I think he may soon. 

4/27/2012 - growing wheat grass at home

What grass is supposedly something really good for you.  But eating it is for cows and horses, no?  Well, some people would say that humans should eat it, too, as it has immense healing effects.  Is it true? I guess one has to try to find out.  Growing it at home is pretty easy, just a planting flat, some soil, some seeds, and a bit of patience (not a lot since it grows to harvest-ready in just about 10 days).  Here are some pics

4/21/2012 - Evan sings

Evan singing happy birthday, among other songs.

4/11/2012 Evan enjoying Old Macdonalds

One of Evan's first ever multi-syllable phrases was "E - i - e - i - O" from the song Old MacDonalds. Here he's almost 1 yr 7 months and still his favorite song is Old MacDonalds. He's enjoying it on the iphone here, rocking as the video plays.

4/8/2012 Evan's first Easter Egg Hunt

As we were walking around on 4/7 (Sat), we ran into a neighbor kid from one block away.  As we talked to her about this and that, her mom came out and introduced herself and invited us to an egg hunt the next day (4/8) at 8:30 am.  So we went the next day and there were probably 20+ kids.  Evan was really shy at first and didn't even want to leave our side but once the egg hunt started, he started getting into the it and started picking up eggs one by one, examining some at length especially if they weren't of egg shaped (some were shaped like chickens or piggies).

4/7/2012 Happy Hollow Zoo

After another chilly week, the sun came out and the temperature warmed up enough that we were able to take Evan to Happy Hollow Zoo, it had been several months since we were last here.  Evan had a great time and was able to enjoy the play sets more than before.  He was a little cranky around lunch time but ate well after his nap.

More pictures

4/3/2012 - happy baby

(Don't tell Evan the book is upside down!)

4/2/2012 - Language and eating

Evan had his 18 months checkup about two weeks ago.  He's healthy and running along the 5% weight growth chart.  He's growing fairly well length-wise though (37%).  We asked the pediatrician a couple of things - whether to let Evan out of the crib, if there's a better way to brush his teeth, when he might grasp the concept of color, etc.  The answers for at least these 3 questions were: 1) keep him in the crib as long as possible, cuz the minute he gets out, you lose control of where he goes and when.  2) just brush him no matter how much he doesn't like it. It's better than if have to put him in the dentist's chair for cavities. 3) toddlers may not understand the concept of colors until they're 4 or so. 

Evan's language skills have been developing at an astounding pace.  He shocked us the other day by reciting a couple of chinese poems he learned at daycare.  True his pronunciation isn't perfect but it's amazing that he remembered so many verses.  One of the poems he recited was maybe 50 words or more. He likes Click Clack Moo (Cows that type) book and video and will say "click clack moo" over and over.  The cow remains his favorite animal though he has started to take a little Curious George monkey doll around with him and calls him "Georgie".  He can spell out cow: "C... o... w, cow!".  He recognizes the letters O, X, and W after teaching him that one night.  He seems to have bursts of learning capacity where he'll absorb and retain something indefinitely. 

Evan's still not eating too well at home, though.  He would take a bite and then refuse to eat further, even though he'll eat the whole thing at daycare.  We probably didn't teach him properly when he was younger.  We're gonna try to discipline things a bit and not let him play with food or ask him over and over if he wants to eat something.  He knows when we're upset or angry but he doesn't quite know how to please us.  He tried to get on my better side yesterday by asking me to hold him.  Awww... hard to stay angry with him when he's so cute.

3/18/2012 - Valley Fair

Valley Fair is a fairly nice shopping mall in San Jose, across from Santana Row.  On this day, I wanted to take him there to see some toy stores and to see how Apple's new ipad was selling.  The Apple store was hella busy as usual and I didn't ask if they had the new ipads in stock.  I checked out the mac air, they're incredibly light and beautiful.  I then wanted to take him to the Lego and other toy stores.  It turns out the mall placed all of the toy stores in an area (as opposed to scattering them around), this is a good move for parents as dragging kids around the mall is no easy task.  When we arrived at the toys 'area' of the mall, I saw an enclosed play area for toddlers and young kids!  What a surprise, either it's new or I just didn't notice it before.  Here are a few photos there where Evan is playing the slides.

2/12/2012 (16.7 months) - Cataldi park

We went to a picnic and met up with old friends today. 10 years ago none of us had any kids. Today, there were more kids than adults.

2/12/2012 - logic

A few days ago, Evan grabbed a small toy car from the toy bin and started saying something that I didn't quite understand.  It was one of those toy cars that had wheels that only turned when you push the car along a surface, i.e., it wasn't motorized or needed any battery.  It looked like Evan was trying to turn it on because he flipped the car to the underside to look for a switch.  The reason he did this is because he has another bigger toy car which does require batteries and had a switch on the underside.  But this toy car didn't have a switch.  He got a little irritated that I didn't know what he wanted so he pulled me by the hand and led me to the hallway closets and signaled me to open it.  After I opened it, he pointed up at one of the shelves and said something like 'arrie'.  He had seen me take batteries out of a container on the shelf so I figured he was looking for that.  So I brought out the container, opened it and he immediately went to grab a battery.  But before he was done, he also signaled me to get the screwdriver out of the screwdriver kit/box.  Basically, he wanted to make the toy car go, and so in order to do that, he concluded that he needed batteries.  And in order to install the batteries, he needed a screwdriver to open the battery door.  None of this would be remarkable if he was a 3 or 4 year old, but he's only 16.5 months old.  Perhaps all babies are able to transfer knowledge about one object onto a similar object.  But not only did he know that the toy car needed batteries, he also knew that it wasn't a simple matter of having a battery, but that the battery needed to be placed into the car and that required a tool.  Amazing set of logic gears running in there!

2/11/2012 - Filoli

We went to Filoli today to see if any spring flowers were in bloom. As the estate had just opened for the season on monday (2/6), we didn't think there would be much, but it had been quite a while since we've been there, that we wanted to go check it out again. There weren't much in bloom indeed but still the estate was peaceful and beautiful. Here I was able to grab a pretty nice portrait shot of Evan:

 

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2012.02.04 Sweet Tomatoes

Evan has started to speak two-syllable words and learning new ones almost as soon as he hears them the first time.  Today at Oakland zoo, he surprised us a bit by repeating several new words he heard almost immediately.  First there's luo-tor (camel in chinese) - he had heard us say it many times in the past but today was the first time he said it himself.  Then when we saw the baboons, I didn't think he would be able to repeat it, especially not rightaway.  But when I said the word, he also said it just a few seconds later.  He also said a few other new words.  He's picking them up really fast now and seem to be interested in multi-syllable words, nice!    He's also eating better than before, especially when we go to Sweet Tomatoes, a salad buffet restaurant.  We bought a few sets of toddler plates/bowls/cups/spoons/forks this week for Evan and he's been very happy using them.  He is also started to drink from a regular cup (no straws) with both hands.  He doesn't have great control over the cups yet so he spills a lot of it onto his shirts, but he's definitely improving with every use.  He's doing better with the spoon and getting stuff out of a bowl as well.  The daycare is finally letting him use the spoon to feed himself a bit and he's really enjoying the freedom to feed himself.

Evan can now follow along 4 songs: 1) Row row, row your boat, 2) Old McDonalds had a farm, 3) Twinkle Twinkle little star, and 4) Itsy bitsy spider.  By follow along, I mean that he would say the last word of each line of rhyme.  So for example, he would say "star" when we say "twinkle twinkle little...", and then "are" when we say "how I wonder what you .... "  Or when we say "row row row your boat gentle down the ...", he would add "stream".  It's very cute and shows he's paying close attention to whatever is being said to and around him :)

01.27.2012 battle of controls

After about two weeks of good-eating, Evan is not eating well again in the past week. It is because he had a slight cold again, more teeth coming in, other reasons? As with many things baby, we'll probably never know the answers. What is clear is that if we tried to pressure him to eat, he will do the opposite and eat even less. So we're learning how to step back and let him control how much he eats. Forcing just makes things worse, so whynot try something that lessens the pressure on both sides? Evan has shown over and over that he can regulate his own actions generally to a positive conclusion, so we need to trust him in eating as we've trusted him in other matters.

In the last few days he has shown an intense interest to learn how to use a spoon. He would grab a spoon if it came close to his fingers and if it was on the table but out of his reach, he would ask for it "sou-zi" (spoon in chinese). Instead of fighting him for the spoon, we started giving it to him and letting him try to get the good into the spoon. For a few days he was quite uncoordinated and couldn't even hold the spoon right side up. But today, he made tremendous progress. Not only is he holding the spoon steadily, he's able to pick up some food, and furthermore, he's now also able to put some of that food into his mouth! It didn't seem to take more than a half-dozen practice sessions for him to get this far. He's still not able to eat on his own with a spoon yet but he's definitely on his way. Now, if he would only chew and swallow the food he puts in his mouth :)

We went to Shoreline Park today and played at the ship playground, mostly in the sand pits. He learned that he could climb down a fairly big step if he trusted his feet instead of insisting that he feel the ground first. We have to let him explore and try on his own much more than we have been.

2012.01.14 Beach time!

This was Evan's first visit to the beach after he learned how to walk.  We took him to Pescadero State beach, about 15 minutes south of Half Moon Bay. It's one of my favorite coastlines - with lots of seagulls, pelicans, sea lions, tidepools, etc.  It took just a few minutes for Evan to warm up to the beach and start exploring all the things on the beach - sea grass/weeds/kelps, mussels, crab shells, driftwood, and of course sand.  He loved it and kept pointing everywhere for birds, "hai" (ocean in chinese), etc.  We'll return to the beach soon!  We were really fortunate it was such a warm January day (upper 60's), without any wind.

For more photos, go here.

1.13.2012 Evan's bath and bed time pics

Even when Evan wasn't eating well, he looked to others a little chubby.  We were worried that he wasn't gaining weight and growing, and truth be known, it was very worrisome and frustrating.  We tried everything to help him eat more but he simply wouldn't.  He would take a bite of something and a majority of the time, spit it out.  If offered too many times, he would start dropping it on the floor.  We tried unsuccessfully to tell him not to do that, until this past week.  For some reason he started to eat well this past week.  We may never know the actual reasons but there seem to be several factors: 1) his upper molars finally emerged, 2) we started to be a little more strict about how he treated food and how we offered it to him.  For #2, we decided to not offer him too frequently the same food that he has rejected.  We would wait a day or two before asking him again.  We also made it clear to him that it isn't good to drop/throw the food on the floor.  We did this by moving his high chair away from the dining table and basically giving him a 'timeout' for a minute or two before letting him rejoin us.  It was a clearer message that we didn't want him to do that than by saying it alone. Maybe he just decided on his own that he wanted to eat more.  Whatever it is, it changes everything dramatically.  Without worries about him eating too little, we're not spending so much time trying to get him to eat anymore.  And that makes things easier for both him and us.

Below are some pics of Evan from 1/2 and 1/3/2012, just before he started eating well.  Expect new pictures in the future to show an even chubbier Evan :)

 

More here.

More here.

1.7.2012 Evan's first encounter with ladybugs

Ranch lake is one of my favorite places in California.  It is part of the Sanborn park system and not very well known at all, even by the locals.  Other than being a beautiful spot for hiking, the pond and the immediate area surrounding the pond have incredibly cute creatures who come out in mass around new years.   I'm talking about newts and ladybugs.  Because of the lack of rain this year, I haven't seen the newts yet, but the ladybugs are out and readying for their short mating season and then migration to unknown places afterwards.  It was Evan's first time encountering the ladybugs. At first he was a little apprehensive, but soon warmed up to the critters and started handling them himself and calls them 'budzies', 'buzzies'... it's cute.  See the video and photos below, or for full set of photos, see here.

12.25.2011 Evan's eating woes

For over a month when Evan had a cold, he didn't eat very well. After the cold, it was the holiday season and he ate even worse, barely eating anything all day. It might've been that he was teething as in the last week (1/9/2012) or so, he has really begun to eat very well. It was about this same time that his upper molars finally broke through the gums. Hopefully the good eating will keep going.