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.

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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.