Since my last post, Baby CP has had a few more firsts. He attended a birthday party at gymboree, but those photos will come later. He had a lot of fun climbing and crawling all over the place with the other kids.
Baby CP also got his first haircut and made it through without crying, which was a relief. I was expecting him to shake his head around or demand to be taken out of the chair.
Before
After
Baby CP likes to draw. We have had to hide all the pens and writing utensils so that he doesn't draw all over the house. His nanny had a good idea though and suggested we buy a magnetic doodler for him. He uses his right hand to draw most of the time.
One of Baby CP's early works.
Baby CP's vocabulary continues to grow steadily. A few of the recently acquired ones are jees (for cheese), pie!, gu (for ku-zi/pants), mut (which is the second half of the cantonese word for glove). He also seems to be learning some of the hand and arm motions of the itsy bitsy spider. Baby CP also understands things that are going on around him. Everyday when I get home from work, within a short period of time, he turns to his nanny and says "bye byeeee." He knows that it's time for her to go home. Today, as a conversation about needles was going on around him, he started to whine. I thought he was just being fussy, but then I realized he was pointing to his arm and saying "gut" which is the Cantonese word for being poked/stabbed with a needle. He was telling us that getting shots sucks and makes a person cry.
One of Baby CP's favorite places.
Baby CP can reach all but the top drawer now, so we've moved all of the knives up there. Little trouble-maker.
First forward facing ride.
This week we installed Baby CP's new forward facing carseat. His former carseat is only for babies up to 30 inches tall and Baby CP is almost 31 inches tall. I thought he would be excited about facing forward, but he didn't really seem to have any excited or adverse reactions. It does seem that he falls asleep more quickly though.
Finally, this week is the first time where I have seen Baby CP really watching television. I've mentioned before that his attention span for television is relatively short and he usually prefers to watch only when some attractive music comes on and afterwards return to his playing. This week he was introduced to a DVD from his grandparents and he was mesmerized. He really likes to watch little animals and kids eating fruit. I limit him to two viewings a day...usually while feeding him lunch because then at least he's pretty cooperative while eating.
As I mentioned the other day, Baby CP can say "gou gou" for dog and something very close to "car." Yesterday, while I was changing his diaper, he started to flip though his book - Peek a Who by Nina Laden and suddenly he pointed to the zebra on this page and said "ma" (the Chinese word for horse) very loudly.
Baby CP turns 13 months old in just a few days and so far he is quite the athelete. His walking skills continue to improve daily and he enjoys kicking soccer balls at home and at the park. He also likes to play baby basketball by putting a little basketball through a baby hoop. In swim class, Baby CP still hates to lie on his back, but he has started to kick...his form isn't correct, but you can tell that he has the idea that moving his legs may somehow help him move forward. Baby CP is also a dance machine! At first he would dance to one particular song...then to a variety of music...now even just a tasty blueberry might bring it on. We have to get some video of all of these activities soon.
Baby CP went on his first bike ride, unfortunately, this photo is a little blurry.
This weekend we took Baby CP to the San Francisco Zoo. It was drizzly in the morning, but the animals were out and about and Baby CP got a good look at the giraffes and gorillas.
After the drizzle stopped, Baby CP wanted to get on the ground to try out his new shoes.
Mommy was experimenting with Instagram here.
Baby CP may have been saying "mama" and "baba" for a while....maybe he can also say "nai" for milk, but we're never quite sure. Since he is obsessed with buttons and switches, it doesn't surprise me that his more deliberate first words are "guan" and "kai" but more often a hybrid of the two which sounds like "gan" when he points to switches and demands that you take him there to let him turn the lights on and off. One word that I know he knows for sure is "gou gou" for dog. He points to images of dogs and says it...I guess those are the things that are most important to him at the moment. =)
Apparently Baby CP knows what is stinky. If he farts, burps or poops, he bats at his nose to tell you something stinky happened. Also, if I say "poo poo" or poop in Chinese, he will grunt, as if he is trying to poop...so can be a little faker. He loves to make you smell his stinky feet too.
By our rough measurements, we think Baby CP is about 24 lbs and 29 inches tall, which would put him in the 50-75 percentile for weight and 10-25 percentile for height but that doesn't seem right - He looks pretty tall to us and is barely chubby anymore. We'll see what the doctor says at his checkup in a couple weeks.
Baby CP officially turned one year old a few weeks ago! We decided to celebrate with a birthday party at Douglass Playground on Sunday. The family was very busy preparing all kinds of delicious treats for the occasion.
Baby CP was dressed in his Pineapple best, but unfortunately, we were so busy entertaining guests that we didn't have a chance to take many photos. (If you have any, please send them!)
We had no shortage of snacks, including cold sesame noodles, kimbap, prosciutto with melon, fruit salad, chips and homemade salsa. I prepared pina colada cupcakes and lemon basil shortbread shaped like...pineapples! We also had fresh squeezed lemonade and, of course, pineapple juice with soda water mixers. The weather was great and the kiddos had a ton of fun at the playground.
I'm a bit behind on reporting recent developments. Baby CP has a new tooth, bringing the total to 9, and he's got another one coming in on the top. On his first birthday, he couldn't walk, but within a few days, I saw him take about two steps before sitting back down. His nanny has been training him with daily exercises.
Yesterday, Baby CP starting walking farther to take about 6 steps. He does it often, so I'm sure he is making the conscious effort to make those steps.
Baby CP can do the sign for "more" and he has a few other new tricks up his sleeve, like bouncing up and down when we tell him to dance and playing peek a boo with a blanket or hiding behind things. He's also babbling a lot more, and it sounds like he is starting to say milk in Chinese sometimes. We have started to mix some cow's milk in with his formula (about 3 ounces per 8 ounce bottle), and he seems to drink the combination just fine, but he doesn't like cow's milk straight.
It's really crazy that Baby CP is already 11 months old. He's been learning all sorts of new things...some I know he learns from his nanny, but some I am not so sure...he just surprises me with new things he's picked up.
Baby CP enjoying his Mickey Mouse car, a gift from Mr. CP's uncle.
If you ask Baby CP where Mickey Mouse is in Chinese, he will crawl over to the car and point to the little figurine on the front. He can actually do this whether you say Mickey Mouse in Mandarin or Cantonese. He can also point to the mouse on his baby laptop if you ask him to.
Baby CP is also very helpful at bathtime. He finds his toys on the floor, picks them up and leans over the wall of the big bathtub to put them into his baby bathtub. He figured this out on his own.
Baby CP can clamor up stairs. He likes to climb up the stairs at the park and he can climb from our ground floor up to the second floor very quickly.
Baby CP has gone to swimming class 4 weeks in a row. He seems to be getting more comfortable in the water and the teacher has submerged his head under water two weeks in a row without any protest. Although he doesn't kick yet and doesn't really do much of anything during class, he seems to get really tired because he will take a 2-3 hour nap when he gets home. After his 3 hour nap today, we played for a bit in the living room and then took a walk to check out Sunday Streets - this week they blocked off a chunk of 24th street to make it a biking and pedestrian area.
Here is Baby CP pointing to a dog on his activity table. He can also point to dogs in books, so it seems that he understands the concept as opposed to just knowing that one photo of a dog. I could swear that he can also say the words "gou gou" though I think he might just be imitating me and he can't always do it.
This morning, while eating breakfast, Baby CP started throwing his arms up in the air, but I wasn't sure why. I had never seen him do it so deliberately before. Maybe he learned this at library storytime or from some other kids, but I kept saying "Yay!" By afternoon, he would do it on command.
Yay!
We stopped by a display of very shiny classic cars on 24th Street, but they were playing loud music nearby which upset the little guy. After about 2 minutes he started to cry briefly. When he stopped, I snapped this pic, but he seemed unhappy so we headed to the park.
Baby CP has a biting problem. I know that some babies tend to bite more when they are teething, but I feel like Baby CP does it everyday...though I suppose he could have "itchy gums" from teething everyday...I can't ever be really sure what is going on under the surface. When I get home from work he tends to be tired and he crawls all over me and bites my pants and sleeves...and sometimes if he gets my leg or arm in there it hurts a lot. I thought maybe it was because we used to nibble on his arm to get giggles since he was ticklish. Sometimes when parents do this, babies think biting is fun, but they don't know their own strength, so we stopped doing that a few weeks ago, but he's still biting. Someone at work said we should nickname him "Sharkie."
Baby CP turned 10 months old this past Saturday. To make this date extra special, Baby CP showed us that he can clap his hands for the very first time.
I usually point out the caterpillar to him as I am telling the story and he sits next to me and watches me read and turn the pages like a good little boy. I read this book to him at least 3 times a week, so to change things up (and to keep myself entertained) I decided to ask him where the caterpillar is when I got to the third page. I was blown away when he pointed to the caterpillar! Baby CP just learned how to point last week and I usually have no idea what he's trying to communicate when he points. Sometimes he just points at his own palm. So, to make sure it wasn't a coincidence, I tried asking him to point out the caterpillar on a few other pages...including the "big fat caterpillar" before he becomes a cocoon and he was able to do it. Amazing!
Baby CP seemed to finally be learning about kisses this weekend. He has never really been a hugger or a snuggler...even though we do hug him and give him kisses, but he seems to be learning that kisses are good things and he will bring his head to yours but it's more of a gentle head-butt than a kiss right now. Also, he has stopped giving hi-fives. If you say high five, he brings your hand to his face or brings his face to your hand to cover his face and then he might lick your hand...totally weird...I don't have any idea where he would have learned such a thing.
That's a lot of development for one weekend!
We hadn't weighed Baby CP in a while, so we stepped on the scale on Monday. 22 lbs 6 oz. He looks taller too, but we'll have the doctor's office measure him next week at his next check up.
This posting is about a week late... Baby CP tries to stand just about anywhere so we have to watch him very vigilantly. It's exhausting. We now go to bed at around 9 or 10 (within less than an hour) after Baby CP goes to sleep.
Here is a photo of him from a playgroup a couple weekends ago. He's sitting right in the middle focused on playing with something..I'm sure it's a germ-infested toy.
Here are is a photo and a video of Baby CP at his first swim class. We'll be trying classes at the saline pool at the newly renovated YMCA in Chinatown next week.
Baby CP and his buddy Toby in the pool at Le Petite Baleen in San Bruno.
We have tried to give Baby CP apples a few times, but he never seems to like them much. Whereas he will open his mouth really wide to eat oatmeal, you can barely get him to open his mouth at all when eating apples. I cut some banana into tiny pieces and he seemed to enjoy "chewing" on that. Tonight we went out to a restaurant for a birthday dinner. Baby CP was really tired and he did not want to sit in the highchair at all. The only way to distract him was to give him some of what the adults were eating, because he is just so interested in what we eat. The only single food item I had were the french fries that came with my burger...I feel terrible about it, but I ripped a couple up into really small pieces and he gobbled them all up. Then we gave him some water out of a cup and out of a straw (putting drops into his mouth) and he kept wanting to drink it, probably because the french fries had some salt, but maybe he also liked the idea of drinking what mommy was drinking. I think he really enjoyed being included. Mr. CP suggested that we find some kind of heathier and convenient snack that we can always just toss in the baby bag when we go out so we're not forced to give Baby CP unhealthy foods when we're out. I'll have to look into it.
Baby CP is now 6 months old. He weighs in at 19 lbs 3 oz and measures 27 inches tall. A few days after his first tooth came in, the neighboring tooth also sprouted.
He enjoyed his first Thanksgiving down at Cousin BY's house.
While at Cousin BY's house, I felt like Baby CP needed a helmet. He would try to reach up and over and then his body would sort of flip over and his head would hurtle towards the floor quickly. We had to keep catching him. That only lasted a little while thankfully because a few days later, he learned to balance on his side by exerting pressure through his big toe. Now he lounges around in such fashion regularly.
Baby CP can drag himself into any direction and can move a few feet on the ground if he feels like it. He can also get his knees under his hips sometimes and can put weight on his arms...the pieces are all there for crawling. He just needs to put them all together.
We tried to feed him solids for the first time three days ago...mushy avocados mixed with milk. He might have swallowed a little bit on the first day, but after that it was just pretty messy without much progress. I think I'm going to try something sweet like apples next.
Today we took a walk at Chrissy Field...Baby CP got fussy in the stroller and when carried, insisted on staring at the ground the whole time even though there were interesting things to see like birds, doggies and water. Oh well...we think he either liked the crunchy sound of the sand and rocks or he wanted to walk on it himself. Then we stopped by the farmer's market at Fort Mason.
Today, Baby CP is 25 weeks old. I had just spoken to Grandpa CP on Sunday and told him that no teeth had yet erupted only to find a bottom front tooth had poked through on Monday morning! I felt it by sticking my finger in his mouth but it was hard to get a good look, because Baby CP will stick his tongue out if you put things in his mouth. Mr. CP had the camera ready though and this distracted Baby CP long enough to get a shot, albeit a blurry one. It looks like the second bottom front tooth will be coming in within the next couple days. No wonder he's been EXTRA drooly the past few days.
I know it's impossible to see in this photo, but trust me, it's there (his bottom front left)
Ever since Baby CP was little, he's basically been nursed to sleep except when he went through a few short phases where other things would work: pacifier, holding him, and singing to him. He will fall asleep in the carseat and the ergo, but that's not something you want to be relying on regularly. Also, since Baby CP hit 4 months old, he started waking up twice a night instead of once, which is tough to deal with now that I've gone back to work. So, I decided that Mr. CP should sleep train him come mid-December.
Despite those plans, Mr. CP decided that two nights ago at 5am was the right time to start training with a little cry it out. I was not mentally prepared, and we didn't do it "by the book" as Baby CP was in our bed at the time. Mr. CP wouldn't let me shush him or pat him or anything! But since he was in our bed, at least he knew we were there and had not totally abandoned him. I felt bad because Baby CP looked so sad. He was crying and would reach for me and tried to touch my face and would roll over to me, but after about 15 minutes, he seemed to have tired himself out and fell asleep.
Last night, I put him in his crib and turned on the musical seahorse. Baby CP cried for about 7 or 8 minutes and then got quiet. I peeked in through a little crack that I left in the doorway and saw him watching the belly of the growing seahorse (though he did look sad) and when the light faded, he closed his eyes and fell asleep.
Poor guy doesn't look comfortable here.
In order to stay consistent, I placed Baby CP in his crib again tonight and turned on the seahorse. He cried for about 6 or 7 minutes, then it got quiet and when I peeked in, he was asleep.
He rolled around a bit more tonight and ended up at the foot of his crib.
Although it took about the same amount of time for him to fall asleep two nights in a row, I think it's working. I'm grateful that he isn't one of those babies that carries on for hours and I suspect that the fact that the nanny has been able to get him take his naps during the day have eased him into sleeping without me around to feed him. I hope within a couple more nights, Baby CP can learn to fall asleep on his own so that the tears will be worth it.
Baby CP is in NY! Mommy was a little nervous about Baby CP's first flight, a red-eye (as I am sure our neighbors were as Baby CP cried for a few minutes before takeoff), but luckily after eating a couple ounces, Baby CP passed out and slept for almost the entire flight. He woke up an hour before landing to poop, but even then was quiet and smiling at people seated nearby. People commented on what a good baby he was as they were leaving the plane. I'm hoping for a similar act on the way back to SF on Sunday, but the travel times are a little different, so I might not be so lucky.
Baby CP at Bouchon Bakery at Rockefeller Center
Mommy enjoyed yummy ramen at Menchanko Tei with Aunties L, K and J and then a delicious chocolate tart at Bouchon Bakery with Auntie J and Auntie E. (Ah, how I miss the delicacies of NYC!) Baby CP was well-behaved all day. Afterwards, Baby CP had a laugh-fest with Winnie.
We think Baby CP is right handed, so I thought it was strange that he started trying to roll left first. He has managed to turn left a couple times, but most of the time he just gets really close and he's usually only trying to turn that way if his stomach hurts, if he's hungry or if he's really sleepy - basically whenever he has a complaint. Yesterday, I decided to lie down on his right side to see if he'd roll towards me and he tried to do it. He failed, but he had pretty decent form. Today, he woke up after a 5 minute nap (it took me 30 minutes to get him to fall asleep by the way!), and he decided he'd try to roll towards me on the right again. I was impressed that he was sooo close after a couple tries, so I ran to grab my phone to take a video, but by the time I got it he had already rolled over and was lifting his head high and smiling. I can't believe he mastered it so quickly! We really need to be careful with him on any elevated surfaces now...
This morning, I was nervous...Baby CP had an appointment for his 2 month physical which I knew would include vaccines. We arrived on time and Baby CP was a little fussy from the get-go and started whimpering. Maybe he knew what was coming...
The nurse asked me to remove his clothes for the weight and height measurements, which seemed to calm him down. He weighed in at 15 lbs 8 oz and around 25 inches, which is around 90th percentile for both...he's a big kid.
The calm before the storm...
Baby CP was given an oral vaccine and 3 shots. The first shot caused normal crying...the second caused more elevated screaming...and the third was like a 3 alarm fire. Luckily the nurse worked fast. Baby CP was a trooper though...I held him for a couple minutes, fed him a little and he quieted down. I popped him into the stroller and we were on our way. Baby CP passed out on the way home.
When we got home, Baby CP woke up but was strangely quiet - no crying and no fussing and almost smiles. He went down for a 20 minute nap and then it started...the crying...the fussing...insisting on being held in order to nap for about 10-15 minutes at a time. He can even cry in his sleep! My arms felt like they were going to fall off. I had to give in and give him a little Baby Tylenol. He fell asleep right away...I'm hoping he was just super cranky because of a combo of the pain and lack of sleep. Maybe if he's well-rested tonight, I can get by without giving another dose.
I read somewhere there babies are more likely to rollover if they are naked. Apparently they like to be more active when they feel free from the confines of clothing. Baby CP has a tiny bit of diaper rash, so today I figured I would kill two birds with one stone and give Baby CP some time for his skin to breathe (you can't see it but he has no pants or diaper on) and a few minutes of exercise. We've only tried tummy time a handful of times, and each time, Baby CP starts whining or crying immediately. I considered it a minor success if he raised his head just high enough to get to his hand so he can suck on it and even if he managed to do that, crying would begin within a couple minutes thereafter. Something must have clicked today, because after I gave Baby CP a tiny amount of assist in turning over, I witnessed Baby CP's first successful tummy time session - he did not cry and in fact seemed to enjoy it.
As I have mentioned before, it's really difficult for me to get a photo of Baby CP smiling. He gets really distracted by the camera, but I think in the case of tummy time, it actually gets his attention in a good way - he lifted his head higher and longer to look at it. Here are some photos that I took on my cellphone.
He's getting the hang of it. Check out the drool on his sleeve.
With mommy's encouragement he can lift his head and semi-smile at the same time.
Look at that height!
Here's a video of Baby CP in action and my silly words of encouragement...though I'm sure he doesn't understand me. Too bad I don't know how to make the video show vertically. Don't strain your neck watching. =)
Yesterday, we helped Uncle A and Aunt S move into their new digs. While the guys were packing up the U-Haul, Baby CP was testing out a new skill - Rolling from back to back to front (leading with his left side). He did it once on the couch first which was soft and slanted, so daddy didn't believe he truly had the skills. A little while later, he showed daddy up by rolling over on the floor twice!
Then later in the afternoon after lunch, I was walking around with Baby CP in the backyard and I heard what sounded like a chuckle. I brought him over to daddy to make sure because I couldn't see Baby CP's face and sure enough Baby CP was laughing...laughing at what, we have no idea, but he laughed a few more times while playing with mommy later. Actually, Mr. CP claimed that he heard Baby CP laugh on Thursday night in the dark while I went to get mango drinks with Aunt S and Uncle M, but I didn't believe him. I guess daddy wasn't crazy after all...
