Good Health

So we've had a rough week. Wei Yan's dad is still in the hospital following some complications from a surgery. He's in critical condition and making some improvements. He still has a long way to go, but we are encouraged by the doctors' updates and keeping him in our thoughts and prayers.
Max & I got sick while Wei Yan was gone so not much to report on that - we survived him being gone. I've gotten some meds and feel better already. While dad was away, I didn't fill Max's days with much fun - just TV and books. Here was a gift dad brought Max - and he sure likes it! Looking forward to many more smiles from our little guy to brighten our day.

Halloween

 

Thanks to Auntie CC who got creative and made Max's costume this year from scratch! :-) Max didn't go trick or treating, but we did go to a get together at a neighbors house, so he got to check out all the other costumes.

October 2009

Here are some recent photos of Max I took.



And here is a picture of Max when Daddy came home after work one day. THIS is why both of us like pick up way better than drop off.


Here at the farm across the street from his day care. It is a real farm, but they cater to the holiday stuff mostly. We'll have to go back because even though he did NOT want any of the pumpkins (we left empty handed, but all the little pumpkins were sold out), he was NOT happy about leaving the tractors. With Cars and Finding Nemo are his 2 favorite movies now, his favorite games are lining up his cars, WWF wrestling with his stuffed "Mo Mo" (Nemo) and tractor tipping (like "May may" Mater from Cars).

Peanut Butter Cookies

Sorry it's been forever since we've posted anything. It's been a busy few weeks. On Labor Day, Max wanted to try a peanut butter cookie. Just a few broken pieces left, but Max was very insistent after refusing cakes and other yummy things, so we thought we'd let him try. His face broke out in hives and these skin things don't show up well in pictures, but here's a pic of our little guy ~20 min after eating what amounted to less than 1 cookie:

 

We got him tested and he's allergic to peanuts, eggs and shellfish (shrimp & crab reacted and the other bivalves were pretty low). Max tested negative for ovo-mucoid, which means he is ok with egg so long as it's cooked long enough to break down the proteins, so no scrambled eggs or even hard boiled eggs - stuff should be baked at a high temperature for a signifant amount of time. By completely eliminating exposure, this should help Max grow out of it if he is going to, so we're going to keep our fingers crossed.

Mo Mo

Max has been having a tough time recently. First he got hives pretty
bad from a peanut butter cookie. Then he started the hyper reaction to
benadryl. He's been having some trouble with his 2nd year molar (all
his 1st molars are in) - so the sleeping has been all out of wack.
Here he is with his cow (the only stuffed animal he seems to care for
at all) and watching his most recent demand ("mo mo" = Nemo). Luckily
wei yan figured that one out at 2:30am last night, cuz Max was getting
really frustrated with me for not getting it.

This kid's got rhythm

So we're at that point where Max is really learning things my leaps and bounds. Recently, Max has been pointing to Wei Yan's iphone and saying "Ma" since the wallpaper image is a picture of Max. Yesterday, he turned on the phone, said Max like 3 times, turned on the music - which happened to be a Pearl Jam and started rocking out. I tried to get him to say it after me - the Max he yells out is not the way he normally says it, but it will do. This kid's got some rhythm! Oh, he also likes Pink and sadly Britney's circus song (which is banned from our radio, sorry buddy).

Yay for me!

So Max says "pu pu" for Supra now. And he knows who some people are or can at least figure it out by powers of deduction some of the time. Since we learned the hard way that pointing to oneself and saying "daddy" or "mommy" isn't the best way to teach Max who we are (ask him who Mommy or Daddy is & he'll point to himself) - Grandma tried to see who Max knew by asking him to give people puzzle pieces. Listen for "Supra" in the beginning too:

18 months old now!

Here is a picture of Max's "Stanky eye" (according to Auntie CC):

 

We had his 18 month check up today where he was 22lbs 4 oz (moving up to 8th percentile from 4th), 30-1/8" (4th percentile, but he was NOT happy about being forced to stretch out, so don't think that was very accurate) and 10th percentile in head circumference. Seems like each time he goes, his reaction to the shots gets worse. This time was a full out meltdown including 3 bandaids to help stop the bleeding on his finger prick (hemoglobin level to check his dairy/starch gluttony and lack of most other stuff isn't a problem). He ripped off all bandaids and was NOT having any of that. Luckily dad wore a red shirt today!

Sorry, been a little slow on the updates. Grandma was here for a week and I'll have to post some pics of that visit soon.

hehehe

yesterday, max came home from day care with this laugh:

we have no idea where this came from or how long it will stay.

Thank you

 

So while we were in Cali, we visited one of our friends and Max was playing with their daughter in their backyard. I heard some commotion & found Max had backed this little girl up against the wall and he was trying to claim all of (her) bubble wands. I scolded Max and since he's been having much trouble with the whole sharing concept, I tried for success by asking him to pick 2 and let the owner have the rest (assuming here that with 1 in each hand he could not protest too much). After he grabbed 2 (of her bubble wands, mind you) I told him, "say 'thank you'" - just as a passing comment and I heard a "do do" in a VERY loud, forced tone! ATTITUDE already??? And this since I wasn't really expecting him to say anything, cuz he's said a 2-syllable "do-do" a few times in a rising & falling pronounciation a few times a while back. These 2 survived their encounter with no hard feelings - how nice it is to be young enough to forget infractions in minutes!

all max's new tricks

Touch down part II

making uncle ryan proud!

1st flight down

We woke Max up at 4:30am this morning to catch our 6am flight. Knowing
he would not be happy about being awoken 3-4 hrs before he normally
does, we waited til the last min to get him up.

He was awake & fairly active the whole fight and then we touch down &
2 min taxiing then he is PASSED OUT! Now we're stuck waiting on the
tarmac, so guess it's a good time for a nap.

ka

so max is starting to vocalize a little more. he's def not as verbal as some of his classmates or girls we know around his age. the other day he pointed to the cars on his sippy cup and said, "ka". and when we were reading a book, he started making monkey sounds when he saw a picture of a monkey. so we'll take what we can get.

I think the time of toddler frustration is coming though. The other day he spent a good 20 min pointing at something in a bucket of toys - and it felt like I had picked up almost every toy in the bucket which didn't seem to elicit a positive response. We finally ended up distracting him, but that trick is harder to do once he gets his mind set. So, might be a while for posts unless I get a lot of pics/videos while we are in cali...

Looking for fun stuff to do while we are there...

Banana

I hate bananas. To be more precise, just the thought of them makes me a bit nauseous. I don't mind banana flavored candy, and I can sometimes tolerate them in shakes if there are a lot of strawberries or pineapples in the shake - but most of the time I just don't bother. Strangely enough, I tried some banana pudding (with some strawberries) the other day and really liked it. I think it was all the sugary pudding and strawberries and vanilla wafers that I liked. I guess I've now acquired this southern taste after being here for 14 years...the other stuff was a little easier to pick up! ;-)

So anyway, Max is a banana eating machine. This video is a bit long. In less than 90 seconds, Max destroys this banana (not a whole one). We'll make sure on 4th of july he see's kobayashi & chestnut competing in the hot dog eating contest to continue his training.

teeth

The other day I was surprised to feel a new tooth in Max's mouth! He's starting to get some back teeth finally. Well, 1 has just broken through and the mirror one on the other side on the top is also about to break through as well. So this is tooth #9 and with #10 on it's way. I did notice that his drool was worse than usual a week or 2 back, but this is not really much of a distinction. The day care folks have proudly told us that they are down to only 2 bibs a day (3 on a bad day) - this only accomplished by hanging the wet bibs on the handle out side his room in the sun while he wears the drier one.

wink wink!

So Max has been copying a lot of things we do these days. So here is a quick video of Max showing off his new *wink*

More rice please

We went to this singaporean restaurant in chapel hill the other day
called Merlion. Food is awesome there, and max ate almost all my rice
last time we went. I didn't realize that my dish came with a special
rice cooked with chicken broth. So this time, once max figured this
out he was very untrusting - he had to see the rice coming from the
correct side of the plate. Again, he ate the rest of the rice from
dad's plate, and then some from his own order. As you can see, not fun
to try at home. We had to change his rice encrusted clothes as soon as
he got out of his high chair. He also loves Thai sticky rice which is
much less messy! Big tip for the waitresses.

Max's babblings

Max has been babbling a lot these days. Trying to edit this video down a bit, I've watched it quite a few times now. So pretty typical these days, you'll see Max babbling, then showing frustration (hitting the gate when his new friend doesn't let him open it), his squeals of excitement (those are the best) and also using a new word. Earlier today when we were in the chinese grocery store, I heard Max yell out "No!" behind me - I think Wei Yan had said no and Max decided to repeat him a little louder. He's been a little frustrated these days. I've been encouraging him to use his signs since his words are a little jumbled together (like "moa" for more and "meh" for milk sometimes just can't be distinguished,) but I just don't think he's really going to be a signer. He's already abandoned a few signs since he thinks he's gotten the words down, but when he starts crying or getting frustrated, you can't tell what he's saying. But on a good note, we have been asking questions and every once in a while we'll get a nod yes or no with some accompanying word that we can understand (like "do you want ANOTHER banana?" - he ate 2 today for dinner at the picnic today)

New Friends

Max had a visitor today. Normally when we see him with other kids, he's pretty quiet & reserved but he took a liking to our friends' god-daughter. She is 2.5 years old.

Max's first baseball game

 

So here in the Triangle, hockey is the only professional team around - so we went to see a Durham Bulls game (the same team from the movie) with our company. This was at the end of the night when Max was tired, but he actually had a much better time than I thought he would have. He enjoyed all the music (each batter has their own song), cheering and clapping - as well as all the people. He wouldn't try any of the ballpark treats, but this can all wait I'm sure. We'll probably try to go to another game this season after we saw Max had a good time - also, he made it to the end of the 7th inning! (ok, we didn't actually make it for the 1st 2 innings)

Arranging my shoes & cars

 

Max has spent a lot of time the last few day arranging & re-arranging his cars and also his shoes that are on the top shelf of his toy shelves. Wei Yan says that maybe he got Ryan's airplane OCD with arranging his toys...I think it's just his brain figuring out that all cars/trucks are the same and all the shoes are shoes. Kind of like how every bird is a "duck" right now.

Sleeping

 

Max now sleeps with his butt up almost every time these days. I also got a shot of him with his trusty yellow truck firmly in his grip!

Mother's Day

 

 

So here is another cool shot I took of Max at the park today. I'm really enjoying the camera - and I think I'm better at getting Max to look at the camera than Wei Yan is. So the shot of Max & I at IHOP this morning (we took Wei Yan's mom out to eat before she had to work today) is the best one we got even though Max isn't looking at the camera.

Mother's day park outing

Wheels turnin!

So I think the best part about this age that Max is right now, is to
start seeing how his little brain is figuring stuff out. Yesterday,
when we asked Max where his dirty diaper goes, he walked over to it,
picked it up & threw of in the trash can! I certainly was surprised!

Today, he was a total ham at the Chans' restaurant. Dancing, waving,
high fiving & smiling at the customers. He also climbed into the
element, then up onto the seat next to his car seat. Dad had to help
him into his car seat after that, but it's crazy thinking how we've
been carrying him in & out of a car for 15 months straight. Course the
lame Element doors mean we will continue to do so 99% if the time, but
it's still just so foreign to me all that he is able to do so much
more each day.

Oh, he also demolished a whole banana in about 2 minutes today - and I
am not exagerrating. We asked him if he wanted to eat a banana like
his friend megan, but we still cut it in thirds. And all this time
we've been cutting his bananas up into tiny little pieces!

Max's favorite part of the beach

So Max wasn't too thrilled with the beach itself, but we at least found one thing new that he really enjoyed. By the way, we tried to go to the aquarium yesterday before we left, but I guess some lightning or something took out power on half of Roanoke Island so we didn't get to do that. There was an aquarium at the restaurant we went to for my birthday dinner and Max loved it, so I was really looking forward to going to the aquarium.

May 3rd - hair do

 

 

 

So I had a little fun with Max's haircut growing out. He was in a good mood (he was eating) and I got some good shots of him being silly. Note that we were at least able to get his yellow truck out of his hands for a meal. Oh and one of these shots kind of reminds me of my cousin eric a little - might be the hair or the dimple.

Jockeys Ridge and Kill Devil Hills

Here are a few pics from Jockey's Ridge (we didn't do any hang gliding) where we got some exercise carrying Max around and also a pic of our view from the condo balcony as the afternoon storms were coming in.

 

 

 

 

April outdoor adventures

So despite our allergies, we are making it out quite a bit these days. I did have a slight asthma attack one afternoon, but nothing major that my inhaler (which I didn't bring with me) couldn't nip in the bud really quick. Anyway, my mom was here for the week of easter, so here are some pics of our outdoor outings.

 

 

 

 

Growth Spurt

Grandma is here for a visit and reports that the growth spurt that started a few days ago (well, we didn't know it at the time, but think is started Thursday now that we look back on it) is still going strong.  He's been eating more than not since he woke up today!

Back in action

So Max is definitely over the stomach bug and Wei Yan & I seem to be OK so far. Yesterday we went to dim sum for lunch. Max started out eating some chicken bits from the green bean dish - which amazed me since he usually shuns anything resembling meat. Then he went to town on the fish - and even gobbled up a black bean that got mixed in. Between the fish & the stir fried ho fun, Wei Yan & I were having a hard time putting food on his plate fast enough. After a few tries, he tried the rice congee/jook too and seemed to really like that. So usually I'm opposed to dim sum - at least here in NC, but looks like I've been officially out voted now by the boys.

In other news, work got hit by this worm:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/27/60minutes/main4897053.shtml
And I just that 60 min segment last night after the Carolina game (go Heels!) so I'm booting my PC at work. It was acting strange & I'm super paranoid...seems like I should know more, but I'm just a programmer, not an IT specialist.

stomach flu

So we got the call from day care to come pick up Max at lunchtime today. We took him to the pediatricians office and looks like he has some sort of stomach flu - a few other kids have something at day care too. So we've seen some things today we could have very well lived without. The dr. said that the vomiting should subside in ~48 hrs, so I guess that's something to hope for. Luckily Max likes pedialyte and he still has a little bit of an appetite so we he ate a few puffs at least. We'll be home with him tomorrow (dad in the morning and me in the afternoon) - so we're hoping neither of us gets this thing too!

Mmmwwwaaa!

New heights

He's been trying to climb for a few days, but tonight he finally got it. We'll work on "not climbing" tomorrow. For now we just had to celebrate what he's been trying to do for a few days now.

New words and tricks

So this last month or two max has really learned so much! He loves to sit on my lap, blow kisses, give hugs, and give slobbery "kisses". He says bubble & up (at least so we can understand him). He makes this questioning sound and babbles up a storm. He's also thrown a few fits, can shake his head no and angrily shove or throw away our wrong offerings to his demands. He says "uh oh" whenever he tips something over or we drop something and when he purposely tips over his cup at meal times. He does a lot of copying things that we do and yesterday he even started bouncing up and down (without leaving the ground when I said "jump! jump!") which I totally did not expect.

He is not a fan or oatmeal, french toast sticks or any kind of meats. At school we can pretty much count on them telling us later that he wanted nothing to do with any of the meat. He's also started smushing up green beans before eating them, where as a few weeks ago, he would not touch anything that had been squished. So things these days seem to be going at the speed of light. Oh, and he has 7 teeth now. His 4 front teeth, 2 bottom front teeth and 1 on the bottom has just come int.

Round the neighborhood

It's been nice out so we have been taking the car out for a spin.
Tried take a picture of max eating his zipper with his forehead in the
steering wheel, but typical - I whip out the camera & he quits doing
whatever he was doing!

Thanks uncle Ryan

Here's max playing with the toy that uncle Ryan bought him.

Percentiles

So I just found Max's 1 year appointment paperwork and plugged his numbers in a growth chart website:

your child is 19.1875 pounds, and that is
at the 4th percentile for weight.

your child is 28.5 inches, and that is
at the 9th percentile for height.

your child has a head circumference of 18.125 inches, and that is
at the 35th percentile for head circumference.

Course he has no trouble eating, 1/2 grilled cheese sandwiches, mandarin oranges, cheese and yogurt are his favorites these days. We just started him on the citrus fruits and he was screaming "moa!" with the most pathetic, panicky, insistent voice yet. We ended up having to show him the empty wendy's container before he quit asking for more.

Season Moore Photography Gallery

So here is the full gallery.

http://www.seasonmoorephotography.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?Slideshow=chan

It's only available until this Thursday - when Max officially turns 13 months old, so get a peek at those 1 year old portraits while you can!

1 year old portraits

We took Max out for a nice photo shoot last Friday (before we found out he was starting a nice little ear infection). I can't wait to see them all, but here are a few.

1st ear infection

So Max woke up night before last crying inconsolably and we were a bit baffled at what was bothering. We knew that he had 1 other tooth starting to come in (tooth #4, right next to his top fang) and he didn't have a fever, so we gave him some tylenol & tried to distract him while that kicked in. He was super tired, so after it kicked in he was ready to go to bed again. Yesterday morning, Wei Yan took him to the pediatrician (morning walk-ins at our ped's office rock) to check on his cough which is pretty bad right now. They said is cough is fine even though it sounds worse than anything to date, but that he has an ear infection. So we've been keeping some tylenol in him when we can and started the antibiotics. He hasn't woken up crying again, but I can't see a huge improvement just yet. So we'll keep up with it for the next 10 days and see how he does.

High Five

Max gave me a high five today for the first time this morning.

Max's 1st birthday party

Pictures from Max's 1 year birthday party:

 

 

Click on this link below for all the pics:

Max's Birthday Party

Of course the day went on and we felt like we didn't know who to talk to. I personally felt like the typical socially awkward engineer who should have been a better hostess in introducing folks to other folks (we had old childhood friends, college friends, work friends and poker friends, etc. at the party) But it was priceless to have a bunch of folks in the same room who have seen us become who we were, helped us get to where we are now and who we hope will be along with us on the path to the future which is just so very exciting especially when we have seen all that just 1 year can bring. So thanks and much love to everyone who could make it & those who were there with us in spirit (as I know many of you blog-stalkers were)!

Monkey Joe's bday trip

This last one is Max going down one of the big slides...he wasn't very happy about that one. But at least dad liked it!