Pumpkin picking field trip

Today we went at lunch to take Max on a little field trip. Across the street from his day care is a small farm. We picked out a pumpkin for him, but he hadn't taken his nap yet & he wasn't too interested. In fact, he was a bit wary of the large orange things, and when I took him to visit a blow up scarecrow, he gave me a big hug and was definitely scared of it. So, his little field trip ended up being about 15min as we decided it was best to just go ahead & get him out of the cold & back to his day care crib for a nap.

 

 

 

 

Oh, and picasa screwed up & deleted the pictures (our NAS is a bit flaky) - so after pouting & searching all the temp directories I could think of, I found a site that pointed me to a program that could retrieve the pictures off my SD card so long as I hadn't written much to it after picasa deleted everything off of it. The evening just got better from there!

crazy hair!

After Max's hair got longer it stopped sticking up, which made us very sad. The last 2 days we've had a little bit of the crazy hair back which has been so nice!

 

Clutter

So yesterday I had a bit of meltdown. You know, for me this is one of those moments when I fail at something and then I just get really dejected and beating myself up. Part of it was that we interviewed a housekeeper, and although I laughed, it really sucked to have her tell me what I already know - our house is filled with clutter.

So after the meltdown moment and pity party - I realized that even though I have NOT been keeping our house as clutter-free, clean (it's not too bad, the cleaning lady said so herself), or getting there in terms of projects (our house still pretty much looks like we just moved in) as I would like, I have in fact decided not to do those things for a reason. I had opportunities to clean, organize, de-clutter and I did not take them because of some of the decisions I made about how I wanted to be as a parent. So here is it, my parenting/lifestyle values:
* People come first. Visiting family, hanging out with friends (including those who we hung out with BEFORE we had kids), keeping up with folks with even just a short email....yes, I'm not perfect at this either, but I have made an effort at this.
* Max's awake time & him feeling loved by us is more important than "getting things done" - so while I might be tempted to throw him in a bouncer to get stuff done, this is kept at a minimum for the ~3 hrs a day we actually get to spend with him on a weekday.
* Nursing Max means I might need to sleep & eat (yay) more than I'd like or am used to. I missed out on many fantasy football filled lunches (oh darn = sarcasm) and soda breaks that I used to take, but this has been a big part of how I have felt I have provided for Max even though he is at day care. I have been very happy that despite the constant runny nose, he has not had any serious illnesses (no infections, fevers, etc.) or worried calls to our pediatrician. I realized that all that hard work has paid off in that my supply has been great for weeks & I didn't even notice - I no longer struggle or worry about this. I'm proud to say we've used 1 small can of powdered formula & a lot of that has gone to building up a freezer supply that can hopefully mean I can work toward stopping pumping at work one of these days. I could have chosen cleaning or projects at night after Max goes to bed (well, blogging & surfing the web don't count much) but then I'd be super cranky & my supply would be struggling again...

I need to just let go of the fact that I have a ton of things that I would like to see done around my house or that I feel like I should be able to do all the things I used to do, because I have in fact decided not to do those things. The housekeeper is coming next week and we will make an effort to de-clutter some, but I know it will be an on-going process and I will not get much of it done before she comes for the 1st time, but I won't because it will cost me too much and make me compromise the things that I choose to do with my time. Ok, thanks for listening.

clap clap!

So today Max finally clapped with both hands open! Which means it actually made a clapping sound!

He's also clicking with his tongue and likes to do the indian thing (making noise & then hitting his mouth against your leg, hand, etc.) Now that it's cold & pants are a must, my jeans are constantly covered in slobber since Max has been a little on the clingy side & wants to hang on and slobber all over my knees & legs.

Yeah, it's been a while. Don't know where the time went!

Look Ma, no hands!

Max gave us quite a surprise this evening!



Oh yeah, he just turned 8 months this weekend.

VIR pics

So here is the drifting element:

 

And also a pic of Max and his dad - who made sure he was dressed appropriately for the day.

 

Mochi

Next time I'm in LA lamenting about how it stinks to have nothing to do during the day when everyone else is at work & we're on vacation, please remind me to go here! I should NOT have watched that video. I'm craving mochi now...but I'm too lazy to make it myself & don't want to buy the crap that is in the stores here.

Cruisin'

So we're found that the toys Max loves the best are generally the really mundane - a piece of tupperware, a box, the TV remote, etc. The other day we let him play with the boy scout popcorn tins. He started out just using it as a drum, but then he figured out something much more fun!


But we do need to watch him, because I turned my attention away for just a few seconds, only to find him slapping my lap - and found him standing on the tin!

Say what I say!

So today was the first day that we woke up to the same amount or less chicken pox. I'm not sure how it is that we are supposed to determine that the "last" pox has scabbed over (so that he's not contagious anymore) - but at least he seems to have turned the corner. He also is not sleeping as much (last 3-4 days he's been taking 2-2hr naps), but the downside of this is that it took me an hour to get him to take each of his 1.5 hr naps today. Dad is much better at getting him to eat solids and also finding that Max finds funny today (repeating what he says). Perhaps I should be irked somewhat considering I did NOT get a lot of laughs or even smiles today, but I'm just glad he's getting better & someone made him smile & laugh today!

It's chicken pox

Yup, the pediatrician says it's a classic case of chicken pox! Poor Max. Luckily for him, the pediatrician said that by now he's usually been miserably itchy by now. So the chicken pox vaccine is given at 12 months old usually - so on the plus side, guess this means 1 less shot later. On the bad side, we had dinner with friends + their kids on Tuesday and he also went to day care all last week - so I would be amazed if all the day care kids escape it. I already let everyone know to be on the look out, and hopefully Max won't get much fussier than he is. I feel bad that this past week we let him cry it out - apparently he was just feeling under the weather. Poor kid, I thought he had a pimple! Guess I just had it in my mind that he wasn't going to get chicken pox ever!

Something tells me this is not just something he ate!

 

We're heading to the pediatricians office this afternoon. Raleigh Childred & Adolescent Medicine is definitely a convenient pediatrician for us - weekend & evening hours have come in quite handy (they don't charge the urgent care co-pay like some offices). We're still getting to know all the doctors - the one that told us our 4 month old should be able to sleep 10-12 hours a night was not our most favorite, but we've been happy with all the rest. Max seems a little more sleepy/fussy at night than normal and was a bit warm last night, but other than that seems pretty normal...but if it's the chicken pox, then guess the worst is still the come with the itchiness! Wish us luck!

Go to sleep!

For the last few days, Max has NOT wanted to go to sleep. We've tried everything - putting him to be earlier, later, feeding more, nursing him to sleep, rocking, co-sleeping, let him cry a bit, etc. He's been waking at night and early in the morning. He's also gnawing on everything, so I'm sure teething is partly to blame. I think I saw somewhere that with his added mobility the separation anxiety is kicking in & he doesn't want to sleep when he could be crawling around. So, all that nice routine of rocking him til he was sleepy & putting him down for him to go to sleep by himself is all lost for now. :-) hopefully this will pass soon...

CC's birthday

So here are the girls at CC's birthday dinner!

 

And, when you ask for a small glass of water - shot glasses work I guess!

 

Max says, "Auntie Patti, gee you are funny!"

 

And I checked - the last non-Max picture of Wei Yan and I was Sept 2007. That's not counting the pic of just wei yan & I at the hospital...but at least it wasn't the Hong Kong trip (which would be closer to 2 years ago). Someone keep reminding us to take photos of just Wei Yan & I....

 

Family Portrait

 

So, when picking the picture, guess once you have a kid, you go for the shot where your kid looks the best.

Spiderman, Spiderman

So Saturday's crawling with his right foot & left knee that put him crawling in circles was a bit concerning, but then Monday he woke up & we figured out what that was all about!

Pulling Up

So Max has become pretty good with crawling, going from crawling to sitting up & vice versa, pulling up & sitting down from standing (i.e., plopping down on his behind) and walking with assistance. He hasn't done a whole lot of cruising on the furniture yet, but he has bumped his head a few times and also cried because falling scared him. We've also noticed that the cry that was reserved for him hurting (foot caught on something) is now used when Max is unhappy with being put down or just not happy with what he's doing (if you put him down on his back & or he just didn't want to be put down at all). So I guess the separation anxiety is starting. Hopefully it won't be too bad, but it does actually feel kind of nice. Other folks we know have babies that would cry at several weeks old because they had stepped out of the room or let someone else hold him. Max hasn't seemed to care up until now.

cracker?

 

This evening I gave Max a baby cracker. I started with cubes of avacado - max got a few of them (they were really small) in his hand, but he didn't put them in his mouth. I tried to put a few in his mouth, but kept hitting his gums & he'd wince (still no teeth). Figured we'd see what happened with the cracker. He played with it for a while & mouthed it a bit, but not much. He got a taste of the avacado & seemed to want more, so I mashed up a 1/4 of an avacado and he polished that off. Guess it's true. Some days he loves it, others he's not too crazy about it. I started out just trying to give him stuff to keep him occupied while we ate dinner...ended up being a whole meal. 1st day for 3 meals for Max today.

by the way, seems like starting solids is yet another topic where folks all have different strong opinions. i seem to be going through different extremes, but I keep remembering that in the end it will probably not really matter all that much. our family does not have food allergies (one cousin is allergic to strawberries), so we're definitely not in the high risk catagory. and my mother-in-law already tried to give Max some coconut asian dessert thing with a chopstick (who the heck knows what was in that thing) and i gave him a tiny bit of my corned beef hash which he promptly spit up onto me (shows me!). i have a friend who was too poor to afford baby food when her youngest was starting solids, so she ended up just giving her kid food she had already chewed in the beginning. and just a generation or 2 ago, folks gave babies corn syrup & water...who ever heard of formula. so i'm going to try to enjoy max staring solids as much as possible instead of worrying & fretting.

Mama!

so Max hasn't really much in terms of babbling...so I think my hopes of him saying mama soon are dimming, but at least he thinks it's funny.

spit!

So, I know it's been a while. We took this video of Max almost 3 weeks ago, and he's still at it. In the baby world, that's pretty darn long. Tonight he decided to do this with a full mouth of spit & right in my face. Still funny, we have no idea why he does it yet (what does that mean???)

Gasp!

So yesterday afternoon I spent pretty much in bed. Throat hurt & my brain was a fog. Today the March of Dimes 5K was moved to Sunday instead of Saturday, so this afternoon was a blur of moving volunteer efforts 24 hours. So much for getting work done or leaving early to finish purchasing the rest of the decorations for my friends wedding. I still have not decided if I should try to bring Max or I'm pumping for the next (now 2 days) - with all day tomorrow wedding stuff and sunday's race. Ok to the purchase stuff before the rehearsal dinner....

Oh, if anyone can make it on Sunday - http://www.run4babies.org/
We could use some folks at 10:30am to help clean up. Since I will be there at 6am, I would LOVE to see some folks who are ready to get me out of there as soon as possible!

crawling

Last Sunday, we were on a web call with my parents and brother in L.A., and Max decided to make forward progress. This week he crawled all over and we finally got a short video. Time to start baby proofing!

LOL

We live for this little laugh!

Grandma

 

Was looking around for pictures today. Found this picture of my grandmother and I at my cousin's wedding. She's was doing really well back then. I think this was the time that Auntie Yae had trouble figuring out who I was and Grandma was telling her. Brought a smile to my face. You'll be missed Grandma!

So Tired

I put Max in his little jumper thing today while I went to clean up the kitchen a little. He was playing and having a good ole time as usual. Then, he kinda went silent. I looked over and this is what I saw:

Never seen him fall asleep in that thing before. He would usually get sleepy and start whining. I guess he was having too much fun and didn't want to get up.

Other updates

 

We are getting tons of giggles and chuckles from Max these days, so I guess we take the good with the bad. The last 2.5 weeks have been brutal! Just a few days ago I finally caught up on sleep. I was beginning to be afraid that there was something wrong, cuz the usual "good night's sleep" (for a parent of a 6 month old) just wasn't doing it, and I found myself just exhausted. Max started off not sleeping well right before we left for California. Then while we were in Califoria and even after we got back, he was up crying every 1-3 hours with a few 4-5 hr stretches a few nights in there. Sometimes he just needed his paci, and other nights it was rocking, nursing and getting him to go back to sleep. Could have been teething (no teeth yet, but I've heard that they can just be moving around under there & causing pain), growth spurt, change of timezones, change of routine, stresss from me or changing sleep patterns going along with all the new stuff he's learned (sitting up, push ups, creeping, etc.) One night back here, we tried to give him a bottle after I fed him at 7 then 8:30, then around 9:30/10 - and he took a whole 4.5 oz bottle (which is the size of his normal feedings!) I started on fenugreek and finally got one really good night of sleep (Max had an 11 hr stretch after his 1st day back at day care) - so guess my supply is finally ramping up. But I'll catch him wincing every once in a while when i'm feeling his gums....so I agree with my friend, it's probably a little of everything. So we're back into the normal routine...and things are getting better.

Max is also creeping along, so I think crawling is coming soon.

More please?

 

Food!

 

 

 

On Max's 6 month birthday, Max was at home with Grandma. Wei Yan and I came home for lunch and gave Max his 1st meal - some organic rice cereal. We made is super soup-ey, but no need to be afraid....he gulped it all down. A few days later we tried some squash, but had to stop after 2 days since it gave max a little diahhrea. Back to the cereal, but he was definitely ready for it. Even after giving him a big bottle, he still seems to eat as much as we'll give him (but we're gradually increasing the amount).

New car seat

Max fell asleep today on the way to the loft, then on the way to
maki's, and then on the way to obon. After a 1hr 45 min nap @ maki's
house, too! I tried to take a pic of him sleeping, but he woke up just
as I was taking this pic. So much for the peaceful zonked out baby pic
I was trying to take! He must be my kid - so grumpy when he wakes up!

I was thinking the new car seat wasn't that comfy since his head is
always falling forward, but guess all the naps have proved that theory
wrong!

Look Ma! Only 1 hand

So we made it out to LA okay - no issues at all. He slept for the entirety of the 1st flight and then 3 hrs on the 2nd flight. He was getting a bit bored of me and the neighboring passengers were uninterested in smiling, so he did okay, although I was nervous he would be completely bored of me after an hour & a half.

Have spent some time with family. Grandmother's funeral was Wednesday and saw a bunch of relatives I haven't seen in a long time, but our family is pretty cool in that they do get together. We had a bunch of family who drove down from Sacramento ~ so it was good to see them - since I've lived in NC for 13 yrs, it's probably been a good 20 since I've seen some of them.

Will have to wait to post more pics til I get home - nothing at my mom's place recognizes the new Sd card we bought. Oh, Max is rocking back & forth on all fours and doing lots of "planks" as well as moving around quite a bit. He also fell off of my bed one night - so he's been in the pack n' play since then. Luckily,he got wedged half way down and then fell the last few inches from a dead stop - so he only cried cuz he woke up, not cuz he had fallen far.

iphone

go it! finally! downloaded a bunch of free apps to check out...hopefully all went well with the sync since i'll be without the laptop for a week. went for the white. gotta find a case, headset, and what else??

baby yoga

so i don't know if these are pilates or yoga (done more pilates than yoga). So we've got swan:

 

downward dog (yes, i know his eczema is bad...he's just starting to itch it):

 

and plank:

 

today he rocked back & forth if we put him on his hands and knees, but he doesn't go anywhere. He does a lot of the plank with a knee down....so we'll see. i'm hoping he doesn't crawl for the first time while we are in cali and wei yan is here for the week.

i guess he likes his jumper

 

we've been looking for the baby einstein jumper that bounces much better than this one, but Max really is quite entertained by this thing. of course i took out half the toys and only put batteries in one of the toys....sheesh, and they wonder why kids have this "add thing".

preparations

so i will be traveling with max on monday am to california. my grandmother passed away this week, and we'll be going to her funeral and spending time with family. max is visiting grandparents in greenville for a little bit, and I'll be trying to get a few things done before our trip. except, I got a little work done and a few loose ends, but nothing major in preparation for our trip. i tried to get some music on my shuffle that work gave me & i have yet to set up. vista stinks. itunes ended up freezing and after trying to figure out how to get only songs i want (wei yan and i have different taste in some music), i ended up giving up after some click unchecked all the boxes I had selected and much cursing of my laptop ensued. sometimes i can't believe i do "computer stuff" for a living. at least i am NOT a windows programmer.

Max's first trip to the pool

We finally made it to the pool. Max was a little on the tired side when we finally made it out, so he just spent most of the time looking around and not reacting much - or maybe he was just amazed. I know some people now recommend no pool time for kids because of ear infections, but we never had any growing up and I doubt we'll make it out that often (we've 2x in 4 years beforenow).

More crazy hair

 

yeah, i know it's time for another haircut...one of these days.

Viva Las Vegas

 

so this was a big hit with the day care folks. poor max. one day he's just gonna look at us and shake his head. my excuse here is that there is NOT a lot to do with an infant in vegas. the day care folks started it with the whole elvis nickname. by the way, one of the bulletin boards at his day care awarded Max with the MVH award (most valuable hair). ;-)

iphone in raleigh durham NC

So yesterday (friday) at lunch, we went to the apple store at Southpoint mall in durham, nc. The line was around the building (all the way around to the back of the building). Our friend talked to the guy at the front of the line. He had been in line since 7am (stores opened at 8am) and it took him 5 hours to get to the front of the line. We gave up and ate lunch at the food court. Five guys have good burgers (messy, but good).

Today, we headed to the mall again. We get there...the line looks like it's coming from Barnes and Noble. No such luck, it's just there is no shade next to the apple store, so folks lined up a few feet away next to the Barnes and Noble. An apple emplyee was out in the line. He told us that the line would take an estimated 3-4 hrs (ok, and yesterday's line was well over twice as long physically and buggy issues as well). He also told us that existing attm customers with discounts (like our company discount) can only activate the iphone at an ATTM store (and let us know that stores in the area were out of the iphone). He mentioned we could call ATTM and have our discount removed (takes 48 hrs) and then come back. So, I'm not as bummed as I was yesterday (I really was thinking I could get one...they mentioned a line but said that they would not be running out over the phone). When we were leaving the mall after a few errands, the apple store employees were handing out waters and ice cream sandwiches to folks in the store.

So maybe in another few days I'll get it when one of the attm stores gets more iphones in.

A few family photos

 

Grandma and Max - had to check his clothes for lipstick stains before they went into the wash...

 

Uncle Ryan and Grandpa with Max

Our Vegas/LA trip photos

So I didn't take a whole lot of pictures. A few places we had SLR photographers, so rather than try to take a million pics, I hope we get copies from folks, but here they are.



Us in front of the only sign we could find for WSOP. They would not let us walk through the gaming Expo while we were there since Max was with us :-( Was looking forward to at least a few cool giveaways, but oh well, guess we had enough stuff to travel with.



Max with Auntie Maki. Max showed Auntie Maki how he could roll over and smile.



4th of July

Paci

 

So we put Max in the crib provided by the Rio hotel in Vegas a lot when we were getting ready. The thing looked like a cage (shiny chrome bars) but seemed safe, which is more than I can say for other cribs provided by hotels that I've read about on other peoples' blogs. We came back from getting ready in the bathroom to discover that Max had spit up and then put his head down on top of his paci....resulting in this! I took a few pictures before remembering how my brother had licked a suction cup, stuck it to his head and then been horrified to discover a round hickie on his forehead when he took it off. This memory prompted me to start urgently telling Wei Yan, "Get it off! Get it off! Hurry up & get it off! He's gonna get a hickie on his chin!!!" Just a small read circle that went away promptly...

Bridesmaid dress shops?

Posting this for a friend of mine. Any recommendations of places in LA that have a lot of bridesmaid's dresses in stock to look at? A friend is in LA until Wednesday and wants to see colors of dresses since online shopping is a bit difficult without being able to see dresses in person.