O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

 

Introducing our fake Christmas tree for those years where we just don't have it in us to do the whole live tree deal. I'm giving myself a backup plan to give myself a break from all the holiday stress this year or for future years. This year is one of those since we will be traveling right before the holidays for our friend's wedding (some stress this year, but more just trying not to come home to a decorated dead Christmas tree 3 days before Christmas).


I always have a bit of a sentimental place in my heart for Christmas ornaments. My grandmother and aunts always had lots of handmade ornaments and ornaments with sentimental value on the tree each year while I was growing up. So these first few years might be a bit sparse, but I'm looking forward to building up my collection of memories. :-) Don't get me wrong, we will have some ornaments that don't have sentimental value....cuteness & some fun are always in order.

Bye!

Oh, and today was the first time that Max waved on his own! Wei Yan was leaving after dropping him off at day care, and he waved! Course we've been getting him started and every once in a while he'd continue waving after we let go of his arm, but today was the first time he really waved and we recognized it as such.

Santa

 

Long story short, we found ourselves at U-Mall in Chapel Hill on Black Friday (or as Target calls it "Thanksgiving Friday".) Luckily it was pretty dead except for Southern Season which was busy but not crazy. The mall was so dead in fact, that there was no line for Santa and Max was handed to Santa without him seeing the stranger, so we got a half smile out of him before he turned around to figure out who was holding him!

Thanksgiving with the family

My mom and brother came to visit from California, so they both got to spend time with Max over the long weekend.

 

 

Max's Christmas gift from grandma, complete with the license plate that she gave him on her first visit!

 

And with Uncle Ryan who is passing along his love of superman!

 

Visiting with friends

Holidays this year was a time to catch up with some old friends who were home for the holidays. We got to see a lot of old friends this Thanksgiving weekend.

Wei Yan's high school and college roomate & his family:

 

Max got to visit with one of Wei Yan's high school friend's daughter Sarah:

 

A shot of Max showing off his new habit of laying down when he gets tired but still wants to play:

 

And finally getting a taste of what it will be like growing up with lots of little boys to play with.

 

Silly grin...

 

Our friends gave us this little push toy for Max. He practically picks it up & puts it down in a new direction when he hits a corner & needs to turn, but he enjoys running around with it.

Pic taken: Nov 19th

Baby steps

So yesterday, Max's day care teacher said that Max was standing & picking up his left foot. She said that he's going to start walking really soon. Last night, Max took 2 tiny steps toward Wei Yan. They looked like a little stutter step, but guess it counts. There was forward motion & picking up & putting down of both feet, so we were excited. Then today, another teacher was filling in for his regular teacher and she said he took a step toward the exersaucer! :-) Go little Max!

Stand up

A week and a half ago, Max decided to stand up by himself. Oh my, we are behind on our postings...

9 Months Old

Max turned 9 months old this past week. I thought I'd share some of what he is up to these days:
* His hair pretty much only sticks up only when we give him a bath & got the suds going. Otherwise, it's been months since it's stuck up or even done anything other than lay flat. We miss his "crazy hair"
* Stranger Anxiety - seems to be worse with men than women (all the day care folks are ladies so this makes sense) that he does know. When he's tired it's worse and he gets very clingy with mom & dad when he's cranky. And he's also often scared by loud or sudden noises. He usually warms up to folks after a while, especially if they make silly faces & noises with him.
* No longer likes to shake his head no, instead he seems to be trying to nod "yes" but it looks more like a whole upper body dance move. All just for fun, no connection to the meaning just yet. He will go through a few days at a time where he's practice a new move like touchdown or the sign for more - but again, no connection to the meaning and then they are gone after a few days.
* Scoots around the coffee table and along the couches a little. We noticed he will occasionally crawl on his knees or 1 knee on carpet, but uses the spiderman for speed or on hardwoods/linoleum. Can stand for a good while by himself and even does some squats to everyone's amusement.
* At his 9 month appointment: 18 lbs 14 oz and 28 1/4 inches tall! Time for the new car seat soon! (Ours goes up to 29 inches)

Early voting

So Saturday we tried to go vote. Yes, I said tried. Max fell asleep in the car on the way over to the polling place and when we got in line we were informed that the line was about 1 hr & 45 minutes. After a few hemming & hawing, I decided that 1 hr & 45 min with the baby was not going to happen - and that although I would rather go ahead & vote, missing work on Tuesday & waiting in line without the baby would be a much better wait. All in all, I guess it worked out since I did end up doing research last night & deciding on who to vote for. All but 2 of the candidates I decided to vote for were endorsed by the Indy Weekly, so probably didn't matter all that much, but at least I feel like I did a bit of due diligence.

Last one, I promise!

So I think this might be our favorite Halloween pic. ;-)

 

A few more good halloween pics

 

 

 

Halloween 2008

 

 

 

 

We sent Max to day care this morning with his Elvis costume. His teacher made sure to show him around to everyone since I was picking him up before the costume parade at the end of the day. I picked him up at 3pm, and Max came to work for our annual Halloween celebration. He ended up winning the kids costume contest (Go Max!) Elvis was a big hit! Later that evening, Max was pretty over stimulated with all the activity, so no 2nd nap, but he had some fun crawling around the house in his spiderman costume & saying hello to the neighbors and Auntie CC. There were a LOT of spiderman costumes, but I think the best part was us "awwwing" at some of the cute tricker treaters, they were "awwwing" at Max who kept crawling over to check out our vistors. Well, I'm pooped! Adjusting his costumes last night and finishing carving the pumpkin at 6pm! I must need deadlines, huh?

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!