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...