Baby Wong (Caleb Wong & Caris Wong & Chloe Wong)
The adventures of Caleb, Caris, Chloe & Family
I was looking at my Facebook profile picture, and I’m noticing how small he was in that picture. He was walking at that time, but he’s small. And not only is he small, he’s got no hair too (not that he has a lot of hair now). He still looks the same though.
We’re out in Louisville, KY! This was Caris’ first plane flight ever. She was great on the flight here. She fed at take off. And she fell asleep. And she slept. And slept and slept some more. She finally woke up when we landed almost 4 hours later.
Caleb was good on the plane as well. He didn’t sleep the 4 hours like Caris did. But he was good nonetheless. He only got his 25 minute nap, but he tried to push on. He had good company with him though to keep him entertained.
He had is pacifier
He had Leakless
He had Chick Hicks
And he had his media player with Cars on it.
We got our rental car. A Ford Edge. Not a bad car. Caris seems to like it as well. At least in the front seat.
We originally booked a suite from the Galt House since they had special convention rates while we were here. After traveling with Caleb, we found that staying in a suite is so much better than staying in the same room. So the suite would have been nice, except we didn’t get one. We got an apartment instead. You read that correctly. An apartment. So initially when Yvonne told me they upgraded us for free to an apartment, I was thinking maybe we get an extra room or something. Something just a little bigger. Oh gosh. Check out this video.
The place has 2 furnished bedrooms, and plus another unfurnished room and “work†room. That’s 4 rooms we have available to us. We stuck Caleb in one room with no windows. It looks like a closet. And could very well be used for a closet. But it works well nonetheless. He sleeps well in there.
Caris on the other hand isn’t so lucky. We could have stuffed her in the other room, but we only brought one monitor with us. We were planning on staying in the same room with her so we didn’t think we’d need a monitor for her. So no separate room for Caris. Yup. It’s not Caleb who gets stuck in the closet, but Caris. It is a big closet by the way.
We have beautiful view of the waterfront. Caleb likes the boats. He greatly enjoys looking out there even when his diapers are barely hanging on.
General Council (C&MA convention) has been going well. It just started officially tonight. We’re all still on LA time zone so that means waking up at 10/11 AM and going to sleep at 11PM. It works out fine until we’re looking for places open for dinner at 10PM. Or when I have my 7AM Friday morning breakfast. Or even tomorrow’s 9AM session. Not going to be easy getting up in the morning.
But it might be easy since Caris’ hasn’t been sleeping that well since we got here. She’s constantly waking up in the middle of the night and taking short naps during the day. She must know something isn’t right. And the crib we got is so dang low it’s hard to put her down in. Every time we lean over to put her down she’s up wide awake! So we did the only thing we thought we could do. Go to Walmart and buy her a bassinet and sleep nest. It seems to work better, but she’s still not sleeping well. I think tonight has been her best night of sleeping so far, but it’s only been 2 hours. Keep sleeping, girl!
We did some vacation stuff. We went to the zoo today. Caleb liked it a lot. It definitely seems more entertaining and kid friendly than the LA zoo. It’s got a water park where Caleb ran around and I got soaked.
It’s got monkeys (or gorillas if you want to call them that) who pose at you.
And it’s got none of the exotic animals kids don’t care about. It’s perfect.
We got Caleb a backpack before the trip so he can help carry stuff. It’s cute. He walked funny without it before. It just gets even more funny.
So, we’re better today. I was a bit worried about Caris last night. She was hungry, but cried every time she tried to latch on to nurse. Her mouth was hurting from all her sores. She kept crying throughout the night, but Chris did a great job calming her down. When morning came, Caris finally had a pretty good feeding… then a wet diaper. Yay! She fed again 2 hours later before she saw the doctor. She has at least 10 sores on her throat and heaps of them on her tongue. Poor Caris.
(Chris finally getting a chance to sleep.)
I saw the doctor today too. It’s my first time seeing a doctor for “sick†reasons in years. I’ve never met my doctor on this insurance, and I need updated lab work done anyways. She looked in my mouth and was amazed at how many sores I had. She noted that I must have at least 50-60 lesions in my mouth and throat. This definitely hurts. So far, cheese and almond milk are friends of this lesion-ridden mouth. Hee-hee, I have lesions elsewhere too…. palms of my hands, the soles of my feet, etc.
(OK, so we couldn’t really get a good picture of these strange sores. Oh well. This is really not a very flattering picture. Another oh well.)
Caleb’s doing better. Still has mouth/throat sores, but able to eat & drink. But, big brother is jealous of baby sister Caris getting so much attention now. He does not like watching mommy try to nurse her so frequently…. or daddy holding her so much trying to soothe her. *sigh*
So far, Chris is doing well. Praise God. Pray for him to figure out how to get all his work done in a timely manner. He had to stay home to help me today. We leave for General Council in 5 days. Chris has deadlines at work he has to complete before we go. Hard for him to keep up with work when he has to take care of the 3 of us.
Thanks for praying for us!
We really need to take more pictures of Caris. She doesn’t do as much as Caleb yet, so it’s easy to overlook the picture-taking thing… especially when you have a son like Caleb who demands all your attention.
And, yes, our daughter is drooling heaps. Not quite as bad as her brother yet. It started about a month ago. At a little over 3 months, Caleb already had his 1st 2 bottom teeth. It looks like Caris isn’t too far behind.
So, my hubby went all out for mother’s day this year. If you know Chris, he’s totally not a planner, but he pulled off planning mother’s day stuff for me this year. 🙂
Chris worked at night for several days before mother’s day. Then, he took Friday off. I felt really tired Friday morning, so he took Caleb to his music class. I stayed home with Caris. Of course, Caris decided to not nap very long, but I still rested. Then, in the afternoon, Chris sent me to a fancy spa for a 2 hour massage. This place was nice… there was a quiet room with short Japanese tables, cushions, & tea. Then there was this strange yellow clay room… and another room where you lay on rocks while you bask in this extraordinary heat. They had another quiet room with sofas and comfy chairs… and sleep beds… with aromatherapy and cookies (yum!). There was a wet sauna room and a dry sauna room… and a jacuzzi. I got a 2 hour massage, but they also have special rooms for a milk bath and a mud bath. Interesting. So before I left the house for this spa place, Chris tells me he doesn’t want me back before 5PM. I laughed because I didn’t know this place had so much stuff there. And I’ve forgotten how much I cherish my quiet, alone time. As a mom, you rarely have time to yourself. Even with that truth, it can be such a lonely role. Seems ironic to say that you can be lonely when you’re never by yourself when you have kids, but it’s true. So when I got there, I just relaxed and spent some nice time with God. Before I knew it, it was already 5PM and my breasts were telling that they were way overdue for feeding Caris. So, i had to quickly take a shower and get home. I didn’t even use their shower “pretty me up†amenities. They have face toner, a flat iron, blow dryer, sterilized hair brushes, etc. Fancy, I tell you.
When I got home, Chris had cut me roses from our backyard (he knows I hate the idea of wasting money on buying flowers). He had this cute sign saying, “I love you, Mommy,†and there were pics of my kids holding the sign. Very cute. Thanks, hubby! I love you!!!
OK, so I just read Chris’ post on closet dwelling. That post came about from a conversation I had with him earlier. I was the one wondering whether or not our closet in Louisville will be big/deep enough to hold a crib.
There’s some background to this thinking. Let me share.
For our anniversary, I took Chris (and Caleb) for a 1-night stay at Paradise Pier Hotel at Disneyland. We had annual passes to Disneyland and they were about to expire, and we had decided to not renew them. So, I thought this would be a perfect little anniversary gift. Plus, they had just re-opened “It’s a Small World†in Disneyland. I really did consider a suite, but it was a whole lot more money than I was willing to spend. Sorry Chris. So, we were in a regular hotel room (meaning we had no extra room for Caleb). We went on a Sunday night. We decided not to go early in the day since there’s church in the morning. We didn’t want to miss service. But we ended up not getting to the hotel until 4PM or so since some friends decided to take Chris out to a hotdog place in west LA for his birthday (which had been a week or so before this particular Sunday). So, by the time we checked in, it was already getting late. Chris makes a decision to keep Caleb up past his normal bedtime so that we can go to Disneyland and see It’s a Small World. It’s busy there that day. Some 1000+ member chorus was there with John Stamos narrating the Christmas story. It’s a Small World is really busy. We ended up not going on the ride. Caleb didn’t do so well staying up late. We missed dinner in order to try to get to the ride. Big mistake. By the time we got back to the hotel and got fussy, overtired Caleb down to sleep, most restaurants were closed. Chris walks to the Rainforest Cafe to get us food at 10PM. he gets back. Oh where are we to eat? Most normal people would eat in their hotel room, right? Not us. Not when we have our light sleeper son in the crib next to our dresser. No way are we waking him up. Now, we didn’t just forget that we had a light sleeper son. We did try to plan this out. There was this huge closet in the room. But not huge enough. We almost put Caleb in the closet, but we couldn’t since the crib didn’t fit. So our boy is in our room. No lights, no TV, no eating dinner in the room. Argh. So, what do we do with our Rainforest Cafe to-go anniversary dinner? What any normal married couple would do…. We ate it sitting on the floor outside our hotel room. Yup.
The positive of all this is that Caleb slept until 7AM or so the next day without waking. Yay. And, the hotel staff actually surprised us by decorating our bed for our anniversary.
The city of Monrovia (the city right next to us) has this free trolley that goes through its Old Town district. Caleb (and Caris) got their first trolley ride.
I parked, and we walked to the trolley stop. There we waited.
And waited…
And waited…
Oh, and waited…
The trolley is supposed to come about every 15 minutes. When it finally came (30+ minutes later), we found out that only 1 trolley was running for that afternoon. Caleb was a trooper with all that waiting. I pointed out every bus, van, & construction vehicle on the road. We watched birds and airplanes. We watched ants march underneath the bus bench. Oh, and Caris was a trooper too. She slept the whole time on me in the baby carrier.
Caleb loved the trolley ride. He pointed at things and yelled out their names. He impressed the trolley driver with his vocabulary. I was impressed with the trolley driver for understanding Caleb.
OK, so we’re still not doing a great job of taking enough pictures of Caris, but here are some. Most of them happen to be when she’s sleeping.
Here are a few awake pics:
For those of you have been to my house, you may have noticed the ugly plants leading to our front door. And if ever get a chance to be around long enough with me around that front door, you’ll know that I HATE those plants along side the path. I HATE THEM SO MUCH. They’re ugly. The leaves on the plants poke you, even through your pants. They overgrow the path far too often. I’m came to a point where I just cut off all the leaves just so they stay out of the path and out of my legs.
Whoever put these plants in made a bad decision. Or maybe he/she/they didn’t realize how ugly these plants would be. Or how pokey they are. Or maybe they just had bad taste. Whatever the reason, those plants suck.
Caleb likes to run around. But he still doesn’t have the best of balance yet. He’s still falling constantly when he’s running. He was playing around outside this afternoon with mommy, when he came running up to her while she was putting the trash cans away.
He fell. He fell into the plant.
Those are the spikes sticking out his skin.
Caleb has always liked electronics. He’s always liked cell phones. As he grows bigger and older, he’s finding out how to use things properly. Things like a cell phone. He still doesn’t talk where people can understand. But at least he’s trying to have a conversation.