Tip of the Day

This tip is for free.  Wash your rice.

Yesterday, Yvonne started to cook some rice in our rice cooker.  She dumped a few cups of rice into the rice cooker, but changed her mind and decided to make noodles instead for the kids.  She removed the rice from the rice cooker.  She saw there was some “grains” leftover from the rice, but decided not to clean it since they were just “grains.”

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I opened up the rice cooker this morning to find the “grains” in there. Friends and family, those “grains” you see there are not grains. They are tiny bugs.  You can see them crawling around in the video below.

To the people who told me before that you don’t need to wash the rice before you cook it:  I’m never ever eating your rice again.

Baby Chloe’s First Meal Out

We took my mom to Old Spaghetti Factory last night to celebrate Grandparent’s Day. 

Chloe enjoyed her first dining out experience by sleeping in her car seat… the whole time!  I think we may finally have a car seat baby.  Is this what babies do if they like the car seat?  Hope it stays this way.  It makes it so much easier to travel in the car when our baby is happy in the car seat.

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Caris & Solid Food

Caris had her first solids on Monday.  Rice cereal… yum, yum.

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Here’s a video of this fun feeding adventure.  Yes, that’s Caleb in the background eating his breakfast.  Caleb’s a little jealous that his baby sister is getting so much feeding attention. 

 

Oh, and Caris had her first sippy cup on Thursday.  Like Caleb, she has skipped the use of bottles almost completely.  That’s our friend Camille in the first picture.

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Caleb Etc.

Whee.  Caleb loves slides.  This would make pupu nervous.  Sorry, pupu… this mommy lets her son go down big slides by himself all the time.

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Caleb eating his first sandwich.  Well, kind of.  We’ve offered sandwiches before, but this is the first time he ate it as a sandwich (versus taking it apart).  He even ate the dairy-free soy cheese and veganaise that I was trying out.

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Caleb decided that he now likes spaghetti. 

 

Daddy caught this cute video of Caleb playing with his car/bead toy.

Food Allergies

Little Caleb has had multiple sudden reactions to food he’s eaten.  We finally figured out what he’s allergic to… MILK!  oh my.  I love milk.  I love ice cream.  I love yogurt.  Caleb can’t have any, for now at least.  His first reaction at the end of March was to Beechnut rice cereal.  We knew he wasn’t allergic to rice since he’s had it before from another brand.  But this rice cereal has “whey” in it… a milk product.  Then at the beginning of May, Caleb had banana yogurt.  He’s had teaspoons of yogurt in the past, but this time, he ate a whole cup of it. 

We still weren’t completely convinced.  Maybe it was some other ingredient?  We offered Caleb some cottage cheese with mango a couple weeks ago.  He got hives all over his face and neck.  Poor Caleb! 

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Chris tried this fish dish (the fish was poaches in milk, but that was it).  He turned red around his mouth.  This Monday, I fed him a small piece of whole-grain chip.  I noticed that familiar itchy redness start around his mouth too.  The chips were sour cream and chives.  No more milk products for you, baby boy.

 

So, Caleb had blood drawn 3 weeks ago for the pediatric allergist.  We got the results yesterday.  Caleb’s allergic to milk, casein, egg whites, peanuts, and oats.  Well, all of them are borderline allergies on his labwork, and may not be true allergies.  But, for now, the allergist says no milk or eggs until Caleb’s at least 2 (after he gets his blood tests repeated).  And no nuts at all including peanut butter until he’s at least 3 (if his blood test then is clear).  Caleb can have oats in moderation since he doesn’t seem to have had any reactions to his oatmeal. 

And, Caleb showed a slight increase in his IgE’s to cat dander.  Oh no!!!  It’s not very high.  But, the doctor warned that Caleb may develop a worse allergy to cats… or it just might disappear as he gets older.

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11 Months Old

Caleb turned 11 months old on Tuesday.  We can’t believe Caleb’s almost one year old!

Over a week ago (last Thursday), Caleb took his first steps.  Well, he’s taken 1 or 2 steps on his own before this… but on Thursday, he walked to me in 5-6 steps.  He tried walking again today outside.  He still prefers to hold onto somebody’s hand or another object.  He also favors clinging to mommy’s legs as she walks around trying to get stuff done, making her do what she now calls the Caleb shuffle.

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He’s been trying to feed himself more often.  Most of the time, he won’t eat unless he gets to try himself.  Yes, our son is determined.  And, yes, Caleb is messy.

Yummy hummus & a giant pretzel stick:

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Caleb’s spinach fun:

 

Also, our son has started throwing infant tantrums.  I knew that we could expect them in the toddler years… close to 2 years old or so.  Did you know there are a few babies who throw tantrums?  Ours is one of them.  It used to be where we would take something away and he would just scream or cry.  A few days ago, I closed his bedroom door since it was time for him to get ready for his nap.  Caleb wanted to go out to keep playing (as always).  He took one look at the door, one look at me, and then flung himself on the floor on his back and starting hitting the floor with his legs/feet and arms/hands while screaming and crying.  Quite a sight. 

Here’s a short video of Caleb with Ellie’s (our kitty) collar.  He pulled it off her neck.  Each time Chris tries to touch it, Caleb yanks it away from him out of fear that it might get taken away.  This is just Caleb’s infant way of saying, “mine!!!!”  Did I mention we have a strong-willed child?

Also, on occasion, Caleb makes it very known that he doesn’t want to be put in his car seat.  He arches his back, yells/screams/cries… grabs at the mirror, at the window, at mommy’s hair.  This almost always seems to draw a slew of onlookers since Caleb rarely does his protests quietly.  No, Mommy is not abusing this child.  And, yes, Mommy is strict and still makes her child get into the car seat. 

 

Besides the tantrums, Caleb’s learning to do lots of fun stuff too.

Caleb is still a little scared of the vacuum cleaner sound, but he loves to play with the vacuum.  I can’t wait until he can help me clean.  Yay! (I know, I know… please just let me dream!)

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Caleb likes to make himself comfy in his stroller

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Caleb loves to clap.  Here’s a 1-second video of it.  We have another better one that we’ll put up once we download it.

 

Caleb loves to sort things.  Give him measuring cups.  Give him regular plastic cups.  Give him things to put into cups.  Give him rings.  Give him blocks.  Sorting things is fun, fun, fun. 

He even likes to put things where they don’t quite fit or belong.  Caleb, that block doesn’t fit into daddy’s xbox!

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Caleb loves to go through cabinets, especially the ones we’ve chosen to not childlock.  He loves to pull things out of the cabinets/drawers.  And we always find unexpected gifts in cabinets too.  Mommy says to daddy, “Have you seen where Caleb’s green ring is?  He was just playing with it, but it’s missing now.  (10 minutes later) …Oh nevermind, I found it behind the extra diaper wipes, inside the closed cabinet that’s inside his closed bedroom closet.” 

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I’m sure there’s lots more Caleb is learning to do, but this post is getting long.  So, bye for now!

The Bully

You can stereotype Chinese/Asian people all day and all night long.  You can talk about their slanted eyes.  And for the most part (at least the older generation) their short stature.  You can even talk about Chinese people being passive.

That’s fine and all.  But Caleb will have none of that passive side of him.  Oh no.  Yvonne went to a play date this afternoon with Caleb.  This son of ours, as many of you know, is quite active and is strong-willed.  So he’s playing on his ride-on toy.  Another kid 2 and a half years old decides he wants to ride on it.  Well Caleb does not approve of this action.  He crawls around to the back and starts screaming at this child and hitting him.  Not only does this other child not get off, he decides to give Caleb another toy for him to play with.  Well Caleb accepts this toy, only to use it as a weapon and starts hitting him with it.  The rest of the afternoon, he’s eyeing his toy making sure no kid gets on HIS toy.

So that’s the story I was told.

Another funny story:

A couple of weeks ago I was trying to feed Caleb his snack.  I was feeding him avocados which he loves.  But avocados by themselves tend to be pretty thick and require breast milk so Caleb can swallow it better.  Well this day at that time, we were out of pumped breast milk.  So I turn to Yvonne and tell her, "I need you to squeeze some milk in the bowl."

Now stop and imagine this for a little bit…  Imagine me and Yvonne sitting on the ground, Caleb right next to us, and a plastic bowl with avocado in it that’s way too thick.  Maybe just the moms and dads will know about this, but breast milk just doesn’t come out of the boob on command.  It takes the fine skill of a baby’s mouth or a breast pumping machine to get milk out (and the machine doesn’t work that well).  But this boy needs some milk in his avocado.

Although hesitant at first, Yvonne is convinced to do it.  She pulls out her breast and attempts to squeeze some milk in the bowl.  It takes a while to get going, but not too long, a drop of milk comes out.  And then another drop.  And then yet another drop.  She starts feeling the let down coming, and they are no longer drops, but streams of milk coming out of her boob.  She was spraying everywhere.  In the bowl.  On my hand.  I guess it’s hard to aim when you’re laughing so hard.  But we did it.

Caleb ate some avocados.

9 month birthday

ok, ok… so our son is nearing his 10 month birthday and we have yet to blog on his 9 month one.  we’re a little behind with our blogging.  we’re a little behind with everything!

 

At his 9 month checkup, we discovered that our son is no longer this huge baby anymore.  Always in the 90-100th percentile, he is now in the 50-75th percentile in everything.  Hmm, am I starving my baby?  Strange thing is that Chris and I get different measurements than Caleb’s doc.  Our scale told us that he was 22.5 pounds, and we measured him at 29.5 inches.  Oh well.  We know our munchkin is a healthy, active baby.

Length = 28.25  (50 percentile)

Weight = 20 lb, 14.5oz  (60 percentile)

Head Circumference = 45.5 cm  (50-75%)

 

Grandma & grandpa bought Caleb his first ride-on toy.  Caleb loves it!

 

Caleb’s crib now looks like a white prison.  Since he started crawling, we’ve had to remove the bumper from his crib leaving it completely bare.  Good thing, though… cuz Caleb loves to stand and climb.  He climbs onto our bedside tables already.  He pulls out his dresser drawers and tries to climb them.  He pushes boxes and get on top of them to reach things on higher shelves.  Where did he learn to do all this from?

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Caleb is looking more and more like his daddy.   Both of them are so adorable!

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Caleb still loves his music class, but now he’s more active and can stand and hit the drums hard.

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Awh, Caleb had his first (and hopefully) last allergic reaction.  We tried out a new rice cereal, not thinking that there would be any problem.  Within 5 minutes of having it, he started getting unusually cranky and his face turned red.  Then his eyes and face got puffy and itchy (see picture below).  It was pretty scary.  But our newlywed fellowship was there and prayed for him.  He got drastically better within a couple hours without any need for a visit to the ER or for medications.  Praise God!!! 

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Pupu (mommy’s mom) visited Caleb at the end of March.  I had so much fun with her.

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Caleb now occasionally can fall asleep at church for a short morning nap.  This is far better than the hour or more of wailing he used to do when we took him to church.

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Caleb is usually much better when we go out to eat now.  He loves menus… maybe more than mommy and daddy.

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Caleb’s 1st time on a playground swing.

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All Messed Up

[Video updated in last post.  Go watch it]

For those of you who don’t know, we’re in Hawaii now.  Before we came on the trip, we decided that we’re not going to have Caleb on his set sleeping schedule, seeing how it’s 2 hours earlier here, and if we ever want to do anything at night, he has to break his sleep routine.  And I must say it has not been as bad as I expected.  Still it hasn’t been good.

The plane ride was good.  Caleb slept for a little over an hour during the 5+ hour flight.  He played most of the time.  We made sure to bring lots of toys.

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Caleb usually goes to sleep around 6-7pm and wakes up around 6am at home.  So here in Hawaii, that means he wants to sleep at 4-5 and wake up at 4am.  Not so good for him.  Not so good for us.  Since we’re changing his sleeping pattern anyways, we decided to keep him up the first night.  He went to sleep at 8:30pm local time the first night (that’s 10:30pm for him at home).  He was dead tired, and slept pretty well…  He only woke up once, but of course he woke up for good at 4:45am.  That’s a little tad early for us.  Again he slept at 8:30pm tonight. (He just woke up crying now at 10:52pm).  Hopefully he’ll have a good night the rest of the night.  Please God.  We like sleep.  We really do.

Even though Caleb still isn’t sleeping well, he’s trying.  He’s getting sleep wherever he can and without our help.  Much better than we thought he would do.  IMG_0478

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Even when he’s not getting enough sleep, Caleb has been good for much of the last 2 days.  He’s usually terribly grumpy.  But he can just sit in the stroller for long periods and not say much at all.  What a trooper.

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Of course, Caleb’s schedule isn’t the only one that is messed up.  Today we ate lunch at 3pm, not cause we weren’t hungry.  I wanted Hawaiian food.  But I couldn’t find any place that would be satisfactory for me.  What kept us from dying was eating sundaes and fruit and yogurt parfaits and McDs.  And of course our favorite, Peeps.

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We did drove a lot today.  I, of course, was navigating, so that never turns out well, hence the 3pm lunch.  We finally found some authentic Hawaiian food at Wolf Gang Pucks.  Well not so much authentic, but it was still good nonetheless. 

We spent much of the day in Waikiki.  I finally got my Hawaiian food for dinner at 9:30pm.  Yum.

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Other than that, we haven’t done too much.  Our condo is right next to the ocean.  We’re at the non-touristy side of the island.  The view is beautiful.

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Must sleep now.  So tired.  Yawn.

Solid Food = Solid Poop

Caleb has been trying lots of new food the past 3 weeks since he started.  He’s been eating rice cereal, avocado, nectarine, pear, sweet potato and oat cereal (and possibly other stuff).  This "solid" food starts off actually very mushy where it’s in fact mostly just liquid breast milk.  But as he’s been eating more and more, the less mushy it gets, and the more solid it gets.

Last week, we started feeding him solid foods for dinner right before bed as well as in the morning.  Last week we were feeding him sweet potato in the morning and rice cereal in the evening.  Well for those of you who don’t know, those foods can cause constipation.  Fortunately for our son, he didn’t have bad constipation.  He pooped a little on Friday, and didn’t poop again until Monday afternoon, which is a long time for our child, since he’s been pooping regularly a few times a day.  So not having to clean poop on Caleb for weekend was quite nerve wracking for us.  But alas, he finally pooped on Monday with a nice series of long poops to make up for it.

Caleb is struggling to get this new poop out since it’s much thicker than before.  On breast milk alone, he pooped liquid.  Now that he’s on solids, he poops thick like daddy.  Caleb’s poop is even as stinky as daddy’s.  Except daddy’s poop is covered in water, so it doesn’t stink as bad.  Caleb’s poop is out in the open, just like a doggy’s poop after he’s meaty food.  It don’t smell good.

I had an opportunity to see Caleb poop in action this morning.  As I was changing him before his nap, he started releasing a bunch of poop.  Not thinking fast enough, I wasn’t able to get video or pictures of it.  Too bad.  Next time though.