Baby Wong (Caleb Wong & Caris Wong & Chloe Wong)
The adventures of Caleb, Caris, Chloe & Family
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.
After rice cereal, Caris had avocado.
… and plum… besides many other foods since then.
Not the cleanest eater, but then… even Caleb isn’t always the cleanest eater.
Caris had her first solids on Monday. Rice cereal… yum, yum.
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.
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.
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.
Caleb decided that he now likes spaghetti.
Daddy caught this cute video of Caleb playing with his car/bead toy.
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.
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:
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!)
Caleb likes to make himself comfy in his stroller.
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!
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.”
I’m sure there’s lots more Caleb is learning to do, but this post is getting long. So, bye for now!
Chris & I have been reviewing our annual budget in light of new upcoming expenses that we know of. Since getting married, we have always been big on making sure we go out on dates.
In our budget, we had the following line item:
25 dates (x $50 each) = $1250
This made us both laugh. Since having Caleb we’ve been on exactly 1 date…. for our anniversary. We’ve tried to go out lots, but on our own, we’ve been out exactly once. Well, I guess we still “date.” It’s just different now. There are 3 of us now on our dates.
Here we are at our date at the Arroyo Chop House.
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?
Caleb is looking more and more like his daddy. Both of them are so adorable!
Caleb still loves his music class, but now he’s more active and can stand and hit the drums hard.
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!!!
Pupu (mommy’s mom) visited Caleb at the end of March. I had so much fun with her.
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.
Caleb is usually much better when we go out to eat now. He loves menus… maybe more than mommy and daddy.
Caleb’s 1st time on a playground swing.
[Caleb just celebrated his 8 month birthday on Wednesday, 3/27. Happy birthday, baby boy!]
I’ve got 8 teeth now. Can you see them when I smile big?
I can brush my own teeth now… kind of.
I’ve really excelled in my music class. This is how we play those jingle bell things.
I’m getting faster, but I still crawl like I’m a soldier.
I like to pull myself up on anything I can.
I’m fine tuning my pincer grasp. I’ve gotten much better at eating cheerios, except for those few slippery ones that just don’t want to stay in my mouth.
I’ve learned some new tricks along the way.
I’ve even learned how to shake my head no.
[We love you so much, baby Caleb! It’s so fun watching you learn new things.]
The video speaks for itself.
Self-feeding is messy.
Yvonne had posted earlier that Caleb was popping out teeth 3-6 on his top. After that Yvonne told me that teeth number 7 and 8, the next 2 on the bottom don’t usually come out until 15-21 months. That’s when the molars and canines come out around the same time too. So we’re thinking another 5 months or so of good non-teething for our son.
So you know those lower teeth that aren’t suppose to show up until 15 months? Well they’re here. And yes. That’s 6 teeth coming out at one time. From 2 teeth to 8 teeth in 2 weeks. No wonder he’s drooling so much.
So besides the teething, Caleb is also sick (as is the rest of the family). He’s been sick since Wednesday. He’s got a cold and can’t breathe through his nose well. He’s been eating much less than he normally does since he’s been sick.
Not only is he teething and sick, but he’s also constipated. Last night before we put our son to bed, we took his temperature. As the thermometer was up his butt, Yvonne could feel the poop right on the edge. So we helped him along. Helped him along to about 7 inches of poop coming out. Now for some of you, 7 inches of poop may not seem like much. But you have to realize that my son is only 28 inches long. That’s 1/4 his length. Imagine Shaq dropping a 2 foot deuce.
Anything else besides teething, illness and constipation? Yup! He’s just started to crawl as well. Well he’s not really crawling in your normal baby sense. But he definitely scoots across the ground.
So what does this all add up to? Well, Caleb since the beginning of the year has been sleeping extremely well for night time and for nap times as well. It’s quite an amazing turn around that he’s had since his non-sleeping days, which lasted for his first 6 months.
Since Wednesday, his sleeping has been pretty bad. It might be just the sickness messing with his sleep, but it could be and can be everything else that’s going on. He’s slept some nights waking up only twice, and then some nights waking up every hour. His naps have gone back to 30 minutes, rather than the 2 hours he had been getting consistently the previous month.
We know Caleb is going through a lot of stuff, but he needs sleep. He gets sleep, then mommy and daddy get sleep. If he doesn’t sleep, mommy doesn’t sleep and that doesn’t help anyone.
Please pray that Caleb will get healthy soon and return to his good sleeping patterns. Please pray that these short naps don’t become a habit, and he’ll return to his long napping again.