Month: July 2008

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More about Me before I turn 13 months old

I like to sit on stairs. 

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I still like to eat.  Aren’t I a cutie?

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I love reading, and I love my cat Tommy.

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I still love stacking… only higher now.  And, I like dumping things out for mommy to clean up again.  Sometimes I’ll actually put away my toys myself.

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I love to imitate mommy.  She cleans, I clean (at least I try).

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I have a new pair of shoes.  Well, grandma & grandpa bought them for me over a month ago.  These Stride Rite shoes are more expensive than any shoes mommy has ever bought (except for her rockclimbing or hiking shoes).  I didn’t like these shoes before.  They made me trip and fall.  This is a video of me trying on my 1st pair of shoes again a few days ago.  I like them much better now.

 

I still love music.  I used to dance by bouncing my butt up and down.  Now, I twirl/spin.

 

I’ve got 11 or more teeth now.  I got 3 molars in right after I turned one.  1 more waiting to pop out on the bottom left jaw.  My canines are coming out too.  Soon (maybe), I’ll have 16 teeth.  Almost done with getting all my baby teeth, and I’m not even 13 months old!

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My many positions of sleep

Chronicling the many ways Caleb likes to sleep.

Note that many are viewed through his portable video monitor.  And the camera above his crib doesn’t move.

 

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And, yes… since turning Caleb forward-facing in his carseat after he turned 1, he now likes to fall asleep in the car.  I think he’s fallen asleep more times in the front-facing car seat in the last 2-3 weeks than he did his whole 1st year of life.  No picture yet.

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Clapping Video

Oh, this is a very late post.  Somebody noticed that we never posted a clip of Caleb really clapping.  I forgot.  This is Caleb clapping.  It’s several months old now, but here it is.

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Baby Caleb Sleeps Thru the Night!!!

Yes, you read right.  Caleb slept through the night last night.  It’s a miracle. 

It all started when he turned 1 on 6/27/08.  We were at youth camp.  He slept 9 hours straight, but woke up at 4 something in the morning.  Despite the early morning wake up, we were ecstatic.  Then the next 2-3 weeks, Caleb just teased us… sometimes waking multiple times in the night, sometimes having trouble even falling asleep, sometimes staying awake for long periods of time in the middle of the night… or sometimes only waking up once or doing long stretches of sleep.  Then this past week, he started stretching out his sleep more consistently.  8 hours one night.  9 hours another night.  9.5 hours another night.  But he would struggle with going back to sleep after these long stretches of sleep, keeping mommy up with him from 4 or 5 in the morning. 

Caleb’s been occasionally resisting his morning nap… or taking shorter morning naps.  He started consistently dropping a nap this past week, which may be why he’s sleeping longer at night.  I think Caleb’s in the process of transitioning from 2 to 1 nap. 

Anyhow, 2 nights ago, Caleb slept 10 hours straight, from 8PM to 6AM.  we thought that was a miracle.  Then 1 night ago, he woke up once at 11:50PM.  He had a huge stinky poop.  I changed him, put him down immediately, and back to sleep he went in less than a minute or two!  He slept until 6am-ish.  Then last night… the momentous night that calls for major partying… Caleb slept from 7:35PM to 6:40AM.  11 hours!  He did wake up right before 5AM, but put himself back to sleep after 10 minutes of crying.  This is utterly amazing.  And now for the last 2 days, he’s back to taking his 2 naps again… 3 hours of naps per day, 11 hours at night….  it’s textbook.  My goodness… we have a textbook angel baby. 

For those of you who have not been on this sleep deprivation saga with us, you have no idea what joy it brings us to see our son sleeping.  We know this may not be the end of all the sleepless nights for Caleb.  But pray with us that it is!  Meanwhile, we’re praising God for what He’s given us so far.

 

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Uuh! Caleb’s Favorite Word

Ever since Caleb was born, he has been a loud baby.  He cries loud.  He talks loud.  He’s just loud, period.  He’ll fit in well with the rest of our family.  He must have picked it up from our families, cause Yvonne and I certainly aren’t loud.

Caleb has been talking bunches.  Well he’s always made lots of talking sounds, most of which we can not understand.  But he’s developed a new favorite word/sound.  And it’s not “ma ma” or “da da” which he likes saying both.  It’s a sound that sounds like “uuh!” or something like that.  I don’t know what’s the best way to spell, so maybe you can tell me.  This sound can mostly be interpreted as “give me” or “I want that” or it could even mean “get me out of here” or “help me.”  In this case below, it means “give me”.

Ever since Caleb started walking, he’s pretty much stopped crawling.  And when he’s stopped crawling, he’s pretty much stop climbing.  He even doesn’t like to climb up and down stairs anymore.  He’ll eventually do so, just cause he wants to get somewhere.  But lots of time if mommy or daddy are around, he’ll grunt his “uuh” sound and ask to be picked up.  It’s very cute, but if you’re going to be mobile, be mobile up and down the stairs as well.  2 stairs ain’t going to hurt you, son.  Of course if you have something he really wants, there is no stopping him.  Neither heights, nor depths can stop him from getting what he wants.

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Caleb likes his toys.  He especially likes his new ones.  Take them away when he’s not finished with them yet, and he’ll give you that “uuh” sound.  For his birthday we had bought him a toy lawn mower that blows bubbles.  He likes bubbles.  He likes to walk.  He’s going to love this toy!  Well he did love it.  Problem is is that it didn’t blow bubbles.  If adults couldn’t get this toy to blow bubbles, how does anyone expect a baby to make it blow bubbles?  So we decided to return it and get another lawn mower.  This pops balls.  Again he loves it.  All he needs is something to walk with.

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Please Sleep! Puh-lease!

Another night has gone by.  Another night where our baby boy didn’t want to sleep.  This boy is so teasing us.  Sunday night, he slept from 7:20pm to 4:25am.  Over 9 straight hours.  He quickly goes back to sleep and wakes up at 6:50am.  Easily the best night of sleep he’s ever had.

So what happens then next night?  Of course he doesn’t want to sleep.  Down at 7:30pm.  Up at 10:40pm.   Cry, cry, cry for the next hour until Yvonne comes to get him.  Suck, suck, suck for the next 30 minutes, and then it’s cry, cry, cry until past midnight.  At which point we’ve all but given up.  We don’t want to hold him anymore.  We don’t want to hear him cry anymore.  Let’s just see how he does sleeping between.

Well it’s more like lying between us for 15 minutes.  He’s happily lying there, making his cute baby sounds.  He curls up next to mommy, sticking his feet and butt at daddy.  He rolls around back and forth.  He slaps daddy in the face multiple times with his hands.  And it seems like he might be trying to go to sleep.  That is until he sees the lamp.  That darn lamp.

He tries walking over mommy’s head to get to the lamp, only to be hindered by mommy’s arm.  But Caleb is persistent and keeps going.  When his attempts are finally thwarted, he tries to climb over the pillow off the end of the bed.  The only thing keeping him around was mommy and daddy holding his feet and pulling him back.  After those attempts fail, Caleb decides maybe daddy is the weak link.  And he goes for my lamp.  After numerous attempts to slap away my arm and walk/crawl across me, I decide it’s time to go back to the crib.   It’s only 1am now.  We’ve all got to sleep some time.

I put him back in his crib and plays there for a while.  I’m trying to sleep on the floor, but it’s no use.  I leave and he starts his crying again.  Mommy decides to help him out.  She sleeps in the crib with him, and he finally goes out.  What time he sleeps, we don’t know.  But he’s up again at 5:45am this morning.  It’s much too long a day for us regardless.

This morning we had Yvonne’s OB appointment and first ultrasound for the new baby.  Caleb slept from 8:30 to past 11 this morning while we were gone.  He needs the sleep.  But so do mommy and daddy.

Hopefully this next baby will sleep better.  She better!  Mommy and daddy need it.

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Videos

Here are some recent videos we have taken.

Caleb playing with a cup

Caleb playing with a sprinkler

Caleb playing with his new truck

Caleb playing with his Swiffer

Caleb playing with his balloons

 

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The Fall of Man (or Caleb)

You may have already read the post below about fireworks and how they may disrupt Caleb’s sleep.  Well last night he had a poor night of sleep which prompted me to curse them dirty fireworks.

Around 2am Caleb awakes (or is already awake from Yvonne holding him.  I don’t remember).  I watch him cry and stand up in the monitor, so I head to him and pick him up.  Caleb immediately begins to cry harder and louder in my arms.  I put him back in the crib, he wants to get back in my arms.  I pick him up, he immediately wants to get out of my arms.  What am I to do?  So I just hold him.  And hold him.  And hold him for the next hour.  I’m finally able to get back to my bed at 3:15am, only to see him stir and wake up at 3:18am.

I am done at this point.  Yvonne is sick and just wants our baby to sleep.  So we wait.  3:30, Yvonne says, she’ll go in.  He’s standing in the corner of his crib crying his head off.  This goes on and on.  Yvonne decides to get a sippy cup of water before heading to the room.  After getting the cup, Yvonne is back in our room trying to do something as I’m trying to sleep.  We then hear this *boom* (much like these damn fireworks I hear now).

Uh-oh.  I think Caleb fell out of his crib.  The crying had died down for a few seconds.  As we were running over to his room, that loud cry comes again.  Yvonne enters the room and goes to retrieve him.  He immediately stops crying.  At this point I’m thinking maybe he didn’t fall out of his crib.  I mean if a baby falls out of his crib, he’s going to be hurt and crying, right? So I go back to my bed and return to my slumber.

Yvonne comes back to the room and informs me that he did fall out.  He was in a prone position next to the chair and not crying at all.  Yvonne was all worried, but he just settled down in mommy’s arms and went to sleep.  (Is this what needs to happen to get my son to sleep?  If so, he may have many sleepless nights.)

Caleb seems to be alright from the fall.  At least for today.  Now we have to put the crib sides all the way up.  Of course they make this loud clicking sound when you move them up, which doesn’t help our son sleep as well, but it’s for his safety.  It’s a long way down to reach him now.  Our backs are going to ache.

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Want to be a Ghetto City?

So you just started a town and want to be ghetto.  Where do you start?  Drugs?  Guns?  Prostitution?  Maybe those are just too much for you and you want to be a ghetto city without realizing you’re being ghetto.  How about legalizing fireworks.  There you go.  You’re one step further to being ghetto.

Some of you may know that I despise fireworks.  I can go on and on about the dangerousness of fireworks, but I’ll talk about the sheer annoyance of them.  Now when I say fireworks, I want to exclude the good ones.  The ones done by professionals.  So you cities with fireworks shows and Disneyland are off the hook.  What I am referring to is to the July 4th fireworks show by the inhabitants of these ghetto cities (my neighbors).

Fireworks didn’t bother me as much before a year ago.  It wasn’t until after Caleb was born that my hatred for fireworks grew even more so.  There’s a big problem when your son, who doesn’t sleep well to begin with, has to listen to all your neighbor’s crappy fireworks (both legal and illegal).  These large booms and loud whistles don’t do well to anyone’s sleep, much less a little one year old is sensitive to most and almost everything.  By the grace of God, he’s only woken up once, which we attribute to a night terror, but still I hear them fireworks going on and on.  *wave my fist in the air*

Besides having these loud booms and shrieking whistles, many of the inhabitants in Duarte, CA don’t seem to know how to clean up after themselves.  Don’t you love getting up the next morning having to drive through a bunch of used fireworks?  I just love seeing ashes fly everywhere as my tires go over them.  It is a beautiful sight if you have never seen it.

Update:

It’s midnight now.  And fireworks are still going outside my home.  Duarte, CA is ghetto.  The inhabitants are ghetto => city is ghetto.  Now you’re just ruining everyone’s sleep and not just Caleb’s.