Posts

Posted on

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.

Posted on

Happy 10-Month Birthday!

Caleb turned 10 months today.  Caleb’s got the cruising thing down.  Give him a piece of furniture, a wall, a knee, a hand… and he’ll show you his cruising stuff.  He also tries to stand and walk on his own.  He doesn’t quite have the coordination down yet, but he’s trying.  He loves his little push toy walker. 

When he finally starts to walk well, we’re going to have to buy him his first pair of shoes.  He received some pass-me-downs from friends at church, but our son has big 5.5W feet and has outgrown all the shoes passed down to him already. 

It seems like he hasn’t stopped teething since the last 6 came in.  Animal-like gnawing and puddles of drool are commonplace, but Caleb still only has his 8 teeth.  No canines or molars yet.

 

This made me laugh.

image

Posted on

Sick Again

Poor Caleb has had his share of sickness & discomforts since being welcomed into this world.  His eczema started when he was only a few months old.  He has chronic nasal allergies (he’ll be seeing a pediatric allergist next month).  He caught croup when he was 5.5 months old.  He was sick for 3 weeks before going to Hawaii, finally needing to take antibiotics for a sinus & ear infection.  Then he caught a cold when he got back from Hawaii.  Then he had an unexpected allergic reaction to Beechnut rice cereal. 

A few days ago, he had a very unhappy tummy.  That was my first time seeing Caleb puke so much stuff at one time.  It looked like he threw up much more than he ate.  Poor thing.  Green avocado and stomach acid was dripping out of his nose and mouth.  It sprayed a 3-foot radius all over the carpet where he was sitting, hitting his dresser.  Then later in the afternoon, he puked blueberry oatmeal liquid all over the dining area tile.  This time I was more prepared.  I felt Caleb’s spasmic stomach while holding him and moved him quickly to the much more easy to clean tile.  He’s much better now.  Caleb’s just a little apprehensive of eating now, especially anything green.  Who can blame him?

Chris was sick too yesterday.  Really sick.  I haven’t seen him that miserable since before we were married when he got food poisoning from a smoothie he drank at work.  Hmm, stomach flu or food poisoning this time around?  I’m certainly hoping it was just food poisoning.  I’ve been feeling nauseous too, but I have such bad sympathy nausea that I think it’s just from seeing both of my cuties so sick.

Oh, I have a picture of Caleb’s second round of impressive puking.  But I figured there are many who would prefer not to see it.  so here’s a picture of caleb on one of his happier days.  yes, caleb loves to climb everything in his path, including me if i’m in his way.

IMG_1261

Posted on

The End of Our Hawaii Trip

Yes, yes… I know… we really are behind in our blogging.  We still haven’t finished blogging about our Hawaii trip. 

Our Hawaii Alarm Clock
I forgot to blog about one story while we on the Big Island with Stan, Bel, & baby Noah.  It’s memorable.  While we were in Hawaii, Caleb was our 6:30AM alarm clock.  No matter how late we put him to bed, no matter how many times he would wake up at night, he ALWAYS woke up at 6:30.  On our last Big Island day, Caleb woke up at 7:30AM.  When we saw the clock, Chris & I cheerfully got out of bed and praised our boy for sleeping in.  The pool opens at 7:30AM, so we decided to go swimming.  On our way to the pool, I pointed out to Chris that it’s a gloomy/cloudy day since it was still a bit dark for 7:30.  We get to the pool.  It’s locked, but somebody’s inside cleaning.  He tells us to come back when the pool is open.  We tell him that the pool is supposed to open at 7:30.  He looks at us and says something like, “It’s 7:30 already?  Oh no!!  I’m running late.”  Then he looks at a pool clock and tells us that it’s only 6:45.  What?!!!  We still have no idea how our bedside clock got changed.  It was right when we put Caleb to bed.  Oh well. 

Our Flight Home
We were running really late to the airport, so Stan & Bel came to help us return our rental car and get checked in quickly.  Our flight was with ATA.  Stan knew one of the ATA worker guys.  He was one of Stan’s high school friends.  Stan tried pulling some strings to get us ahead in this long, long slow line (since we were already late).  He found out from his friend that our flight was canceled (though nobody else in the line knew that yet as the flight was only announced as being delayed).  We got pulled out of the line with our luggage.  His friend got us onto the next American Airlines flight back to LAX.  Yay!  Go Stan.  It’s nice to have our Hawaiian connection.  Only a few were given tickets onto this AA flight.  Most had to wait until the next departing ATA flight (I think that was in the middle of the night or the next day).  And out of the ones who received AA tickets, we were the only ones who had our luggage.  You know why?  Because the Wong family was running really late and hadn’t checked in to our original flight like everyone else already had. 

IMG_1038 

Yes, Caleb and I got chosen to be personally security checked.  I guess we just look that dangerous. 

IMG_1040 

Caleb slept for only 30 minutes on this plane ride home.  He really had trouble falling asleep and staying asleep.  We tried to make him as comfy as we could, but it was one fussy plane ride home.

IMG_1054 

Daddy even tried to help Caleb with his ear pressure by enticing him with a pacifier. 

IMG_1056

We got back from Hawaii on Friday, 3/14/08.  We needed that whole weekend to unpack and decompress from our vacation before Chris went back to work on Monday.  Here’s Caleb helping us unpack.

 IMG_1060

 

Yesterday, I discovered that ATA filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy on April 3rd and ended all of their passenger services to Hawaii.  Good thing this happened after our trip to Hawaii.  We probably couldn’t have afforded to pay for another set of airline tickets.

Posted on

Bathtub Fun

Caleb loves water… in his baths, in a pool, in the ocean… or even in the kitty bowls (if mommy doesn’t move them away in time).  Here’s one cute video of him having some bathtub splash fun.

Posted on

Dating

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.

IMG_4946

Posted on

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?

IMG_1109

 

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

IMG_1095

 

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

IMG_1093

 

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!!! 

IMG_1172

 

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

IMG_1119

 

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.

IMG_1198 

 

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

IMG_1212

 

Caleb’s 1st time on a playground swing.

IMG_1223

Posted on

clarification of april fools

for those of you who read the last couple blogs, i need to clarify.  i’ve had a few people ask me questions, obviously confused by the blogs.  no, i’m not pregnant.  and, yes that was my hubby trying to be humorous for april fools day.  the funny thing is that some of it is part truth.  a few months ago, if you had asked me if we would have any more children, i would have told you, “we had never wanted just one, but now one just might be enough.”  Life post-Caleb has been physically and emotionally challenging for me (despite my lovely son).  But, once again, God is at work in my heart.  He is far bigger than even my own fears of being unable to handle postpartum again.  God, the almighty and holy Creator of all, can certainly take care of me and my family.  So, chris and i actually have been talking about when we want more munchkins.  Not right now, but we do want our children to be close in age…. all in God’s timing obviously. 

have a look at our cute family (Dole Plantation & Hanauma Bay):

IMG_0960

IMG_0964

IMG_1023

Posted on

More Pictures

Here are some more pictures. We’ve been lazy about posting them up lately. We got this new camera and have been taking a lot of pictures. But the pictures are much larger than what they used to be, so it takes longer to transfer, and thus I’ve gotten lazy.

Here are the pictures from today’s Kiddie Kandid session.