Week 70: Onamonapia Speak

This week has been a good one. On Friday, Austin froze, so we spent pretty much the whole day at home. Because of this, we had a chance to try out a few pinterest projects that I've been wanting to do. This first one is painting in a bag.

 We turned our backs for a few seconds and minutes later, we discovered blue paint in various spots around the office. It turns out that you had grabbed a pen and proceeded to scribble on the bag with the pen, causing the bag to tear at a little spot and leak paint. Note to self: supervise at ALL times.

Another activity that I tried was having you scoop cheerios out of one bowl and into another. After a few tries, you simply gave up and started to use just your fingers, which evolved to eating the cheerios, which evolved to throwing the cheerios at Teddy. Oh well, one day those spoon skills will come.

I also broke out the Thomas train set. You will play with it for at least 30 minutes every time I bring it out. You really like to watch the train roll down the ramp. You also like to use the crane to pick up the cargo boxes. You've also started to show an interest in connecting the track pieces. You can do it independently 1 out of 10 times, but it's a start.

You continue to be kind of obsessed with fish. This is one of your favorite things to do. You now point to fish and say "ish." You also seem to be recognizing more things in your books. It's neat to see how your understanding of your world changes just a bit each day.

 On Sunday, we took you to the local mega sporting goods store Cabelas. They have a super cool aquarium with catfish larger than you. You really had a blast there. I wish I took pictures, but we will be going back soon. The store also had a lot of animal figures. You weren't as impressed with those, but you would point to them, as if asking us what those things were called.

A new word this week is "ba" for sheep. When you see sheep, you point to it and say "ba" You will also roar when you see ferocious animals like tigers, bears and lions. Oh, other cute sound effects include yelping like a dog and grunting as you try to pick up or push something heavy. You always get a "aww" at the grocery store when you are helping me put things on the conveyor belt. You actually help and not hinder too! For cars and other automobiles, you will go "vroom" to imitate the engine. Today, I asked you where our car was and you pointed to our car and said "vroom."

You are now consistently using the "help" sign. You occasionally will sign "cracker" and have your own sign for "apple" and "grapes." You've signed "poop" twice this week before we even asked you if you needed to go and it seems like you can hold your pee until you reach the toilet. (One day daddy took off your diaper and you went #1 for a short second, held it and finished it once you reached the toilet)

We had our monthly baby party this past weekend. My, how the babies have grown. It was really neat to see you guys interacting with each other.

 We decided to take a picture with just the babies and it turned out way better than we expected.

Yesterday, we got iced in again. I made a new toy for you to play with. You liked it and played with it for quite some time. You would put the ball in various tubes and try to figure out where it went if it didn't come out of the bottom.

 But soon you figured out that if you lifted the box every time, you would find the ball.

I then made a marble run contraption on the other side of the box. You were not amused by that at all.

For the past two days, you have been a bottomless pit. Grapes are certainly your favorite. When you point at the fridge, we know that you want grapes because as soon as we open the door, you point at the grapes. You are hungry, but you are also picky about what you eat. It's still a bit frustrating, but I figure, as long as I'm offering you a variety of foods, you will eat the foods that your body needs. (Except for sugar, which I think you would eat all day if you could)

Well, we have an exciting weekend planned. Grandparents are coming to visit so we'll have lots of cool things to post next time.

Love,
Mommy

Week 69.

Dear Nathan,
I'm sad to announce that you are sick again. Seems like runny noses can't stay away from you for too long. Last night was a bit rough. I have finally confirmed that it is just not possible for you to fall asleep on me or with me. After rocking and cuddling for two hours last night, I finally gave up and just put you back into your crib. Within minutes, you were asleep. I sure hope you will get better by this weekend because we will be having our monthly baby party.

Other than this silly cold, things have been great! On Tuesday, we went to Austin's new children's museum and had a blast! I was very impressed by all the super interactive activities that they had for kids even your age. You favorite thing was probably playing with the giant light up pegs. You got so excited as you grabbed a peg and raced to turn around to put it in a spot on the wall. You've been kind of obsessed with lights and fish lately, so this room was right up your alley.



Good news, you are now eating carrots! Thanks for still continuing to try veggies when we put them on your plate. Remember, veggies are good for you and will help you grow to become a healthy and smart boy. For now, you'll have to continue eating your veggies in liquid form. I'm sure you don't mind at all.

I'm also a bit sad to say that you have almost weaned yourself. We have been doing one nursing session in the morning for about 1-2 weeks and lately, you have not asked for it first thing in the morning. I'm kind of thinking you will be completely weaned by the time you are 16 months.

After spending some time at a neighbor's house, playing with her train set, you now have come to appreciate one of your train sets that your grandpa used to play with. You now know how to play with the tracks and trains. You will sometimes even make engine sounds when you are pushing trains or cars around.

Sometimes, during car rides, I hear you making engine noises in your carseat. It is simply too cute! 

Since you are now only taking one nap during the day, I've decided that I simply can't put off cleaning until you nap. So, I vacuumed and mopped the floor with you. You didn't like the vacuum so much. You pretty much dug your head between my legs and followed me around as I waddled around, pushing the vacuum back and forth. When I broke out the steam mop, you were very interested in helping, so I got your popcorn popper out and you pushed your popper around as I mopped the floor. It was very cute.

You are also pretty fearless when it comes to climbing ladders. Once, I watched you climb up after daddy while he was changing a high light bulb. This weekend, while putting the Christmas decorations back into attic, we had the ladder down. You looked pretty interested in climbing up. I stood back and watched. You climbed up one step, hesitated, and came back down. I'm glad you have some sense in ya!

This week, you have learned a new sign: "help." Sometimes I have to remind you to use it, but most of the time, if you need me to help you with something, you will pat your chest and look at me. I think you signed and said "thank you" once. Your word for fish is "ish" and you still like to point out lights by using the Chinese word for light, "den."

We have started to instill some discipline in you. You are starting to test our "No"s by pausing and doing something anyways. When you do this, we calmly say, "we don't [undesired behavior]" and place you behind a closed door gently so that you are isolated from us for about 10 seconds. Afterwards, we open the door, explain calmly the desired behavior and then we do something to make you happier and show that we still love you. We've only had to do this a couple of times and I think it's effective. Are we mean parents? I don't know. But we have to teach you boundaries starting from a young age, and right now I don't know how else to teach it to you. I am against spanking, so I'm using psychology. I hope this doesn't cause any psychological damage in the future.

To help with the drooliness, I've gotten an electric toothbrush that will stimulate the nerves in your mouth, hopefully, making you more aware of this drooliness. You didn't take to the toothbrush at first, but now when it is turned on, I can get brief pulses on your outside cheek. You won't let the toothbrush near the inside of your mouth when it is on. But when it is off, you love brushing your teeth... sometimes for 5 minutes or even longer!

In the meantime, rest up, get better. I love you lots!
Mommy

Week 68

Dear Nathan,
It seems like this past week has gone on forever. Don't know why, considering we had a lot to do, it has not gone by as quickly as other weeks have. Well, let's start off with your first dentist visit. Technically, it was for me to get a cleaning, but you met the dentist. While I was getting my teeth cleaned, you sat in your stroller, just watching. After awhile you got bored, so some toy magnets kept you busy for a bit. When the hygenist was almost done, you started to get fussy, so I just pulled you up to sit on my lap, and you were as content as can be.

The next day, we met up with a friend and went to an inflatable place. You had so much fun trying to keep balance on the jumpy castles and racing your friend down the slide.

Later that day, you had your 15 month check-up. We went to see a new doctor (who happens to be our neighbor) and everything was great. And you still fall in your usual 3-5 percentile group for weight, but your height is slightly above average. You received 3 shots and took it like a champ. You cried for less than 5 seconds and it was all better. You also didn't have any reaction to this group of shots.

This weekend was a bit uneventful since Daddy's got severe cedar allergies, so it was just you and me. We went to the playground, took a ride on the bike, and you even helped me take the Christmas decorations down outside.

Our normal chinese class went well, except for you constantly wanting to hug/tackle the other babies. You need to be more gentle.

Yesterday afternoon, you helped me assemble your new desk. You helped me a lot by retrieving materials and tools for me, as well as putting the wooden dowels in the proper holes. Afterwards, we went to a play group where you met 3 new friends from our neighborhood. They are all slightly older than you, the oldest kid just turned 2. It was neat for me to talk to the ladies about being a mom. Their Indian perspective of raising a child is very similar to how the Chinese do it, with some differences, of course. Both you and I had lots of fun playing and meeting new people.

On the sleep front, since you are sleeping for only 45 mins. - 1 hour each day, I've decided to see if I can lengthen your afternoon nap by having you sleep a bit less at night. Before, you slept from 8-8:30 and then took an hour nap in the afternoon. This schedule didn't give me much downtime in the afternoon and it make a pretty late start of a day. So, I've been gently waking you up around 7:45 and seeing if you will sleep longer in the afternoon. Yesterday's nap was horrible, you slept on and off for a total of maybe 30 minutes. You were cranky by bedtime, clingy and just not to fun to be around. Let's see how today's nap goes.

It seems like you are eating more food overall, but still rejecting the veggies. I guess I will continue to make smoothies for you so at least you get some veggies in your diet.

Well, until next week!
Love,
Mommy

Week 67

Dear Nathan,
You are definitely getting better at letting us know what you want. And sometimes you have quite a way to show it. This week a behavior emerged and I'm not quite sure if it's instinctual, or learned from some little brat at the gym. But this is definitely brat behavior and we are not going to allow it. When you don't get you way, you dramatically sit down. If we didn't see you or react, you would try it again. If we happen to look your way, you would sometimes (dangerously) throw back your head and yell. Well, I'm happy to report that since you did not get the attention that you were wanting, this sort of bratty behavior has started to simmer away. You have a good repertoire of signs that you can use for communication. Just remember to use it.

This has been a pretty cold week. We've missed a day or two of afternoon walks. One day, you had enough of it and figured out a way to show us that you wanted to go outside. First, you brought your gloves to me. I took them and just put them away. Then you pointed at the door, but I don't think I paid too much attention. Then, you pushed your trike to the door and grunted at us, pointing to the door like this:

 So, to reward your tenacious efforts, I bundled you up and we went on a short walk. You were happy.

The world of make-believe has started to become more real to you. In the past, you would just pretend to drink from cups. But now, you pretend to cook with spoons and empty bowls. You even will put the spoon to your mouth, taste it, and say "Mmmm" It is so terribly cute when you do that.

You've started to gain an interest with playing with stuffed animals and little people. Here you are feeding Charlie the dog a carrot.

Sometimes you will imitate what I do with the animals and have them eat various parts of another person's body. You will even imitate the sound effects that come out of my mouth. But I think the cutest thing that you do with your animals is when you put two of them, face to face, and have them kiss each other.

Your sleep is still about the same. You sleep from 8pm to 7:30-8:00 am with an hour and a half nap in the afternoon. Sometimes you will fall asleep in the car in the late morning if we are out, but that little 20 minute nap doesn't seem to interfere with your afternoon nap.

You are doing awesome at eating. You are starting to accept more meats that are off of the bone. You love rice and noodles, but we are still lacking in the veggie department. When I introduce a new veggie to you, you will cautiously put it into your mouth and then immediately spit it back out. Then, if I put a veggie in front of you that you have recently tried, you don't even touch it.  I've come to the conclusion that it is a texture thing. Hopefully you'll grow out of this. In the meantime, I'll still continue to offer you veggies, encourage you to try them, and puree veggies into your smoothies. I've talked to moms whose children don't eat any fruits or vegetables, so I guess this could be way worse.

We are starting to think that you are speaking or attempting to say words. Sometimes you stutter a sound like you are trying to make a certain sound, but can't. I'm not sure if that's normal, but your 15 month appointment is coming up and I can ask the doctor then.

You are starting to understand "put toys away." I recently came up with a clean up song for my chinese class and have even been singing it at home. Now, when I start to sing the song, you start to look for things to put away. It's kind of neat.

You are getting pretty good at the gym. When I have dropped you off each morning, you just go to some toys and play. You don't even get a bit upset when I leave. And then when I come back, you are usually playing toys with another little baby. The ladies at the gym say that you are a great sharer and a ladies man too.

Over the break, we got you a table and chair set from Ikea. I'm going to hack it and add some seat cushions to it and perhaps even paint the table/chair set. I'll post the final product when I'm finished with it.

You seem pretty attracted to ladders and steps. One day, daddy was adjusting a light fixture on a ladder. Before we knew it, you had climbed half way up the ladder and couldn't go any further because Daddy's feet were in the way. You are a brave little one.

Speaking of things that you are attracted to, you are also attracted to buttons and switches. Anytime you see a button, or switch, you want to go try it out. For example today, I took you to a story/sign-language class at a local book store. Lots of kids were sitting quietly, listening to the lady read or talk. Lots of kids were running around, "exploring" and while you sat quietly and observed for the first half of the class, in no time, you were itching to walk around with the other roaming kids. But you were the only one who seemed to be drawn towards the teacher's CD player. You just wanted to turn the know (to change the volume) and press the buttons. Daddy has discovered that you just like to push the buttons to see if it does anything. You don't care what it does, you just care about if it does anything.

Well, it's back to the old routine for now. We still have a bunch of Christmas decorations to take down. Last year, it wasn't until around Valentines Day when we finally took the tree down. Hopefully we don't procrastinate that long this year.

Until next week,
Mommy

Mission: Make my son an omnivore.

As I was pregnant and fantasizing about the qualities of my yet-to-be-born son, the idea that my son will be a foodie like me and pretty much like everything crossed my mind. Fast forward a few months, I was so proud of my son when he would eat zucchini cubes, saag paneer, and even brussel sprouts. Brussel sprouts (just in case you missed it the first time). Well, this kid has actually become quite the picky eater:
1. He will only eat meat if it's off of the bone.
2. He will not eat twisty pasta. Any other shapes and textures are fine, just not twists.
3. He does not like anything green. He will spit it out. He must have chlorophyll detectors in his mouth or something.

On the plus side, he loves corn and will eat sweet potatoes and avocado. String cheese is also always a safe bet.

For the past few months, to get veggies into his diet, I will puree veggies that he doesn't like and add that to a sauce. I've added spinach to smoothies. I've baked low-sugar cupcakes laced with carrots and zucchini. But recent traveling has made me realize that he needs to get used to eating veggies as they are. So for the next few days, weeks, months, or maybe even years, I'm going to embark upon a mission: to get Nathan to eat more veggies (the green ones in particular).

After doing some research on the internet, I've come across these interesting facts about toddlers and food:

1. Toddlers like to have their food spread out around the edge of their plates, separated, instead of mixed together in the middle. (This makes sense because Nathan always deconstructs his sandwiches)
2. Toddlers like to dip their foods. (Nathan has just discovered this recently.)
3. It typically take 5-6 exposures to a particular food for a toddler to like it. 
4. Toddlers prefer steamed veggies to raw veggies. 

So with this new slew of information I have come up with a plan to introduce a few veggies to Nathan each day, with a different focus on top of that.

Day 1
Goal: Create positive associations with veggies.
Menu: Steamed carrots and broccoli
Dips: Peppercorn yogurt dressing/ketchup
Methodology: To create a desire, we started eating the veggies. Dipping and saying "Mmm" after each bite. Soon, Nathan showed interest and pointed at his plate of veggies. To model, I dipped my broccoli into his dressing and ate it. He soon followed and mimicked my movements. To praise and encourage, after he put the food into his mouth, regardless of whether or not it stayed in there, we cheered. After about 10 minutes, 50% of his veggies (of a plate of 3 carrot sticks and 5 spears of broccoli) were put in or near the vicinity of his mouth. 2% probably made it into his stomach. Victory? I'd say so. He actually tried the food, spit it out, and tried it multiple times afterwards. He was happy at the end of the training session and so far, no negativity is associated with veggies.

I have a whole variety of veggies in the fridge. Bring it!

Week 65 & 66: Adventures of a 15 Month Old

Dear Nathan,
These past 2 weeks have been pretty exciting. First, we drove up to Dallas to celebrate an early Christmas with Grandma and Aunt Momo. You did very well on the trip. The first two hours, we played games and read books. After lunch, you pretty much slept the rest of the way. Unfortunately, started to get sick that day and pretty much felt a bit under the weather for the rest of the trip.

We celebrated and you got to open your first set of presents. You weren't quite sure what to do with the paper, but once you realized that you could rip it, you continued to tear it up. I still think you are more interested in the process than the gifts inside. Maybe for your birthday, we'll just wrap random boxes and have you open them.

(The pics on this post are not of great quality because some mamarazzi packed the camera, charger, SD card, but forgot to pack the battery, so the camera phone was all we had.)

The next day, we went to the airport to catch a flight to Chicago. Our flights were delayed a bit, so we spent almost 3 hours at the airport. You were pretty happy walking around, waving at people, and once I showed you the escalators, that's all you wanted to do. Go up and down, up and down the escalators. We must have ridden the escalators up and down at least 10 times.

The flight to Chicago was nice. We read books, played with puppets and you slept for about 30 minutes. Before we knew it, we were there. The plane we were on had nice spacious seats and it was a breeze hanging out with you, the seats on the return flight were a different story.

When we arrived at the Chicago airport, we waited at the baggage claim for a long time and didn't see our luggage. Luckily grandpa called me and reminded me that we left from Dallas, and not Austin. Eventually, we found our luggage, it had actually arrived on an earlier flight and was sitting in between 2 carousels. But we couldn't find your car seat. After asking 2-3 people who all gave us different answers, it finally arrived on another flight... 2 hours after we landed. So, it was a long day.

Next day was Christmas Eve. Your great-grandparents came to visit and you enjoyed reading with great-grandma and playing the sorting blocks with great-grandpa.

 The next day was Christmas Day. We opened presents, went to church, and then went over to another set of great-grandparents for Mommy's favorite holiday tradition: Christmas at the Sieberts. After eating a lot of corn and turkey (off of the bone, of course) the tryptophan kicked in and you went down for a long nap. During that time, you missed the white elephant gift exchange. Mommy got a can of "dragon meat" and Dad was fortunate enough to have everything stolen from him. (Which sometimes is a really good thing.)

You woke up in time to go sledding for the first time. Since it was so cold outside, and we didn't have the proper snow gear, we only went down the hill a few times. The first time you went down, you really didn't know what to think. Look at you, all bundled up!

After everyone was all warm and dry, the Christmas band formed for their annual special performance. Every now and then, I would sneak a peak at you and you had the biggest smile on your face. You really enjoyed watching all of us play our instruments. I wonder what instrument you will play when you grow up. Uncle Tim gave us one of his guitars. I am really excited to learn how to play the guitar.

The day after Christmas, you were not feeling to great, so we took you to the clinic so that the doctor could get a good look at you. She said that your ears were swollen, and you had a lot of congestion in your chest. She prescribed some antibiotics, but suggested that we use our judgement on whether or not to give it to you after trying a humidifier for a day or so. Well, the humidifier worked pretty well and we ended up not giving you any antibiotics after all.

On Friday, we visited the great-grandparents again. We played some games and you played with great-grandma's musical angels. You were really mesmerized with the dancing and the harmonized singing that they could do.

Last year, we built a snowman your size and took a picture. Well, it's now a tradition.

On Saturday, we drove downtown to the mall so that your cousin Grace could get her American Girl doll's ears pierced. We looked around the lego and shoe store. Afterwards, we drove to Chinatown and got a bunch of yummy hand pulled noodles. You liked it a lot and was slurping the noodles down faster than you could chew them.  

On Monday, we visited Eli's cheesecake factory. You walked in, saw all the baked cookies and cakes and let out a loud "Mmmmmm." During the presentation about the history of the company, you kept pointing at the cheesecakes in front of us and fussing for some. When it was all said and done, we got to sample a few bites of cheesecake. You pretty much scarfed those down. I mean, who doesn't like cheesecake? 

The next day, we were Texas bound. Our flight left at noon, so after we got checked in, we picked up some McDonalds for lunch. You had your first chicken nuggets. I wasn't sure if you were going to eat it since the meat wasn't on the bone, but then again, are McNuggets "meat"? You enjoyed dipping the nuggets in the sauces. Your favorite one is sweet and sour (mine too).

The flight went well, but as I mentioned above, I just felt really cramped. You slept for about an hour this time and it was nice to also have Daddy beside us. (I forgot to mention that we took different flights on the way there).

While we were sitting at the baggage claim (with intermittent trips to the escalators) waiting for the luggage to arrive, we discovered that you found the bags falling down the ramp hilarious. Daddy took a short snippet of video to capture your reaction.

After Aunt Momo picked us up, we stopped by her house to pick up Teddy and we went to a Korean restaurant where you ate a lot of chicken wings. Well, 2 wings is a lot for you. The next day, we went and had more Chinese food (which is one of the main reasons mommy likes to go visit grandma in Plano) for lunch and dinner to celebrate grandma's Chinese birthday.

You must have been hungry or like the food a lot because I have never seen you eat so much food in your life. You were pretty much a bottomless pit. You even had room for some of grandma's taro-coconut cake.

The 4 hour drive home went pretty smoothly as well. We played for the first hour and then you just drifted off to sleep. When we got home, I changed you into your PJ's, put you in your crib, you fussed for a few minutes, and then fell asleep until 8:15 in the morning. It was nice, considering you've been waking up at 6:30 - 7:00 every morning in Chicago.

Things are back to normal for now. I think you were ready to come home. The night before we drove back was a rough night for you (and us). You were up for almost 3 hours during the night. We didn't know what was wrong. I think perhaps you were just homesick.

So this concludes this week's update. I'm actually going to make a few side-posts on my mission to add more veggies into your diet. It's going to be a long process, but I think it'll be worth it.

Eat your veggies.

Love,
Mommy.