December 2010

• Soccer! J started soccer lessons through the lil' kickers program. It is actually a parent/tot program and they pretty much do the same stuff they do in the gymboree yp of classes but they are on an indoor soccer field and use soccer balls. Jake loves it - he is really good at playing red light, green light.
• Christmas songs. J learned to sing 2 christmas songs. He sings Santa Clause is coming to town perfectly! He sings most of jingle bells - he stumbles a little in the oh what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh part. In addition to these 2, he also sings out frosty the growman!
  
  
• Bice-cycle. T started cycling again this year. He cycles all the way to/from work - about 18 miles each way. He has kept this up even in the winter. His coworkers are impressed but L wishes he would just drive or take the train when there is 2 to 4 inches of snow on the ground.




• That's mine! With the holidays coming up, there are boxes of new stuff all around the house. J points to each one he sees and asks, 'that's mine'? When I say no, he shouts, no! That's mine!!!! and throws himself to the floor.


• J loves to look out the window of the car and point out the decorations in front of the houses we drive by. He especially like to shout out santa clause! frosty the growman!


• What do you want for christmas? J reponds to this question with, Santa Clause! But look what happened when he actually met santa!


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Thanksgiving 2010

With everyone's busy schedules, I definitely appreciate vacation time to be with J. A full week with J gave me a bunch of amazing moments. He has developed a wonderful personality, with lots of cheer mixed in with a healthy dose of toddler spunk.

We decided to take a road trip to visit J's new, weeks old cousin Nong T (my brother's son). We stopped overnight in Ohio, near toledo, at a Homewood Suites hotel. The car ride to Toledo went well, although we left later than I would have liked. J and I sang songs together for much of the journey. His singing is getting really good, he actually has the right pitch sometimes. Most of his favorite songs are from the wiggles - toot toot big red car, play your guitar with murray, do the monkey. He also tries to sing along to songs on the radio even if he doesn't know the words. Sometimes, he would yell out everybody clap! And if I stopped clapping along, he would reach over, grab my hand and say, clap mama!

The hotel in toledo was terrific. As soon as we entered our room, J smiled wide and said, Nice! Big room! In the morning, there was decent breakfast buffet. There were 2 toddler girls at breakfast for J to flirt with. When he spotted the first little girl, he pointed at T and said, papa...then pointed at me and said, mama. I told T, I think he is trying to introduce his family to that girl!

J had a good sleep for the second leg of the trip and by the time we got close to Pittsburgh, he was pretty psyched up to get to T's house and also see khun yai (grandma). When we got there he gave lovely hugs to uncle L, auntie S, and khun yai. I wondered how he would react to Nong T. When J was a little baby, some kids of our friends/relatives would get really jealous when their moms held J. But J was absolutely fine with me holding Nong T-he didn't act jealous at all.

J was very excited to be staying at uncle L's house and especially excited to be reunited with Khun Yai who used to look after him in the early evenings while we were working. J enjoyed playing with all the toys that Nong T is still too young to play with. He also sang and danced around the house and was generally never quiet. When we said hush, nong T is sleeping, he would reply excitedly Nong T sleeping! Sometimes uncle L would try a different approach and say, J, what is Nong T doing? I guess his hope was that J would respond Nong T sleeping, shhh. But instead, J would shout, Oh, no! Nong T sleeping! Wake him!

Here are some other random notes about J, who is now 2 years and 2 months old.

- He is growing taller, but still quite skinny. The 18 months pants fit his waist perfectly now, but are too short. The 24 months pants are just a little long but quite loose in the waist.
- He moved up to the intro to preschool room. The biggest difference is they won't let him use a sippy cup, he has to drink from a little plastic dixie cup. When we get home, he begs me for milk from his sippy cup and drinks 2 cups of milk. So I guess he is not a fan of drinking from a regular cup but it is early days.
- He has an outgoing personality, quick to greet everyone he sees with a hi and bye. He is also never shy about blowing kisses to the girls, he is quite the flirt.
- He started playing with my shoes and T's hats. While I am writing this, he is next to me trying on T's bicycle helmet.
- When there is something he really wants, he started shouting Big one! Sometimes we have no idea what he is talking about which is quite frustrating for everyone.
- We had a few outings while in Pittsburgh. Everytime we left Uncle L's house, J would quickly ask about the people that didn't join us. He would say, where Khun Yai go? Where Uncle L go? Where Auntie S go? Where Nong T go?
- When we returned to our own house, J was excited to see all his own toys again. He picked up his winnie the pooh, hugged it and said, "winnie pooh!" then he took another look at pooh and yelled, "no pants!"
- The other night, I was lying in bed and J tackled me. I cried, 'owie, you gave mama an owie! J said, "Sorry, mama. I kiss it better" and gave me kiss. He says sorry whenever he sees anyone hurt, even if it is not his fault. He even says sorry when he trips over himself.

day at the zoo

J and I had a mommy and me day at the zoo. Here is how it went

• As soon as he understood where we were, he said zebras?
• First animals we encountered were a couple of lions sleeping in the sun.
• First bathroom stop was actually for me. Restrooms were in the Lion house, downstairs and no elevator. Luckily, I had decided to leave the stroller in the car as I figured J spends most of his days walking, he should be able to manage.
  
• Went to the monkey house next. J said, "monkeys in the trees! Awesome!"
  
• A gibbon put on a great acrobatics show for us
• Second bathroom stop for J - again had to go down stairs and no elevator. Hooray for my no stroller decision.
• J started getting tired and saying, up! up! I carried him for a bit but then sat on a bench and let him snack on cheerios for a little while.
• Next stop - zebras, the one J was asking for when we came in. By now J was refusing to walk and I was thinking I need to rent a stroller.
  
• We stopped for lunch on an outdoor patio by the pond. J had chicken nuggets kids meal that came with apple, carrots, and chocolate milk . I had a grilled chicken sandwich, half of J's apple, all of the carrots that J wouldn't touch, and the chocolate milk(zoo did not have straws, J wouldn't drink from the carton, and his sippy cup was already full of milk from home). I thought the kids meal was expensive at $7 but actually I think they gave us double portion of chicken nuggets by accident and I got a carrot/apple salad out of it, plus the milk so it worked out ok.
  
• After lunch, I headed back to the zoo entrance to rent a stroller. J was so excited to sit in the stroller. We went to see the sea lions next and he would not let me take him out of the stroller seat.
  
• From the sea lions, we went to the children's zoo - a section that I never saw before so it must be new. I didn't see any animals outside in this section, but there was a building that had a very cool climbing maze. And there were bathrooms that did not require stairs so I changed Js diaper here.
  
• In the children's maze building one of the windows you could see into the beaver's pool and there were 2 beavers swimming around in there. That was very cool - I don't think I ever saw a beaver underwater before.
• We headed back outside and went to the Africa house where we saw the giraffe. At first, J said zebra but I told him it was a giraffe and he stuck his tongue out. We also saw a couple of ostriches - I forgot just how big they were!
• We did a quick zip through the reptile house - only went in there to use their bathroom because there were no stairs.
  
• Passed by the lions again - they were still sleeping in the same position as when we arrived.
• Went back to the entrance to return the stroller. J had a mini tantrum, screaming, 'my stroller! my stroller!' I think that was the first time I ever heard him say the word stroller.
• I took J on the endangered species carousel before we left. He had been on a carousel before, just a few weeks ago when we were in Canada. But this time, he did not want to ride the animals so we sat on the bench and he looked around at the carousel animals around us. He was very clingy which was nice actually because he doesn't let me hold and cuddle him much these days.
  
• I figured J was tired by this time and we headed home. I figured he would fall asleep during the hour it took to get back home. I was wrong. He sang to himself on the way home and was awake for the rest of the day until 8pm.

Things my almost 2 year old said to me today

Morning at the changing table, together we said, "ten fingers, ten toes, two arms, nose. Two ears, one mouth. Two eyes. One head. two feet. one chin. me! complete!"

Breakfast
- Mickey Mouse! Manny Tools! (asking to watch his favorite tv shows)
- when I tried to give him the burger he didn't eat for dinner the night before: I don't want it!
- when I gave him some toast with nutella spread: mo!
- mo mo mo milk

Morning leaving the house
me: Jake's it's time to go!
Jake: I don't want it!

Morning in the car
Jake: BBC
Me: you want to practice ABC's?
Jake: yes

Morning at the doctor's office
Jake: I don't want it! (when I try to sit him down on the exam table)
Together: ten fingers song and ABC's while we waited for the doctor.
Jake: mama's kess (playing with my necklace)

Morning at daycare:
Jake: bye!

Evening - daycare pickup
Jake: Mama! I see you! I did it!
Jake: Bye bye Jayna! Bye bye Zoe! (saying bye to his friends)

Evening at the library
Jake: books!
Me (whispering): Will you come upstairs with mama?
Jake (whispering): Yes.

In the children's section of the library:
Jake: I don't want it! (repeatedly and no longer whispering)
Jake: Bob Builder! (when he spots the pile of Bob the Builder books on the floor)
Jake: Guitar Murray! (when he sees the picture of Bob the Builder's rock star friend in the book)
Me (after 10 minutes of bob the builder): Do you want to go home, now?
Jake: No. Bob Builder!

At home in the evening.
Mickey Mouse! Manny Tool!
I did it!
Again! AHHHH! (protesting when the computer, which is streaming his tv shows online, goes into power save mode and screen goes black)
Mo mo! (asking for more french fries at dinner)
Po (asking for apple)
Mo milk

Bathtime:
Fishies! Quack quack! (playing with his toys)
I don't want it! AHHHHHHH! (protesting when I lift him out of bath)
More of I don't want it and AHHHH! (at the changing table)
Mo! Mo! (asking me to give him lotion so that he can put it on himself)
I did it!

Me: Jake do you want to wear monkey or mickey mouse (pajamas)
Jake: Mickey mouse (as he grabs monkey top. I put the monkey on)
Me: Jake where are the bananas? (the bottom part of the monkey pajamas)
Jake: Nana! I find it! (he runs off into his room and picks up the banana pants off the floor) I find it!

Jake: Night night (pointing to my bed asking if he can sleep with mama and papa)

I did it! repeatedly as he flips through his Bob the Builder library book by himself.
Two, five, seven, ten (as he stacks his books)

Saturday, July 24 - counting singing dancing talking sleeping toddler

Jake is definitely not a baby anymore. He is becoming more interactive and independent every day. Lots of changes to report, so here goes

• Counting - he counts to 10...in Thai. I taught him to do the Thai equivalent of hip, hip, hooray when he gets to 10 and he loves it. He says each number with the perfect Thai accent. However, when he counts in English he only counts 2, 5,7, 9. I'm not sure why he doesn't like the other numbers.
  

• New daycare room. We decided to move Jake to a different room at daycare. We are sad to separate him from his little friends - there are at least 4 others who were born within 2 weeks of Jake and they have all been together since he started at daycare at 3 months old. They love each so much - they hug each other when they say hello and goodbye it is so sweet. But there is a girl in his room that has bitten Jake 6 or 7 times over the past year and I am worried that he will turn into a biter. Jake starts in the new room on monday.
  
• Story telling. Jake kind of told me a story related to the biting incident. I asked him what did he do when M__ bit him. He replied, 'a kicking' which I think means he kicked her.
  
• Singing - Jake loves to sing and I can actually make out a few of the songs he sings. mostly they are wiggles songs but he also sings baa baa sheep (he doesn't get all of the words but you can figure out what he means).
• Guitar - Jake's favorite toy is his new guitar, which he acquired when we visited Jack's house (Jack is a couple years older than Jake). Jake loves his guitar more than anything and he even sleeps with it. He loves to sing and dance with the guitar and does a great job strumming it as if it was a real guitar. Here he is grooving to Justin Bieber.
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• Playtime - Jake is much more interested in playing with others, including us. He takes us by the hand to lead us to play. At daycare, the staff report that he takes his friends' hands and gets them to dance with him.
• Caring - Jake is beginning to express his affection for us and others more now. A few times, he spontaneously ran up to people to hug them. He hugs and kisses us more and when he sees us hurt (like if we stub a toe on the chair or something) he asks, 'are you ok?' Also, when he doesn't see us, he says, 'where are you?'
• Sleeping - Jake has been co-sleeping with us since he was about 2.5 months old. This was a great arrangement in the beginning - we bought a 'nest' that we put in between us that he could sleep in safely when he was little. When he was still feeding in the middle of the night, I could feed him without getting out of bed. But we started having problems about a month ago when we finally took his pacifier away for good (he was using it to help him fall asleep). Without his paci, Jake would jump and sing and dance around in our bed, sometimes for over an hour, before he fell asleep. This meant I couldn't fall asleep as I was worried he would fall off the bed. On Friday, I finally had him sleep the night in his crib. He is sleeping in his crib again tonight. It took longer for him to fall asleep but it means that I don't spend an hour waiting to catch him if he falls (at least as long as he doesn't learn how to climb out!).
  

Jake at (almost) 21 months

We've had a change in our daily routine. My mom went to join my dad in thailand at the beginning of May which means we are now doing both the drop off and pick up at daycare. I do the pick ups and changed my work schedule to start at 7 and finish at 4, giving me enough time to make it back to the north suburbs for daycare pickup.

I love seeing Jake at daycare with all of his friends. I try to sneak in so that I can see how he interacts with the other kids but usually he spots me as soon as I walk in, gives me a big smile, a delightful squeal and runs over to me with arms outstretched for a lovely hug. He is extremely affectionate these days.

Here are the things that we find interesting about Jake at 21 months:

• Like I said, very affectionate. When I ask him for kisses, he gives me multiple kisses with open month so I get the full slobbering effect.
  
• Loves to sing and dance even without music. The daycare staff report that he spontaneously breaks out into song and dance and sometimes they can't figure out what song he is thinking of.
  
• He likes to tidy up. If he spills food on the floor, he picks it up and throws it in the trash - often without prompting.
• He is good at telling us what he wants-in his own way. For milk, he says muh. For the wiggles dvd he says gaba gawee or gabi. If he is sleepy, he asks for his pacifier which he calls mee mee and he says night night. Sometimes he goes to our bed and leans his head against the mattress waiting for us to pick him up and put him in.
  
• He started making animal sounds - his favorites are quack quack and roar (with claw hands) and ooh ooh ah ah (monkey).
  
• He started to count numbers. For the longest time he was only saying two numbers - 2 and 5. If we said 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 - he would say 2, 2, 5 back to us. Lately, the daycare are helping him add more numbers to his vocabulary.
  
• He started saying letters - he is good at A, B, C, D and E. He sometimes gets F, G, H, I, J.
• He loves airplanes. Our house is near a flight path and he looks up and points at the planes flying above. Sometimes he says bye bye to them. He also likes cars and trucks. He is such a boy, right? He also likes sports - we have been watching hockey lately as the Chicago Blackhawks are competing in the Stanley cup finals.
  
• He loves to clap and cheer - this is probably why he enjoys sports! One day the daycare staff told me he was clapping and cheering for his friends when they did their art projects.
• He is very curious about other little kids. When we are out shopping, he points and says baby if he spots another little one. If he sees bigger kids, he approaches cautiously but will stop short if they are not receptive (for example, if they grab toys closer and start yelling mine!). At daycare, the staff tell me he plays well with the other kids and he is good at sharing. (hope that lasts!)
  
• His tantrums are still cute at the moment. He runs around in a little circle screaming ahhhhhhhh!, sprawls out on the floor on his tummy, then rolls over on his back and kicks his legs in the air a few times. After this routine, he looks up at us and pouts.
• Sometimes he'll be sitting quite happily, playing or flipping through a book and suddenly he will get up, walk over to us, say bye and wave, then start walking away.
• He says please and 'tankkew'. He also is very good at saying bye to people. When he is having a tantrum in a shop and I pick up and tell him to say bye, he will stop crying to say bye and wave.
  

RYN shoes first outing

I wore my RYN shoes out today. I am supposed to break them in, which was easy to do because I don't think I normally talk for longer than 20 minutes at a time during the day anyway.

I walked from the wrigley building to millenium park - a 13 minute walk - had lunch with Tristan and walked back. I wore my heart rate monitor but forgot to pause it during lunch so I only have the return walk for data. 13 minutes, 52 calories, average heart rate 101 and maximum heart rate 114. Not sure what that means, if anything.

The shoes felt great. Very comfortable on my feet. Walking in them was certainly different. I was nervous stepping off of curbs and turning around was awkward, but straightforward walking felt good. It was great to feel tall - not the same feeling as wearing high heel shoes. Not much I can say after just one day, but so far I like my new shoes.

New Shoes

Taking a break from jake talk to write about my new, most expensive shoes I have ever bought. They are made by RYN and they are rocker shoes, meant to help with posture, good walking technique and fitness. So expensive but after years of watching my husband get nice sports shoes, I decided that maybe investing in it will help me improve fitness. I already bought a new pair nikes for the gym - which I love, by the way.

The RYNs that I bought have a business casual style so I can where them to the office. http://www.rynamerica.com/womens-shoes/cindy.html
They are quite expensive - I buy most of my shoes from DSW so I'm not used to paying a lot of money for shoes. But I need to improve my fitness and it is hard to get to the gym everyday. I can wear these shoes at work and go for a 20 minute walk at lunch or after work to squeeze more exercise time in. The store that I went to were having a sale of 40% off a second pair so I also bought a pair of casual earth shoes. Tristan wore earth shoes before and really likes them.

I have also been going back to the gym and bought a new polar heart rate monitor to replace the old one I had for 10 years. I actually am enjoying my gym sessions - usually on the elliptical machine. A bit disheartened that I have not lost any weight but it has only been 2 or 3 weeks since I started going back regularly.

Jake 18 months update part two

Jake turned 18 months old on March 16. In the last few months he makes me dizzy with all of his new discoveries and achievements. He started walking in February, months after most of his friends but once he started there was no stopping him. He loves it! Kind of makes you wonder why he took so long to start in the first place, but never mind - walking Jake is here!

At home he walks circles from the kitchen to the living room to the hallway back to the kitchen and continues with this circuit, walking around and jibber jabbering to himself and to us.

Now that he is upright on two feet, he is also discovering how to dance. All of those hours he spent watching the wiggles dance party over and over again have paid off as he now does most of the dance moves and even tries to sing along. Pretty good given his limited vocabulary. Last time we tried we were able to count 24 words that Jake says.




Just a couple weeks before he turned 18 months, Jake decided to go through a hunger strike. It was so frustrating until I learned this is perfectly normal and he will eat again when he is hungry. True to form, he is back to eating and we added yummy tyson chicken nuggets to his food repetoire - 100% natural so I figured it was okay. His latest new dish is thai basil chicken (gai sup kaprow), not spicy.

He continues to charm anyone and everyone who sees him. When he was a newborn, I thought of course everyone loves a newborn. But now he is a full fledged toddler and still manages to win fans wherever he goes with his friendly hi's and bye's and happy babbling as he walks around.

His 18 month stats are height 32 and a quarter inches and weight 22 pounds and 9 ounces. He is bang on average height but only 10 percentile weight.

His current vocabulary includes:

1. mama
2. papa
3. teddy
4. yes
5. no
6. hi
7. bye
8. night night
9. monkey
10. car
11. truck
    
12. keys
13. this
    
14. please
15. kaap (thai-thank you)
16. bid (thai-close)
17. yai (thai-grandma)
    
18. mee-mee (his own word for pacifier)
19. go
20. baby
21. two (when he hears 1-2-3 on tv he says two-two-two)
    
22. fish
23. doggy
24. puppy
25. ball
26. nana (banana)
27. go down (from a wiggles song)
28. hey
29. wow/whoa

huh- i guess there are more than 23.

March 2010 - 18 months old

Jake is 18 months old next week!

He started walking about a month ago. He was slow to start and once he got started, he was so excited and happy about it.
He remains a pretty cheerful chap. He walks around the house talking - mostly we don't understand him but he'll throw out a few words we recognize - especially wow! and whee!
Feeding has been difficult lately. He often covers his mouth shakes his head when we try to feed him.
Definitely a bit more temperamental these days. He makes a shrieking sound when he doesn't get his way - almost sounds like he is squawking. And if that doesn't work, he cries pitifully as if he was truly heartbroken.
It seems very different to have a walking toddler as opposed to a crawling baby. Overall, I think he is happier but he is also less cooperative. He fights us more when we feed him, change his clothes, brush his teeth - basically any time we are trying to exert any control he complains! But his moods don't last long - he'll go from crying to laughing in seconds.

Favorite things - finding little boxes in kitchen cabinets, throwing balls and walking

Least favorite things - eating, eye drops