Big Brother

Caleb's going to be a big Brother! Caleb has been super excited and absolutely wonderful to his mommy and baby brother. Here's some stories we've been waiting to share:

• Every night: Caleb sings every night to mommy's belly and often talks to baby.
  
• 8/2009: Caleb spills the beans
  Caleb was one of the first people we told that we were expecting. We (foolishly) thought we'd be able to keep it a secret a bit longer from the rest of the world, but Caleb was just too excited!
  At school the next day, when he gave me my daily hug and kiss goodbye, he also said "i want to give baby a kiss" and hugged and kissed my belly. Then he ran to his teachers and said "I gave baby a kiss!" They were a little confused and asked "What baby?" Caleb replied, "the baby in mommy's tummy!"
  A few weeks later, one of our friends gave Caleb a present. Immediately he turned around and put it to my belly and said "baby do you like it? I'll share it with you when you come out!"
  
• 9/2009: Caleb & Katherine
  Several kids in Caleb's daycare are also going to have siblings. This is one conversation Caleb had with his friend Katherine:
  Caleb: I'm going to be a big brother!
  Katherine: I'm going to be a big brother too!
  Caleb: No you're not. You're going to be a big sister.
  Katherine: Awww, but I want to be a big brother just like you, Caleb.
  Caleb: Well...there's nothing I can do about that.
  (they continued eating, Caleb was eating a lot of cherry tomatos)
  Caleb: I'm going to feed my baby tomatoes.
  Katherine (who doesn't like tomatoes): well, I'm not going to feed my baby tomatoes. Not everyone likes tomatoes.
  Caleb: I think my baby will like tomatoes a lot.
• 9/2009: G&E's Wedding
  While getting ready for Gina & Eric's wedding, Mommy was trying to squeeze her pregnant belly into a fitted bridesmaid dress. Caleb came in, reached for my belly and said very excitedly "Baby's getting bigger!!!" I replied "great, just what mommy wants to hear before going out in a fitted dress ;) " Caleb responded, "Mommy, you're always beautiful!" That's my sweet talking son ;)
  
• 10/2009: Pumpkin Patch
  While at the pumpkin patch, Caleb found one of those oddly-shaped gourds that kind of look like a watering pot. He took it and pretended to water my belly. "What are you doing?" I asked. Caleb replied "I'm watering baby so that baby will grow and come out!"
• 10/2009: Caleb discovers flattery
  Caleb's Auntie Linda was very kind to lend Mommy some maternity clothes. One of the shirts is pink with white splotches. It's not usually the pattern of clothes that mommy would wear, but I wore it one day with a coat over it. Later that day at dinner time, I removed the coat. Caleb was sitting at the dinner table and saw me in the pink shirt and his eyes widened and he said "WOW. Mommy, you look so beautiful!" I had never seen him have such a reaction, and I asked "Is it the shirt?" He replied "Yeah, that shirt....it's so beautiful on you!" I said thank you and gave him a kiss.
  The next day, I wore something much more normal for me, and he said the same thing "WOW, mommy you look so beautiful." I thought that was rather fishy, but still i said thank you. The next day, I got him from his bed wearing my robe and he said the same thing. "Caleb! are you just saying that or do you really mean it?" I asked. Caleb just snickered. :)

More to come...I forget all the stories, but there have been lots of good ones :)

6+ Months of Caleb updates

It's been a long time. There are many things I wanted to document, but didn't get around to, and now I've forgotten a lot of funny stuff :( But here's some snippets from the past 6 months of Caleb's life:

Some funny stores:

7/2009

• Caleb & I were at the market when he headbutted me. I said "Ouch Caleb! That hurts!" He replied, "Mommy, you used good words. I'm sorry." Look what he learns from daycare :)
• Caleb said "Mommy, we say 'Jesus loves the children of the world.' But what is world?" I explained it to him and he said "Does Jesus love the grown ups too?" I said he loves everyone in the world. Caleb thought a little and said "Mommy, are there people who aren't in the world?"
• One of his friends at school bit Caleb. My mom asked him "What finger did Navye bite?" Caleb proceeded to stick each finger in his mouth and bit it lightly. After biting 4 fingers lightly, he bit his index finger on his right hand and said "this one!"
  

6/2009

• Caleb taught his friends at school to say "Peace out, homey." (he learned that, and "Go let the dogs out" and other goodies from his Auntie Ally. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLm8tg1t_PI)
• One day as I was changing his diaper, Caleb said "Mommy, I'm thankful for you." and I said "Awww, Caleb, I'm SO thankful for you!" Caleb paused and said "what doest thankful mean?" I explained the definition to him, and Caleb replied "Yeah I'm thankful for you mommy."
  
• I took Caleb to this huge McDonalds playground that we always pass but never went in. He was a bit young for it, but made it up and down. Everytime we pass, he said "Oh, the Old McDonald playground! When I'm older, I'm going to go there!"
• My mom said "Caleb, say 'Wai poa is smart, Caleb is silly.'" Caleb laughed and replied "'Wai poa is silly. Caleb is smart.'"
  

5/2009

• I cut 9 inches off my hair. When Caleb saw me he said "where did the rest of your hair go?" I said "oh, I got a haircut, sweetie." And he replied "Mommy, put it back!"
• While in Bermuda, we went to The Lobster Pot & Boat House Bar. As part of Caleb's kid's meal, he got this great looking ice cream sunday. We never let him eat such things, but we figured that we were on vacation so he should get spoiled :) When the server put it down in front of him, Caleb took the wafer off the top to eat it. Gabe tried to show him how he can put some ice cream on the wafer to eat together, but Caleb scraped the ice cream off and ate the wafer. He then grabbed his spoon. We assumed he was going to eat some, but instead he took a big spoonfull and fed it to daddy. Then he fed me. We couldn't convince him to even try a bite, he only wanted to feed his ice cream to mommy and daddy. We, of course, appreciated that! It was yummy!
  

4/2009

• We went to visit Uncle Raymond for his Birthday and brought over a cake. I don't usually let Caleb eat sweets, so cakes and things are a rare treat. Auntie Sandra asked him "Caleb, do you like cake?" and Caleb replied "Yeah, I like it... A LOT!... for a long time!" (I guess he just wanted to think of something even stronger than saying "I like it a lot")
  

3/2009

• A while back, one of his daycare friends became a big brother. We had a parent's night where the family brought the newborn (who cried a lot!). Caleb said "look, it's will's baby brother." I said "Yeah that's right. Do you want a baby brother or sister?" Caleb said "no! no! please no..." So I replied "Why not?" Caleb said (covering his ears) "Babies cry loud!" A few months later, Caleb played with a ~11 month old babyfrom another classroom. Later that day when I was driving him home he said "I played with Baby Sophia today. Baby Sophia is very nice........yeah I want a baby brother or sister, Mommy!"

2/2009

• After doing something supercute, I told caleb "Oh sweetie, you're so cute." and he replied "No, I'm handsome"
• While I was changing his diaper, Caleb said "Kiss feet!" and I said "You want me to kiss your feet?" He replied "Yes please!" After I kissed his feet, he said "Kiss hands!" putting his hands to my face. After I kissed his hands, he said "Kiss forehead!" after I kissed his forehead he said "Kiss Mouth!" and I said "Caleb, we don't kiss on the mouth." He replied "Only married people kiss on the mouth. Mommy and daddyare married, but Caleb is not married!"
• Usually after his nap, I would ask Caleb if he had any dreams. For about a month, every day he would say "Yeah! I had a dream about wai poa...wearing a hat!"
  

1/2009

• A new girl started in Caleb's class. She had a hard time adjusting and would cry a lot. One day, Caleb sat next to her with a big block (that he pretended was a guitar) and went to sign her songs in attempt to cheer her up. She kept crying and crying, so finally he said "Angela - Don't sorry, be happy!" When the teachers told me about this, I said "where did you learn to say 'Don't worry, be happy?'" He replied "from a fish!" I thought hew as just being silly so didn't think anything of it. Later I was retelling the story to Gabe and Caleb said "Yeah, from the fish at Wai Gong and Wai Poa's house!" (this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1ug0vJyT_4)
• Caleb often speaks of president obama. He'll often grab my phone and say "I want to call President Obama. President Obama is busy, can I leave a message for him?" He also says "Uncle Raymond is always busy, just like President Obama!"
  

12/2009

• Caleb never wants to nap, he's much rather play. Usually when I say it's nap time, he gets very gigglie and super playful in hopes that I will play with him instead of putting him to bed. One day he thought he'd see if flattery worked. So I said "Caleb it's nap time." and he said "i love you mama! mama is so pretty!" And I said "OK Caleb, no more talking, it's time for bed." Caleb replied "OK Mama. I love mama. mama is wonderful." I replied "Caleb, I'm going to leave if you keep talking." He then said softly "Ok. Caleb sleep. Xiao Caleb Guai Guai....(then he sang the Chinese song my mom made up which means "little Caleb is a good boy...see here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0em6BGshDo0 :)" He also often puckers and says "but I want to kiss mama!"
• I told Caleb "that's because Mommy's a cool cat. Are you a cool cat?" and Caleb said "No, I'm C-dawg."

12/2009

• We took Caleb to the place where we got married. Caleb said "Mommy and Daddy are married. But Caleb's not married." I asked him if he wanted to get married and he said "no! no!" and whined. I said "why not?" and he replied "I like living with Mommy and Daddy!" I made him do this again (much) later so i can capture it :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOAMXoQOZ4g
• Caleb caught me snacking on some apple jacks. He said "what are you eating, mommy?" I didn't answer, but I showed him my bowl. He said "oh, cheerios. Can I have a cheerio please?" So I let him take one and his eyes widened in delight and he said "WOW, that's a GOOD cheerio!"

Caleb's new favorites:

• Band: Coldplay. He loves coldplay. He can't stand Atlantis Morisette. He'll yell "change the station!" if any of her songs ever come up.
• Songs: Viva la vida, By your side (by Tenth Avenue North). Anytime he hears any part of any of these songs, he says either "I like this song!" or "this is a good song!"
• New Hobbies: Playing with scissors. He can sit there cutting slits into a page for hours! Also we recently got him a new trampoline to help him work on his jumping. He can get really high now!
• Vacations: Bermuda in May, Kauai in January.
  
  Caleb's highlights in Bermuda (based on the order of what he enjoyed most first) were riding the trolley, riding the bus, playing at the beach, going to the zoo and aquarium, going to the caves (he often says the limestone formations looked like bunny ears), seeing the fish and turtles on the glass bottom boat, riding on the "other" boat.
  
  Caleb's Kauai highlights are seeing whales, dolphins, and seals on the "bumpy boat" (which he did not enjoy), playing with pizza dough, sittingin the hammock, seeing the waterfalls, seeing spouting horn, playing at the beach, looking at the fish in the lava pools, and he did not really enjoy the many hikes where he was stuck in the backpack carrier :)
  
  We also went to LA many times, as usual. During Christmas we made it down to San Diego to go to the zoo and to the Palm Springs Arial Tramway for Caleb's first snow experience!
  

Some video highlights (see here for all videos: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=babytang&view=videos):

• Caleb's Train dance:
• Caleb's singing feet (right foot is low voice, left foot is high voice)
• Caleb's puppet shows
• Singing
• Rockstar

Some picture highlights:

Pics!

I'm SO terrible at updating. We've been busy! But, I did manage to put up some new pics of our recent adventures. So in lieu of updates, here's some pics!

Kauai: http://picasaweb.google.com/calebtylertang/KauaiJan2009
Christmas (LA, SD, Palm Springs): http://picasaweb.google.com/calebtylertang/Christmas2008LA

Happy 2nd bday Caleb!

Lots happened since my last entry. The biggest thing is that Caleb turned 2!!

We celebrated with 3 birthday parties (1 in Nor Cal, 1 in LA, and 1 at daycare). It's always wonderful to be able to hang out with so many buddies. Some random tidbits from his bday:

• At the Nor Cal bday party (celebrated on his actual bday - Nov 22), Caleb had his first taste of cake! Usually we don't let him eat junk food and sweets. Caleb's Auntie Sandra made him a special cake (fluffy Chinese cake with very little sugar) so we let him have some. He took one bite, opened his eyes wide, looked at me and said "gooooood." haha.

• As always, Caleb is quite a "lady's boy." At school, he's always hugging, kissing, holding hands, and touching girl's cheeks. At his bday party, the only other relatively-younger girl there was Cady, the daughter of my high school buddy. I was talking to some guests and notied he was sharing a tender moment with Cady under the table, holding hands and touching cheecks.

• Caleb also made sure to wear his Cal jersey since his birthday was on the big game day. He also said "Go bears" several times throughout the party. And...whooo-hoo! the Bears won.
  

• Caleb always wanted cupcakes. He has a book about cupcakes, but since we never gave him cake or things like that, he's never had cupcakes. But since his 2nd bday introduced him to cake anyway, we had cupcakes (really they were cranberry orange bread in cupcake holders) for his bday at school. He was so excited! His friends at school also made him a gift (hand painted with their little hands)

• And Caleb was able to blow out his own candle! I expected him to need help, but I wanted him to be able to try on his own for a few times. But it turns out that Caleb can blow it out all by himself! The photo on the left is actually the first candle he blew out (at daycare). You can see the smoke from the candle, but he blew it out so quickly that we didnt' get a good shot of it. ;)
  

So Happy Birthday Caleb! We're so proud of you and SO blessed to have you in our life. We're so touched every day by your joy and your sweetness. Words can't express how much we love you. :)

Happy Halloween!

Caleb was a baby bummble bee this year. Costume sent to him by his great auntie Cynthia.

More Halloween pics can be found in his Halloween Picasa album.

When we first got the halloween costume mailed, Caleb didn't want to wear it, but he did want to practice his buzzing :)



to get ready for when he's all dressed up at the harvest festival:)


I'll also upload pics from Googleween soon :)

Weekend to LA

We made a quick somewhat spontaneous (hence driving instead of flying) trip to LA last weekend to visit family. It was great to see everyone! Here's some random pics from this weekend. Or see all the pics on his picasa page :)



Car Ride:

• YAY! COWS!
  As usual, Caleb was really great with the drive. He LOVED seeing the cows. He kept saying "Cow! Moo! More Cows! YAY! (clap) More cows! YAY! (clap)." He did this for a really long time and I was sad that I had the camera in the trunk :P After some time, I realized I should just use our phone to take a video since it was so funny. I caught the end of the cow area...but need to d/l it from Gabe's phone. :) Will post later.
• Stuck in Mama car
  It was really funny. After some time of sitting in the car seat and singing songs and pointing out "Mama Cars" and "Dada Cars," Caleb paused and said "Baby stuck in Mama car." It was totally funny. He wasn't complaining really, more just saying that he realized that he was stuck in Mama's car.

Caleb's favorite "LA" things

• Coo Coo Clock
  It's funny, Caleb has a great memory and always recognizes places and remembers people even if he hasn't seen them in a few months. One of Caleb's favorite things in my parent's house is the coo coo clock (which Gabe and I actually got them from Switzerland 5+ years ago from our honeymoon). So every time we pull up to the house he says "Wai Poa! (Grandma) Wai Gong! (Grandpa) Coo Coo! Coo Coo!" Even when he looks at pictures in my parent's house, he'll point off the picture to where the coo coo clock would be and says "coo coo!"
  
• Apples
  Caleb LOVES to pick apples. He loved it in our first house and he loves it at my parents house. He'll look outside and say "Apple! Apple!" Actually, this is semi-unrelated, but Caleb knows how to spell apple now! Here's a quick video

It's funny, he learned this from a Chinese book about fish :P Many of the pages showed a picture of an Apple can that said "Apple" and had a picture of Apple. Since Caleb knows his letters, he'd often say "A-P-P-L-E...Apple!" and thus learned how to spell Apple from a Chinese book about fish :)

• Kumquats
  Along the same lines, Caleb loves to pick and eat the kumquats...even though they're so sour! Here's a recent picture and an older video :)

• The purple chair
  My parents have this purple plastic chair. You'd think it's not a very exciting thing - especially when Caleb has lots of really cool toys there - but he loves it! He thinks it's so funny. Here's some pics from last weekend and a video from last time we were in LA.

• Harmonica
  My dad has always loved to play the harmonica. And now there's someone who loves his playing :) Yi Poa (Great Auntie Cynthia) also got him his very own harmonica this time. He loves it! Caleb's been playing nonstop! He actually has been playing the harmonica with one hand or no hands so that he can still read and play with other toys :) And oh boy...we heard a lot of harmonica playing on the way up from LA! He calls it "haaa-mo-ka"

• Snacks!
  We usually hide from Caleb when we eat snacks...but in LA...boy oh boy. People spoil Caleb! My parents always have tons of snacks on the table. And whenever we're there, there's tons of people tending to Caleb. So he gets spoiled and gets lots of snacks :) Here's Caleb with a little can of nuts. :)


When he looks at you like that...how can you resist giving him a nut? :)

Go Bears!

Every time Caleb wears his UCLA hat (shown below), which was given to him by Auntie Kimmy for Christmas last year, Gabe says "We GOTTA get him a Cal hat!"

Unfortunately, we haven't been back to Berkeley in a really long time. But we went to the east bay last weekend to celebrate Helen & Will's wedding (CONGRATS! :) ). Before the wedding, we popped in for a quick visit to Ned's and made a few very quick picture stops before rushing back to the car to get to the reception. Caleb got to sport his Cal football jersey (a gift from Auntie Gina and Uncle Eric). Here's some pics from our quick photo trip around Cal:

Waiting for daddy to pay for his new hat


Running around Sproul


Walking through Sather Gate (they're dong something to the middle portion :( )


At the campanile

And he kept shouting "GO BEARS!" :) Good boy. I gotta take a new video since he's much better at this now, but if you haven't seen it already, here's the old one.

Jesus loves me...and other updates.

The other day, Caleb was "praying" and it sounded like he said "Jesus Loves." So I replied "Jesus Love me..." and Caleb replied "I know!" I was shocked. We have sung "Jesus loves me" to him in the past, but very rarely. But, it turns out that Caleb is actually pretty good with the lyrics...with a little help :)

Other updates:

First Dance
Oh! Last week, Caleb had his first dance with a girl! The daycare teachers have pics, but I don't have them yet. But it was SO cute. They started playing music and the kids started dancing. Caleb LOVES to dance at home, but was shy about dancing at school. He was such a typical "shy guy" too. He put his hands in his pockets and slightly bobbed his head to the beat. haha! But Alex (Alexandra...the girl who always hugs and kisses Caleb and calls him "Cay-Cay") came over and grabbed his hands and started dancing with him! She was SO happy. Caleb was ok with it :) Hopefully I can post a picture later.

Shoreline
In other updates, we enjoyed our first weekend in a while where we didn't attend a wedding! (Back to another wedding next weekend though :) ) So we ran some errands, spent some time with friends, and went to the park. :) We took Caleb to shoreline park again...we took him once before when my mom was here a couple months ago. But as soon as we pulled up to the park, Caleb remembered. He started saying "Throw rock" (since last time he enjoyed throwing rocks into the water) and was very excited to see the water and rocks again!

He also enjoyed the sunset :)

But we definitely missed Wai Poa this time! Here's a few pics from when we went last time (during the day) when Wai Poa was here!

First Craft
Also, Caleb made his first Sunday School arts & crafts! It's a series of little plates with verses from Genesis.

I made him pose in his crib with it since it's taller than him. But now this is like a new game for him. He always wants to stand in his crib and play with his craft!

He's quite proud of it :)

"Go in Mama Car"
Now that Caleb is much more expressive, one thing he says all the time is "Go in Mama car." Caleb LOVES to play in my car. It's like his favorite playground. He loves to pretend to drive

He loves to climb and jump from the front seat to back seat, back seat to front seat, etc.

He loves to climb into his car seat and try to buckle himself in (he climbs into his high chair and buckles himself in now too!)

He's really happy when he actually straps himself in successfully. :)

Go Bears
One more video just for fun....Despite his UCLA hat from Auntie Kimmy, Caleb shows that he's a bear at heart :) Especially with his new Cal Jersey from Auntie Gina!

Caleb's Jokes

Caleb has been talking more and more...but every now and then he starte blabbering words that don't make any sense, then he cracks up! He does this for like 10-20 minute straight. It's pretty random, and amusing :) Here's a video of this, although by this time, I've already had him call a few people on the phone :P



Caleb's also been getting really into BIG hugs. We alwyas do "family hugs" where the 3 of us squeeze each other. Kind of like this...but not facing the camera :)


So now, Caleb will put his arms up and say "HUG!" Then during the hug, he says "squeeze" and then makes a noise like he's trying to squeeze really hard (or like he's trying to lift something heavy) and we get a nice little squeeze :) It's awesome!

Spiritual Baby :)

In one of my previous posts, I mentioned how Caleb LOVES to read the bible. In fact, he often goes hunting for his bible and exclaims "Bible! Bible!" Well, Caleb also loves to pray!



AMEN! :)

In other updates, Caleb is learning SO many things! He says SO many words now and basically understands everything. The biggest advancement is that I can now have some real conversations with him! It's really nice to be able to chat about our days. For example, yesterday I asked him what he did at school. He said "Play Amber, Jessica Sand. Alex hugs. Play water." He also has a pretty good memory. My dad played him 3 songs on the harmonica while chatting on the webcam. Later that evening Caleb was pretending to play the harmonica. I asked him what songs Wai Gong played for him and he said (in the correct order too!) "Star" (doing the twinkle twinkle motion), "Baa Baa" (as in Baa baa black sheep), and "Itsy Bitsy" (doing the itsy bitsy spider motions). It's SO much fun! It's also nice because he says things like "mama, hug please!" putting his arms out (he does this also with "kiss!"). It's just so much fun! :)