How old is Caleb?

One!!


I feel like Caleb just keeps getting more fun. I taught him that one over dinner last week :) He also responds to lots of other things...like if I say "Caleb, show me your tongue!" he'll stick out that super long tongue of his. If I say "Caleb, sing!" Then he sings his signature Caleb song. And he still does some stuff that he learned a few months ago (He claps when we sign "If you're happy and you know it." He also answers "Who am I Caleb?" although he still calls me "da da" sometimes and gabe "ma ma." He still shares whatever he's holding if you say "Caleb, share with me" But he does this fake out share now. He looks like he's giving it to you, but right before you grab it he takes it back...tricky!).

Caleb had lots of fun at his bday parties. Thank you to all his aunties & uncles for coming and making his 1st bday really special! And thanks for all the way cool gifts. Such a lucky boy to have so many wonderful people in his life :) I have pics to post...but I haven't gotten around to uploading yet...I will soon!

Caleb didn't eat his bday cake though. I tried to give it to him, but he kept feeding it to me instead. He didn't really care much for it, but he's taken a liking to feeding me. Here's a video of him feeding his great auntie Emily (also on his bday)


Lots of other new videos posted a few weeks ago. Again, too lazy to update his website, but I plan to sometime :) But you can always see them here anyway. Personally, I like this one:

even though he has really weird hair in it (we just washed out some aquafor from his hair when this video was taken). Haha. silliness.

Happy Birthday Caleb!

Happy Thanksgiving...and Happy 1st Birthday CALEB!

I'm so thankful for my baby boy. I think he's the sweetest, best baby ever (but, of course, I'm biased :) ). I'll post more later about his way fun bday party with 50 of his favorite auntie's an uncles and his way fun actual bday celebration with LOTS of family, lots of excitement, and a really cool nemo cake :) For now, I'll just say happy bday sweet baby, mommy & daddy love you lots!

Caleb update

Caleb's almost 1!! His bday falls on Thanksgiving this year. Last year, he was born the day before thanksgiving and we enjoyed our thanksgiving dinner in the hospital - cold turkey slices, stuffing and pumpkin pie. But it was worth it, we had our happy baby boy :)

Here's some Caleb updates:

Tooth #6! Tooth #5 (top left) has started peeking through the gums. So now Caleb has his 2 bottom teeth and 4 top teeth.

New Hobbies: Dropping things
Caleb's new fascination is dropping things. He LOVES to drop things onto the floor. He'll walk around (hanging onto something), grab an object, and drop it on the floor. Then he'll stare at it a bit, kick it around, then try to pick it up. It sounds simple, but picking it up is rather difficult for him since he has to lean on the couch, exersaucer, table, or something of the sort to hold himself up. So he takes a few steps back, holds himself up with one arm and with the other really hard to get the item. He makes all sorts of noises like he's really really trying to stretch and reach it. Eventually after a while of trying, he's usually successful (or he sits and grabs it if he really can't get it). After all that effort, you'd think he'd be happy with his accomplishment. But no, he picks up the item, looks at it for less than 5 seconds, and drops it again. Then he restarts the whole process. Such a strange little boy :)

New Hobbies: Playing with laptops

Caleb is quite fascinated with our laptops. He actually frequently IMs people that I'm chatting with. He actually hits enter too (my enter key is blue, so it's probably easy for him). So some of you may have gotten some messages from Caleb. It's usually something like

ajsf;leja;ef okk[okp'oplop oooooooooo '']]]]]]]
aasdfghjkl

which i like to interpret as "glad we're buddies!" But seriously, Caleb loves our laptops. Sometimes, I'll leave the room for one second to grab something and as soon as he sees me walk away, he makes a mad dash for my laptop. He starts hitting keys, touching the screen etc. Sometimes I'm shocked as to what he's accomplished in the short amount of time he has frantically pushing random keys. For example, he's managed to change my desktop picture, change my screen resolution, upgrade firefox, close documents (without saving!), initiate chat conversations, continue chat conversations, and of course, crash my browser ;) That's my little boy! I do have some footage of this, but I need to find it to upload it :) (Embarrassing confession: I'm on my 16th dvd of Caleb footage.) In the mean time, here's a pic. This is what happened when I went to prepare his food.

But yes, he's definitely a child of technology. I let him play with my cell phone sometimes and found that he's called gabe on it! When gabe is on speaker phone, he also points at it and says "Da da!"

New Skills: High-Five
Caleb learned quite a few new things. He's really good at repeating what we do (he clicks his tongue when we click our tongue, claps when we clap or sing "if you're happy and you know it," hides when we hide, and sticks his super long tongue out when we do it...see below)

So another new thing he learned is to give high-fives! So try it out next time you see him.

New Activity: Coloring
While we were in Hawaii, one of the restaurants gave Caleb a box of crayons. At the time, I figured he'd just eat them, so I didn't let him play with them. But about a month ago, another restaurant gave him crayons again. This time, I figured it'd be fun for him to try out (true) and perhaps he wouldn't eat it (yes, I was thinking madness. Of course he'd want to eat them too!).

So he now loves to play with crayons. The weird thing is, he'll sometimes just look at them and play with the crayon paper, sometimes doodle on paper, but mostly to color the crayons themselves. What I mean is he hold one crayon in his left hand and one on his right. He takes the one in his right hand and colors on the wrapper of the crayon on his left. Then he does the reverse. So a lot of his crayons have different colored wrappers. :)

Singing
Caleb is singing more and more now! He's got more variety in his songs compared to his original song. I've got lots of video of it, so I plan on uploading something when I get the chance. again, I need to find it first :)

Walking
Caleb's getting really good at walking. He still requires to lean on something, but he's not so wobbly anymore and can move around pretty quickly. He actually tries to stand on his own every now and then. He's usually successful for a few seconds. He's pretty good at finding a path of things to hang on to and can take a step in between things if necessary. We really have to step up the baby proofing!

Talking
Caleb is still saying his usual, "Hi" (although less frequently), "Hey" (more frequently), "Dada" and "Mama" (most frequently) and "bye bye." The unfortunate thing is he usually says "bye bye" after I've hung up the phone or after the person he's saying bye bye to has left. For gabe and I, he's actually pretty good about saying "bye bye" when we're leaving. (he even says "bye bye mama" or "bye bye dada"), but I find it to be like snufulufagus since he rarely does it in front of people. Gabe can attest, I'm not making it up! :)

Caleb walks!

Ok not entirely on his own, but he loves to walk holding my hands or holding onto other things. We've changed our coffee table orientation so that he can walk around the exersaucer, then arond the coffee table, then onto our couch. He loves it!



The video is actually a little old. He's really fast at it now! Yay!

Publishing an old post :)

(OK, i started this post 2 weeks ago and I never published it :) rather than update it, i'm just gonna do it now :) )

Thanks everyone for your well wishes! Caleb got over his cold pretty much after 1 day f fever & runny nose. Babies are amazing! I still have a cold from over a week ago!

Caleb really seems to be learning a lot lately! Last Friday, Caleb started trying to emulate our clapping, but he actually just hits his legs to make noise (since his hands seemed too soft to make noise). So I told my mom on the phone on Saturday that he tries to clap but can't really do it. Then when I got home, Caleb was clapping! Yay!



Also, Caleb's been calling both Gabe & me "da da" for a few months now. In fact, we'd try to get him tto say "ma ma", but he'd keep saying dada! Our conversation would go something like this:
me: Caleb, say "ma ma"
Caleb: "Da da!"
me: "ma ma"
Caleb: (pointing at me and smiling) Da Da!
me: "mmmmmmmmmmmm-ma mmmmmmmmmmm-ma"
Caleb:"Da da"

It'd go something like this:


Silly boy. Anwyay, he started saying mama more regularly a few weeks ago & YAY! These days I'm finally "ma ma" to him! YAY!

sick :(

Caleb has his first cold. He's still happy and playful, but has a runny nose and watery eyes. My poor baby :(

On a happier note, I had to use a loner laptop yesterday with broken wireless...so I couldn't do too much at my long meeting and decided to *finally* update the video page on Caleb's webiste.

http://littlebabytang.googlepages.com/video.html

Lots of new videos! Updating this page has made me realize that I have a whole lot of caleb videos online (and like a gazillion more offline that I've been meaning to upload! :) ).

Milestones: (this time only a few weeks old :) ) Caleb Stands!

He actually started taking steps now (with help :) ).

Caleb's new fascinations: Caleb's fascinated by really random things (trees, buttons, dump trucks, water bottles, dump trucks, badges, etc). Every now and then, he's fascinated by something new. For the past week, it's been light switches.

He can actually switch them on and off now too! He seems to enjoy the old-fashioned light switches better than the other ones that you just push. Aparently, those aren't as funny :P

In other Caleb news...he's been learnng to share & he loves it! He loves to hand over his toy and watch other people enjoy it (and he's got lots of fun new toys :) ). The other day, he ketp sharing his toy with me while I ate dinner. I got tired of having to pick up the toy, play with it, and hand it back so I tried to just eat and not grab the toy. Caleb started making more and more noise, offering me his toy repeatedly. Since I didn't take it, he threw it at my plate of food. Now I have to teach him about how force sharing is bad :P

overdue post of randomness...

It's been a while since I posted (minus the vacation posts, which were basically pics :) ). So these milestones really occured a while back, and I'm probably forgetting a bunch of them.

Milestones: Hello tooth #5! Caleb now has 5 teeth popping out of his little gums. I don't remember if i mentioned his 3rd or 4th tooth. Hopefully I did :) He now has 2 bottoms and 3 on top (2 middle, one more on his right).
Milestones: Caleb has added a few words to his vocabulary. Most recently, he added "bye bye!" It's really more of a "buh-buh," but I think he means bye bye :) He also says "da da" a lot!
Milestones: Caleb is very good with his fingers now! He's mastered eating cheerios (which is unfortunate b/c he used to be so funny when he ate!) and he points at things that he wants now. Acutally he points all the time. We like to do the E.T. Phone home thing :) [I'll post a pic of this later]. He also explores a lot more with his fingers and his hands. He follows the textures and the colors on his toys or whatever has his attention at the moment. He still eats everything though after he's done exploring it with his hand :P

Since clieu requested it, I posted a video of Caleb eating cheerios. I really wish I filmed him doign so earlier b/c he was really funny before when it was new. He'd make all sorts of funny faces trying to place the cheerios perfectly on his gum. He'd also struggle getting it into his mouth. He used to pick up the cheerios, make a fist, and then stick his fist in his mouth. After a while, he'd take it out and see that the cheerio (now mushy) was still in his fist. *sigh* They grow up so fast! :P


Since I got to posting videos, there are quite a few others. I'm kind of on a posting roll (and I haven't put up any in a while), so I'll probably continue to put more new ones and add them to caleb's website when I'm less busy/more motivated.

Here's some links in the meantime:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z32OYv6btH8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfnGU0Spl9g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImvdWnivubA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB3JTnUj9cg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lfHmzC_2bs

OK, back to work. I miss Caleb...

Aloha!

We're back from Hawaii! We had soooo much fun traveling with Caleb!

He was super happy (and super well behaved) on the plane! In fact, Caleb is usually pretty shy when meeting people he's not used to in places he's not used to - he's not usually his super-happy self unless it's just a few people over at our place. But on the plane, he was very outgoing - laughing, talking, and trying to look at/get the attention of the others on the plane. He also ate well and slept well on the plane.

Caleb also adjusts amazingly well to jetlag. He adjusted to hawaiian time right away and adjusted back to cally time instantly. It was SUCH a relief. I thought I'd be getting up at 3:30 with him everyday...but he actually slept till 7am or later every day that we were there!

Caleb loved the hotel we stayed at on Maui. They had swans, ducks, penguins, parrots, and other birds that he loved looking at (plus of course, his favorite - trees!). He also loved looking at the waterfalls, playing in the pool, and looking at the beach. Caleb could stare and stare at the ocean with delight, but being in the ocean was another story ;) He just kind of looked blankly at the water around him the way he does a new person he's not used to. Oh well, maybe next time he'll be better aquainted with Mr. Pacific.
He was also super happy on our hike in Oahu...that is, until he fell asleep :) In usual Caleb style, he was talkative, smiley, and kickey in the begining of the hike hwen things aren't that interesting, and right before we get to the exciting look out point, he falls asleep! This time the wind at the top of diamond head woke him up though so he did get to enjoy the scenery and he stayed up on the way down. Phew!

I must say, the best part of going on vacation is getting to hang out with my boys all day :) Anyway, here's the rest of our pics from hawaii:

Vegas, Baby!

Caleb had his first trip outside California last weekend! We had trouble getting airplane tickets that landed in time for our showtime of Ka, so we actually ended up driving. As usual, Caleb was really good at entertaining himself in the car, kicking, laughing at random things, and making his funny car faces and noises. He definitely kept me entertained! :)

Since Caleb was so good while we all watched shows, ate lots of buffets, and endured lots of temperature changes from the cold casinos to the hot Vegas air, we spent quite a bit of time at FAO schwartz! He loved playing with his toys and was really interested in a talking/dancing homer. (It was actually pretty amusing).

Anyway, here's some pics from Vegas. I realize there are some dups...but I don't have time to go through it. We're leaving for Hawaii in a few hours :)



By the way...if you look at our photos, you may notice that Gabe is making a funny face in lots of them :P It's because we often get Caleb to smile for photos by saying "Poop poop poop" (which he still finds as funny as he did when he was 5 months). So nice of Gabe to sacrifice his smiling to make Caleb smile :)

Playing at the Park!

I've been meaning to blog for sooo long. Quick updates:
- Milestones: Caleb now has 4 teeth! The 2 on the bottom are pretty much fully out now (I think). The one on the right on top is out a little bit, and the one on the top left just poked through his gums this morning. yay!
- Milestone 2: Caleb eats cheerios now! Actually he has been for a few weeks. It's super cute watching him. He makes some really funny faces inthe process of eating his cheerios, I've gotta video it someday.
- Milestone 3: Caleb went swimming for the first time yesterday! I'll probably post another post on that later.
I think he's had quite a few other milestones, but it's been so long now. I guess I'll just post about it later :)

Anyway, today I've decided to write about Caleb's progress in the park :) Since we live really close to a park and because Caleb LOVES trees, I used to always take him to the park to walk around when he was really little. Now that he's bigger, these park trips are much more fun since he can play on the playground equipment. When we first put him on the swing (on Gabe's lap or on my lap), he threw his arms up and looked like so scared:



So actually we thought he didn't like the swing (which was weird because he used to love his cradle swing). But we found out he actually LOVES going on the swing by himself.



We also tried him on the slide (with me). He seemed to react to the slide the way he did when he went on the swing with Gabe and me. It makes me wonder if he'll be less afraid by himself, but there's no way I'm gonna let him slide down a slide alone!



Anyway, Caleb's had an exciting few weeks and he's got some adventures coming up...Vegas, Hawaii, LA (again) and several weddings. YAY! Hopefully I'll be better about updating :)

Water bottle

Oh sure, Caleb has TONS of toys...toys that move, sing, make noise, have mirrors, vibrate, talk, light up, rattle, bounce, spin, etc (not to mention that his exersauser does it all). but it turns out all he really needs to be entertained is a water bottle!

baby teeth!

Milestone: Caleb's got teeth!!! His center 2 bottom teeth have popped out of his gums! Although you can definitely feel them, he still looks like he's all gums since he sticks his tongue out so much anyway. :P I think he likes to lick his new teeth.

Other news: Caleb also got his first haircut! I saved 2 long locks from the sides of his head for his baby book too :) Here's an after-shot:

Also 2 new Caleb videos uploaded on his site (under the newly uploaded section). I have a few more coming, but haven't gotten around to uploading yet...probably soon :) I was going to do it now, but Caleb's up from his nap! :) YAY! time to play!

Random Tidbits...

Caleb has added "YEAH!" to his list of words (which include "Hi" and "Who"). He uses "yeah!" quite often actually. He also says "Baba" and "A-ba" (which is grandma in Shanghainese). He's naturally Chinese i guess? :) We were trying to teach him "daddy" and "wai poa"/"nai nai". go figure. He's only said "mama" a few times when he's crying :( it was a "waaaaaaa-maaaaa-maaaaaaa....waaa...maaaa-maaaa...." so sad :(

Anyhow, in other Caleb milestones, he's become quite the rolly polly. He rolls all over the place all the time. It's hard to keep him contained in one area, because he always ends up rolling all over the place. He also rolls back and forth and all over the place in his sleep (like mommy :) ).

Caleb also makes all these new faces and noises. One is his "smush face" which is like when you pucker your lips and smash the rest of your features together. He also smacks his lips pretty frequently (I think it's usually when he's watching us eat or when he's hungry). He LOVES blowing raspberries and ...umm..not sure what you call it when you make horsey noises and your lips vibrate. But yeah, he's really good at that! Here's another thing he just started (I'm not sure what to call this face...):

Caleb's favorite thing...

in the whole world is playing with his dady!

It's such a joy for me to see my boys together :) Caleb is always overjoyed everytime he sees his daddy! I've got LOTS of videos of my boys playing together (most still need to be uploaded :( ). But here's some from the past 2 days...




As a mommy, I want the best for my sweet baby. I'm glad he got the best daddy! :)

Funny Faces

Caleb has always made lots of funny faces/expressions. He no longer makes the blue steel face that he used to make so often. Instead he has a funny spit face (which i have on video somewhere but haven't uploaded yet) and he does this mouthing sort of action. (you can see him do it about half way through this video below)



He don't do his sneeze noise as often anymore, but he still does it sometimes. But he does make a super funny yawn noise now. I haven't caught it on video yet, but I'm trying! :P

Caleb's first 4th!

Caleb had lots of fun at the park!Even though he fell asleep at his usual 9ish bedtime...

he woke up in time to catch the fireworks! He was pretty shocked/afraid of it. Here's a video of him (although it's not very exciting because he's totally motionless while watching the fireworks!).


Yay for independence!

All dressed up...

with lots of places to go!!

Last weekend, Caleb got to attend his Auntie Tammy & Uncle Hudson's wedding, his Wai Poa (grandma Shen)'s birthday celebration, father's day celebration (because he has the best daddy in the whole world!), more family fun & a long car ride laughing at mommy's craziness. Fun stuff :)

Thanks Great-Auntie Cindy for the baby tux!

Happy Birthday Wai Poa

Caleb is super duper lucky to have the very best wai poa (grandma) in the whole world. Wai poa sacrifices so much of her time & energy to care for Caleb. He finds her absolutely hilarious. He loves to laugh with her as she plays with him. She reads to him in Chinese (well, not really reads as much as she makes up things to say about the pictures :P), sings songs, feeds him, puts him to bed, walks with him outside, bathes him, changes him, and lets him see all sorts of exciting things like the gardener doing his job (clearly I meant exciting to Caleb, not to the general population). She also lets Caleb chew on her knuckle and massages his gum. He LOVES that! So anyway, happy birthday to the best wai poa in the world. We love you!

Caleb & Taylor...

sitting in a tree...k-i-s-s-i-n-g!

OK, Caleb didn't sit in a tree, but he did get kissed! The first few times Caleb kissed him, he arched his back and looked scared/not so pleased.

But later he warmed up to it :)

Haha. Anyway, Caleb had much fun with his friend (yes, he's way to young to have a "friend")Taylor. It was way fun to see them play together. Taylor patted Caleb on the head a few times. She also picked up his rings and handed it to him for him to chew. :) Way cute.

Happy Birthday Uncle Victor!

Caleb's First Hike!

Caleb went on his first hike yesterday. We knew he'd love it since trees are his absolute favorite thing. Here's some pics from our journey...
Yes, I look weird in that one because I was trying to make Caleb smile :P

Caleb also took his first picture! Sure Gabe helped by holding up the camera, but pressing the button was all Caleb. Check out his first photographic endeavor.

But still...after all that walking, Caleb fell asleep at the lookout point! (probably bored because there were no more trees)

Rolling Over!

Milestone report: Caleb rolled over today! Well, he's been rolling over half way for quite a while now, but he's only rolled over once with a little help ;). But today, he rolled over by himself. He was going crazy on tummy time, and then was streaching to see what his grandma was eating and then rolled over. I think he was shocked by the transition, he kinda just laid there wide eyed for a moment before he returned to his frantic kicking :)

Anyway, here's a question for you guys...Can you still do this?



I can, Gabe can't (but then again, Gabe can't sit indian style either). But even though I can do it, I can't say that I enjoy it as much as Caleb does :)

6 Months!

Last Thursday, we took Caleb to the doctor again for his 6 month checkup. Here's how he measured up:
So yeah, he's getting longer & longer compared to the national average & is relatively normal in weight & head size (boy do babies have big heads! :P).

Anyway, its hard to believe my little Caleb is 6 mos now. I used to roll my eyes (at least mentally behind a polite smile :) ) when people used to say things like "it seems like just yesterday you were a little girl/baby only this big!" But that's totally how I feel! And yet at the same time, I feel like Caleb has been in our life much longer than a mere half year.

It's amazing how parenthood changes you. For one, I've gotten much physically stronger; the fact that my weak arms can actually carry a 17+lb baby is a miracle in itself. But much more than that, I experience deeper love & joy than ever before. I think of Caleb every second I'm awake and the things that used to make me happy pale in comparison to the things that I think might make Caleb happy. Even at my busiest moments, I hear his laughter and see his sweet smile in my head. This truly is the best time in my life. I've been sooooo richly blessed that God has entrusted me with such a precious life.

Here's another random video of Caleb throwing the ball around:

Solids!

Caleb started solids today! Well, the rice cereal wasn't realy "solid," so i guess I should say Caleb had his first non-milk meal :) I really expected Caleb to love eating since he is mesmerized by us eating and he mouths like he's chewing and tries to grab our food! But I think he was pretty surprised by the taste & made lots of disgusted faces:

But after a few minutes of shock/disgust, he started to like it a bit more :)
Although he was happiest when the meal was over

If you're interested in seeing his very first spoonfulls (and his disgusted look :P), its uploaded here.

Mother's day

Milestone: Caleb rolled over yesterday! Yay, it's been a long time coming. He usually rolls onto his side, but doesn't quite make it all the way over. he celebrated his accomplishment with a shocked look & a little laugh :)

Other stuff: Happy mother's day! I must say, being a mommy is awesome; Caleb is such a HUGE blessing & joy. (thats why everday is Caleb day to me! :) ) But as a mommy, I've come to totally appreciate my mommy all the more. I'm super fortunate to have my mommy here. She's seriously amazing. She's the best mommy & grandma ever!

Random Video: One of the perks of mommyhood is being able to zebet some jello bellies :)

I miss Caleb :(

Yep, the dreaded day has come - it's my first day at work. It was sooooo hard to get in my car and leave my little boy at home. Work is good (cool friends, good free food), but boy do i miss my little Caleb! I wanna go home and hear him laughing and see his little dimples and chubby feet. :) I'm super thankful for my mom, who is staying with us and taking care of Caleb. Caleb is definitely in good hands!

Oooh, I meant to blog about this last Friday. Caleb said a whole bunch of "hi"s! We had a "hi" conversation...it went something like this:
Me: Hi Caleb!
Caleb: Hi
me: *surprised* Hi!!!!
Caleb: Hi
Me: Hello!
Caleb: Hi
Me: Hi!!!!
Caleb: *smile* (He was probably thinking..."OK mom, I've said 'Hi' enough already...leave me alone!")

Here's a newly-uploaded (but slightly old) video for your enjoyment. I think i'll go hide in the mother's room and watch some Caleb videos. :P

Discoveries

This weekend, Caleb discovered his feet! Now he's always grabbing them. If my feet were so cute, I'd grab them too! :)

We discovered something that makes Caleb laugh! Its the word "Poop," especially when repeated. Now it makes much more sense why he always cracks up on the changing table! (because I say things like "Ewwww, stinky poop!" as I change him :P). Here's a little video series about Caleb's happy poop:

In his car seat - Caleb is finishing up his poop..and laughing about it!

Gabe & I experimenting with Caleb - we wanted to see if it really is the words "Poop poop poop" that make Caleb laugh.

Caleb laughing at "poop poop poop"

Normally, I find poop VERY gross (and I can't believe I wrote so much about it in a post), but at least it makes my baby happy! :)

Walking Buddies

Caleb & I love our daily walks (especially when daddy can join). Caleb loves looking around at the trees, sky, etc. and I love holding his hands and looking at him in his hat. :P


While we're on our short daily walk (which by the way, is just 2 blocks from our house to the park, through the park, to the library across the street and back), we encounter lots of strangers who always strike up a conversation with me. Here's some tidbits of the types of people I encounter and the things they say to me:

• The little kids. These guys are my favorite. There was once a little girl riding her bike on the street. She saw Caleb, immediately stopped, threw her bike down, ran up to me and said "Awwwwww..." She gave us a big smile and jumped back onto her bike and left. Haha. Little kids often like looking at Caleb (a few of them yell "BABY BABY BABY!" and run towards us).
• The old ladies. There's lots of grandmothers walking around. They usually speak Chinese to me and try to give me advise. Sometimes they're sensible (like "Try to sleep as much as possible."), but usually they're very weird. For instance, here's some things I've been told: "Pad your bones. If your bones hurt, his bones will hurt. Don't think that you should be in pain just because you're a mommy." "He's very very cute. So be careful. The girls are coming. You should think about his hair." "He can sleep standing. That means you should sit him up more." Usually I just nod my head and smile...and think "either my Chinese is THAT bad, or you're just weird."
• The fellow mommies. They usually say "How old is he? .... WOW, he's very big!" and "I miss when my kids were that tiny."
• The weird neighbors. There's one guy who I always see. He always says hello with a big smile, nods his head and then says "Sandra, you do good work." I'm not quite sure what he means by that, but he says it every time I see him. I guess it's a good thing. There's another Asian-visor-wearing-pregnant lady who says "He's bigger and I'm bigger" with a laugh every time I see her. I wonder what she'll say after she gives birth.

Well, there's more but this is enough blogging for me today. :) So yes, if you'd like to talk to strangers...carry a baby around. Even the firemen (there's a firehouse next to the libary) and my mean mail man now talk to me. haha.

Daily Fun...

Caleb is 5 months old as of Sunday! I already had to retire quite a few of his outfits because they're too short (all 6 month old outfits...so he's moving on to 9 month and 12 month clothes!). Caleb dressed up for his infant dedication on Sunday in this 12 month outfit :)

Anyhow, people often ask me what Caleb & I do all day. And no, I don't just roar at him all day ;) (Although that would be fun!). Here's a glimpse into our daily activities:

• PLAY!
  This is a majority of our time. Caleb plays with his toys & many stuffed animals (usually for Caleb, "Play" = "Grab & stick in my mouth"). He especially LOVES his play mat, walker, swing, turtle, softball, finger puppets, lumpy, monkey, hippo, etc. (Thanks to all the aunties & uncles who gave them to us!)
  We also play some games like peek-a-boo and patty cake & sing songs like "If you're happy & you know it." Oooh, and Caleb LOVES massages (just like Mommy :) ).
• Lunch visits
  We also get a few lunch visitors who come to break bread with me & play w/ Caleb. Also we try to meet up w/ friends & Gabe for lunch too. Anyone wanna have lunch with us before I go back to work in 2 weeks? :)
• Eating
  Caleb still nurses about 5 times day...plus he LOVES to watch me eat. Actually I feel kind of bad that he's not eating solids yet. He stares, salivates, licks his lips & mouths along as I eat. Poor baby!
• Taking a walk
  Or, I guess being carried on a walk for Caleb :) I usually take a stroll to the park and library (very close to our house) with Caleb in a baby bjorn. Caleb LOVES looking at trees (and usually ignores the dogs and cats we pass by on the way). Also, when I'm with Caleb, TONS of strangers will strike up conversations with me, so it makes for an interesting daily journey.
• Reading books
  Yeah, obviously Caleb doesn't read. But he sits on my lap and tries to grab and eat the pages as I read to him. :) We have LOTS of pop-up books and interactive books that make lots of noises thanks to my the grandparents and aunties & uncles :)
• Diaper changes
  This is another 5x a day activity (along with the occasional bath). But this is MUCH quicker than a feeding time :P Plus Caleb LOVES diaper changes. He smiles and laughs non-stop (just like right after he poops ;) )
• Exercise
  This is clearly a Caleb activity, mommy is lazy! :) His exercise is tummy time. He usually does this while grabbing for toys and I root him on, or he watches some Baby Einstein DVD.
• Sleeeeeep
  This happens much too little in our day :) Caleb takes 1-2 naps if we're lucky. And when Caleb naps, mommy gets to nap :)

We'll also, of course, go out and run errands occasionally. It's all fun stuff, I think we should all have babies so that Caleb can have more fiends to play with...uh, or stare at...

Movin' to the Crib...

Since Caleb was born, we've had him sleep in a mini co-sleeper next to our bed. (It's like a cradle that attaches to your bed). It was definitely nice during the early days filled with mid-night feedings. And even though the midnight feedings stopped, it was still nice to be able to lean my head over and see my baby boy sound asleep. We originally decided to get the mini co-sleeper instead of the full size because we figured we'd move Caleb to his crib when he was around 3 months. Well, he started outgrowing the co-sleeper about a month ago, but it was too hard for me to part with Caleb for the night, so we kept him next to us a while longer (even though his arms would hit the sides when he flailed them about). But alas, I've had to face my night-time separation anxiety and Caleb's moved into his crib in his own room a little over a week ago.




I must say, it's hard to sleep without Caleb next to me (even though he's in the bedroom right next to mine and I can hear his breathing through the monitor). I can't imagine how hard it's going to be when I go back to work next month! :(

Hairstyles of the cute & chubby

We haven't cut Caleb's hair yet...and it's definitely getting long. I actually wanted to cut off a lock to save it in his baby book before he looses his baby hair, but I'm afraid that cutting off a lock will make him look funny. Raymond suggested that we shave Caleb's head. I guess I can support the "Bald is Beautiful" concept, but not on my little boy. :) So what hairstyle do you think we should do on Caleb?

This is his current hairstyle:

Here's Caleb sporting a faux mohawk :)

And here's a side part (Gabe hates his hair this way, he thinks he looks like he's from the 50's :) )

Sorry, no pics of him bald :). I would have liked to try him out with a spikey do, but his hair is pretty thin so it doesn't quite work. So what do you think is Caleb's best look?

Sitting Up!

YAY! Caleb can officially sit up now!

I have been occasionally checking to see if he can sit up, but usually he does a pseudo-sit up position (which is really like he's doing yoga, legs crossed and body bent over). Babies are really amazingly flexible :)

But YAY, this morning when I tried he did an excellent job sitting up for quite a while! Whooo-hooo! I'm looking forward to him being able to use high chairs (so I don't have to lug in the stroller or car seat when going out) and the kitchen sink as a tub. haha.

LOL

Caleb is a mystery. He smiles a whole lot, and usually when we try to make him laugh, he smiles back at us. But now, he laughs pretty frequently too. But most of the time, we have no idea what makes him laugh. Or if we do know what makes him laugh, we have no idea why he finds it funny. Sometimes he laughs when we're interacting with him, but we're not doing anything funny or different than usual. Here are some other random things that have made him laugh in the past: Gabe's coughing, diaper changes, stuffed animals at Raymond & Sandra's place, and the wine bottles/wine rack in our house, and of course, his reflection. It's kind of funny though because when he finds an object he finds funny, he doesn't actually keep looking at it. He'll look at it, laugh, look away...somehow glance back, laugh...look away, etc etc.

This morning though, I discovered that he finds my scary "ROAR" funny. OK, maybe it's not so scary...but anyway, here's a clip of little Caleb laughing at it. He actually laughs more later in the clip...

Infant Dedication

We'll be dedicating Caleb at the 11am GrX service next Sunday (April 22). Yay!

Videos

I finally got around to uploading some older videos of a 2 month old Caleb that needed a bit of compression. Here they are:
Deep thoughts: This is around the time Caleb first started making lots of noise. Of course, now he makes a ruckus quite frequently.
Early Conversations: Along a similar note, we try to have "conversations" with Caleb. Of course, even now his replies are still his random "eh eh" "whoooo" and "cooooo" noises.
Bobblehead: Yep, Caleb does an excellent impression of one of those bobbleheads. His neck is much stronger now, but he still bobbles occasionally (but definiltey not this much!)

There's also a few newly uploaded (and not so old videos) on the video page. More to come later today if I'm not too lazy...

What's in a name?

"Caleb" has been in the top 50 most common names since 1997 and in the top 100s for the rest of the 90s. (By the way, check out this site to see the popularity trends of your name!) But in our experience, so many people have had difficulty pronouncing Caleb's name!

I understand that Caleb is not spelled the way it sounds (which is pronounced [Key-luh b] according to the pronunciation key, or practically like "K"-lub). Some people, like Gabe's mom, pronounce it like it's spelled, "Kay-Leb." That's more understandable, but his name has gotten seriously butchered in the pronunciation department by so many people. The first time we took him to the doctor, the nurse came out and said "Suh-leeeeebeh." We didn't respond, so she tried again "Kal-leebeth." We also didn't respond, so finally she said Caleb's middle name "Tyler." Then we looked at each other and said "ooooh, she's trying to call Caleb."

Actually, my mom and uncle often confuse the name "Caleb" with "Gabriel." It's pretty funny. My mom will say "Gabriel is the most important now. Everyone comes to see Gabriel, he's always the center of attention!" and "I saw the new Gabriel videos" etc. They both say that it's difficult because Caleb and Gabriel sound so alike. I find it funny, but I can't say that I agree. :) Thankfully, they're both getting much better at it (although my uncle still slips sometimes and calls him Galeb). Before Caleb was born, a large family dinner and the family spent the whole dinner learning to pronounce Caleb (and asked us why we picked such a strange name).

I know I should have expected it since before we named him Caleb, my coworker told me a story about how she was on a conference call with a Caleb, and asked the question "Is that correct Celeb (like celebrity)?" And he replied "uh, yes, but my name is Caleb." haha. It's just that I always hated when people pronounced my name "Sondra" so I was hoping that Caleb wouldn't run into such issues.

Here's why we named him Caleb - Caleb means Faithful and Bold. In Numbers, Caleb followed the Lord wholeheartedly and stood up in faith. So despite all this, I think it's an excellent name :)

Checkup Stats

Last week, we went to the doctor's for Caleb's 4 month check up. Here's how he measured up in all his previous visits...



This all seems expected to me except for the head circumference percentile statistic. Personally, I think Caleb has a HUGE head (see pic below).


Granted it's not huge compared to an adult head (after looking at Caleb all day, gabe's head looks gigantic), but definitley compared to his little body. Aparently babies' heads are suppsed to be 1/3 of their body (I'm not sure if that's in size or in weight). Anyhow, that's all good and stuff, but seriously, if Caleb's head size is truly less than 30th percentile and he's about average in weight and length, there are some kids out there with ginormous heads! They've got to be like 1/2 head or somthing! That's just scary.

Inherited traits?

Usually people either think Caleb looks a lot like me or a lot like Gabe. There's rarely someone who thinks that he looks like both of us. How is that possible? When he was first born, more people thought he looked like Gabe than like me, now it seems more people think he looks like me. I've heard that by nature, babies look more like their fathers when they're born so that fathers can sort of bond with the new baby and be assured that the baby is theirs - then later on the child comes to resemble the mother later. I'm not sure how true that is or if it's relevant in this case - I actually just think people thought Caleb looked more like Gabe when he was skinny and now that he's chubby (and has chubby cheeks!) he looks more like me. Who knows...

But that brings to question...what else does Caleb inherit that's like us?

• His dimples. Neither of us have dimples, but Caleb has 3 dimples (2 on his right side, 1 on his left). Is that stuff hereditary?
• His sneeze noise. Caleb makes an "awww" after many of his sneezes (and sometimes before). Apparently, I used to do that when i was a baby too (according to my mom). Do things like that get passed down?
• His "blue steel" face. Is this a baby thing? I don't think that's from either of us.
• His blonde eyebrows & lovely tan. Caleb was born with blond eyebrows (we're VERY happy they now look more normal). He also had a very nice darker complexion when he was born so we got lots of comments like "hmmm...Gabe, are you sure he's yours? He’s awfully tan...and blonde. *wink* *wink*"
• His sleepy feet movements. He moves his feet in his sleep, just like Gabe! both my boys have their feet constantly moving in their sleep. i always thought that was weird when Gabe did it, and now Caleb does it too!
• His "body builder" type body is clearly from me. :P Yes, people have commented that he looks like a body builder. It’s actually just that his fat is pretty defined so he looks muscular. If only we can all be so lucky :)
• His affinity for playing with this tongue. Seriously, he's always sticking his tongue out or making some weird face with his tongue. I don't really think that's from either of us.
• His laziness. That's clearly from Gabe. :)
• Caleb says "uh oh!" when he poops. We didn't teach him that, in fact, we've never even taught him to say "uh oh"...he just does it (and he says it rather loudly :) )
• His personality. Caleb's a really good baby. He's rarely fussy and doesn’t complain very much. This is clearly not from me (I was a very whiney baby...and kid...and adult...) I'm so glad he's more like Gabe in this area. Although I like to think he's fun because of me. :P
  

Growing boy...

12/6/06

2/22/06

Say Cheese..

Caleb's definitely not Camera shy...but apparently he thinks his concerned face is his best look. Usually he'll be doing something funny or cute, I'll whip out the camera and once he sees it he freezes like a deer in headlights, staring straight into the lens with a furrowed brow. So catching Caleb in his natural state is a rare occurrence.

Yesterday, Caleb was sitting on my lap totally laughing at Gabe - I mean very hearty, happy, loud and super smiley laughter. My camera happened to be next to me and since Caleb was looking at Gabe and not me, I was able to film him doing his laugh for like 2 straight minutes (with no furrowed brow!). I was so happy about this rare opportunity, but I was SO bummed when I realized that I didn't actually click the button all the way to start with so I actually didn't film anything. Booo. Anyway, he laughed again today, and I did catch that on video. But Caleb notices the camera so he stops and looks at the camera very concerned a few times in the middle of his laugh. Actually, I think he seems to be more humoring me with some laughing noises rather than laughing in this one. Well, at least he knows how to make mommy happy :P

On another note, I'm so thankful for digital cameras :) There's no way I'd be able to store this much film or develop this many pictures.

New Discovery...

hGabe discovered that when you squeeze Caleb's chubby cheeks together, he sticks his tounge out! What a strange little person :)

Posted by: mommy
(daddy claims he's going to post too, but since he hasn't yet, it makes these little "posted by" notes pretty pointless :P)

Nursery Rhymes

So...how well do you know your nursery rhymes? i always laugh at Gabe because he doesn't remember the lyrics to the most common nursery rhymes (like twinkle twinkle little star, itsy bitsy spider, etc). Gabe used to sing different songs to Caleb while he was still in the womb...but whenever he tried to sing a kiddy song, he'd need a lot of help on the lyrics from me or from google. :) once when i started singing baa baa black sheep he said "what the heck? baa baa black sheep? don't make stuff up! why don't i sing moo moo brown cow." what a silly hubby.

anyway, the other day Gabe was trying to sing BINGO to Caleb. so he started singing (to the tune of Old McDonald)..."Old McDonald had a dog..." I quickly interrupted him and said "Old McDonald had a FARM..." Gabe paused, and replied "See, that's what i thought, but the farm's name is Bingo? Old McDonald had a farm and Bingo was his name-o. B-I-N-G-O..."

That actually left me stumped. I couldn't remember the tune to Bingo and I couldn't think of the regular words to Old McDonald had a farm...and why the heck would his farm be named Bingo anyway? :) Anyhow, I actually had to do a quick search to remember Old McDonald had a farm...e-i-e-i-o (what the heck does e-i-e-i-o mean anyway?) and to remember that the farmer had the dog named Bingo. Maybe in a few years, Caleb will be correcting my nursery rhyme lyrics...so sad, so sad...

posted by: mommy

Tummy Time

So in order to encourage muscle development and other good stuff, you're supposed to give babies some time on their tummies throughout the day. When put on their tummy, babies are supposed to try to hold up their heads (to strengthen their neck) and eventually try to push up with their arms and legs to work up to crawling.

Caleb is very active when he's on his back; he's always kicking his legs, waving his arms, and moving his head. But most of the time, once we put him on his stomach he does his awesome impression of a beached whale. That or he just starts eating his fist or something. As he's gotten older, he's definitely put a little more effort into holding up that big head of his (relative to the rest of his body). Here's 2 videos of his tummy time attempts, so you can see when he's not very successful (but happy!), and when he's slightly more successful at holding his head up ;)

Now that he's moved on from his trademark beached whale tummy time move, he's developed a new tummy time activity that's really kind of gross (but Gabe finds it awfully funny ;) ). For the past few days, after a good 10 minutes of tummy time, Caleb lifts his head up, spits up, and then plummets his face into his spit up. It's like a face plant straight into a puddle of spit up milk. GROSS. No videos of that ;) phew.

posted by: mommy

long overdue post...

Yay! Little Caleb is 3 months old as of the day before yesterday. We've been meaning to start a blog about Caleb & his adventures, developments, mishaps, and discoveries for some time but never quite got around to it until today. There's so much we would have written about in these first 3 months, but hey, better late than never! Here's a few random thoughts from the first three months, more to be added later...

Birth: I still can't believe this precious little boy used to live in my belly. I also can't believe that things like fingers, toes, noses etc can come in such a small size :). Caleb was very smiley right from the start and definitely a very good boy. not much crying (even when taking shots!).

Diaper Adventures: While we hoped our first kid would be a boy, we learned that there are some things you need to be prepared for when you have a baby boy. Caleb was surprisingly good at aiming that Golden shower at his loving diaper changers (especially at Gabe!). It wasn't just the golden shower though...there are other things that can travel great distances in it's liquid state (since he only drinks milk right now). :P After a few weeks of great messes, we've learned how to shield ourselves and take precautions. But yes, there are many many joys of parenthood. For me, this wasn't one of them :)

Noises: I must say, Caleb makes the cutest noises. His first noise (other than the crying wimpers) was "awwww" which he would say after every sneeze (check out video examples of this during Caleb's first week and just last week). It's really funny especially when he has multiple sneezes and multiple "awww"s, which unfortunately is difficult to catch on video. Despite what it seems like, I don't film him every second of the day ;) Last month, he started making all sorts of other noises, mostly "eh"s, "ah"s, and "coo"s, but also "whooooo" and the very rare "hiiiiiiii" (which also is sometimes just "eyeeee"). He's also said "uh oh" a few times after he relieves himself :) I guess he'll work up to mama ;)

Caleb's favorite things: Caleb is a very lucky boy. He's got lots of toys, stuffed animals, activity centers, etc. But I must say, Caleb's all time favorite thing to look at is Ceilings. He can stare at ceilings for hours and hours and be very amused. Second to ceilings is lights...or best yet, ceiling lights. Although I must say, Caleb recently discovered how yummy his fingers are just a few weeks ago...he seems to LOVE that perhaps even more than ceilings. (here's a video that shows just how delicious his little fingers are)

Hmm...this is getting long...so, here's where i stop. To be continued...

Posted by: mommy