Finally updated Caleb's website

It's been a loooong time (I know, because the page I just replaced said "Caleb is now 7 months old!") since I updated Caleb's website. I figured since it's been well over a year since I updated it last, it'd be a good time update the site to contain more general terms (like "Caleb is a toddler!") and to put up a new poll that's been suggested by several people before, "What is your favorite Caleb Video?". The poll is also on the right column of Caleb's website.

I put up some videos that the suggesters mentioned, but if I left out your favorite, let me know.

GW also suggested that, as a follow up to my previous post about Caleb's "Girlfriends," I create a poll so that you all can tell me who Caleb's GF should be :) So, here is is! Sorry you have to click the link, embedding is making this page buggy :)

Climbing

Boy, this is my 3rd blogpost in 3 days. YAY!

Anyway, one thing I forgot to mention in my 19 month update is that Caleb has become quite the climber! He's always loved to climb things and he'd manage to get to great heights somehow (he'd move his potty stool, pillows, books, boxes, chairs, etc) so that he can get on the bed or play with things that were out of his reach. He's actually becoming much more adept (much to our dismay) at climbing very difficult things - like his high chair! When he's standing on the ground, the foot rest of his high chair is about armpit level. So it's pretty amazing that he can climb it (I sure wouldn't be able to). So now he moves his high chair anywhere he wants to get to (usually it's the door locks) and then climbs the chair. Here's a video of it:



He also climbs the shelves in my mom's closet. For the past half year or so, my mom's closet has been one of his favorite places to play. He hides in there during hide and seek, he takes all her things out of the drawer, he takes things he finds from around the house and puts them in there (I once couldn't find some of my mail and found it in my mom's drawer months later because Caleb put it there!). Now his new favorite thing is to climb the wire wrack we have in her closet. It's very difficult to climb and when he gets up, he can't quite get down. So he stands at the top and yells "Wai Poa! Mama! Dada! Wai Poa!" until one of us comes to get him. Silly boy.

Caleb's "girlfriends"

I've mentioned Caleb's "girlfriends" before in the past and have gotten lots of questions about them. :)

First of all, let me clarify that this is not something I started. :) My mom (very graciously) stays up in Nor Cal to take care of Caleb. Since she's come, she takes Caleb to the nearby park and library everyday. My outgoing mother quickly made friends with my neighbors as well. One of the neighbors has a little girl just a few months younger than Caleb named Sanjie (but they all call her by her nickname "Gua Gua" because she likes to eat squash). Gua Gua's mom started to call Caleb "Gua Gua's Boyfriend" and would tell Caleb he had to be nice to his "future mother-in-law" etc. When I would get home from work, my mom would tell me about what Caleb did during the day and she'd refer to Gua Gua as "Caleb's girlfriend." Later, a "second girlfriend" came along as another girl, Yvette, started joining the library crew. The mothers called both girls "Caleb's Girlfriend." Actually, they started fighting over which girl gets to be Caleb's "second wife" because they said the guys like the second wife better than the first wife (yes, very sketchy. But again, not my idea! I was at work during these conversations!)

So, anyway, here's some tidbits about Caleb's girlfriends:

Girlfriend #1
Sanjie (aka "Gua Gua")

Tidbits:

• Caleb knows her name and recognizes her house. When he sees her or when he walks by her house, he points and shouts "Gua Gua!"
• Caleb also *gasp* kissed her on the lips. (He kisses people on the check if you say "Caleb, give ___ a kiss." When we said to give Gua Gua a kiss, he kissed her on the lips!
• Gua Gua cried instantly when she saw Caleb holding Yvette's (Girlfriend #2) hand.
• Gua Gua lives just a few houses down the street, so they see each other most often

Girlfriend #2
Yvette

Tidbits:

• Yvette was the first baby that Caleb held hands with.
• Yvette was also the first "baby girl" that Caleb kissed on the lips. As they were leaving the library, my mom told Caleb to give Anita (Yvette's mom) a kiss. He kissed her on the lips. She then told Caleb to give Yvette a kiss. He then kissed her on the lips! :O Don't worry Caleb, I won't tell your real future girlfriend...unless she reads this blog. :P

Girlfriend #3 and Girlfriend #4
Abby & Minna

Abby:


Mina:

Tidbits:

• These are the "older women" babies in Caleb's life. They're also buddies from the library. They just joined the others in being "Caleb's Girlfriends" since Caleb is the only boy baby :)
  

Caleb's "Just friends" Girl Buddies
These are Caleb's baby girl buddies. Since they're not library friends, they didn't join the "Caleb Girlfriends" bandwaggon. :P

• The Greek Girl

She spoke nothing but Greek, so I don't know her name. But she wouldn't leave our table and kept wanting to touch Caleb and tickle him. She's definitly in the "older women" category!

Eleanora

This little cutie is definitely not shy, but Caleb's always been shy around her :( But they enjoyed a little forced fun at the coach's bbq a few months ago. :)

Taylor

She actually gave Caleb his first friendly (not on the lips. phew!) kiss back when he was 6 months old. At first he kept pushing her away, but he warmed up to her after a while :)

19 month update

Caleb's getting very big now! He learns new things everyday. I can't really remember everything, but here's my attempt to jot down some things that happened in Caleb's 19th month.

• Caleb says I love you!
  He started this about 2 weeks ago or so. I was working on my laptop next to him as he played with his toys. He stopped, walked over, put his hand on my shoulder and said "I lolololove mama" (he says "lololololove" instead of "love" probably because I tell him "I love love love love love my Caleb!").
  
  I was SO happy that I picked him up and ran to my mom and said "Caleb said 'I love mama!'"). He smiled at her and said "I lolololove Wai Poa!" Of course, my mom was thrilled too. :) We then took him to Daddy, who was still sleeping, and he said "I lolololove dada." Gabe slept through it, but I woke him and made Caleb say it again :)
  
• Caleb says "Caleb"
  Caleb's always called himself "baby." When he sees pictures of himself, he says "Baby." If you say, "where's Caleb?" he points to himself and says "baby." (Auntie Allison also taught him to point to himself and say "baby" if you ask him "who's the cutest baby in the world). But now, if you ask him "What's your name?" he says "Caleb" (it's really more like "K-luh" or "K-buh" depending on his mood. every now and then he gets a pretty good "Ca-leb" in there though).
  
  Still, he reverts to "Ca-baby!" whenever he can. He knows the right answer (if you bribe him with something he wants, he'll always answer "Caleb," but if he's not being bribed, he may still answer "Ca...BABY!"
  
• Caleb knows his numbers
  This was actually a surprise discovery. He has the leapfrog leappad book (he loves this!) and one of the pages has the numbers 1-5 on it. As he was playing with it, I asked him to find number 1. He touched the number 1 with his leap pad pen. So I asked him #2, he did the same to #2, etc etc to number 5. Then I went out of order. I was pretty shocked that he knew this since I never taught him it (my mom says she didn't either). He doesn't know past 5 though :) Maybe he'll magically learn that sometime too. He also continues to learn more letters...
  
• Shhhhhh!!
  A while back, at least a few months ago, Caleb learned to put his finger over his lip and say "shhhhhh!" when you say "quiet." Since he'd then resume to be loud again after saying "shhh" i realized he didn't qutie get the meaning. But now, he totally does. A few days ago, Caleb woke up pretty early (6:45 ish?) and I was still really tired. When he wakes up, he usually stands in his crib and yells "mama!" So I went to get him and told him "Caleb, mama's still tired. I'll bring you into bed with dada and I, but you have to be quiet, ok?" He nodded and said "shhhhh!" So I put him in bed, he smiled at me and held my hand. I fell asleep pretty quickly and woke up about half an hour later to find my baby still laying there, playing with his hands in the air, and smiling.
  
• Using his fork and spoon
  Caleb's also now able to eat his whole meal with his own fork and spoon. Yay! Now mama and daddy don't have to take turns feeding him when we're out :) Of course, he makes quite a mess on his face though :P
  
• Dancing and Singing
  A lot of times, Caleb sings to himself and dances and does handmotions. Sometimes we can figure out what song he's doing, sometimes it's difficult since he doens't sing it quite right :) He's getting really good at "Row Row Row your boat" lately though. Although he sings it "row row row row row, row row row row row...row row row, row, row, row...etc" every now and then, he throws a "boat" in, but it's usually just "rows." I've been trying to capture this with my camera, but he gets too distracted (just like the "I lolololove mama"). Maybe sometime soon :)

Other than that, it's just a lot of playing, running around, laughing, etc. Oh, a few new Caleb Videos have been uploaded. http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=babytang

There's a lot of them, here's a few of my favs:

• Caleb always says "uh oh" if he drops something, if his shoes fall off, if something is out of place, or if his pants are falling (like this) :)
  
  


• Caleb playing Grandpa Shen's harmonica. (after which, Grandpa Shen said "it sounds funny...I think Caleb had a LOT of drool! haha)
  
  
• Eating sour kumquats. For some reason, he likes to eat sour things, even though he doesn't like it :)
  
  
• Bedtime silliness. Caleb always laughs for no good reason around bedtime because he doesn't want to go to bed. So whenever he has his PJ's on and his face lubed up with aquafor, he gets super gigglie. The video gets blurry half way through because he touches the lens with his aquafor hands!
  
  
• Caleb fake laughing. We can always make Caleb laugh by laughing ourselves, even if it's at nothing :)