Counting To Five

More Big

Andrew and I were in the garage the other day and I was trying to sweep the floor. I say trying because Andrew wanted in on the action too and kept grabbing at the broom I was using. I eventually decided to get him his own broom (a smaller one we keep around for just this reason).

His response? "More. Big." And pointed at mine.

The beginnings of sentences!

Months 16-18

Thankfully, thankfully, Andrew's eating habits have returned to normal. He still loves tomatoes, peas, oranges, grapes, blueberries and puffed corn, but at least he's back to eating almost everything. And we've discovered three new things that he loves: raspberries, mangoes, and mushrooms (all kinds). Even better, we've discovered that he's amenable to barter. One spoonful of oatmeal equals three blueberries. The exchange rate for mushroom to just about anything else is 1:1. We now have leverage to get him to eat a more balanced diet. Yay!

The other nice change is that we finally thought him that he could just set whatever he didn't want aside and daddy would eat it for him. Before this, he'd just throw whatever he didn't want on to the floor. Today, whenever he starts throwing food around, it's because he's done eating. We haven't quite figured out how to teach him that any food throwing is just unacceptable. He just thinks it's a fun game. It doesn't help that I don't seem to be able to keep a straight face when I'm scolding him because he's invariable doing something cute.

The biggest and most dramatic change though is his language skills. The fabled language explosion seems to be underway. He still prefers whining and pointing to communicate, but he can certainly talk when he wants to. The challenge is usually on our end in trying to figure out exactly what he's talking about since he doesn't exactly enunciate. In fact, many multisyllabic word gets shorted to its first syllable. So socks (襪子, pronounced wàzi) and water are both "wa wa"; Mama and mushroom are both "mama". You can imagine how it might take a while for us to figure out what he's saying sometimes.

Oh, and when I say "speak", I don't mean sentences. Usually it's just a word or two with gestures thrown in.

It's a little funny when he decides to use English vs. Chinese. He understands socks, but he always uses the Chinese word (wàzi) for it. He understands 水 (shuǐ), but he always say water. And even when he's using Chinese, he sometimes uses Mandarin, and sometimes uses Taiwanese, depending on the word. For example, he uses the Taiwanese "khùn" for "sleep" (愛睏) instead of the Mandarin "shuìjiào". The thing that really gets us is when he translates -- when we say something in English and he corrects us with the Chinese word or vice versa.

On the physical side, biggest change during this time has to be his haircut. He never sits still long enough for us to do much with a pair of scissors, so one day Charity suggested we try using the clipper. Long story short, before:

And after:

He was not a happy camper after the ordeal. And honestly, neither were we. He looked completely different, no longer quite our little angel. But it's grown out a bit now, and we've gotten used to it in the mean time. And I guess it has grown on us. We'll just have to experiment with some combination of clippers on the sides and the scissors on top...

On a completely unrelated note, Andrew's new favorite toy is the salad spinner. Whenever he sees the salad mix coming out of the fridge now he makes a beeline for where it's kept. Not that he really needs a reason -- he'll go for it any chance he gets.

Picky Eater

This is Andrew at Bouchon in December: given the choice between heavenly Bouchon brioche and some puffed corn, guess which one he picks?

Notes from Q1

I keep meaning to find the time to blog, but just never quite get around to it. What's that old saw about better late?

What I remember most about months 13-15 is Andrew's eating habits took a turn for the worse. He used to eat everything. And all of a sudden, he got really, really picky. In December, all he wanted to eat were tomatoes, peas, oranges, grapes, blueberries and puffed corn. He'd occasionally deign to eat some pasta, but convincing him to eat anything else was a challenge. At one point we were so concerned about him not getting enough protein that we were ecstatic when he agreed to eat a hot dog (after we agreed to remove the skin).

Despite these restrictions, we took some time off over Christmas and spent a few days in Napa, and introduced Andrew to some fancy restaurants (Bouchon and Redd). He was at his most adventurous at Redd, where he got a chance to try some foie gras, discovered he liked rice crackers, and had a raisin tasting:

We were actually quite pleased with how well behaved he was, because our biggest fear was that he would be that noisy, crying baby that ruined everyone's meal.

I'm sure something else must have happened in these three months, but at this point, they've all faded from memory.

From Charity:

• He started wanting to go down slides by himself, and discovered that he could even do so on his tummy.
• In addition to mama and papa, he started speaking a few simple words, mainly Chinese - 阿媽 (grandma), 貓貓 (cat), 狗狗 (dog).
• We were always surprised by how much he could actually understand whenever we spoke to him. We'd talk about birds or squirrels and he'd start looking for them. We'd say it's bath time and he'd run away from us.
• He was still very clingy and would cry piteously whenever we attempted to drop him off at Sunday school.

The Problem With Surprises

It was our fourth wedding anniversary last month and we both thought we'd celebrate it with a little more flair this year. The catch was we both thought we'd surprise the other person, and this was the result:

That's right, two cakes! We'd both ordered replicas of our wedding cake. We probably might have been able to avoid the confusion if we'd ordered from our original baker, but I'd decided to try someone else that was a little closer to home.

I guess this makes up for not doing anything last year, but we were just too pooped with Andrew to bother. Let's see if we muster up enough energy next year after #2 comes.

Photobooth

I found a photobooth at work. How cool is that? I took the family there today to take pictures. Andrew kept looking at the flashy "3... 2... 1... Smile!" screen instead of the camera, so he is looking down in all of the pictures. Nevertheless, it's rare to have pictures with all three of us in it, so I really love these pictures.