Life is Better Than Chocolate

Dear Max,

Today you turned 13 months old!  Turning one was indeed a major developmental milestone for you, as it kick started a whole slew of physical changes in you that has affected you and our whole family.  Everyday mommy and daddy watch over your progress and can’t help but be proud of what you’ve accomplished.

You are now walking like a pro!  You started to take 3 or 4 steps at a time a week before you turned one, then you never looked back.  Seems like every day you push yourself further.  5 steps, 6 steps, walking a whole circle without falling, 20 steps, 30 steps… You fall, you get up; you go and you never stop going.  A week ago your steps were still very mechanical, like you stump your feet on every step.  But today, your steps are smoother and quicker, like you have been doing it forever.  It is incredible to watch you and feel your fighting spirit.

The down side to your obsession with walking is that your anxiety is troubling you even in your sleep.  Since a month ago, you have turned into a light sleeper.  To ensure you sleep at least 10 minutes on your own, mommy would have to sleep with you for at least an hour and a half!  Even then it is likely that you would wake up in a few minutes.  There were times when mommy tried all the tricks on her bag to put you back to sleep but nothing seemed to work.  You would cry and get frustrated, that makes mommy feel like crying too as she felt helpless in easing your trouble.  Those weeks seemed so hard and endless.   Unexpectedly one night, you fussed and you cried for a few minutes after you woke up, then you fall down into the bed and drifted back to sleep!  It was a miracle!  From that night on, you were able to fall asleep on your own some of the times.  It is not perfect but a beautiful beginning.  You have no idea how much hope and happiness this brings to our heart!

You are no longer content with just walking; your new ambition is to conquer the stairs, backwards or forward, big or small. Even though you are a petite baby, you have your heart set on walking the stairs like the rest of us.  Did you notice that your legs are still short?  In fact, the length from your feet to your knee is shorter than the height of a step.  But you don’t let these minor details stop you.  Every chance you get, you “walk” the stairs.  Mommy and daddy force our help onto you, afraid that you might fall and hurt yourself.

You have such attention to detail.  You know the trigger point to open the child gate, even though you don’t have enough strength to operate it.

You finally got new teeth!  After a 4 months of hiatus, two new teeth finally showed up on the bottom of your mouth.  You took this opportunity to ban your regular puree food.  There were three days straight you came home without eating anything the whole day. So now mommy is experimenting with more finger foods and hope that you will adapt to new dishes.

You love playing in mommy’s kitchen.  You can now open all the lower cabinets and drawers, pull out heavy pots and bang their lids against the floor.

We finally had our 1 year check up.  You now weight 17 lbs and 14 ounces, which equates to 6 to 10 percentile in weight and 25 percentile in height!  This is compared to 2 percentile in weight at the 9 months check up.  Since then, mommy had tried so many things to entice you to eat!  I am so glad you’ve finally gained some weight.

Our beloved Maxie, as we watch you grow each day we also grow stronger in our belief that someday you will turn into such a fascinating person.  We imagine sitting across from you and engage in intense conversations.  We love that you are so adventurous, independent, and insatiable.  You light up our lives and we couldn’t imaging a life without you.

Love,

Mommy and Daddy.

Dear Max,

You have finally turned 1 year old!

This is the day that mommy and daddy have been waiting for with great anticipation. As if this would be the turning point of your life, that suddenly you will be magically transformed into a capable toddler, and all of our lives will become something even more wonderful. Mommy’s got to confess that both mommy and daddy felt incapable of handling our hectic lives during your first year of life. The anticipation of you becoming one kept mommy and daddy going when time got tough, hoping and thinking that our heads will finally be above water and we will begin to enjoy our lives again.

To celebrate your big day, our family went on a Disney cruise to Mexican Riviera. Mommy and daddy planned it back when you were only 4 months old, and it became a symbol of that great moment when you will finally turn one. What a wonderful time we had! Even though it was hard work taking care of you and your brother for seven days and nights straight, we all enjoyed this vacation tremendously. You particular so, because you got mommy to hold you the entire week! No daycare ladies to snatch you away! We took hundreds of pictures and enjoyed dozens of gourmet meals. The cruise was everything mommy and daddy hoped it would be and more. When we sang your happy birthday song on board, we breathed a sigh of relief that the wait is now finally over. You are now one!

You can now walk! Two days before we boarded the cruise ship, you took 4 steps all on your own! That was the first time mommy and daddy saw you walk. You have been cruising since 8 months of age, but you showed no sign of wanting to take any step on your own. Imagine mommy’s surprise when you finally did take your steps toward the objects that you are forbidden from touching!

You have got no new teeth. You got your first tooth during your seventh month, five additional ones during your eighth month. Since then, you have gotten nothing. You drool like Niagara Falls, leading us to believe that you’ll have new teeth any day now. In fact, we blame all your fussiness on teething. But till this day, still nothing. Mommy feels like crying wolf whenever she tries to convinced daddy that she saw a tooth in your mouth.

Even though we can’t take trips to foreign countries yet, one small step forward is being able to take you and your brother to a restaurant during the weekends. This used to be an impossible task when you were younger. We used to take turns holding you during meal time, because you would cry relentlessly when we tried to put you down. We only take you to one restaurant, because it is big and we never have to wait in line; we only take you there after 1PM, because even less guests are there so we can let your brother run loose and play games among the tables of chairs while mommy and daddy wolf down our food. This restaurant is called Mission 261, located in Alhambra Mission area. Your daddy insists on ordering their Peking style duck and fried rice every single time, which I agree, are fabulous. So for the last month or so, we have gone there every weekend without fail. We even got a system down to incorporate taking bites of our food while feeding bites to you.

So if you ask me, now that Max is one, is this life everything you’ve hoped for? I would answer yes! For the first time in three years, we were able to take a trip to more than 50 miles away from our home and enjoyed ourselves. We were able to go out to a restaurant we really like as a family and actually eat a good meal. We would never expect to enjoy these experiences the same way compared to before you and your brother were borne, but we would never choose those over having you two in our lives. During an adult only dinner on the cruise when we selfishly checked you two into daycare, we looked into each other’s eyes and felt our lives full to the brim of love and happiness and we missed not having you there with us. Your mommy and daddy have so many plans; we want to show you the world and share with you many experiences. We can’t wait till the four of us can begin our family adventures to discover the world. With the four of us together, our lives will finally begin.

Love,
Mommy and Daddy.

Dear Max,

You are 11 months old today!

You have become so big and capable!  Life has not been easy for you in the last month.  You have overcome months of cold and flu, teething, separation from people you love and relied on…etc.  Yet, you thrived!  Mommy and daddy are so proud of you.

At the beginning of the month, you were hit by some very unfortunate news.  Your favorite teacher at school, Norma, fell and broke her collar bone and was ordered by her doctor to stay home for six weeks!  That’s the lady that you loved!  You were her shadow and she carried you everywhere.  You would even pick her over daddy sometimes!  She is the only person that you would take a bottle from.  Six weeks is like an eternity!  Mommy was very worried that you would not be able to survive school without Norma.  To mommy’s surprise, after a few days, you adjusted fine without her.  You even took bottles from other teachers.   But we know you missed Norma, and we are counting down the weeks till Norma comes back and sees you again.

Just when we thought our three week long flu marked the end of cold and flu season, we were hit by yet another cold.  Your temperature went up to 100 plus degrees and you couldn’t breathe through your nose.  Night time was particularly bad because you would awaken from discomfort every few minutes and cry.  For a few days, you were sent home from day care because your temperature was noticeably higher than normal.  Those were some difficult days, but mommy and you got through them together.  Now let’s hope that’s really the end of the cold and flu season.

You are able to play by yourself for ten minutes at a time, but often lot longer when you are in good health.  You crawl everywhere and cruise when you can hold onto things.  We are now worried about you getting into the toilet, or pulling out mommy’s heavy pots and pans in the kitchen.  But you love to go from one end of the living area to the other end and play along the way.  You are doing so well!  You have a natural curiosity to you that just shines when you are on your little knees.  Your daddy and mommy can only imagine what sort of troubles you will get into when you start walking.

You are now able to get onto and off your own bed.  The intent of our “queen size mattress on the floor” sleeping arrangement is to promote your freedom to move about your own room.  Last weekend we spent it at grandma’s house where you also have a mattress shared with mommy.  You couldn’t fall asleep so you crawl down the mattress, into the closet were a light was on, opened boxes, closed boxes, move things around, bang things around, realized that mommy was more than ten feet away, hurry back onto the bed, then realized you missed your stuff and repeat the whole cycle again.  Unfortunately mommy somehow fell asleep, but when she woke, she found you sleeping soundly beside her, and she couldn’t be prouder.

My dear Maxie, after raising your brother Ravi, it was very difficult to imagine that we could love another human being as much.  But we love you so much more than we imagined!  We want to kiss you every moment of the day; we always look at you with such pride.  You are such a cool little baby and we can’t wait to see all the great things you will do.

Love,

Mommy and Daddy.

My dear Max,

You’ve turned 10 months old today!  What an amazing journey we’ve had to get to this point!

Two days after you turned 9 months old, your got your sixth teeth!  That was just so unbelievable!  You pretty much grew five teeth within one month.  The pain that you must have suffered and unable to communicate to me.

Unfortunately, the rest of month was even more painful to you.  At beginning of the month, you suddenly had a high fever of 100 degree C.  For three nights straight you couldn’t sleep.  You woke up so often that the most mommy ever slept in those nights were in 20 minutes stretches.  It was hard getting through those nights.  You couldn’t breath through your nose, so mommy couldn’t nurse you back to sleep.  So often in the night, mommy would pick you up when you cry while half asleep.  Mommy tried to rock you, but you would cry; mommy tried to carry your head on her shoulder, but you would cry.  You would cry when mommy sits down or stops walking… There were so much crying and mommy and daddy were so worried about you.  At one point your nose was so dry that you even had a nosebleed! A couple of days after you finally recovered, mommy got sick, then daddy, then Ravi.  A week later when we visited your pediatrician, we found out you had an ear infection, that explained why you constantly scratched your ear.  A few days after that, you had your second round of fever and it went up to 102 degrees for 3 days!  Mommy and daddy took two days off from work to care for you.  When your temperature came back down, mommy and daddy also experienced another round of really nasty illness too.  And wait, it is not over.  A couple days after that, you, Ravi, and mommy all started to sneeze and cough.  Here we are at the end of the month, all of our family is still sick and wish this cold and flu season will be over soon.

Beginning of this year, mommy and daddy decided to better our lives by upgrading our health insurance to PPO.  This meant we now have the option of choosing a pediatrician from thousands of candidates.  We eventually decided on one from UCLA Medical Center.  It is far from home, but we thought it was worth the effort.  You had your first appointment with him a few weeks ago, right after your first round of illness.  You measured 2 percentile in weight and 20 percentile in height.  Let’s just say mommy was shocked that you were so skinny.  Of course you didn’t eat anything other than breast milk while you were sick, but 2 percentile is even below Ravi’s weight when he was your age.  Did I mention that the nurse weighed you in a wet diaper (because mommy forgot to bring the diaper bag to the appointment)? Mommy is scared to think what your weight is now that you went through two more runs of illness and not eating any solids for days.  While driving home from the restaurant today, mommy asked daddy: “why can’t we raise fat babies?”  Daddy just silently shakes his head.  “It is not in our cards…”

Even with this month-long dose of illnesses, we have been overjoyed with how well you are growing. We have now taken you out to restaurants three times! You have stopped the incessant crying in the car and we can all enjoy a meal out as a family. You love to eat what mommy and daddy are eating (unlike your older brother). We had Peking style duck and bbq pork today for lunch; you had Chinese rice noodle. More important than what we had is that we had it as a family. We are very happy with how you are growing up and your sunny disposition. Ravi and daddy can’t wait to include you in their games. We have plans to take you to the zoo and amusement parks in the next few months. All the fun should start happening very soon!

Love,

Mommy and Daddy.

My dear Max,

It is amazing what one month can make. For myself, I don’t think anything changed at all. I still work at the same job I did last month, weigh about the same, and I don’t think I learned anything new. In fact, I might have forgotten a bit of stuff that I learned over the years. But for you, this was a very momentous month. Lots has happened and lots has changed.

You now have five teeth! In one month four teeth popped out! That is simply amazing. It must have been a pretty painful month for you. What is more amazing is you haven’t been very cranky. With four teeth coming out, we expected you to put up a pretty big fuss, but that hasn’t happened. You haven’t been your incredibly cheery self, but you’ve handled the four teeth with aplomb. You have a very sunny disposition and this trying month showed both Mommy and myself how nice of a baby you are.

The side effect of having all those new teeth is an insatiable urge for you to chew anything that you can get your hands on.  Particularly, you have fund some of wooden toys very “taste.”  Sometimes when we finally pull these toys away from your mouth, we would find part of the paint missing.  This has cause great concern from me and your mommy, but this doesn’t not seem to effect you at all.  When our heads turned to a different direction, you often make a get away toward the wooden toy  bin for more of those tasty treats!

You can now pull yourself up! This walking thing seems to be happening pretty fast. Last month you were barely able to crawl; now you can easily crawl all over the place and you’re getting pretty good at standing. Within the next couple of months I definitely see a lot of falling, but also the possibility of cruising. Then Mommy will have to be extra vigilant as you start getting yourself into trouble. As it stands we don’t have to worry much, but that will change pretty soon. You’ve also started to climb stairs. First it was just one or two at grandpa’s house, but we’ve also seen you make it up five at a time. We usually stop you at that point because while you can get up you can’t get down! And we’ve got some pretty tall staircases at our house. It’s probably safe to say we won’t let you on them for quite a while.

You have started eating adult food. The last couple of months has been mostly fruit puree and cereal, but you’ve started to want to try grown up food. You’ve had radish, bread, fruit shake, and other small stuff. What is really funny is the face you make when you try something new. It’s this scrunched up sour puss face that looks like your truly disgusted with whatever we’re offering you, but you always ask for more so we’ve come to ignore it. The face usually doesn’t last long (maybe two or three bites), but it’s always there with something new.

You now love and look for Mommy. It used to be anyone could hold you, and when Mommy got tired we would take turns. Not so much now. Now it’s Mommy or no one. Which is wonderful in one sense (you really want Mommy), but also scary in another sense. Now Mommy has nowhere to hide!

You’ve started saying words. They’re still the basic ma, da, ba sounds, but you have expanded your vocabulary past just goo goo sounds. We’ll see how you do over the next months, but Daddy can’t wait until you start calling for me. Actually, neither can Mommy!

It was indeed an amazing month!  It is like you saved up all these wonderful surprises and give them to mommy and me all at once!  That was the best holiday gifts for us, and with you, our lives are happier than ever.

Love,

Daddy

Dear Max,

You are 8 months old today! The last month has been a whirlwind of activity from you. We’ve seen you go through a lot of changes and your personality has started to blossom also.

You were able to sit! You’ve been trying and trying now for almost two months, but you always had to slouch before. Now you can sit by yourself. The last three weeks we’d see you get into a pull-up position and that was it. Now you  tuck a leg under your body and crawl yourself up into the sitting position with ease. Now that you can sit, we can all play together; even if it’s only for five minutes. But it gets better than you just sitting and playing with Ravi and me.

You can now crawl! It seems that sitting and crawling were very close in terms of capability. Once you got one motion down the other happened within the week. You’re still not fast, but we’ve seen you chase your brother down to see what he’s playing with. And, I’m a bit ashamed to say, fight for the same toy. Your older brother is still very good as he’s been sharing with you on a regular basis. We can see that you two will get along greatly. You both like playing together and when we were playing with the blocks both of you had tons of fun! I can see that the three of us are going to have tons of fun together. Ravi and I are just going to have to teach you Candyland right away! But that’s not the last thing to happen this month.

You now have a tooth! We saw the white heads under the gums for awhile, but two days ago we finally felt your first tooth. It must hurt a little bit because you like to bite on my finger away from it. I think you’re getting a second one right by the first. I hope you know what having teeth means? It means you get to start eating really great food! I know your older brother is stuck on milk and chocolate, but there’s a lot of other things that he eats and I’m sure Mom can’t wait to share them with you. You’ll get the chance to find out how great of a chef your Grandma is. We eat great Chinese food every day and soon you will too! Unfortunately it will take a couple of more teeth than you have now, but at least you can eat the yogurt bites we got today. Keep working on it, Max!

Max you’re growing up to be a truly wonderful little toddler. Even with the teeth coming out  and the crawling you’ve been trying this last month, your attitude hasn’t changed. You hardly ever cry and it’s almost always with good reason (like when you bump your head). I am truly surprised at how nice of a baby you are. We are able to leave you in your seat for minutes at a time and you let us get stuff ready for the morning. It always seems that you’re not interested in just being held, but you just want to be part of the family and included. Trust me Max. We will include you at every opportunity we get. The whole family is looking for the chance to include you in our games. Even Ravi is looking forward to a mobile brother that can go play and get in trouble with him on a regular basis. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure the three of us are always having fun and getting into trouble together!

Love,

Daddy.

My dear Max,

You are 7 months old today!  In this past month, you and mommy had a chance to truly bond, as mommy has been your primary caretaker (aside from daycare) since we let go of the nanny six weeks ago.  I had doubts with my ability and capacity to fulfill your demands, but I am happy to say you have thrived with mommy.  Mommy can’t be prouder of how wonderful of a baby you have become.

You still don’t drink from bottles at daycare, even though the nice ladies there had tried various methods.  Mommy is guessing that you think of milk as something exclusive between you and mommy and no one can replace that.  The good thing is you eat everything else that they feed you.  I heard they mix mommy’s milk with rice cereal and other solids, then feed a big bowl to you at each meal, and you eat it all!  The fact that you eat big meals just boggled my mind, because  I could never get you to eat all your solids during the weekend.  Again, I believe you think of mommy as your milk bank exclusively, so it is unnatural for you to take anything else from mommy.   We will definitely have to get daddy to start feeding you meals from this point on.

At night, your sleeping habits have not improved much.  Some nights are better than others, but most of the nights you wake up 4 or 5 times.  In general, mommy can simply nurse you back to sleep.  Every once in a while mommy has to get up and rock you back to sleep.  During the last week, you woke up middle of the night, played by yourself till you were tired, and then sucked on mommy’s nipples till you fell asleep again.  The whole process no longer required intervention from mommy!  That’s definitely a step in the right direction!  You are also napping much better and longer, both at home and at daycare, which is a major relief for mommy.

You are able to move… backwards.  You got strong arms and legs that can left your tummy off the ground.  Unfortunately, you have not quit figured out how to move forward yet.  All you can do now is pushing with your arms which results in moving your body backwards.  But don’t you worry, this is definitely the first step in crawling.  Mommy can’t wait to see you move forward soon. You also can sit with a little assistance. Mommy and Daddy have propped you up to play with sitting toys and you’ve had lots of fun; you still need the toy to support yourself, but independent sitting should happen next month.

You are also very patient and laid-back with Mommy. In the morning I put you in the swing and you’re content to let Mommy get breakfast ready for the whole household. In the afternoons, you’re fairly content to just hang out with Ravi and Daddy and play games. You rarely cry out of impatience or fussiness, and when you do there is always a good reason. Mommy loves this! Mommy has never had it this good.

Max, you make me love you more and more each day.  You bewitched me with that magic look of your eyes, and you conjure spells with a single touch of your hands.  You make mommy fall in love with you more deeply and fully each day.  Mommy cherishes each and every day spent with you and hope that these moments I have with you will last forever.

Love,

Mommy.

One thing Max has in common with Ravi is that he also doesn’t like to eat… at least not when I try to feed him.  Funny enough the ladies at the daycare keep telling me what a great eater he is.  I wouldn’t know; he never dazzles me with his great eating ability EVER!

One Sunday morning while I was getting frustrated at him for not eating his sweet potato, he flashed me one of his biggest and brightest smiles.  After that moment, I couldn’t be mad at him anymore.

That kid’s got my number!  I am beginning to understand that I will be losing lots of negotiations with this kid in the future.  Oh well, at least it is better to have a happy skinny baby than an unhappy fat baby.

-Flo.

To milk or not to milk, that is the question:

We have an interesting dynamic playing out in our house right now. Baby Max has just transitioned to a daycare facility, where he’s having trouble drinking milk. He only likes to be breastfed and refuses to drink milk from the bottle. It’s not that he’s against food; it’s far from that. He loves to eat solids at least twice to three times a day. These include a number of mashed fruits and rice cereal. He loves to be breastfed. He just doesn’t like the bottle. He’ll also gobble up his solid meals. These days he gets more nutrition from solids than from breast milk. In fact, he’s drinking a lot less breast milk than Mommy is producing.  So much less, that the nannies at the daycare facility spoon feed him breast milk. Otherwise the milk will start piling up in the freezer.

On the other hand, our older boy loves his bottle of milk. Whenever he’s hungry, he’ll ask for a bottle of milk. ‘Daddy I want milk. Daddy I want milk. Daddy I want milk…’ and on and on. If I don’t give it he’ll try plying a bottle from Mommy or Apa (grand-pa). If he’s really hungry and desperate he’ll even go to Mom (grand-ma), which is saying something since she’s the last one to break in and give him milk. He’ll refuse dinner, lunch, breakfast, you name it, in pursuit of milk. The only things better than milk are chocolate milk and chocolate. (Notice the theme- chocolate or milk or both). This has become so much of an issue that he’s suffered constipation a couple of times and we’ve had to give him a suppository to help his bowel movements. We keep telling him he needs other things in his diet or he’ll have pooping issues, but that only lasts for a day or two before he goes back to his all milk diet.

Which bring me back to the interesting moment in our lives. Somewhere, somehow we have a two year old who should be eating up a storm of different foods only wanting milk. And we have a six month old who should be mainly drinking milk eating everything else under the sun! Somebody should have told them that they’re not behaving their age. My wife tells me that it’s my responsibility to help them understand what they should and should not do at their age. I told her, ‘but honey, when have you ever seen me act my age?’

Mario.

People normally post their Halloween pictures that day or at most one day later.  I am not one of those people, I never wanted to be popular.  This post is late.  Way late!  But that’s okay, because I am going to make being late fashionable.  Just watch me!

Unfortunate for Ravi, that his first Halloween’s trick or treating experience falls on the same night as his daddy’s school night.  I realized this months ago and felt my heart sank.  I pleaded with Mario to skip his class just this one time, but he didn’t budge.  With Max being only six months old and need constant attention, I couldn’t go trick or treating with Ravi even if I really wanted to.  So about a month before this big night, I hired Ravi’s male teacher to cover for his daddy that night.  Good thing he was free and doesn’t have any kids of his own, he accepted my request and showed up.  That’s more I can say for some other individual!  (just joking!)

That night, after shoving some food down Ravi’s throat, we began to get ready for the big event.  Getting Ravi dressed was more difficult than we anticipated.  We pleaded and bribed, but Ravi just cried.  Eventually his teacher exercised his authority and put it on for him.  After half an hour of struggle, we finally got him ready and push him out the door!  We thought, he will be back in twenty minutes.

We waited and waited.  Mom passed out candies to kids who came knocking on our door, while I ran to Max when he woke every 15 minutes.  It must be at least an hour and half later, Ravi finally came home.  The smile on his face stretched out a mile wide!  He couldn’t wait to show us his cool collection of candies!  

 According to his teacher, as soon as he realized that people gave him candies for knocking on their door, he couldn’t stop smiling.  When they told him to pick one candy, he smiled to them and got two!  He even walked the whole two and a half blocks by himself, without any complain!

Later that night, Ravi rested his feet while watched his favorite shows and ate candies.  He had forgotten all about the crying earlier.  I didn’t stop him from eating candies.  I just watched him quietly, and hoped that he would remember this night fondly for a long time.  

I love you, my beautiful prince.

-Flo.