Nearing the End of Summer

I love summertime...long days, hot weather as an excuse to eat ice cream...well, it's actually been pretty cold this summer (although that doesn't stop me from eating ice cream!). This past weekend it was actually warm enough to play out in our back patio. I let Justin water the plants with the hose and he obliged by watering the plants, the patio wall, the patio doors, the roof over the patio, the house, himself, and me.

And since the entire tomato plant was well watered, Jay decided to show Justin how to pick the tomatoes. Believe me, since food was involved, the kid caught on real quick! I think I heard the lightbulb going off in his head! Here's the video plus some other pics:

Playing with his balloon sword

Eating broccoli like a good boy

Having a bad hair day

Checking out the Natural Bridges in Santa Cruz

Family Time

Oops - no pictures again - sorry! We've gotten really bad about taking pictures of Justin. Part of it for me is because I've been wanting to get down and play with Justin rather than go find the camera and take pictures of him. He's really learning how to play with other people now so it's been fun. And even though he's still not talking much, we can tell he's picking up on a lot of things. I realized that he recognizes a lot more items and concepts than I thought, so I've been racking my brain trying to think up new signs for them.

I know, I know, I should go out and buy a Baby Signs book or something and teach him ASL or something. But knowing that Justin doesn't have the fine motor control for some of those signs, it's been easier (and more fun) to make up our own signs.

"Flower" was easy. Closed hand with the fingers touching to make a "pua" like in hula. He's even starting to say "fa" which I can't tell if he's trying to say "flower" or "fa" which is flower in Chinese.

Then I needed a sign for "music", since now he asks me to play his children's music CD in the car. I wussed out and could only think of patting my ear.

And now Justin is into trucks, cars, buses...anything big and with wheels. How do you make signs to differentiate all of that?? Whew. Suggestions are most welcome!

And here's one to file under "Kids pay more attention and remember more than you think" and also "Can I brag for a momemt?" - Justin brought over a rubber duckie to me on Sunday and I said without thinking much, "Oh thank you. What is it?" And Justin looks at me, puts his hand next to his mouth like a beak, opens and closes his hand, and says "Qua Qua" Crazy for two reasons: (1) That's actually the real sign for "duck" and (2) No one knows where he learned it! Neither Jay nor I did, nor did his babystitter or my mom. Weird. We're thinking that he might have learned it at one of the street fairs we went to about a month ago, where there was a vendor who teaches baby sign and they briefly showed Justin the sign for "duck". It's been a bit of a mind trip for me and Jay. Just one of those moments where you realize your baby is actually a little boy and can understand a lot more than you think!

Okay, but to balance out the bragging, at the same time, Justin is not as smart as we think ;) For the longest time, we've had trouble getting Justin to take naps at home. He would scream and scream and then maybe only sleep for 40 minutes, whereas at his babysitter's and my mom's house, he goes down without a fight and sleeps for an hour and a half to two hours. I was polling my babysitter and my mom about exactly what they were doing, trying to recreate the exact environment and routine at home...

Finally one day my mom says, maybe I should try putting Justin down for a nap in his pack and play instead of his crib since that's what he sleeps in during the week. Well, sure enough, we've tried it two weekends in a row now and Justin has taken a two hour nap each time! Little stinker. I guess he thought we were trying to put him down for the night in the middle of the day and didn't want any part of it. So now I've gotten a chunk of my day back...ahhhh!

We also went to the Acura dealership to look at cars this weekend and boy! Justin was in heaven! He was running all over the parking lot with Jay chasing after him, wanting to get into all the cars and press all the buttons and pretend to drive. I was standing there, trying to have a serious conversation with the salesguy, and all I can see is my son sprinting past, screaming in excitement. Hehe. Luckily the salesguy didn't seem to mind ;)

Ooo, I just remembered I do have some pics to share. Kevin took these:

Enjoying the Summer

Wow, I can't believe it's been a month since I last updated this blog! Oops! What can I say? We've been really enjoying the summer weather. Well that, and plus it's getting increasingly more difficult to take pictures of a moving target (aka Justin). Justin is doing well. He's 21 months now and we are full-fledged into time-outs and toddler whining/frustrations. But overall he's still pretty mellow. Although I have a sneaky suspicion that he's cutting his 2-year molars right now...a harrowing experience for all involved from what I understand. Luckily he's still sleeping okay at night. Naptimes are a different story though...but I guess I can't be too greedy.

Anyways, here are some recent pics of the little rugrat:

Hanging out at the Menlo Park Street Fair

Enjoying (and I do mean ENJOYING) some yogurt

Just being a ham

Wrestling with Grandpa

Wink wink ;)

Still not many words coming out of this kid yet. It's like a game trying to figure out if the sounds he making are words and, if so, what language it might be in. He says "ah pa" for stinky or PU. He also says "ah ta" for dirty (Jay thinks this might be Chinese for lat tat - garbage). But then again, I'm thinking Justin just hasn't gotten past the "a" vowel sound. Oh well. It's probably a good thing that Justin is our fist kid...that way I have no reference as to how normal or abnormal his behavior is! :)

A Little R&R

Oops, no pictures this time - just an update. It's been a while since I blogged. I guess we haven't been doing much that's noteworthy...just enjoying the summer! Justin's new favorite past time is watering the plants (using the spray nozzle on the hose of course!) so I had to go and buy him his first pair of Crocs. Weirdly enough, he LOVES wearing them. He was so excited to first put them on...I don't know if he likes the squishiness or the fact that his toes can air out. At any rate, it's a lot better than him getting his tennis shoes wet everyday!

June 24th was our wedding anniversary, so Jay and I celebrated by shipping Justin off to my parents for the weekend. This was the first time that we had left Justin for more than one night, so this was a treat! The highlight of our weekend was going to see Wicked at the Orpheum Theater. It was a great show! I must be one of the last people in the U.S. who hadn't seen it yet! (Well, me and Jay). Other than that, we spent the weekend doing exactly nothing and it was TERRIFIC! We slept in late, read the newspaper, watched tv, took naps...absolutely nothing. It was a treat to not have to worry about schedules and nap times and playdates...whew!

Of course, I totally missed Justin too, but he had a good time with my parents. They went to Happy Hollow where Justin got to ride the merry-go-round and pet the sheep. My parents were pretty pooped at the end of the weekend after chasing Justin around so much, but a fun weekend was had by all.

Back to the grind of the work week...but at least there's another long weekend coming up! I love summertime!

Testing out new skills

Lately, Justin has been trying out new skills...

Trying on shoes...




Throwing balls...



"Jumping"...




And organizing...

 He's also started to say some words and sounds. He can say atsui ("hot" in Japanese) and car (although he says it like he's from Boston - kah). He can also make car sounds and lion sounds (which sound suspiciously like a car). Jay recently taught him how to moo like a cow...I'm waiting to get that on video too since it's pretty funny to watch him purse his lips to moo!

Memorial Day Weekend

You know, it's a long spell between the winter holidays and Memorial Day...let's just say this long weekend was much needed and appreciated! Amazingly enough, even the weather cooperated after being so gloomy and drizzly the past couple of weeks.

On Saturday, we went to Brooklyn's first birthday party! Mama Stephanie outdid herself in putting up cute decorations and setting the table and even making party favors (sand toys and a bucket decorated with the kids' names - what a great idea for a summer party favor!!)! I think it was all we could handle at Justin's first birthday party to make sure there was enough food and a cake! Justin had a great time playing with all the other little kids and with all of Brooklyn's toys. Brooklyn was busy cruising around the house checking out the action, but somehow we managed to get one pic of the two handfuls!

After the party, we went to dinner at Ramen Dojo in downtown San Mateo - YUM YUM! Good prices, good ramen...what more can you ask for? Get the garlic pork flavored broth and don't bother with anything else!

On Sunday, we decided to take advantage of the great weather and took Justin to the San Francisco Zoo. Neither Jay nor I had been there in YEARS, so we thought we'd go take a look, especially since they had remodelled and Justin was free! We weren't sure if Justin would really be interested in the animals, but he actually was. Although he might have just liked having a whole park to run around in and climb on.

The best part of the zoo was the large children's area with petting zoo. The petting zoo was free and they have a bunch of goats just sitting and milling about while lots of kids run around and pet them. I gotta hand it to the goats...they are really docile and didn't seem to mind the kids at all. Case in point: Justin LOVED it here. He ran from goat to goat, giving them a couple of rough pats each. We had to teach him not to pat the goat on their face or on their behinds (that's just asking for trouble). One goat he tried to give lomi lomi massage to...I wish I had caught that on video! But here are some pics from the zoo:

After the zoo, we headed down south for Family Fun Night with my halau. Justin got to play with Leiola, my Kumu's daughter, who is just five weeks older than Justin. Typical boy-girl relationship: She was trying to give him a stuffed dinosaur, but he was oblivious and was just running around in circles!

We had a good time until the games started and everyone started yelling and cheering. Justin totally freaked out over all the excitement - oops! Apparently we don't expose him to enough noise and excitement. So I had a little koala clinging to me the rest of the evening. The kid really has a problem with loud people too...Jay has one cousin that Justin is totally scared of...we think because he's really animated and tends to talk loudly too. I guess Justin is used to hanging out with quieter people?

On Monday we had a playdate with Caitlyn, Terry, and Sharon at Burton Park (I LOVE the enclosed toddler playground there). Lunch was at old favorite Stacks in Redwood City - num num. Justin shared Jay's chorizo omelet - go figure that he would like sausage! After so much excitement all weekend, Justin only took a half hour nap - oops! Dinner was BBQ at Jay's cousin Pete's house where Justin had a great time playing with his big cousins.

Whew! I think Justin was thankful to be back at his babysitter's house on Tuesday for some peace and quiet and to recover from this weekend. But, that is The Way of the Wong...!

Time for a Gymboree Class?

Justin has decided he likes climbing into things. If it looks like he can fit into it, he'll try climbing into it. I'm surprised these toys could hold his ample weight...