in swim class last weekend, we learned how to dive.  we raise our hands up above our heads, bend at the waist, and lean forward to “dive” (fall) into the water, head first.  the teacher said that this is a very important skill because if we just jump straight in, we could hit the back of our heads on the edge of the pool.  i don’t want to get a concussion or brain damage, so i’ve been practicing diving at home.

i have been using the first step on the stairs as my diving platform.  i dive head first, splat onto the ground, and then whimper “mama” while i lay sprawled out on the carpet.  and then i get up and do it again.  and again.  and again.  mama keeps telling me that diving is only for swim class, but i have to practice somewhere. and it’s better to dive onto the carpet than onto the tile, right?  just wait until i advance to the “high dive” — the armrest on the couch.

usually, our weekends are packed with my social activities.  but mama was so sure that the baby was going to come last weekend, that we didn’t make any plans at all.  in fact, mama came thiiis —> <— close to telling dada not to go to work last thursday.  she even packed her bag for the hospital.  but nothing.  and then last night, mama was so sure (again) that the baby was coming that she took a shower and got all ready to go to the hospital.  but after she got out of the shower… nothing.  next time she says that today is the day, i’m not going to believe her.

but even though we didn’t have anything planned this weekend, it was an eventful one.  everything we did was a game time decision, but it worked out great.

on friday night, i went to gym class.  uncle henry came to visit, and we all had dinner together.  he was planning to take koda home with him since mama was so sure that she was going to be in the hospital.  but since there was no baby, koda stayed home with us.

on saturday, i met matthew and chloe at CDM.  now that i know how to peel bananas by myself, i kept trying to peel the one in the wonder cabinet.  it was defective.  mama said it was plastic.  (why would they put a fake plastic banana on the dining table?  that’s just mean.)  there is also a new mammoth discovery! exhibit at CDM, so matthew and i went on a dig for fossils.  chloe didn’t want to help us.  i guess girls just don’t like getting dirty.

in the evening, auntie mabel and auntie jillie drove down for an impromptu visit and we all went out for hot pot.  i had fun staying out past my bedtime hanging with the quon girls 🙂

on sunday, i had swim class.  after class, we saw auntie jan, uncle harvey, and their new goldendoodle puppy, huey.  (dada called him a “snickerpoodle” :P)  then we went to visit grandma and had lunch at her house.

busy weekend, considering that we had no plans, right?  and then i realized that the baby didn’t come because we had no plans.  i’ll bet if we had organized a big party, the baby definitely would have come last weekend.  that’s how i know that the baby’s a girl — she’s waiting for a big crowd to gather before she makes her grand entrance.

okay everyone… here are all the entries into the baby pool.

it’s so nice that people are so willing to share their special dates (birthdates, anniversary dates, dog’s birthdates, etc.) with my little bro/sis. uncle kinney even picked august 1 so that the baby could be the sf giants’ world championship baby, worth ~$2500 in cash and prizes.  the baby would even get to have his/her name engraved on a commemorative brick at AT&T Park.  how cool would that be?!  i think that if the baby hasn’t arrived by august 1, mama should be induced on that day.  would that be cheating?

i included dada’s pick on this list, but since he is a relative living in the same household as the baby, he is not eligible to win any prizes.  i guess he didn’t read the official rules in fine (invisible) print.

good luck, everyone.  stay tuned for updates!

because i was a breast-fed baby, i never really drank from a bottle all that much.  but when i started eating solids, i started drinking water with my meals. enter… the sippy cup!

playtex baby the first sipster™ spill-proof cup (not pictured).  7 oz. capacity.  manufacturer recommended age: 4-12 months

i tried out this sippy cup starting around 6+ months, but didn’t use it very consistently.  they weren’t teething toys…  they weren’t bottles…  what were those things? i took me about 2 months to figure it out, but by that time, i had chewed the rubber spouts to pieces and they had become choking hazards.  (mama threw them away — that’s why they are not in the picture.)  luckily, it turned out that i was a natural with a straw, so i moved on to the straw cup.

tommee tippee discovera™ active straw (pictured, right).  10 oz. capacity.  manufacturer recommended age: 12+ months

around 9+ months, i started using these straw cups.  they worked out great for me.  that is, until i chewed the built-in straws right off the cups.  and again, they became choking hazards.  oh, and the other bad thing about these is that sometimes my drink would squirt out of the straw like a geyser for no reason.  i’m not sure why that happened.  i think the cup might have been magic… or haunted.  mama and dada also said that these cups were a pain to wash.

tommee tippee discovera™ active drinker (pictured, middle):  10 oz. capacity.  manufacturer recommended age: 24+ months

at 15+ months i found the perfect drinking cup.  there is no spout to chew off, the flow of liquid is good, the cups are insulated, and they’re pretty much spill-proof.  around 17+ months i started drinking from a regular cup during meals, but i still use a spill-proof drinking cup when we go out or when i drink my milk upstairs before bedtime.

boon fluid sippy cup (pictured, left):  9 oz. capacity.  manufacturer recommended age: 9+ months

i am now 21+ months and i just got a new drinking cup.  i love it and i love drinking from it cuz it’s sooo cool-looking, dontcha think?  like my previous cup, there is no spout to chew.  the flow of liquid is not as good (maybe because this cup is for 9 month olds?).  also, there is no valve on the spout — just a small slit.  that makes washing very easy, but it means that the cup does drip a tiny bit if you hold it upside down.  good for older kids who can hold their cups upright.  bad for little babies who hold their cups upside down and throw them all around. since this cup drips a little bit and is not insulated, i don’t take it out on long trips.

here are my cup ratings for kids who are aggressive chewers, like me:

the first sipster by playtex: 🙂 🙂 (out of 5)
discovera™ active straw by tommee tippee: 🙂 🙂 (out of 5)
discovera™ active drinker by tommee tippee: 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 (out of 5)
fluid by boon: 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 (out of 5)

my baby bro/sis has been trying to come out for about a week now.  mama says the contractions are just braxton-hicks (false labor), but dada didn’t waste any time getting everything all ready.  now, the pack ‘n play is set up and the infant car seat is installed.

mama has always said that if i have a little brother, he can wear my old clothes… and if i have a little sister, she’ll just have to look cute in blue.  but auntie barbara insisted that mama buy ONE girl outfit to take the baby home in, just in case it’s girl.  so she did.  she bought a little pink newborn outfit and a flower headband to go with it.

i’ve always liked the color pink, so i tried to put on the outfit, but it was too small.  dada thought that i would want to wear the headband too, but i told him no!  those are for girls! i’m not a cross-dresser, i just happen to like the color pink.  besides, the headband was squeezing my brains out!  why do girls torture themselves like that?  mama says that it doesn’t stop there.  when they get older, there’s the high-heels, the eyebrow plucking, the shaving/waxing…  i don’t get it.  i’m sooo glad i’m not a girl.

after spending the day at gilroy gardens with matthew and logan, i passed out in the car on the way home. the park especially wore me out today because it was sooo hot (temps in the high 90s) and it was practically empty! we were all shocked because we expected big crowds and long lines — but we didn’t have to wait in any lines all day long. yay for gilroy gardens on the 4th of july, yay for matthew for the great idea, and yay for auntie audrey for taking these photos 🙂

after that exhausting day, i could have napped until dinnertime. but mama recently figured out that if i only sleep 10-11 hours per day (including my nap), i sleep through the night. and when i sleep through the night, that means that mama and dada get to sleep through the night. so, mama interrupted my nap and woke me up from a deep sleep. how rude.

after dinner, mama let me stay up until 10pm. she said that it was a special occasion and that she wanted to let me see fireworks. but i know the truth — she just wanted me to be tired enough to sleep through the night. we looked out the window for a long time, but we didn’t see anything other than a few stars and an airplane. we sure heard a lot of fireworks exploding around our house, though. oh well. maybe next year 🙂

happy 4th of july, everyone! hope your holiday was safe and fun and that you got to see more fireworks than i did.

mama used to run pools for NFL sudden death, super bowl props, and NCAA march madness.  but ever since i came along, she hasn’t had much time for that.  so i’m taking over the bookie role in the family and running my very first gambling pool!

who can predict when my baby bro/sis will be born?

here’s what the odds-makers are saying:
august 1, 12:00pm PDT
under: -400
over: +400

if you don’t know what that means, don’t worry.  all you need to know is that the baby’s official due date is august 1.  that’s only 4 weeks away!  and if you’re wondering, i arrived exactly 2 weeks earlier than the odds-makers said i would.

just enter your prediction in the comments.  and don’t forget to guess whether i will be getting a little brother or sister.  good luck!

this pool is FREE to enter, but i will send a real prize to whoever comes the closest to the baby’s birth date!  oh, and just to give you fair warning…  if you pick a date that’s too far after the baby’s due date, mama won’t like you very much 😛

things i like:

• doing the karate kid kick, just like OG ralph macchio.  i learned this by watching koda “wave” with his foot.
• giving eskimo kisses
• blowing raspberries on other people
• feeding bear.  so far, dried mangoes and elmo crackers seem to be his favorite.  and he’s the only one that i feed.  my other animals never get hungry.
• buckling myself into my booster seat and snapping on the tray
• blowing on my food and touching it to my lip (like mama does) to make sure it’s not too hot
• riding on koda, just like i ride the animals on the merry-go-rounds
• wearing mama’s and dada’s shoes around the house.  i only wear one at a time, though.  i always trip when i try to walk around with two over-sized shoes.
• picking out socks to coordinate with my outfits.  mama was wondering when i would start showing preferences for the clothes i wear.  i’m gonna start picking out my entire outfits pretty soon!
• wearing pants with big pockets.  i look cool when i walk around with my hands in my pockets 😉
• undressing myself to change into my pajamas.  i have trouble pulling my shirts off, though.  they get stuck on my big head 😛
• making fun-shaped ice cubes (stars, trees, etc) and putting them in my drinks
• dipping my food.  apples in caramel, pancakes in yogurt, and elmo cookies (graham crackers) in peanut butter, just to name a few.

things i don’t like:

• when i sign “thank you” to people and they don’t acknowledge my politeness.  so what if my made-up sign looks like a profane gesture? 😛
• when people don’t put on their seatbelts before the car starts moving.  safety first!
• staying in my bed when i wake up in the middle of the night
• when chuck my talking truck comes to life — it’s like straight out of a stephen king novel!  we were friends until mama turned on the sound activation switch.  now, every time i go near him, he starts his own engine and tries to run me over!
• raw unseasoned bean sprouts.  they look just like noodles, but they taste yucky.  i keep eating them anyway, hoping they’ll get better.  they don’t.

my baby bro/sis is coming soon, so mama and dada have been doing lots of things to prepare.  i’m doing my part, too.

for one thing, i’ve been working on my photography skills.  mama is so disappointed that she doesn’t have more photos of me (iphone photos don’t count) from when i was a baby.  but mama and dada were just too tired to take too many newborn shots.   so i’m going to be the family photographer and i will take lots of photos of the new baby.  my first goal is to be able to lift the heavy camera and lens so i can take pictures of something other than the tabletop.  one step at a time.

mama and dada have been doing lots of things to prepare me for the baby, but nobody has really been preparing them.  so i thought i’d help out.  i have been sleeping in my race car bed in my new room for almost two weeks now.  i was napping well and sleeping my usual 9-10 hours at night.  but since this past weekend, i started climbing out of bed and waking up mama and dada (and koda) at 3:30am… 5am… all hours of the night.  in preparation for the new baby, i want to make sure that nobody gets used to sleeping more than a few hours at a time.  just like earthquake or fire drills, i’m running baby-preparedness drills for the whole family.  isn’t that nice of me?

i think we’re all ready for the baby to arrive!

i’m a big boy now, and i’ve done a whole lot of things in my (almost) 21 months.  so it was a little surprising to experience so many “firsts” today.

FLASH MOB

i’ve been to the children’s discovery museum dozens of times.  they change some exhibits once in awhile, but for the most part, i’ve been there, done that.  today however, mama took me to my first storytime at CDM.  and it wasn’t just stories — we also played games and sang/danced.  i actually wasn’t into the story, at all.  while the storyteller was reading the book, i wandered off and explored other areas of the wonder cabinet.  (the storyteller wasn’t very good.)  but when the music came on, i rejoined the group.  but guess what — i found myself in the middle of a flash mob!  all the kids started doing the exact same dance moves.  everyone except me, that is.  i guess i missed the youtube video with the dance instructions.  i’ll find it, though.  i’ve gotten really good at navigating youtube.

I AM BEAST.  RAAAWR!

i’ve been going to the little gym for a long time now.  i went to one “bugs” class and i completed two whole sessions in the “birds” class.  but  tonight, i was a “beast” for the first time!  the format of the class seems similar to the previous ones, but there’s more focus on cooperative play (rather than parallel play) and more advanced skills (galloping and jumping, identifying colors, standing on the high-beam unsupported, and doing rolls by ourselves without being spotted).  oh, and most importantly, the ratio of girls to boys in this class is way higher. and since i’m on the low end of the age range, that means i’m surrounded by older women 😀  i’m liking being a beast, already.  RAAAWR!

MY UNCLE IS A ROCK STAR!

after gym class tonight, mama, dada, and i went out for dinner.  when we got to the restaurant, there was a band setting up.  i don’t think i’ve ever seen a live band before, so that was pretty cool.  and guess what.  uncle jamie was the drummer in the band!  how cool is that?  it was my first time seeing uncle jamie play the drums.  i know a real-life rock star!  i had fun watching and listening to the music even though it kept me up past my bedtime.

this is not uncle jamie’s regular band — he only plays with these guys part-time.  they are a classic/freedom rock cover band.  i dunno what that means, but mama and dada seemed to know all the songs.  and gung-gung was totally rocking out and singing along.  if anyone ever wants to go have dinner with me and listen to the band play, mark your calendars for the last friday of every month at sonoma chicken coop in campbell 🙂