baby teeth are supposed to erupt at certain times in a kid’s life and in a specific order.  these are the rules that teeth are supposed to live by.

• lower central incisors (6-10 months):  i got my first tooth at 3.5 months.
• upper central incisors  (8-12 months):  mine erupted before 5 months.
• lower lateral incisors (10-16 months):  mine were in by 6 months.
• upper lateral incisors (9-13 months):  mine were in by 8 months.
• upper first molars (13-19 months):  i got nuthin.  none.  nada.  zero.  zilch.
• lower first molars (14-18 months):  i got one molar at 11.5 months.  yes, just one.  i am asymmetrical.  no wonder i am off-balance and fall down all the time.
• upper canines (16-22) months:  mine came in at 12 months!

(of course, the teeth eruption chart continues, but my 11 teeth are all i care about right now.  they have not followed any rules, so i don’t expect that the rest will, either.)

uh oh.  why did my teeth move on to canines and skip the other molars?  at first, mama didn’t notice my canines because she was looking/feeling around toward the back of my mouth where my molars are supposed to be.  but the canines are here, and they are SHARP!  (either that, or they’re my molars and they are coming in waaay off target.)

what if i never get my other 3 molars?  how will i be able to chew all the pizza and steak that daddy is going to feed me?

originally, mama and daddy weren’t planning on having a party for my 1st birthday.  (i know!  can you believe it?!)  they thought that i would be too young to appreciate it.  but since i have been having such a blast at the little gym every week, i wanted to invite all my little friends there for a little birthday celebration.

so i had an elmo party!  mama even made elmo cupcakes and elmo goodie bags for my friends.  i had such a fun time with all the party games and gym activities (except for the jumpy air track, for some reason) and it sure seemed like all my friends had a great time, too.

oh, but i didn’t like it when my cake was brought out and everyone started to sing.  mama and daddy thought i didn’t like being the center of attention, but actually, i was just mad.  first of all, the lights went out, so i thought that mama was going to make me go to sleep during my party.  and what made me even madder was that i didn’t get an elmo cupcake like everyone else!  mama made me a “special” cake made out of organic apple sauce, organic soy milk, oat flour, and other blah stuff.  it was supposedly good for me, but it didn’t taste very good.  daddy says that food that is good for you never tastes good.

once the lights came back on, everyone braced themselves for the mess that i was going to make of my cake.  sorry to disappoint.  i was a proper little boy and barely touched my cake until i got a spoon.  i did lunge for the candle though, while it was lit.  i like fire.  heh heh heh…

thanks to everyone who made my very first birthday special.  i have the bestest friends and family in the whooole world!  (click on either image to see more photos from my party.)

happy birthday to me 🙂

things i like:

• walking (finally!!!) and running around like a crazy man
• helping mama and daddy get me dressed and undressed by extending my arms into my shirt sleeves and raising my arms so they can pull my shirt off over my head
• turning off the light by myself (part of my bedtime routine)
• doing everything by myself (i like to brush my own teeth, hold my own cup when i’m drinking, and when mama helps me open the flaps on my lift-the-flap books, i swat her hand away so i can open the flap by myself.
• riding on mama’s shoulders
• “talking” into big containers to make my voice sound funny
• hanging from the uneven bars at gym class (my teacher is impressed by what a strong grip i have!)
• opening the cabinets and taking things out from where they belong
• using the tv remote (i’m really good at pausing and muting the tv)
• waving (i had to re-learn how to wave because everyone used to make fun of my “miss america wave”.  i now flap my entire forearm for a much manlier wave.)
• magic yogurt puffs (the new baby crack for fall 2010.  my old rice puffs were sooo last season.)

things i don’t like:

• playground swings
• staying still (which makes it really hard for mama and daddy to trim my nails, cut my hair, photograph me, etc.  so much for my modeling career!)

i got to go to my first baseball game today!  uncle henry got a bunch of my aunties and uncles together to watch the A’s play their last home game of the season. he even got us seats in the shade just for me!

mommy told uncle henry that she and i were going to wear SF giants jerseys because we don’t look good in green (not to mention that she’s more of a giants fan).  mommy was just kidding, but uncle henry wasn’t taking any chances — he bought me an A’s shirt to wear.  thanks uncle henry 🙂  does that mean that i hafta be an A’s fan, like you and daddy?

as professional sports go, mommy and daddy have taken me to lotsa hockey games, and now a baseball game, too.  baseball is not as fun to watch as hockey.  the players were mostly just standing around and they weren’t all that exciting to watch.  so to entertain myself between plays, i climbed on the seats, threw things several rows down in front of me, ate peanut shells off the ground, and pulled uncle henry’s soda out of his cup holder and poured it upside down.

but despite the differences between hockey and baseball, there are some important similarities.  i have been paying attention to both sports and i’ve learned a lot.  and mommy and daddy wonder why i like to swing big sticks and hit things (and people)…

daddy says that you should get your haircut one week before a big event.  it takes about that long for it to grow in nicely so it’ll look good on the day of the event.  and since my party is next saturday, i had to get my haircut today.

my hair is wild.  i have two cowlicks at the back of my head, and my hair splits like a fishtail at the nape of my neck.  and if that wasn’t bad enough, the hairs right at the front of my hairline grow to the right, and the layer of hair just above my hairline grows straight down my forehead.  wild.  mama knew it wasn’t gonna be easy, but she was up for the haircut challenge.

mama stood behind me with clippers and scissors in hand.  i kept hearing buzzing and snipping and i was so curious about what she was doing.  i wanted to see what was going on, so i kept whipping my head around to try and sneak a peek.  i’m lucky that all those sudden movements didn’t cause my ears to get snipped!

here are before and after shots.  what do you think? (click on the image to see more photos from my very first haircut.)

mama kept saying that she feels sorry for me because my hair is going to be impossible to manage when i grow up.  and i can’t rock a buzz cut because i have a funny-shaped head — it’s trapezoidal!  i guess i better start looking into extra-strength styling products.  anyone have any tips?

okay, for all you non-believers…  it might be more of a waddle, but it still counts as walking, right?

starting a long time ago, i was able to take 1-2 free-standing steps followed by a faceplant.  i kept practicing and practicing and i got really good at faceplanting.   but i got pretty good at taking steps, too!

a week and a half ago, i got up to 5 steps before the faceplant.  i was so excited!  then the next day it was 7 steps, and 5 became old news.  then it was 10.  then 22.  but i wondered when everyone would stop counting my steps and realize that i was actually walking!

so, now that i can take more steps than i can count, i can pivot, and i can even stop to bend down and pick up a toy, i’m making the official call.  look out world, i am now walking!

walking tips for my younger buddies (and their parents):

• electronics gadgets (mobile phones, cordless phones, remote controls, etc.) made good motivators for me.  and when they were high off the ground, i was more likely to walk, rather than crawl, toward them.
• i was more likely to walk while holding something in my hands.  i got distracted by what i was holding and then i was off and walking before i realized it!

mama and daddy are always saying that they don’t have time for their own lives because they are ruled by my social calendar.  it’s true.  but that’s the way it should be.  and besides, they’re old and they don’t need to party like i do.  this past weekend was just like all the others — packed with my social activities.  the highlights of my weekend were playing at the playground with my friends and finding king kong’s beach house!

sierra was visiting from LA, so logan and i met her at the playground in central park by lake elizabeth.  she ran circles around us — literally!  i don’t get to go to playgrounds very often because they are usually filled with sand or bark, both of which i would love to eat.  mama and daddy were pleasantly surprised to see that this playground had a rubberized ground covering.  good for mama and daddy.  bad for me.

my thoughts on playgrounds:  love the slides, hate the swings.  mama is really surprised that i don’t like swings because i looove hanging upside down and being tossed in the air.  maybe i just need to try them out more often.  (sierra’s gung-gung took a picture of me on the slide — which i loved.  i’ll post that once sierra emails it to me.)

i didn’t want koda to be left out of all the weekend fun, so we took him out to spend an afternoon in dog-friendly los gatos.  we shopped, ate froyo, and just strolled around.  and guess what we found — king kong’s beach house!  i mean, i don’t know for sure that it was king kong’s house, but look at the size of those flip flops!  who else could they belong to, right?

i went on a double date today, and you’ll never guess with who.  logan?  nope.  matthew?  nuh-uh.  zachary?  not him either.  do you give up?  it was koda!

yup, koda had a date with his girlfriend, and he brought me along so that i could meet her “sister”.  koda’s girlfriend’s name is shasta.  they were just friends for a long time, but at the end of last month, shasta spent almost a week with us at our house.  (this photo is from that week.)  i guess their romance blossomed during that time, and they took their relationship to the next level.  with all those late nights that they spent together — alone in the dark — i guess it was to be expected.  koda couldn’t take his tongue out of her ears!

koda doesn’t know this, but shasta was actually born in our house.  mama and daddy even named her!  doesn’t that make shasta koda’s step-sister or something?  ewww.

anyway, shasta’s “sister” is celine.  it turns out that celine and i had actually seen each other before before, but that was 7 months ago, so we didn’t really remember each other.  i knew she looked familiar though!

celine has an entire playroom full of fun toys and books that she shared with me.  i especially liked playing in her kitchen and chewing on her fake lettuce.  that’s right — i didn’t choose the pizza, but the lettuce.  the shape of the fake lettuce fit just right against my gums, which have been really hurting because of my molars cutting through.  yup, i officially have 9 teeth now, with 3 more molars on their way.  owie.

i got a new throne.  (and no, i’m not talking about a potty :P)  i got a cushy new convertible car seat.  i used to wonder why it was called a convertible, but now i know.  just like a convertible car, it doesn’t have a cover on top.

i went for a spin in my new throne yesterday.  NOT a fan.  since it’s a convertible, there’s no cover to protect my face and eyes from the bright sunlight.  i’m still too young to sit front-facing, so when i extend my legs, my feet get jammed up against the back seat.  and i’m not sure why, but these straps chafe my neck rolls more than my other car seat did.  and my biggest issue with my new throne is that it’s just… not… comfortable.

i kept trying to nap in my new car seat, but with my head flopped backwards, i couldn’t get comfortable.  and even when i finally fell asleep, i woke up every 5-10 minutes squirming and wiggling to get into a better position.  however, i realize that it’s only been one day.  maybe after a couple of weeks, this new seat will be molded to the shape of my butt, just like my old one was.  i was so looking forward to ditching my old car seat, but i guess that’ it’s just like an old pair of sneakers — perfectly broken in.  (daddy thinks that i won’t be happy in any car seat cuz i just don’t like being restrained.  period.)

so, i think i’ll hold off for awhile on writing the product review.  maybe even until i am old enough to turn it around to face forward.  being able to finally see where we’re going might just trump all the other issues i’m having with my not-yet-molded-to-the-shape-of-my-butt throne.