happy 2 month birthday to me 🙂

things i like:

• tummy time
• bathtime
• lying on the changing table (i know a clean diaper is just seconds away)
• clawing at my eyes and face (mommy HATES it when i do this!)
• my mobile (now that i can track objects with my eyes!)

things i don’t like:

• lying on my back
• books (i complain whenever mommy and daddy read to me)
• manicures (i clench my fists so mommy can’t trim my nails)
• ergo carrier (i don’t like being put into it, but i’m ok once i’m in it)

i got a clean bill of health at my checkup today.

here are my latest stats:  12 pounds 14 ounces (75 %ile) and 23 inches (52 %ile).  now i’m no statistician, but i’m pretty sure that makes me officially overweight.  hmph.  stupid growth curves.  doc doesn’t seem concerned though, so neither am i.

i got more vaccinations today, too — two shots in the leg and some yucky syrup that i had to eat.  bleccch.  mommy cried when i got the shots.  i dunno what she was crying about.  i am the one that had big needles stuck in me!

today is mommy’s birthday.  the first gift that we wanted to give to mommy is the gift of sleep.  so last night at bedtime, instead of going upstairs when i got hungry, daddy fed me a bottle and we slept downstairs on the couch.  we thought that this would allow mommy to sleep through the night.  how nice of us, huh?  but instead, mommy kept waking up because she was expecting me to get hungry.  and when i never went upstairs to eat, she got worried.  mommy kept coming downstairs to check on me and daddy, so she didn’t end up getting much sleep anyway.  oh well.  we tried.  i’ll bet mommy won’t go to sleep without us ever again.

other than that, today was just like any other day for us.  daddy went to work and mommy and i hung out with koda.  when daddy came home, he made mommy a special dinner — oyako donburi (it’s mommy’s favorite).  while daddy cooked, mommy gave me a bath.  and guess what — i looove bathtime now!  i know, what a change from last month, huh?  well, a couple of weeks ago, mommy learned the trick to happy bathtime — keep the water warm!  now, bathtime is like being taken away to a tropical island.  i have warm water, and i even have a hammock that is just my size.

maybe next year, we’ll take mommy to a real tropical island for her birthday 🙂

thanksgiving happened twice this year.  that seems appropriate because i have so much to be thankful for this year 🙂

at the quon thanksgiving dinner on thursday, i got to meet so many new cousins, aunties, uncles, and other relatives.  everyone loves me and thinks i’m such a perfect angel.  i slept through most of dinner — and why not?  i was so warm and comfy with everyone holding me all night long.  i think cousin caitlyn and bak-bak (great grandmother) love me the most.  caitlyn loved holding me and even offered to babysit me for free 🙂  she kept trying to make me laugh by playing peek-a-boo, but i just don’t know how to laugh yet.  bak-bak was so excited to see me that she snatched me out of mommy’s arms at the first opportunity.  every time mommy came to get me so that bak-bak would be free to eat, she just shooed mommy away!

the next day, we had another thanksgiving dinner at grandma and grandpa tanaka’s house.  everyone had so much fun playing with me.  grandma brought out a big bag of colorful stuffed animals so that i could practice tracking movement with my eyes.  i am getting so good at it!  even koda wanted to play with me — he was so excited that he accidentally stepped on my chest.  i was scared, but i’m ok.  i’m tough!

i’ve recently added tummy time to my very busy daily routine.

mommy and daddy are surprised at how well i can hold up my head.  but the truth is, i’ve had lots of practice from many weeks of laying on their chests.

mommy and daddy think it’s hysterical when i try to crawl.  my legs are so strong, so they’re moving a mile a minute.  but since my arms aren’t strong enough to support my weight, i “crawl” forward dragging my face on the ground.  i hope i don’t get rug burn on my cheeks 😛

i can’t wait to start crawling for real so i can explore the world on my own!

everyone says that babies start smiling in their second month, but i’ve been smiling since my first day 🙂  perhaps those earlier smiles were just happy peeing, whereas my current smiles are true displays of joy.  mommy and daddy do funny  things to try to elicit a silly grin, but they still haven’t quite figured out what works.  and for some reason, they’re always waving their phones in front of my face and telling me to smile.  weird, huh?  regardless, my smiles have magical powers.  when mommy and daddy see me smile, their hearts melt and they forget all about the sleepless nights and countless diaper changes.

you know what made me smile today?  i finally got to meet my cousin zoey!  in fact, i got to have lunch with the whole quon clan, which is a rare mid-week occurrence.  cousin zoey is sooo cute and so big!  she is 3.5 months older than me and about 5 pounds heavier.  mommy and daddy are worried that they won’t be able to carry me when i get to be as old as she is.  by that time, i will probably be twice her size! 😛

i am now just over 6 weeks old, and i’ve started to get into a bit of a routine.

i usually fall asleep around 10 or 11pm.  mommy tries to go to bed between 12-1am, and i stay downstairs and sleep while daddy watches tv or plays computer games.  when i wake up, daddy brings me upstairs so that mommy can feed me.  from that time until about 6am, i wake up every 2-3 hours to eat and have my diaper changed.  mommy used to bring me to another room to feed me because she didn’t want to disturb daddy, but since he claims to not hear me crying anyway, we just stay in the bedroom now.  and if i have trouble falling back asleep, mommy sings 80’s slow jamz to lull me back to sleep.  seems like a good routine, right?

well, here’s the part that mommy doesn’t like.  starting at around 6am, i wake up every hour to snack.  7am, 8am, 9am.  i eat just a little bit, then i fall right back to sleep.  mommy thinks that i’m just too tired to stay awake to have a good feeding, so i’m hungry again an hour later.  isn’t that just how it is with chinese food though?

around 9am is my “awake time”.  i am wide awake and alert, so mommy talks to me, shows me pictures, and plays with me until daddy wakes up and goes off to work.  when daddy leaves, mommy and i go downstairs and start our day.  most days we go to the mall, meet friends for lunch, or take koda on puppy playdates.  some days we just take a long with koda and let him chase the squirrels.

during the day, my sleep schedule seems to be completely random.  i am usually lulled to sleep by the rumbling of the car or the stroller.  but other than that, it just depends on my mood 😛  most days, we are home in time in time for dinner.  then after dinner, i have awake time again until 10pm when the cycle repeats.

but i don’t always stick to a schedule.  sometimes, i get to stay out late.  like last night, we got to watch daddy play volleyball — his first time in months!  he did a great job blocking so i didn’t get hit with the ball.  yay daddy!  and tonight, we had a late dinner with some friends.

it’s a good thing i don’t have a strict bedtime schedule, otherwise i wouldn’t get to do so many fun things.

mommy has been taking me out on lot of playdates.  actually, i think these are really lunch dates for mommy, and she just brings me along because she needs a chaperone.  today, we met matthew and his mommy at prolific oven in santa clara.

most of the time, i sleep through lunch, but sometimes the food smells so good that it makes me hungry too.  so mommy holds me on her lap and feeds me while she eats.  and lemme tell you, it sure seems like more of her food ends up on me than in her mouth.  at least she hasn’t spilled hot soup on me — mostly just muffin crumbs and the occasional splattering of marinara.  i guess you could say that that makes me crummy… and saucy 😉  (i’m funny, huh?)  see, it’s not always my fault when my clothes get dirty and i need an outfit change!

i still think of myself as a newborn, but none of my newborn stuff fits me anymore.  i am growing up so fast!

my newborn diapers have actually been a bit snug on me for a little while, but i wanted to use up as many of them as i could.  i still have a handful more, but mommy and daddy moved me up to size 1 diapers anyway because they were worried that the smaller size wouldn’t be able to contain all of my… uh…  let’s just say that they wanted to minimize the risk of diaper blowouts 😛

i’ve also outgrown all of my newborn-sized clothes.  mommy packed them all away and brought out my 3-6 month outfits.  can you believe that i’m barely a month old and i’m already wearing 3-6 month clothes?  mommy calls me a chunky monkey and says that my cheeks are going to take over the world!  my mommy thinks she’s so funny.

it’s a good thing that my very smart (and very generous) aunties and uncles have given me bigger clothes that i could grow into.  otherwise i would have had nothing to wear to all the parties that i’ve been going to.  in fact, i went to TWO parties in one day last weekend!  daddy was nervous about having me out of the house for so long, but i convinced him that i would be just fine.  i love going out and mommy and i are old pros at spending the day out on the town.

i think my dog park days are over — for now, at least.  i took koda to a new dog park, and things didn’t go as well as we had hoped.  just like last time, mommy shooed away other dogs that approached, and if they didn’t ‘t go away she took me and walked away from them.  however, there was one extra-friendly dog that kept following us today.  i think he just wanted to play with me, but koda thought he was trying to eat me.  koda got really angry and pinned the other dog 🙁

mommy realized that it would be to be too much to manage to have to take care of me and break up a fight every time we go to the dog park.  so no more dog parks for me… for now.  boo.

luckily, i found a new place to hang out with koda during the day.  santana row!  we’ve already taken koda there twice in the past few days.  during the weekdays it’s not too crowded, and it seems to be a popular place for babies to take their mommies.  however, mommy had her first experience changing my diaper in a public restroom there, and she HATED it.  yuck!  from now on, she’ll be changing my diaper in the car whenever possible.