Sometimes when I come home from work and see Simon, it seems like he’s grown bigger than what he was in the morning. I love those chubby cheeks!
and his chubby little legs! His thigh has a fold and his ankles are so chubby that they also have folds.
Do you enjoy watching your baby sleep? I certainly do. I used to like to sleep with stuffed animals, maybe he gets that from me. It’s funny to watch him fall asleep as when he has the puppy pillow, he’ll grab it with both hands and kind of fuss with it until he falls asleep. You can hear the little beads inside as he is fidgeting then silence when he falls asleep.
He hasn’t been sleeping more than 4-5 hours at a time so that one night where we slept 7 hours was a fluke. We’re not sure why he slept so well that one night but can understand that he didn’t sleep well this weekend because due to all the activity so he might be overstimulated. Hopefully the rest of the week will be better.
Simon is all dressed up for his first trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
But once we got into the car, he fell asleep… his cheeks are getting so chubby and he has lots of drool.
It was a bit overcast and cool in Monterey but both Ron and Simon were wearing shorts. Sometimes I over pack for trips but this time it seems I under packed.
We arrived just in time to catch the end of the penguin feeding. Since Simon has started watching our cats, it seemed perfect that we brought him to the aquarium to check out their animals. He seemed really interested in the penguins walking around.
Plus he seemed to really like the salt water fish tanks. The bright lights with the brightly colored fish and their movement kept his attention. Like a huge live television.
Here’s a video of Simon watching a huge school of fish.
In the kid’s area. We wanted to try to sit him up inside the clam shell but were afraid he’d fall over and hurt himself so I sat with him.
Ron hopes that Simon will learn scuba diving in the future so he’ll have a scuba buddy.
These are some of my favorite sea creatures, dragon seahorses.
We had Simon send some postcards to our Governor and Senators for environmental causes.
We were going to buy Simon a turtle backpack (another Halloween costume idea) but decided to hold off for now. I love his expression in this photo though.
Simon imitating this otter.
We headed out early afternoon from Monterey back to San Francisco so hopefully we’d bypass the traffic. There were a lot of events going on all over the bay are this weekend so were afraid we’d get stuck. Ron did the driving and let me and Simon catch some Z’s. I am grateful for any extra sleep I can get. Simon got a good nap and was really energetic when we got home. He was playing in his Exersaucer and showed us that he’s able to actually “walk” towards us.
We also decided we would try feeding him some solid food for the first time, just a tiny bit of rice cereal mixed with breast milk. Surprisingly he seemed really interested in eating it. As I held the spoon in front of his mouth, he dived right in and took the spoon into his mouth… but the food didn’t really stay IN his mouth, most dribbled out the sides of his mouth.
Deciding if he really wants to eat it…
He got quite messy.
Just a warning this video of Simon’s first meal is about 8.5 minutes long.
After a long day and a nice bath, Simon is konked out.
It was a good weekend. I hope we can go back again soon.
Today is our 6 year wedding anniversary so Ron planned us a little weekend getaway to Santa Cruz and Monterey.
We left around 8am once Simon woke up from his nap and arrived in Santa Cruz in time to get breakfast at Santa Cruz Diner. We had seen it featured on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives on Food Network and they offer typical diner food with some Asian influences. Their pho is supposed to be really good but I was in the mood for breakfast. Next time we’ll try the pho…
I ordered the pandan waffle. A little crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, all it needed was a touch of butter and didn’t even need the maple syrup. Yum!
Ron had a patty melt with garlic fries. The garlic fries were very fragrant and delicious.
After our breakfast, we headed over to Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk to walk around with Simon. We found a Santa Cruz Diner for his size in the kids section of the Boardwalk.
A few days ago, we purchased a new baby carrier by ErgoBaby on the recommendation from our two different friends, both named Jen. It has much more cushion than the Baby Bjorn but I thought I’d test it out during this weekend excursion. He seems to like it a lot better than the car seat, at least he can look around and not be so restricted.
On our last trip to Santa Cruz in January, Simon was still growing in my belly and I took a photo by this bench. It’s fun to be able to bring Simon here and I hope we can bring him again when he’s old enough to ride on the rides.
Or play on the beach. Looking cool here in his sunglasses.
Ron decided to play one of the carnival games to win Simon a plush from Despicable Me. It was the game where you have to knock down three of the dummies using three balls (for $2). Ron spent $20 to win it. He missed on the first throw, on the second throw he hit two, and on the last throw he hit one! Simon was sleeping at the time and when we both yelled, it woke him up so he wasn’t all too happy in this photo. Since the plush isn’t really plush (it is filled with those foam pellets), I plan to open it up to either fill it with soft filling or else make a Halloween costume for Simon… what do you think I should do?
After Ron used up all that energy winning the toy for Simon, we went for a snack. Deep fried oreos and a twinkie.
Inside of the oreo. The batter was sweet and kind of chewy. The oreo itself was a bit weird since it was soft but still yummy.
The twinkie insides were all melted and sort of gross. We both hadn’t had a twinkie in a while so it tasted kind of weird to us.
After the Boardwalk, we drove to our hotel in Watsonville. We let Simon stretch out since he was either in the car seat or in the baby carrier all day. This onesie is from Auntie Tina, perfect for the Santa Cruz attitude: hang loose dude! (although I guess you can’t see it that well…)
Simon’s new toy, he’s taller than it!
After Simon and I both had a nap, we headed out to Monterey for dinner. Even though he had a 90 minute nap, he still fell asleep in the car. I took this picture since he fell asleep holding onto one of his toys. He didn’t let go even after we took him out of the car. He only released when we accidentally woke him up.
Ron made a reservation at Sardine Factory in Monterey for dinner. We had eaten here before we were married and had a delicious meal and great service. Ron really remembers them having great creme brulee since there is actual vanilla beans in the creme. Unfortunately we didn’t save enough room to have the creme brulee this time around.
Our bread basket included bread sticks and various rolls, including Parmesan and Sourdough. Served with olives, creamy butter, and (we think) red bell pepper/tomato paste.
For appetizers we got one of their trios, this is calamari balls, shrimp, and an artichoke ring. Delicious sauces and the shrimp had a nice clean bite to it.
They are famous for their abalone bisque but I wasn’t in love with it this time around. The abalone bits were a bit distracting and it had a strong salty bacon flavor. But our waiter did give us a complimentary cup for Ron.
I had their seafood pasta with white fish, mussels, clams, and shrimp. It was a bit hard to eat only because Simon was a bit fussy so I was holding him with one arm. I liked that it wasn’t a huge portion of pasta but more fish to fill you up.
Ron had the steak and lobster. The first plate he got had a long hair in the lobster so the waiter took it away and came back with a new plate in 10 minutes. We’re not sure if they just reheated it again and waited a few minutes to bring it back out or else remade the entire dish… but the steak was very tender, not very juicy but melt in your mouth.
We got a complimentary dessert of their chocolate ganache but we couldn’t finish the whole thing. We were already too stuffed. The meal itself was pretty good but the service was a bit lacking. When we were seated, our waiter did not even come to our table and we did not receive any menus. The server actually came to give us water and the menus and we had to ask him to retrieve our waiter. When the waiter did come, he did not even tell us his name. He was wearing a name tag but it was on the small side. Then throughout the meal, he was usually no where to be found and we had to ask our server to figure out where he was. The waiter was all smiles every time he came to our table but it seemed fake. It was just a weird vibe. We ended tipping our server separately since he was the one who helped us the most.
After we returned to the hotel, we got Simon ready for sleep but had a little playtime with him in the mirror. He actually tried to touch the mirror, perhaps trying to touch the other person he saw in the mirror. Then he got distracted by the frames of the mirror doors.
We let Simon sleep on the sofa bed but at first he didn’t want to sleep. The place probably smelled strange to him. Eventually though he was able to fall asleep with his pillow and wrapped in his blanket. We blocked him from rolling off the bed with the sofa cushions.
Happy Anniversary to my honey 🙂 It was a wonderful day, thank you.
So, WOW… Simon slept 7 straight hours last night. Not a peep during those 7 hours. Usually we can hear him fidgeting at some point then fall back asleep but last night, nothing. He had gone to sleep at 10pm, woke up this morning at 5am. I’m betting it was a fluke and probably won’t happen again two nights in a row. He’s not that predictable.
Ron has been having Simon practice his tummy time on his Boppy pillow. I think he likes the angle of the Boppy rather than being flat on his stomach. He seems to try to use his arms more when on the Boppy so hopefully building up some muscles for crawling.
When I get home, I play with Simon as much as I can so although I’m excited to see him, I need find that second wind after a tiresome day at work. I put him in his Bumbo seat for a bit but he always twists to the side like he wants to come out ASAP. He will usually only tolerate sitting up for a few minutes but loves standing up.
He doesn’t mind lying down too much except that he needs to be entertained. I’ve discovered that Simon still really likes his Moo-Moo chime ball and also has a ticklish spot underneath the arms. Here he is laughing pretty excitedly.
As I mentioned previously, Simon seems more interested in the cats. He kind of even responds back when they are meowing. From this video, you may not be able to hear him squeaking back (it’s kind of quiet) but he does it three times I think.
Simon had a hard day today. He spent the morning controlling daddy… by daddy’s hair. (Remember the movie Ratatouille?)
Then Ron let him explore a different section of the Exersaucer. This portion has a carousel like thing and a few other moving parts.
Here’s a video of him testing out each moving piece.
Ron then got him dressed for our evening out to San Ramon to see Grandma and Grandpa Tam. “That’s what she said” T-shirt is from Auntie Tina.
They came to collect me from work to drive out to San Ramon. Just wanted to share what I made for my work potluck today. The potluck was a going away party for one of our medical assistants. He really likes Hello Kitty too so I made these special Spam musubi. Thank you to Tiffany for finding me this great Hello Kitty mold and thank you to Virginia for helping me test our the recipe this past Saturday.
Simon had a little nap on the way to San Ramon but still got a bit cranky at dinnertime. He’s not as easy as he used to be and gets a little fussy if it’s too noisy or bright when he’s trying to take a nap.
But he calmed down enough to take a picture with Grandpa Tam:
And Grandma Tam:
Then by the time we were ready to leave the restaurant, he was all awake and happy so we took a photo outside since the weather was still really nice and it was still light out:
Grandma got Simon some new outfits which he’ll be sure to showcase here soon.
