Monthly Archives: July 2010

Pudding Pillow

Day 126

Simon is losing a bit of his hair on the back of his head.  Ron keeps on trying to convince me to get Simon’s hair shaved off… but I don’t think it will look very pretty and it won’t help him grow his hair thicker.  But my mom did bring back this pillow from her last trip, it’s this yellow puppy head that has a space for the baby’s head so hopefully it won’t get flat.  When we put him to bed last night, he grabbed a hold of an ear.

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During the day, he seemed a bit attached to it and continued to play with it.  Notice Winnie the Pooh has been kicked to the curb…

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Hopefully not picking up the bad habit of picking his nose… actually he’s sucking his finger.

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Daddy changed his clothes and publicized that Simon is available… any cuties out there interested in a cute single guy?

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He’s a big drool-boy… look at those dark spots, all drool.

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He might like French food in the future… frog legs, yum!

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Or else exotic food… like elephant?

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Naw, actually, he’s snoozing and heading to dreamland…

But Simon still prefers to be wrapped up into a burrito to sleep.  Sometimes he starts whining and fussing and all he really wants is to go to sleep but he doesn’t know how else to tell us.  It can be frustrating but eventually we figure it out and he figures out he’s tired and he’ll take his nap.  Since Simon has started rolling around, Ron found a way to block him so he won’t roll off the edge.  He used our sofa cushion on top of a chair so Simon won’t roll off the chaise.  But we still feel uneasy about it unless we’re watching him every second so we put him back into his own bed for naps when we aren’t able to watch him.

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He’s still not sleeping through the entire night, he will wake up once to eat and the time varies now, it ranges from 2-5am so is a bit more unpredictable.  We’ll have to figure out what to do about it soon… but the last few days he seems like he has been eating more to make up for his lack of appetite over the weekend.  He has plenty of reserve but I can’t stand to hear him wailing.


Ghirardelli Square

Day 125

I had the day off today for Independence Day but just really felt like staying at home.  Until the afternoon when I was craving for some ice cream so we decided to go to Ghirardelli Square to have a sundae.  Probably not the best idea since it was super crowded with all the tourists but it’s been a while since we’ve gone there so thought it’d be fun.

After walking around, we saw four places where they serve ice cream now so if there is a long line at one, your best bet is to find one of the smaller to-go places to get your ice cream and chocolate fix.  Only the larger location at the entrance to the square has servers, the rest are more like take-out but there are plenty of places to sit and enjoy your ice cream.

We waited in line upstairs and let Simon entertain himself with Froggie, the frog rattle.

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We think he was a bit cold since it was windy and foggy out so he was a bit cranky.  I had the Gold Rush Sundae which has peanut butter, yum!

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After satisfying our ice cream craving, we headed home to get warm and Simon got all happy.  He’s a silly boy.

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I held Simon while he took a little nap.  He’s grown so much!

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But still comfortable to have him fall asleep on my shoulder…

Happy July 4th!

Day 124

Simon had his first trip to McDonald’s today.  I was craving some fries.  I thought I’d let Simon have a sniff of my chicken McNuggets.  I don’t think he wanted to give them back… look at his expression…

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We went to Ron’s parents house for a late afternoon BBQ.  Simon fell asleep on the ride down there and slept about 1.5 hours before being up again for 3 hours.  He started to get really cranky when he wanted to go back to sleep and basically screamed until he was crying… it took a while to calm him down and eventually he konked out.  Here he is in his new crib.

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Unfortunately he did that a few times; crying his head off because he wanted to sleep.  There were too many things to see and too much activity so he thought he didn’t want to go to sleep and everyone wanted to keep on playing with him.  We have to make ourselves be better about putting him to bed when he looks tired so we won’t have to spend 20 minutes calming him down so that he will rest.  I was so sad when he was crying and wailing and even as he was calming down, he was hiccoughing and couldn’t fall asleep until the hiccups stopped.

Once we got home though, he was his normal happy self.  Probably realizing it was home and we would be giving him his bath and putting him down to sleep for the rest of the night.  We had dressed Simon in red, white, and blue for Independence Day.

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Before bath time, Ron had Simon do this exercises to strengthen his core muscles.  Ron holds him by the arms and lets Simon move back and forth, side to side, and around. (Sorry video is horizontal again, I have to remember that I can’t flip it so I should film it the other way).


After his bath, he was still all smiles.  We have two hooded bath towels, one Elmo and this one of Tigger.

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After his bath, Simon went to sleep but not quietly.  He kicked Winnie the Pooh out of his way.

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Ron fell asleep too and he was snoring… and Simon was snoring too. You can’t really see anything in the video… but turn up the volume to hear the commentary and snoring.


Ahh… my boys!



Ferry Building Excursion

Day 123

After a long first week at work, all I needed was a little more sleep and to be able to spend time with Simon instead of rushing off to work.  His sweet little face (and funny expressions) make it all worth it.  “Yo, mama, what’s going down?”

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Ron is still trying to train Simon to hold his own bottle and most of the time he’s able to hold it.  It seems hard for him to hold onto it though when it is near empty and sometimes he flails his arms and drops it or tosses it to the ground.  Ron likes taking silly pictures of Simon for Facebook.

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Simon and I had an excursion planned out to meet with friends at the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market.  Karla, Brandon, and their son Miles are visiting from Santa Barbara so we met up with them for coffee and lunch.  It’s been 5 years since we’ve seen each other and both of us have adorable little boys now.

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Simon was having a bit of an off-day, probably from the vaccines but Miles was a cheerful happy baby the entire time.  We had iced coffee from Blue Bottle (yum!) and a light lunch at Delica, a Japanese deli.  I had their ma po tofu salad which had romaine lettuce, noodles, minced pork, and a bit of spices but wasn’t spicy overall.  A bit pricey too, $12/lb so a full pint container was $9.60.  But they have fresh strawberry mochi and I bought one ($2.75) to try but haven’t had a chance to dig in just yet.

It was really nice catching up and talking about our babies but Simon and I had to make our exit when he started to cry his head off.  Not sure why he did but he probably realized he was really tired and wanted to go to sleep.  On our walk home, he took a little nap and was more pleasant when we arrived home.  It was good to get out and good exercise for me since I hadn’t been walking all week.  It’s a little over a mile there and takes about 20-25 minutes to walk.

Simon had a nice long 2 hour nap when we arrived home and was quite a bit more cheerful.  He hasn’t been eating much today, it seems like his appetite is down again just like the last time he had shots.  He wore this outfit today from Auntie Virginia, his version of wearing a shirt and tie.

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So now he had a shirt and tie onesie or a black tuxedo bib to look dressed up for special occasions.  He actually does have other outfits like button down shirts and a fake tie (the ones that are like a necklace) but they’re still a little too big so will have to wait until he is older.

It was a beautiful day in SF today and I was glad to be able to enjoy it outside with Simon.  The farmer’s market was pretty crowded but it was fun since they had lots of samples out of peaches, nectarines, figs (yum!), blueberries, cherries, etc.  I picked up some organic nectarines and peaches as these are at the top of the list for still having pesticides on them.  We picked up a list from Simon’s doctor yesterday that has a list of which fruits and vegetables should be bought organic because of their high pesticide content and also a list of fruits and vegetables that are low in pesticide content so it’s not necessary to buy organic.

The list is available at FoodNews.org called “The Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides”.

The Dirty Dozen (buy organic)

Peach

Apple

Bell Pepper

Celery

Nectarine

Strawberries

Cherries

Kale

Lettuce

Grapes (imported)

Carrot

Pear

Clean 15 (lowest in pesticides)

Onion

Avocado

Sweet Corn

Pineapple

Mango

Asparagus

Sweet Peas

Kiwi

Cabbage

Eggplant

Papaya

Watermelon

Broccoli

Tomato

Sweet Potato

4 Month Well Baby Visit

Day 122

Simon is 4 months old today!  I can’t believe how fast time has flown by.  We are starting to retire some of his outfits because they longer fit!  Last night I put on these set of PJs but his legs hardly fit into them, he can’t extend his legs all the way since the fabric is too short.  Since he was already so tired last night I didn’t bother changing them out yet so Ron changed him in the morning.  But one last photo.  He is grabbing his purple elephant toy that makes music when he pulls on it.  If he pulls on it multiple times, the tune changes.

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My frog prince waiting for a kiss!

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Simon had his 4 month well baby visit this afternoon.  My coworkers were very understanding and let me get away for a bit to be with Simon and Ron during his appointment.  Although since I was away for an hour, I ended up staying late to finish up my work.  With the holiday weekend, preparations for next week involved more week since fitting all the patients in four days instead of the regular five days since Monday is a holiday.

Simon’s official numbers:

Weight  = 16 lbs 4 oz (7.4kg, 78th percentile)

Height = 25 3/4 inches (0.654m, 80th percentile)

Head circumference = 17 inches (43.3cm, 79th percentile)

So still on a good track although has slowed down a bit.  Simon is showing signs of “stranger anxiety” already since he started crying when his doctor started to examine him.  His doctor said her daughter also had stranger anxiety at 4 months so it is normal and unfortunately there’s not much we can do about it at this point.  So, friends, sorry if Simon freaks out, it’s nothing against you, he’s just a baby and doesn’t understand what’s going on.

But luckily it doesn’t take too long for him to calm down.

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After the visit with the doctor, we went to get his second set of vaccines.  Today is the oral rotavirus and two injections: pneumococcal and the three combo of DTAP/HIB/POL.

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Simon took the oral vaccine okay.

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But poor little guy started screaming as the first needle went in his little thigh.  He bled quite a lot from the first injection since he was screaming and his blood pressure was up.  Some of the blood got onto my skirt, a little bit frightening at first to see so much blood from his little leg.  But after the second injection, Ron picked him up off my lap and he stopped crying pretty much right away.

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I went back to work and Ron took him home.  He fell asleep in his car seat.

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and was snoring…


After I got home from work, I was exhausted and Simon was sleeping.  He ended up waking up only for a short while and I tried to nap with him on my chest while he was napping.  I ended up not being able to fall sleep for very long.  I think because I was enjoying the moment too much.  I really miss having him nap on me but in all the books you read, they say it’s a bad habit that should be avoided… but it’s such a comforting and enjoyable thing so I indulge once in a while.  When I compare his size from when he was first born to now, he hardly fits laying on my chest anymore…

We plan on starting some rice cereal soon… we’ll see how that goes!