Day 284

My little Hunk, dressed and ready to start the day! Simon has been wearing the same onesie since Thursday afternoon so he was due for a bath and change of clothes. I was surprised he hadn’t managed to dirty himself from eating for more than a day and a half. He usually spills or smooshes some of his food somewhere on this clothes so we end up changing him often.

Simon played with daddy for a few minutes this morning before we started our day.

Simon had a good morning nap so had a good time at Gymboree this afternoon. He spent a lot of time laughing and playing nicely with the other kids. There were some things we couldn’t do today though since some of the setups require two parents. For example, there was the soft fabric tunnel placed on top of an elevated curvy walkway. If I tried to leave Simon at the entry and run to the exit to coax him down, he might have fallen over the edge. Another parent helped me with him to go through it once but she also had her own daughter there so didn’t want to impose further. But I think he still had a good time and he was exhausted since when I tried to feed him lunch after class, he just kept on rubbing his eyes and ear and wanted to go to sleep. So we drove to our next destination, a 1-year-old’s birthday party in San Ramon. The party was fun for Simon to use up his energy and play with some other kids’ toys and crawl around on a plushy carpet. The only thing not fun about the day was the traffic. I must have had bad luck because on the way there, I got stuck at the Caldecott Tunnel because of a policeman stopping a truck in the middle bore so reduced lanes and rubbernecking made traffic slow. Then on the way back, I got stuck at the tunnel again since the 2 left lanes were closed then I got stuck getting to the Bay Bridge because there was another car accident, 3 cars damaged and 2 police cars were on the scene… then the bridge itself was packed! Thank goodness for Fastrak! That’s one thing I don’t miss about living in the East Bay: the traffic into SF (on unlucky days like today).

So it took me about 2 hours to get home but dinner was waiting for me and good dinner conversation. Simon seemed to be responding to me when I said “na na”, he would say “da da”. I wanted to laugh but also didn’t want to discourage him since I notice if I laughed a little bit, he’d stop. I am exhausted at dinner but hearing how excited he is made me smile.

Still waiting patiently for him to say “ma ma”.

Day 283

In hopes that Simon will be a math genius, we bought him a baby abacus… actually not, we got him this because he seems to like beads on wires and this was one of the only toys they had at Ross that fit that description. He likes to spin the beads and tries to move them but it will be a while yet before he learns to count.

Do you know the song: All I Want for Christmas are My Two Front Teeth? Well, Simon may get that wish this year. His upper teeth are starting to push themselves out. He has been fussy the last few nights because of this so we’ve been going in to comfort him when he wakes up crying. Poor little guy. I wonder how it feels to have teeth coming in, I can imagine it might be pretty irritating. He may actually have four upper teeth by Christmas, the 2 on the right are more visible but the 2 on the left are also slowing making themselves be known.

I sometimes wonder if Simon will be an early walker. Lately he’s been pulling himself up on everything he can and seemingly testing his balance but he is not willing to let go completely. If he lets go, he will just sit down. Here is is using his car to support himself and take a few steps.

I got off work a little bit early for once and Ron and Simon were at work actually waiting for me as a surprise. So we decided to go out for dinner and ended up at the food court next to Bloomingdale’s. We had food from Buckhorn Grill. This is the cabo chopped salad and it was huge! Simon had some avocado, corn, and black beans.

They do have baby seats there so Simon could sit with us at the table. He made a little bit of a mess though because he dropped things on the floor plus smeared some food on the table. I need to buy one of those portable placemats so we can use it to put his finger foods on. Tonight I just used an antibacterial wipe and paper towel to clean off the surface so he could eat.

Oh, and that food court has a great family room. There are many changing tables, nursing cubbies with curtains, a small lounge with a flat screen TV and tabletop toys, a microwave, and separate bathroom. A good place to relax if you just need to sit down and let your child play with something or watch some TV. Plus a great area to breastfeed or pump. Just a tip for the mommies and daddies out there.

After dinner, we dropped by the Christmas tree in Union Square. Picture with mommy.

Picture with daddy.

When we got home, we broke out a new toy that has gears. Ron mentioned Simon liked the gears toy at Parents’ Place so I found this to see if Simon would like it.

Daddy has been teaching Simon to play with his rattles. Here he is shaking them. I apologize for my poor recording skills, I forgot that our camera doesn’t record vertically. I love how Simon is shaking his head and shaking his rattle at the same time… looks like he’s going to make himself lose balance.

He’s using so much energy to shake the rattles, just makes me smile to watch him.