Rattle Rattle

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.

Playing drums – bong! bong!

Day 282

Simon has found that his toy bins are fun to use as drums. He’ll pull them off the shelf and dump out all the contents so that he can hit the bottom. They make a “bong bong” sound.

He must think that this pillow is his lounge chair to play with his piano.

Simon is learning to crawl while holding something in his hand. Here he is holding golf balls and trying to crawl forward.

Daddy Ron picked out Simon’s clothes today to go out for dinner. All stripes!

Simon seems confused about his outfit. I wonder if it is making him dizzy?

Tired… but I don’t want to sleep yet!

Day 281

Babies are so funny. They tire themselves out yet don’t want to take a nap. In this case, Simon is tired from standing up but still wants to play with his piano so instead he lounges on the pillow close by.

Simon is rediscovering his toys. He hasn’t played with this for a few weeks but suddenly found interest in it again.

Simon got really tired during playtime and even put his head down.

But as you can see, he still wants to play so plays with his rattle, crawls around a bit, before putting his head down again. He is watching/listening to Chinese/English videos.

Eventually he does go to take his nap. Hugging the soft plushy puppy finally convinced him he needed a nap.

Fussy Simon

Day 280

According to Ron, Simon had a really fussy day, likely due to teething. I can see the white buds of his upper teeth showing… but he’ll be gnawing for a little while yet.

He even tried to soothe his gums by gnawing on a ping pong ball today.

Elmo Simon

Day 279

Simon loves his mozzarella!

Simon enjoys playing with his beads on wires.

It’s very interesting to watch him playing with the beads. He’s really concentrated on moving them around on the wires.

Tonight we took Simon to Open Gym at Gymboree. There were a lot of older kids there so it was kind of crowded and they were being a bit rambunctious. I was afraid one of the kids would trip and hurt Simon or throw one of the rubber balls at him. Simon wasn’t in that playful of a mood actually, probably tired and hungry. Plus his teeth were probably bugging him. He started to chew on one of the toys there.

Simon had dinner and a bath before bedtime. I thought Simon looked so cute in his Elmo bath towel.

He really wanted to stick his thumb in his mouth though. Poor guy, I hope those teeth come out soon so he’ll be more comfortable.