Day 267

Simon has taken to eating cottage cheese. Probably the texture and also the salt. Did you know that cottage cheese as almost 400mg of sodium per 1/2 cup serving? I read the babies aren’t supposed to have more than 400mg of sodium per day so I could only feed him a little bit. So I’ll be on the lookout for no salt added cottage cheese. Who knew they added salt to cottage cheese?

Now Simon really likes to raise his hand.

Simon sleeps quite funny sometimes. It’s like he was in mid-crawl and decided to fall asleep with his knees still underneath him.

Simon has been taking long afternoon naps lately but then is really refreshed and active.

Day 265

Simon is growing into this 9-month old clothes. One of his outfits are these PJs of Mommy’s all Star, complete with shoe-like footsies. He is playing with his diaper wipes case since we have moved to changing his diaper while laying him down on the ground since he moves around too much now on the changing table. Lower is better.

Ron took Simon the Parents’ Place again for some playtime and Simon was very interested in the gears on this box. When one moves, they all move. Now Ron thinks we should get him one for home too.

In the afternoon, Simon went to visit Grandpa Chung at the office. He got to playing with the chair and got himself stuck underneath. So he tries to act like a horse with a bit and push his way out.

Poor Simon has some pimples recently but I guess they don’t bother him like they bother us. I’m guessing they are due to hormone changes in my milk since we wash his face with water every time after meals and also with light soap during bath time.

The little guy didn’t want to sleep tonight so didn’t get to bed until almost 9:30pm. He has also been having strange nights, sometimes sleeping straight through until 6am or sometimes waking up around 2am crying. We’ll let him cry it out and he usually will go back to sleep but not until he stands up in his crib, wailing for 5-10 minutes, then fidget until he falls asleep again. It is sort of unpredictable when this happens. I guess we can’t all have a good night’s sleep every night.

Day 264

Simon’s drool is becoming more viscous and abundant again. No visible teeth but maybe soon.

I got Simon a new jingle ball because I lost his original one. When we were walking to our car to head to the airport for Hawaii, his original jingle ball was in Simon’s diaper bag but the bag slipped off my shoulder and the jingle ball fell out. Our car is parked on a steep hill so the ball started rolling and I couldn’t catch up to it so it kept on rolling down the hill, jingling all the way. So I saw this one as a replacement and Simon seems to like it. He is able to grab it easily by putting his fingers through the holes. Don’t you love his concentration? I just want to squeeze those chubby little cheeks!

During the late afternoon, we went downtown to meet up with Auntie Vicki to do some window shopping. We went by Macy’s and I saw the SPCA windows are back full of kitties and little dogs. This time last year, Simon wasn’t born yet and I would take my walks almost every evening by the windows and check out the animals. It wasn’t that long ago but it seems that was a lifetime ago. Though Simon is growing so quickly, I don’t know where the time is going. Strange feeling that time is going slow but also passing by quickly… Anyhow, Simon was way too excited to see Auntie Vicki so stayed up the entire time we were with her. Right after we said goodbye and walked another block or two, he fell fast asleep.

We continued our walk for a few more blocks until it started to get dark so we headed home. We passed by Union Square and saw the Christmas tree partially lit up. It looks like they are now done with piecing the tree together but now are trying to string all the lights. The bottom quarter of the tree was not lit up. The official tree lighting ceremony is Friday, the day after Thanksgiving November 26th, at 6pm.

When we arrived home, Simon had a meal that I actually cooked for him. I made it a few nights ago but hadn’t yet had the chance to let him try it. It is basically a stew with sweet onions, organic chicken breast, sweet potatoes, and Fuji apples simmered in apple juice and water. I have one of those baby puree cookbooks and thought I’d try out a recipe but instead of pureeing this, I just cut everything into small Simon-size pieces so that he could have more texture. Surprisingly, it even tastes pretty good to me, mostly because it is a bit sweet from the sauteed onions and sweet potatoes.

Simon didn’t refuse it and chomped away at the tiny pieces of chicken. I can foresee that he won’t want to eat this when he is tired or feeling lazy since eating the chicken takes a bit of work.

In the beginning I wanted to give Simon all freshly made foods but soon realized that it’s not realistic. There are just situations where it is difficult to bring around freshly prepared foods and having a jar of Gerber food is a life saver. So we’re doing a mixture of jarred foods and fresh foods and it seems to be working out. But I do think that Simon does prefer fresh foods since he will more often than not, refuse jarred baby foods and go for freshly cut pears or avocado if he has the choice.