Nine months report

Vince asked me the other day, "Do you remember how Aidan was like when he was a newborn?". I sat there thinking and tried to remember how he was like but found it really hard. It feels as though some of the memories have faded away especially during first few weeks of Aidan's life when everything was like a big blur. Days and nights were all mixed up as I recall being in my pjs all the time ;) Then Vince's second question was: "Are you ready for another one?", and my immediate response was "NO!". I think that it would be nice to wait for a bit longer so that I can enjoy taking care of just one child. I guess it's all in God's timing, right?

We've been very busy lately with baby proofing our house as Aidan is mobile now. He's quite the speedster when it comes to crawling and he is also cruising along the walls and the sofa. We've been anticipating his first tooth since a few months ago but, nothing still! He's got the cutest toothless grin, though.

Here are some fun and interesting stuff about Aidan's nine months report:

loves...

• playing with daddy
• eating food esp. arrowoot cookies, and turkey soup
• giggling to himself (he sort of sounds like Beavis)
  
• looking at lights and in the mirror
• going out for walks
• going to places where he's not supposed to like the TV and the fireplace
• touching Rylee's soft ears
  
• meeting new people
• to jump and jump in his jolly jumper
  

dislikes...

• getting changed
• being held/restrained, or strapped into his car seat
• naps because he would rather play all day long if he could

Aidan's developing a sense of humour. These are some things that he thinks it's funny:

• when mommy puts her hair in a turban
• looking at pictures of his friends and of himself
• playing hide and seek

We hope that you all had a wonderful time during Christmas and
we wish you a Happy New Year!



We went swimming for the first time at Marianne and Alan's new house!
Aidan was quite scared and hung onto me like a baby gorilla...

Family portraits by kidsphoto

The AC experience

AC along with mommy took his first flight at the end of October to visit his grandma, great-grandparents, uncles, aunts, etc. We flew with Air Canada and despite of how tainted their reputation may be, we were surprisingly pleased with our flight experience. It was great to receive extra care and attention when traveling with an infant. On our way to Toronto, our flight attendant was so helpful that she kept on checking up on me and making sure that I had a pee break during the flight. And during our way back to Vancouver, I was thankful by the surrounding people as they played and entertained Aidan. I am really proud of my baby because he did so well on both flights =)

We both got sick right before going to Toronto so we ended up staying at home a lot to recuperate. It was wonderful to have my mom take care of us in terms of cleaning and cooking! What a great vacation! We also celebrated AC’s great-grandpa’s 85^th birthday and that was very special. During our two week stay, AC learned a lot of new stuff that I kind of felt bad that his daddy wasn’t there to witness them. Some of his new stuff include commando crawling, pulling himself up and sitting up on his own from his back or tummy. It was really neat to see him learn so much in such a short period of time. My days of rest are over!

Another special occasion was getting together with my RHCCC friends, Jenn and Becca. AC was able to meet Jenn’s kids and they played so well together that it makes me wish that we lived closer to them. Perhaps in a few years, we might consider moving out East. We shall see what God has in stored for us.

We definitely miss having my mom, Jessica and Nick around and we hope that we can go back another visit soon although daddy may not agree as he lived as a bachelor eating pizza for dinner.

AC with Uncle Nick

he loved poh-poh's nudges...

AC loves his Tai-gung (great-grandpa)

Jessica yiyi is the best b/c she takes such great care of AC. She's his human toy!
We also took him out for his first Trick or Treat experience around our cul-de-sac.

Here are some "traveling with an infant" tips:

-Bring some new toys for baby to play with. He/she might be entertained by everyday things like water bottle, paper, etc.

-Use a soother, bottle or breast for baby to suck on to alleviate the ear pressure during take off and landing.

-Borrow whatever you can from friends or family at your destination so that you do not have to lug so much around. My friend, Jenn, was so gracious in lending us her car seat, high chair, exersaucer! My mom also helped me by purchasing diapers and baby shampoo.

-Check in early so that you can get the bulkhead seat or an empty seat so that you have more room for baby. I found that having the extra seat was much better than the bulkhead b/c AC played on the seat and I even changed him right on it rather than lugging everything to the small, claustrophobic washroom.

Aidan's Many Firsts

Today, our little munchkin is 6 months old! During the last while, we have been able to witness some of his new stuff. Here's a list of Aidan’s many firsts (in no particular order):

• Discovery of his toes
• Knows his name
• Learning sign language with Markus & Erin
• Going on a swing
• Face recognition
• Sitting on his own
• Finally meeting Uncle Herwie
• Eating solids and producing super stinky poos
• Proficient at rolling back and forth
• First road trip to Victoria to attend Henry and Tiffany’s wedding
• Shopping in the States
• Daddy using gel on Aidan’s for church one day…
• First prescription for his eczema
• Purposeful reaching
• Patting other babies and his own reflection
• Trying to imitate sounds
• Loves to make chewing movements

Babytime!

Singing "Baa baa black sheep"

This past Friday, we went to the Cambie Library in Richmond to take part in something called "Babytime". It's a program aimed at pre-walking babies which uses rhymes, songs and stories to engage the little minds. Aidan looked more confused than entertained but it was good anyways, just to expose him to different things. I truly endorse the Richmond Public Libraries even though I live in Vancouver because they have many different programs and new resources that enhances the love of learning and best of all, not only are they open right now (all VPL branches are closed due to the ongoing strike) but all the programs are free. You can join the RPL even if you are not a Richmond resident.

I've talked to some of the RPL staff and they've told me that they have renovated many of their branches by using Chapters as their model. Hence the nice leather seats, funky signs, good lighting, and tasteful colours all create a nice, and calm ambience for all library goers. We get many of our movies from the library, too! Just place an order and you can get some of the newer movies. I have to thank Phil and Claire for introducing me to the RPL!

Go to their website to find out more...

http://www.yourlibrary.ca/aboutus.cfm

Doing actions with Daddy

One really cool resource for babies is the "Baby Theme Boxes".
Themes include "Celebrating Diversity", "ABCs", "Counting", etc. and
each box has eight books related to the theme along with
a stuffed animal and songs & rhymes!

Four months report

Physical development:
-loves to gaze at different things such as himself, Spongebob Squarepants, and the colourful teddy bear blinds in his room.
-discovered his hands and feet
-holds hands together =)
-already weighs just over 15 lbs.



-shows interest in colours esp. yellow
-loves to play in his exersaucer from the Tsangs









-loves to grab anything and everything...and yes, he then puts it right into his mouth.

-sleeps with his hippo and thrashes it around









Social/Emotional and Language development
-laughs hard when tickled
-squeals with delight
-babbles about a lot of things

One interesting fact about Aidan is that he has free earlobes while both mommy and daddy have attached earlobes. Who wants to figure out the genetic puzzle? =)

Look at who's bringing home the bacon?

our little breadwinner ;)

We had quite the trek today as Claire, Markus, Aidan and I took the bus to take part of an audiology test entitled "Maturation of binaural hearing". The purpose of this project is to investigate brain responses which are recorded non-invasively from small disk electrodes placed on the infant's scalp. The whole process took about two hours per baby! Aidan did a great job throughout the whole time and the best thing of all is that he made $20. Yeah! He also passed the testing which means that his hearing is just fine and dandy. (I'm sure that Auntie Praise would be so proud). I must say that I'm very proud that we made it to and back from UBC all in one piece and both babies behaved exceptionally well even on the bus. Upon arriving at our stop, we went to 7-eleven to redeem our free slurpees!

If you're reading this and it's still July 11, go to 7-eleven because it's their 80th anniversary and you get a free slurpee. =)

Changes

When we first got married about five years ago, we were both shocked at some of the adjustments that we had to make in order to make our relationship work. We had to let go of some of our insane expectations of one another (well mostly, IC had to learn to just let VC be him rather than changing him into someone who he isn't). It's funny to look back as IC used to get really upset when VC would not pick up his shoes and line up them in a nice neat row or even wash the dishes right after dinner. As the years passed by, we have actually influenced each other to become better individuals and surprisingly, we have come to meet in the middle...

Now enters Aidan into our lives and more changes occur. In the first couple of months, it was quite the whirlwind as we sort of knew what would get ourselves into but when he finally arrived that was another story. We thought that we were prepared as we read many parenting books and talked with various friends....in the end though, none of that really prepped us by having a new life to raise. Sure the cliche is that "having a child changes your life forever" and yes, it is very true and it is an amazing feeling to have this helpless babe gaze into your eyes but the scary part is "What if I mess up? I really don't know what the heck I'm doing". Being parents have truly taught us the essence of grace, mercy and sacrifice. We know that we will make mistakes but in the end, there's grace and mercy.... (phew). This love that we have for Aidan is perhaps the closest that we can describe of God's pure, unconditional and sacrificial love. There's nothing that we wouldn't do for our little guy. It truly amazes us that God loves us even more than we love Aidan. This song by Third Day describes it perfectly:


Your love, oh Lord
Reaches to the heavens
Your faithfulness stretches to the sky
Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains
Your justice flows like the ocean's tide
I will lift my voice
To worship You, my King
I will find my strength
In the shadow of your wings

Aidan's Chinese Name

Thanks to Mah-mah and Yeh-yeh, Aidan has a Chinese name!

In case you don't know how to read it, the pin ying is: Chan Zhi Cheng.

Zhi: determination, ambition

Cheng: accomplishment, success

All in all, we hope that he will grow up to be an individual who is determined to accomplish whatever goals that he sets up for himself.

Extra thanks to Uncle Josh for getting the info on Aidan's name and even typing it for us. Mommy and Daddy are not very good at the Chinese stuff although we both went to Chinese school.

It's All Worth It!

After many sleepless nights, breastfeeding Aidan every 2 to 3 hours, endlessly changing him, constantly washing his clothes and diapers, listening to his frantic 6 week peak cries and fussiness....

AIDAN FINALLY SMILED!!

best pic of him smiling thus far...it's hard to capture it

my fave pic of Aidan!

One month report

Our little Aidan is now officially one month old! Some of his most recent accomplishments include:

• Superb peeing aim. During one of the diaper changing experiences, Aidan had such a perfect aim and managed to pee right into his own mouth! He also does this "blue steel" look whenever he pees.
  
• Amazing sucking capability. We were both quite scared in the first few days when Aidan was born as his weight dropped 12% b/c he was not latching on properly and the poor little guy hardly got any milk into his body. Thankfully, by the fourth day, he managed to suck and from thereon, became a sucking monster, sometimes, needing feeding almost every hour. Poor mommy!
• Portability. We've been able to bring our easy going and very portable baby out on what we call "field trips". Some of them include: Easter Sunday Service at Tenth, Chapters, Richmond Library, Doc's office, & Kushnir's house in Tsawwassen for yummy Ukrainian lunch.
• Tracking. By his 3rd week, he was able to track some objects and he turns to look at the person who is talking esp. if it's mommy. He's been smiling more but we don't think that they are true social smiles yet.
• Good taste in music. When Aidan is in distress, mommy would play Norah Jones and he calms down immediately especially when he dancing with her. His fave tracks are #1 Don't Know Why and #3 Cold, Cold Heart.
  

photo session with auntie lulumonster

Yeah, Auntie Lulu came to visit Aidan on Sunday took tons of pics! Here are some of them...

lulumonster with milomonster

look at the bags under my eyes...

give me sum lovin'

a bit crusty...but look at his big eyes!