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!