Should I be doing this?

This is what my parents saw last night when they parked me in front of the tube. I don't usually get to watch TV, but last night Dad and Mom popped in a Baby Einstein video that I got for my birthday. As I sat like this, Dad and Mom were able to enjoy dinner at a pace that didn't require subsequent surgery for ulcers, execute a decent conversation with each other, and discussed cracking open a bottle of wine in celebration that I remained in one place for more than 5 seconds.


No, I didn't try to eat the phone book. No, I didn't rip off all the electrical outlet covers. I didn't try to chew on Lucy's ear or on Dad's shoes. I didn't scream, I didn't try to tear down the screen door. In fact, I sat like this -- peacefully and absolutely enthralled -- for a good 10 or 12 minutes while the TV screen glowed with psychadelic colors. Whoa, man. It was good.

So, do your parents let you watch TV? If so, how old were you when you started? (Hey, I'm talking to all you other babies out there who still live with your parents and don't shop for your own clothing yet.)

12-month checkup

Today I went to see Dr. Kaminker again for my 12-month checkup. Here are my stats:

Weight: 24 lbs. 9 oz (75%)
Height: 31" (90%)
Head Circumference: 19.5" (>95%)

I'm off the chart on my head size. Maybe it's all this hair?

I got two shots, MMR and Prevnar, one in each arm, and MAN DID THEY HURT! After the shots, Mom had to go feed the parking meter, and Dad stayed with me to console me. Mom said she heard my crying from all the way out in the street! Babies in the waiting room were beginning to feel a tad bit uncomfortable.

I got the green light to start eating more table food off of Dad and Mom's plates. They realized they need to start eating healthier themselves. In a couple weeks after I see the dermatologist for my skin rash, I can start transitioning to whole milk!

Doc said I will probably be able to kick and throw a ball soon. Wow, can't wait!

Can't keep up

Mama and Dad can't keep up with my new activities in this blog. Here are recent updates:

1. I can say, "go go" which means dog in Chinese. My babysitter, Mrs. Tran, reported to Dad that I'll say this and point to the calendar on her wall, which has a picture of a dog on it. Mom and Dad haven't tested this theory to see if I call Lucy a "go go."

2. I point to stuff and say, "whuh whuh," all the time. No one understands me yet.

3. Tabletops are no longer safe haven for things like Mama's glasses, PDA's, laptop computers, etc. I can reach and pull them down now. My parents (and their gadgets) are in trouble.

4. I like fitting and putting things into containers. Where I used to just chew on my stackable nesting cups, I now like to stuff them full of lego pieces, or nest them in one another. In my bath, I like to fill a container with water and pieces of the alphabet and then pour them all out. Then I repeat this over and over. I also have started to play with my shape sorter set, though someone has to point where I'm supposed to insert the shapes. But once I know where to put the shape, I can fit it in with a little help here and there.

5. I understand "no" better now, as well as "gentle." But...that heater vent in the hallway is just sooooo irresistable and tempting, I can't help but try to stick my fingers in there, even when I'm shaking my head, "no." I just can't help it.

6. A couple days ago, I was playing in the living room and Mom was in the kitchen around the corner. I guess I must've been silent for awhile, so she came to check on me. When she rounded the corner, I was just on the verge of figuring out how to open the cabinet door to get to the DVD/CD player. Based on the expression on Mom's face, I knew in an instant that this was not cool. Mom's a sucker for my charms, so I gave a BIG sheepish smile, crawled right over to her ankles, reached up, and when she picked me up, I squeezed her neck as hard as I could to give her a huge hug. She couldn't do anything but laugh. (Note to self: Remember this technique for future reference. Bwaaaahhh ha ha hahhh...)

7. I like to push my walker toy across the living room floor. When I hit the wall or corner, I scream until someone turns me and the walker around. Then I take off again. We can do this about 30 times in an evening.

8. I enjoy back massages from Dad at night after my bath. It calms me down and helps me relax.

9. I am learning the meaning of "together" and "apart." I can sometimes put together two mega block pieces (these are like Legos only bigger and chunkier), and I can always pull them apart.

10. My appetite is back. Last night I actually ate some zucchini and carrot pieces by myself while Dad and Mom had dinner. We try to eat together as a family every night.

New and improved

Thanks to Jenni (and Maiya) for turning me on to this new video hosting service! Let's see if this works...let me know if you have any problems viewing this on my blog.


Video Hosting - Upload Video - Video Sharing

Feeling much better

Sleeping much better

Smiling more

Playing harder

Feeling much better

I love to read

In addition to my BBQ in the park, I also had a Korean celebration of my first birthday. There were about 50 or 60 of my relatives there from Dad's side of the family. It was pretty opulent -- Halmoni and Haraboji rented a hotel banquet room with a Korean buffet, and the setup was pretty fresh. Check out the above head table where I sat, and check out the balloons!


And here's a pop-quiz for you: look at the photo below, and tell me which of these things is not like the others?


During the party, we played a traditional fortune-telling game called dol ja bee where I basically get to choose from a layout of various items. There was thread (representing long life), book (scholarship), crayons (artistry), money (wealth), and pencils (not sure, maybe a life of sitting at a desk?). Mom and Dad asked guests to vote for what I would choose. They made these cute baskets where people cast their ballots:

After photos (more will be posted later), eating, and cake-cutting, I sat down on a blanket and Dad and Mom arranged all the items before my feet. Can you guess which item I went for? I went for a computer mouse! You see, at the last minute before the game, the hotel manager brought over his own dol ja bee set that included, of all things, a computer mouse. Against Mom and Dad's objections, however, Halmoni and Haraboji replaced my colorful crayons with a computer mouse. Mom still prefers to believe that I will grow up to be artistic and creative, and not develop tendonitis in my mousing hand.

After the mouse, I chose the book. Dad had a feeling that was going to happen, since I've been pretty interested in my books at home. There's a basket of books in my room, and sometimes I will even forgo the chewable toys and wheels, and pick out a book and flip through the pages. THIS, however, is my all-time favorite book, Touch and Feel WILD ANIMALS.


When given a choice between this and any other book in my collection, I always choose this one. There is a lion with a hairy mane, a lizard with bumpy skin, a dolphin with smooth, slippery skin, a koala with a furry body, and this....this is my all-time favorite page in the book -- a tree frog with sticky pads on its fingers. I can sit for minutes, just poking the sticky pads like this:


Well, it's gonna be awhile before I get to play with a mouse or a computer so in the meantime I'll gladly settle for my books.

More firsts (contributed by mama)

Hello to all of Devin's readers.

Today I heard Devin say his first word! It was "nai" which means "milk" in Chinese. Can you believe it? His first word was in Chinese, and I barely can distinguish my head from my butt in Chinese. It turns out that his babysitter, Mrs. Tran, has been teaching that to him. Part of me feels a tad bit disappointed that I -- his very own MOTHER -- didn't manage to teach him how to ask for the one thing that tames the savage beast in him. Well, I did say I was just a "tad" disappointed. The rest of me is just so delighted that he's got a vocabulary word for such an important request -- and that maybe now he can start asking for nai instead of thrashing about and trying to claw my eyes out.

Next I need to teach him how to say, "Mama it really itches right here behind my ears, my eczyma is starting to bother me in my elbows, particularly on my left arm, and I think that cream works but the bath soak does not..." At that point, my life will be so much easier, but he's gotta say it in English because I would need a translator otherwise.

So I think it's kind of cool that he understands some Korean -- particulary, "manseh," which of COURSE is a useful word to know because it means "goal" or more like, "gooooooaaaaal!" (His grandparents are red tees sportin' fans of Korea's soccer team.) But actually the word is more useful than I ever thought. When it's time for Devin's bath and I'm trying to undress him, a loud "manseehhhh" not only echos well in the bathroom, but usually elicits very rigorous arm-raising, at which point I whisk his shirt off over his head.

Speaking of baths, Devin does seem to understand that word in English. When he hears it, he sometimes will even drop the rug corner that he's been chewing on to crawl full speed into the bathroom. He pulls himself up at the edge of the tub, and begins systematically flinging his bath toys into the tub. Next, he will get up on all ten toes, and try to hoist his little leg over the edge, even when he's still fully clothed or when the tub is dry. In some ways, "bath" is the equivalent four letter word to "walk" which elicits a similar spastic response from Lucy at the front door.

AND, this evening as I was getting ready to take Lucy and Devin for a "w... a... l... k..." I patted the stroller seat and called to Devin, and he climbed into his stroller by himself! The kid is acrobatic. He can barely walk but he's pulling himself up and able to shift his weight to get that knee up over shoulder height. I was watching this, thinking that proportionally, this was equivalent to me climbing on top of a mini-van without the advantage of a running start. Isn't it?

Today was a lot of firsts. Seems like the past weeks (maybe even the past month) I hadn't noticed many new activities, and then Devin was sick for a bit. Well, he's fought off that virus now, and perhaps he's just catching up, I suppose, on all the things he probably wanted to accomplish. Funny and so amazing how quickly this all came at once. I love him so much even when he's not doing much -- like the times when he just sits on the floor and grunts while staring at the ceiling (go figure) -- but when he displays all these new activities, i am reminded that he is learning and soaking up the world around him, and I am so excited to see what comes next.

"definitely more mischief!"

One down, a LOT more to go

That weird rash/eczyma thing all over my body was soon joined by a loss of appetite and difficulty swallowing. One of life's most enjoyable activities for me is eating, and I couldn't even do that anymore. No more chicken, pasta, veggies, no more potatoes and rice. Not even milk. The only exception, the only thing I would eat: little Cheerios, like manna sent from heaven.

Mom and Dad took me back again to the doc because I wasn't sleeping/eating well, and also because that sandpapery, bumpy, evenly dispersed rash was starting to subside but in its place I was developing large red bumps like bug bites. The doc looked in my throat and found that I had blisters back there. Remember all that drooling and business about molars possibly coming in? Turns out it was probably the beginning of this virus, and the drooling was because I couldn't swallow. Since I didn't have blisters on my hands or feet, he ruled out hand-foot-mouth disease, and said it must be a throat virus. However, he still thunk that my bumps and "bug bites" are eczyma (this was after he read my chart saying I had eczyma and after barely even paying much attention to my skin).

Mom, however, in her non-medical opinion but armed with common sense and the ability for high-level deductive reasoning, thinks that they are related to the virus or the heat, and are in addition to the more classic eczyma symptoms I have in the folds of my elbows, neck and scalp. (And between you, me, and the internet, Mom hasn't been particularly impressed with my doctors these days. In fact she's been downright disappointed with them.)

The exciting news was that this viral diagnosis came from the doc just one day before my first birthday bash! The doc said that three things will make my eczyma worse -- hot baths, sun, and sweat. So it wasn't music to my doc's ears that my party was being held in a park. Right then, it became *vitally* important that Mom and Dad secure the prime spot of Clover Park not because this particular area had grouped tables and grills, but because it was *shady*. We decided that the party must go on, so Dad and Mom got up at 4:30 in the morning and staked out the place at the park. No one else on earth was determined (or crazy) enough to be there before dawn, so my parents won the prize.

After they covered the tables and unloaded all the BBQ gear, Mom went back home and Dad slept on one of the tables in a sleeping bag. It was probably the best stretch of uninterrupted sleep he'd gotten in a few nights -- until the police came. You can watch the full story on the next episode of COPS, but to make a long story short, they let my bad boy pop stay at the park because they were convinced that he truly was there to BBQ (bags of charcoal and party goods at his side) and not to sleep off a bad hangover.

Anyway, six hours later the party began! About 70 people came, and it was cool in the shade. I did pretty well, with little fussing despite my discomfort. Mom and Dad think that all the activity just distracted me from my throat and skin, and in the end we had a great time.


So thanks, everyone, for coming to my party, and thanks to Lau Lau for traveling all the way from Florida to be with me, and to Halmoni and Haraboji for making so much food -- critics reviewed that, "the meat was to die for."

By the way, if anyone took photos during the party, would you please send your photos to Dad or Mom? They were too busy eating and chatting to take very many pictures. But what we do have, you can see here in our Flickr account!

My week with mama

Last week, papa went to DC for a conference. He was gone for 5 days, and during that time, mom sure did spoil me. Let's say she was just a big ole' sucker for my charming ways. It was so bloody hot during those days, so we had a fun time sleeping together in the living room where the A/C unit is located in our apartment. Mom also cleared off her entire calendar those days just to spend some quality time with me.

During all that heat, I developed a pretty bad rash which was followed by a couple of visits to the doctor's office -- and prodding and poking from two different doctors. There was some prescription cream involved, after which my bumpy, sandpaper textured rash turned hot pink with inflamation. Mom stopped the cream and after spending a couple of hours in front of the computer, she came back and started soaking me in the tub with clear tepid water. Ahhhhh...relief. I got some new tub toys to keep me occupied, and somewhere in the string of 15-minute long tub soaks, I learned how to blow bubbles into the water. And I also realized that I can dunk my face completely underwater and lick the bottom of the tub. But it's not all that fun actually, I don't recommend it as a hobby.

Along with the soaks, mom also started contributing to California's power crisis and blasting the air conditioner to keep my skin cool and dry during the heat wave. She also rearranged the furniture in the living room (where our wall-unit A/C is located) so that I was surrounded on two sides by sofa, one side by a chaise lounge, and one side by a heavy coffee table turned on its side.


It was her way of simulating my crib and keeping me in a confined and safe space, but ha! That didn't stop me -- most of the nights, mom slept on one of the three couches and I slept on the floor in the "pen," but a few times when I was supposed to be napping, I managed to crawl over the chaise lounge while mom was passed out on the sofa. Somehow she heard me scrape my spoon against Lucy's food bowl (how can she hear so well?), woke up, and ran over to whisk me away before I could get a bite.

In the end, the doctors say it is eczyma, or atopic dermatitis. One doc said I may outgrow it by the time I'm two years old, but another doc said I will probably have this (on and off) for the rest of my life! Well, I hope the first doc is right. Here, this photo should sum up my condition pretty well:

Today, back to day care.