Godzilla

The monster's reign continues!

He can climb up onto the footstool, but especially loves climbing on his squeaky Thomas chair. He stands at the front and grabs the back and climbs up and then down, then sits then up then down. The whole time I am freaked he is going to bite it but he is doing OK.

He teeth count is up to eight, the side ones came in last week.

He said Gemma twice; Gemma and I heard it. His other words are NaNa (for banana, or food in general), dada, and mama. He likes to clap his hands and listen to singing.

We are weaning; he is eating now only 2 or 3 times a day and then once still at night. I am glad. He is getting too big to hold comfortably across my lap like that, he's eating so much, and I am ready to end my nursing schedule of 7:15 go to work 9am go home 9:20 back to work 12 come home 12:25 back to work 3:15 come home.... Its too much!

very good bandaids.

I did get bandaids for his owie; big waterproof ones. On;y they were TOO good, and after 24 hours I could not get it off! Even in the bath, even with baby oil. It took about 15 minutes of picking to get it off!!! The bandaid was just so smooth it made a perfect seak to his skin. Oooops! At least though it is better now!

Godzilla

That boy, yikes. He pushed my buttons today.

-stuck his hand in the toilet after Gemma peed in it...EWWWW!
-threw his broccoli on the floor.
-knocked Gemma's plate of snack out of her hand on the floor
-spilled a cup of water
-threw food off the food shelf

He seriously is a walking disaster. Walk to the bedroom, pull down the clock. Climb on mommy's foot massager. Try to get in the bathroom to get the drain. Pull the stuff off the kitchen shelves. Go see if someone left the bathroom door open. As I am cleaning up one mess he is making another.And he will not lay still when I change his diaper. Which I had to do 6 times today!!!! All poopy ones!!!!!

His first rash went away last week only to be replaced by a different worse rash. This once looks like excema (sp?). It was bright red on his cheeks and nose, and scaly. Lotion seems to help and it is finally better looking today. I hope it is not a food allergy. And in other health problems, he has a sore on his.... hmm.... kind of down under his sack. It started as what looked like a little scrape, like a skinned knee but really small, and now it is getting bigger and redder. I mean, of course it is; its been in his poopy pee diaper all day. I've changed him a lot, and cleaned it as well as I could each time, and put polysporin on it but I am not sure how to dress wounds down there... I'll get some bandages tomorrow I guess and see if I can find a way to keep it clean and dry.

What's with kids being sick so much??

Should I stay or should I go...

...to the dr., that is. Ugg, so hard to know when they need to see a doctor or if they are just regular sick. The little man was really sleepy on Sunday. Awake for an hour, then a nap. Awake for an hour, then a nap. He also got a rash, and a mild fever, and hen he threw up a few times, so we took him in. Oh, and his lips turned purple, too. (Has anyone seen that before? It was like he was freezing cold.) He had that for a bit on Sunday and Monday. So I took him in yesterday. She checked him over really well, I really like this new doctor, and said it was probably a viral GI thing. She sent us down for a sonogram, just in case, but that was fine. So he has some medicine, and we'll see. He was acting more normal today so that's good. He looks terrible though, all bumpy and pimply but Dr. Tsai said that the rash will take 3-5 days to go away.

He has started saying No. You can tell he hears it about a million times a day. He sings a little song, up and down, "no no no no no no no no no. No no no no no." Babies are so cute.

The Treasure That He Seeks...

...is Nature's Valley Oats and Honey granola bars. You know, the ones from Costco with the green shiny wrapper and are super crunchy and crumbly? We have a box of them and have been keeping it on the floor due to lack of space anywhere else and the little guy loves to get into them. He grabs one, and struts around the house with it, waving it like a prize. Then he chews n it until he bites through the wrapper. Then he carries it around getting crumbs everywhere. This game of course got old really fast and now he doesn't get away with it as much, but hewas just so determined to get into that granola bar. And now he is having his first feelings of, Wait a minute, I WANT that! and he gets super mad when you take it away. Its still so cute and funny at this point, baby tantrums.

He is starting to really get the phone. Yesterday he was playing with my cell and he held it up to his ear and said, "hi?" I love how they start to learn things.

Two firsts

Guinness had two firsts; his first Christmas vacation and his first sunburn :) Probably not too many babies have that combination. Our first day at ChinChing Farm was rainy, but the second day was sunny and gorgeous. A perfect day for checking out the beautiful mountains. All of us got some red in our cheeks from the sun and wind, and Guinness has quite the little apple nose and tips of his ears. He doesn't seem to have much affinity for animals; wasn't a fan of the sheep. He LOVED all the people though, which was good as a deflector for Gemma.

First Christmas

Guinness is having an exciting first Christmas. His first party was down in Wanhua, the inner city of Taipei, to an OMF Christmas party for the ladies who work in the teashops. Some of these teashops are, hmm, shall we say special teashops in that they provide special services to a male clientele. It's not what you would expect when you think of prostitute though. Most of these women are older; in their 50's. Business was of course good when they were younger and it was a good way to make a living. But as a 50 year old it is not as easy to make money. Lots of these women have serious drug and alcohol problems. Men often just want their company and bring beer or alcohol for them and they sit and talk and talk. (these women also have serious lying problems, too, because they are so used to saying what people want to here and talking up the egos of lonely men) They are in debt to local lenders who charge outrageous interest. Anyway, our women's brunch group at church did a bunch of baking and got presents for them for this party. The party organizers wanted us to come and be a part of things so Guin and I went there with another friend this morning. There was singing, food, and a great speaker who shared her testimony interspersed with songs. We didn't stay for the presents but hopefully they were well recieved. Guinness was a star of course, being very friendly and nice. That is something so wonderful about babies; they bring joy wherever they go. A blind lady held him and her face lit up, she was so excited. He got passed around the room and made everyone happy. Except this one lady who was passed out stoned or drunk: he scratched her knee a bit as he walked by and she gave him a dirty look.

We also had a Christmas Eve party at church which was so fun. Guinness was his usual happy self. I'm sure there will be more tomorrow as he opens presents for the first time.