Halloween: So cute it's scary

If it get this posted up before midnight, I'm still in the 1 month grace period before I become a bad parent. Or at least a bad blogger, which is almost as deplorable these days.

So Halloween has come and gone and with it Grant's last “First” holiday. It's crazy to think that this time last year was the scariest Halloween ever as we sat around on pins and needles just waiting for the big moment that would change our lives forever. This year was much more fun because we got to dress that big moment up as what ever we wanted.



We went through several drafts of the Halloween costume. My first idea was a super-complex zergling costume complete with wings and pincers. That was way beyond my skill as a costume maker however. For a while before Halloween he went through a phase where he'd head bang while hitting the floor with drum sticks so I though some thick glasses, a baby flannel and a blond wig would make him a perfect Baby Garth. I was even going to dress up as Wayne to complete the ensemble/explain the reference. Unfortunately he stopped doing this as much, and really even this was beyond my skills are a costume maker.

Finally as the time drew near, we decided to just buy him a costume. Total party foul I know but you do what you gotta do when you're untalented. Sally and I are both hoping to raise a very practical child so we picked the costume with the most extra uses we could find. The kangaroo was a natural choice, it came with a toy he could play with, it fit right over his clothes, it was warm and the pocket could hold enough candy we wouldn't need to take a bucket. All this at the price of no one knowing what he was.



Seriously people, he had a pouch with a little kangaroo in it. They don't make space man costumes with that feature. Believe me, I looked. But we got all kinds of wrong guesses. Deer. Horse. Rabbit. At least they were all mammals. I guess.

We had a lot of fun though. We took him to my work's Halloween party and then the local ward's trunk-or-treat the next day. We were going to take him to the Chinese Ward activity, but he was a little sick and slept through it.



Through out it all, we could tell that he knew something important and excited was going on and he just didn't know what. I can't wait til next year when concepts like candy and costumes are more within his grasp.

Oh and everything they say is true. When you grow up, you can steal your kid's Halloween candy.

Holloween mystry.

So right before Holloween, we discovered that we might have a rat in our house. Here's why we thought so.

Turned out we do have a little rat, who's caught in action here.

"What are you looking at, ma?"

Our boy is 9 1/2 months ...

How did time fly when you have a little one. It's been three weeks since my parents left. But on the day they left, Grant got the hang of getting his pictures taken. Every time he sees a camera pointing at him and if the person says "yee, er, san!" (one, two, three), he'd give you the cutest smile coz he's a smart boy and knows what to do.

On 8/16, we went to the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake with Julie, Jaxson and Kennadie and Ann and Lynn. This was Grant's first time in a zoo and he was stoked. He screamed with great excitement even before entering because he's never seen so many kids at the same time.

So we went on a mini hike in the canyon by us when my folks were still here and we tried using the baby carrier on a hike for the first time. Doesn't he look so cute and happy to be on daddy's back? By the end of the hike, he's out. That's what he'd do if he didn't nap much during the day.
And here's another good one with daddy by the Great Salt Lake.

Now that we got our new nice camera, we've been experimenting it and of course who do we experiment it on?

Grant is such a natural when it comes to picture time now. These were all taken in a row and he was all smile in all of them.

Later that day I was eating a yogurt and Grant insisted on having it, too. He was moping by my side and couldn't stand seeing me enjoying it by myself. So I quickly finished it and rinsed it out and gave the cup to him. Then he's so happy that he finally got the "yogurt", too, even though he still has some tears if you look close. He makes me laugh...

Weekend in Park City

With only two weeks before Chinese Grandma and Grandpa go back home, Mommy and Daddy have suddenly realized that they haven't taken them very many places. So now, they're dragging me all over the place trying to make up for their mistake. I hope the rest of my life isn't this unfair.

This past Saturday we went to a place called Park City. Which wasn't too far from our house. After my afternoon nap we loaded up into the car and drove for a while. I'm not too clear on what happened, all I remember was that we drove up a really big heal and Chinese Grandma kept trying to cover me with a pink umbrella so the sun wouldn't get me. It was really nice of her, but a little embarrassing. You never know who might be sitting in the car-seat in the mini-van next to you. I'll have Mommy reminder her that I'm a boy and make Daddy go get me a Batman umbrella.



The first place we went was called the Canyons. It was whole bunch of giant condos like Great Grandmas by Bear Lake, only this time there was now lake. Just a bunch of stores selling really expensive, funny colored clothes and some weird ropes with chairs on them going up and down the mountains. It was pretty, but I really didn't get the point of it all.

It was really hot out and even though my parents were smart enough to bring me some juice for me to drink, they didn't bring anything for them. Daddy bought two bottles of water from some Thai girls for $2 a piece. I thought in my life I'd seen it all, but a grown man paying for water may just be the craziest thing I've ever seen.



Fortunately we didn't drive all this way to just pay money for something we have a lot of at home. The next thing we did was get into a big metal box hanging form one of the ropes. Once the adults were all seated and I was properly being held, the box started moving faster heading up the mountain.

It was really pretty at first. The forest stretched out below us and I could see lots of pretty trees. Then we got to what should have been the end of the ride and when over into the next canyon. It was just then that I realized we were way up in the sky! This is not where I wanted to be. All of a sudden the occasional shaking of car wasn't fun, it was really scary. Chinese Grandpa was holding me but that wasn't enough. I wanted Daddy. But once Daddy was holding me I was close enough to Mommy that I wanted the best I could get.



Finally we got off the horrible thing and got out. We were in a really nice forest. We took a nice little walk, took a bunch of pictures, saw some birds and a ground squirrel and then drank some juice on a bridge over a little creek. I was starting to think that this place wasn't so bad.

Then they made me get back in that stupid thing!



This time I wasted no time expressing my displeasure. Right from the get go I was going to be with Mommy and I was going to be explaining how high we were and how scary that was. As we got to the bottom, the thing wasn't so high off the ground and Mommy's hugs were enough to make me feel better.

Daddy was no help. He just took my picture.

Daddy's kinda of a jerk some times.

After the ride in the car thing we went back down the mountain. Daddy drove us to a place where they held the Olympics seven whole years before I was born. I didn't think anything from so long ago would be very interesting, but once we got there, I was amazed by the stuff people had done. We saw all kinds of things from the Olympics. I even posed for a picture holding the torch, but you can't tell because Daddy has a stupid, big head so you can't see it in the picture.



We also got to watch some big kids do ski jumping. They did some amazing twists and turns in the air. It was truly a testament to the potential of the human body and the power of the human spirit. Chinese Grandma and Grandpa were very impressed. Daddy was distracted by a chipmunk.

I we left Daddy said some day I could be in the Olympics. For the first time in my life I feel pressure.



After the Olympic Park we went out for dinner. The Grown-ups ordered Mexican Food. I had baby food. It's really doesn't seem that fair now in retrospect but I was OK with it at the time. Probably because the girls at the next table and the waitresses were all entranced with me.

All in all it was a fun day. I can't understand why Mommy and Daddy would live so close to such a nice place for so long and never go. I hope they take me again soon.

Just not up that stupid mountain.

Our little guy is mobile.

Not much really to say out side of the header there. Grant is up and moving around all on his own. By up really am only talking about his head though, he's mostly just army crawling unless some one gets in his way to wrestle.

This new adventure started over the fourth of July weekend. We had taken Grant and his Chinese Grant parents to hang out with my family at Bear Lake, we'd had a good time but it was getting time to go. We were packing up and had put Grant on the bed while we were gathering up our stuff. He'd been a master level roller for a couple month by now so one of us was watching him to make sure he didn't roll any where he didn't belong (like off the bed).



Sure enough he rolled on to one side. He just chilled there for a minute as he often does and the rolled back to his stomach, only this time he moved his arm forward, just a bit. Then he rolled the other side. Again, when he returned to lying on his tummy he moved his free hand forward just enough. It didn't take long for him to realize what had happen. For the first time in his life he had moved along the z axis all on his own.



Excited he repeated the process. We were thrilled. When his Chinese grandparents came in we used a cell phone to coax him to repeat the process. The were thrilled. We took him home and practiced. Soon he realized he didn't need to “swim” to move forward. He has since learned to army crawl and to scoot forward, turning our little click beetle into an inchworm.



It's been really fun to watch him gain this new independence. Well, as fun as anything truly terrifying can be. I'm happy for him, I really am, but I kinda miss the days when all I had to remember was where I put him down. Now he could be anywhere.



That's not all he's doing that makes his father really excited when he does it when I'm in the room but scares the cupcakes out of me when he does it when I'm gone.



So everyone else went grocery shopping today, leaving us for some father/son bonding/rough housing time. He made a mess in his pants and I daddyed it away as best I could (some day I want to write a thesis on the changes that have happened to this kids poops since we started giving him solids). As is normal in these temporary single parent moments I put him in his crib to run and wash my hands.



It's been months since I was shocked to see him in a different position in his bed than the one I put him down in. But this time he was just turned around, he was vertical. As in standing. He'd not only pulled himself up using the edge but he was leaning over the edge at a heart attack inducing angle since the bed hasn't need to be lowered until just then.

So now we're going about baby proofing the house. So far we've piled a bunch of junk in front of the railing so he can't fall through there. We're good parents.

More cuteness... during the day. 5/31/2010

Our trip to Bear Lake during Memorial Day weekend was an adventure. Grant was teething, got sick and also got us sick after that. In fact, Steve is still sick, he still has pretty bad coughing fits at night.

We did have some pretty cute and cool pictures and videos though. Here they are.

Okay, the video won't upload, so here's a picture from there.

Our boy is 6 months old!

We are updating our blog like going to the doctor's office: last time was when he's 4 months old! It was an exciting 2 months of Grant's life. He's grown and learned alot.

Grant doesn't like tummy time, I think that's how he learned to roll over, from front to back. Every time we put him down on his tummy, he'd be like a screaming click beatle, flipping to his back almost immediately. He's not quite good with the other direction yet. Occasionally if he's on his back for long enough, he'd wiggle himself to his front. Although while I'm writing this blog, he just did it twice! The first time he did that was at grandma & grandpa's, when we went up for grandma's birthday, which was a pleasant surprise for her.

Lately he hasn't been as talkative as before, but a couple days before we went up, we heard him say "Anna" clear as day. Then when we met up with the Lovelands, we realized, Anna means Annabelle. They even sat and played in this swing together.

Grant's sitting up better and better. He's also in a phase when he'd put everything he can grab into his mouth. Sometimes when he needs both of his hands to do the job, he'd sit up straight for a brief moment.

He's also fond of people, the more the better. Every time we bring him outside, whether it's church, shopping, or for a walk, he's just amazed at the outside world and the people in it. He especially likes church, family and church activities, that's where a lot of people would smile at him, hold him or play with him. He'd give them big smiles, or blow lots of rasberries to them.

Last weekend grandma came down to see us. It was great to have her with us for a couple days and help us looking after Grant. Grant loved spending time with his grandma, who loves him a ton.

On Friday, I made him some rice cereal in a bowl. This is his first offical solid food. He was not very fond of this new concept of eating from a bowl and spoon. After every bite, he'd blow rasberries to get the food out of his mouth. So here's what he looked like by the end, almost look like he's got perfect teeth!

Grant turned 180 degrees!

Grant has pretty strong leg muscles and sometimes when he's doing tummy time, he'd stick his butt up, like he's trying to crawl. But his arms aren't strong enough to support his heavy head yet, so here's what he'd look like.
Also grandma, remember how sweet you think his sleeping pictures are? Here's a look at a picture back then, aww......

Now because of his strong legs, he could move himself around while lying on his back. Usually when we put him to bed, we put his head towards North. One night when I went in to feed him, I noticed his was lying across the crib, head facing East. When he saw me, he was all smily and swinging his arms, seemingly enjoying his new found view of the crib.

Last night when I went to the nursery, I thought I was dreaming because his had completely turned himself around and was lying against the corner of the crib, with his head facing South! Again he was all smily when he saw me, as if he was showing off his new skills again. Since we don't have a picture of that, here's one for what he looks like now in the crib. Oh, how we love our growing little cute boy!

Sunday Sunday

We had a very happy baby today, which was perfect timing since we had to take him to church for three hours. All he did the whole time was smile, laugh and hit on girls 4 months older than him.

It was almost a milestone for him. He's usually a content and happy baby, but today was his most smiley day recorded. And it was the first time I've been able to repeatedly make him laugh with the same thing (shaking his hat in my mouth like a dog) which was really rewarding for me, because usually I have constantly come up with new material to get him to smile. My job just got a whole lot easier.

After church we went for a quick walk with Grant today. Rather than put him in the stroller we just strapped him to our baby carrier. We had know idea that it would turn him into the worlds cutest ninja.

He also goes on about a snowman, tall, tall, tall

Mommy and Daddy have taught me a lot of great things in the few months I've been with them. They've taught me my name, their names (Mommy and Daddy respectivly), they've taught me all about colors and math and what diaper time is. Daddy has even taught me the full history of a place call Middle Earth that sounds really weird.

The most import thing though, that Daddy has taught me is that there are a constantly decreasing number of speckled frogs on a speckled log somewhere along side a nice a cool pool somewhere. I'm not quite sure on the significance of these frogs but they seem to be really important to him because he brings them up ALL THE TIME.

Still for a man as old as my daddy to be so deeply entranced by some amphibians with bad complexion and their eating/bathing habits there must be some symbolic importance. So every time that he starts signing about them (oh yeah, did I mention he always is singing when he tells me about them, the mystery deepens), I can't help but sit and listen intently, in hopes of discerning whether or not my father is trying to teach me something too secret to speak aloud, or if I was born into a family of nutjobs.

Like the other night, my parents strapped me into that most uncomfortable carseat and dragged me clear to somewhere I didn't want to go in the far off land of Draper. Normally I'm very good in the car, but it was dark and far and stupid so I started to express my discomfort in the most elequent way I knew how. Before I could get to my fourth point about the chafing, my dad started singing that song. I was so taken in to the mystery that for the next 20 minutes he and Mommy sang, I was so distracted that I couldn't form a coherent argument the rest of the way there.

So it's a strange song. Here's a picture of me in my thinking chair. Another place Daddy will frequently sing it to me.

Long nights and longer explanations

There comes a point in ever every new father's life when he has to swallow his pride and admit that this parenting stuff isn't as easy as we thought it was when we were watching our parents mess up at it. When Grant was born I was sure of couple things: We'd read to him often, nothing he wore would be pink and he would never get to sleep in our bed unless he had a nightmare caused by exposure to the early works of Jim Hensen.

Nothing against people who let there kids sleep with them, I just know that when I sleep I tend to roll around a lot and occasionally sleep-punch, so I figured it would be safer just to keep the little guy as far away from that as we could. However lately he's been waking up crying really bad from a combination of the horrible eczema mentioned below and just being hungry. Normally I can console him with a bottle but there are times when he just won't take it. Sally, being the awesome mom that she is, will step up to the plate and feed him, but sometimes she's so tired that she opts to feed him in bed. Plans to put him back in his crib soon fall be the way side and he ends up sleeping with us for hours.

So you see, I may have gone against my original ideals, but it's for a collections of perfectly logical and natural reasons.

And besides, who can fight such sweetness?