Oh Noes!

Today when I went to pick up the pea sprout after a good night's sleep this is what I found:


Baby's hair was flattened! I don't know if it is the humidity or if his hair just decided it was too much effort to try and stand up all the time, but the faux hawk is gone. Sadness. My baby really is growing on up and becoming more of a little boy.

Whatchu talkin' 'bout Willis?

Repulse Bay

Since this is our last week at The Repulse Bay, we took Ethan for one last walk along the beach to the pier:

The shopping arcade along our apartment complex

The temple at the end of the pier

The pier

And of course no trip would be complete without Ethan finding time to nosh on the nearest object.

Mr. Perfect

Everyday we make a daily stop at our local Wellcome grocery store since it is just downstairs from our apartment. Inside there is a little section with children's books and the selection is swapped out every few days. Today there were a couple Mr. Men and Little Miss books. Since there was no Mr. Cutie Pie book for my cutie, I jokingly held out a Mr. Grumpy book for Ethan to look at.


Me: Look Ethan! This is Mr. Grumpy! Who is Mr. Grumpy?
Ethan (feigning disinterested): ......


After ignoring me he then suddenly lunged towards another book and started laughing at the cover. Whaddya know?






Me: Oh, you like Mr. Perfect huh?
Ethan (with a new sound of the day at the most opportune time): Ya!
Me (laughing): And who is Mr. Perfect? Are you Mr. Perfect?
Ethan: Ya!
Me: Wow, you can say Ya! Now can you say Ma? Try to say Ma Ma.
Ethan (clear as day): Da Da!


Well, one thing is true. E really is Mr. Perfect to me.

Play date!

Today we went on our first play date in HK. We met Jake at the playground here and he (by which I mean his nanny) invited us to join a play date with him and Otto. Jake has an amazing nursery! It was seriously like stepping into FAO Schwarz- Ethan and I both just stared around for a bit since we were dumbstruck by the amount of choices we had to play with =). Too bad we are moving at the end of this month. Only one more play date next week and then bye bye to our new friends which is too bad because they are really nice and we had a great time.

Sunny Days

This weekend it finally warmed up a bit. Combined with the fact that Bob was home from his Japan trip motivated me enough to venture out. I somehow got the flu when I first got to HK (like over a week ago- why am I still sick?!) so I have been pretty much just lounging around all day in my pjs. Though, I suppose if I weren't sick I would still be lounging around in pjs. I am a SAHM now after all.

On this nice weekend we were able to do many things.

We got to go grocery shopping (Ethan is ready to finish up with the chores and get on with the playing already!):



We got to lounge around naked (the baby not the adults):



We bonded with Nai Nai:



We explored our complex:



We went to the beach and the beach playground (I'm so sad that I can't find any swings at any of the playgrounds here. Where are the swings? Baby wants to swing!):



We practiced our babbling skillz:

And finally ended the week with a tickle fest.

Ick!

Today we had a new kind of poop accident. In my hurry to bath, feed, and get Ethan ready for bed I forgot to fold up and seal his diaper after changing him. Imagine my surprise (and horror!) when I later picked up his diaper and something fell on my foot. Yea I know. Good thing I was wearing socks. Those will be going in the trash pronto.

Mommy or Daddy?

From the beginning everyone, and I mean everyone - from strangers to family to friends, have commented upon seeing Ethan for the first time that he looks exactly like Bob. The commenter would then (probably after seeing my crestfallen face) say but...he seems to have your eyes/mouth/etc. It's fine though - even I have to admit that Ethan really is a mini Bob. And it's not just how he looks. For instance, Ethan can be quite a grumpity grump. Just kidding! =) My real example is that when Ethan is taken into bright direct sunlight he will sneeze multiple times just like his Daddy. Ethan also loves to eat much like his Daddy. Lastly, Ethan has an abundance of energy and is always pumping his legs around much like the way Daddy cannot sit still and always jiggles his legs (although this might be more Bob's way to burn additional calories than actual nervous energy). The only thing that Ethan for sure has inherited from me is his head of uncontrollable hair.

Now that Ethan is a bit older (at the wise old age of 7 months!), I thought I would go scientific. Bring on the look-alike meter please!

Well, who woulda thunk? It turns out our little sweetpea is a perfect blend of both of us!

Our Hong Kong Apartment

We are currently staying in the Repulse Bay at the serviced apartment The Repulse Bay. Inventive building complex name no? The area is nice since we can walk to the beach. The complex also has a nice club with indoor children's playground, outdoor playground, restaurants, and a grocery store. There are a lot of expats living here and we have met many babies at the playground. However, all of them are always there with their nannies and not the parents. I guess I'll be making friends with the nannies!

The outdoor playground has some cool equipment. Here we are playing with Ethan. My mom thought it was fun and she had to try too!

Baby Eats All

Our baby has always been a great eater. When we were reading the books describing newborn feeding styles it has been clear from day one that Ethan is what is described as 'The Barracuda' - he is all business when it comes to food. Now that we are on solids, his voracious appetite is apparent from not only the quantity that he eats, but how he eats. He attacks and clamps down on the spoon as if he didn't just have a mouthful of food a second ago. If we are too slow at spooning him food he will pound the table in eager anticipation. If we show him his bottle and don't feed him the next second, he gets very upset and actually cries in anger. And if there is a toy that he wants, it's in his mouth the next second. Lately, every time I pick up a camera to take a picture, I always find an object in his mouth. There is no doubt about it - our baby loves to eat.

7 Months Old!

Ethan is now 7 months old. I seriously don't know how he got this big. While part of me is already feeling nostalgic about his newborn days (although not about the sleep deprivation!), I have to say that Ethan is really fun now. He can do a lot more things and is very interactive which makes it really fun to play with him.


I'm a sleeper. I'm a sitter. I'm a baby bottle holder. (Sung to the Steve Miller song 'The Joker').

Ethan achieved a few great milestones this month.

Sleeping.
He can sleep through the night! I'm not talking about the wimpy Dr. Sear's definition of 4-6 hour stretches. I mean a full 11-12 hours at a time. After 6 long months of not getting more than 4 hours of sleep at a time, I'm so grateful for this milestone. Shall I review his sleep patterns (and eating patterns since that dictated his sleep schedule) to date?

The first month: He ate every hour round the clock (and if you are a parent you know that you count feedings from the start of each feeding, so because it took him 20 minutes to eat, that meant we only got to sleep for 40 minutes before the next feeding was due).
The second month: He ate every two hours.
The third/fourth/fifth month: He quickly went from feeding every three hours to every four hours.

Needless to say we are ecstatic about his sleeping through the night. Unfortunately, since we moved to HK, he has been jet-lagged but I'm hoping he will start STTN soon again.

Ethan and his duck lovey 'YaYa'.
He always hugs it and then rolls to his side to sleep.

Sitting.
I've been looking forward to this because I feel like now that he can sit he can play with more toys. Plus I feel bad that he is always on his back (or tummy) 24 hours a day. He still gets a bit wobbly and topples over when he tries to grab toys that are around him, but he is getting the hang of it.

Bottle Holding.
I just weaned Ethan from BM to formula when he hit 6 months. It was a hard decision to make...but I feel like I've been eating pretty poorly all the time due to lack of sleep (too bad I didn't know he would soon start to STTN!). Plus he got his bottom teeth very early and when that second tooth came out let me tell you nursing with teeth is no fun. He also is easily distracted during the day because he likes to look around and since drinking from a bottle is much faster than nursing, he gets to play more quickly. Anyways, the point of all this is to say that he can now hold his very own bottle.

Ethan with Nai-Nai.

Ethan is growing up too fast! I just want to pause and enjoy life right now for awhile and hold off the crawling/walking for a bit.


A few of my favorite things
Favorite Food: I don't think there is a food that he won't eat. But bananacado is his absolute favorite. He can eat a quarter of an avocado mixed with half a banana and still whimper when it's all gone.
Favorite Book: Still fluffy chick.
Favorite Toy: Any water bottle. The first time he saw me drinking from one he started smiling and laughing. He loves to hear the sound of the water blub as you turn it upside down and looking at the bottom of the bottle since it refracts light. Oh and did I mention his feet? LOVES them. He especially thinks it's funny when you pull off his socks and he 'rediscovers' his toes.
Favorite game: He loves to grab at my necklace or at Bob's watch and wedding band (and of course tries to eat them - if he can't pull the object to his mouth he will contort his body to try to get his mouth close to the object). When we wear a hooded sweatshirt with strings he always has to grab at them and we play tug a war - he is surprisingly strong. He used to grab with an open fist but now tries the pincher grip and can usually succeed.
New sounds: He babbles the sound babababa. He also does this really cute whimpering sound as he scrunches up his face. This is his new cue to show us that he is tired.

Hello HK!

We got into HK last Friday morning. It was Ethan's first big adventure! His very first flight, and it was a 15 hour one at that. It went surprisingly well. I was very leary of taking him across the country, given that the two days before our move he didn't sleep well because of the din and chaos caused by our movers. We took a midnight flight in hopes that he would sleep better because then he would be extra tired as it was his nighttime. We tried to prolong his sleeping by driving to the airport and checking in seperately so that we could keep him in the car as long as possible. However, everytime the car stopped he would wake up and then get excited because he was in new surroundings. Oops.

Since we had about a hour and half to burn while waiting to board our flight we tried one last time to get Ethan to sleep by setting up his travel crib (this incidently is the best porta crib ever. It is super light weight, comes in its own case, and pratically unfolds itself. It seriously takes only 10 seconds to set up and maybe half a minute to pack back up. Oh, and it's super comfy. Okay enough raving):


As you can see he would have none of it. We tried to block out the overhead lights with our jackets but still he was too excited to sleep.

Ethan's first plane ride!


Luckily once we boarded he slept great! Good thing we brought his carseat, that was a lifesaver. He did have a mini meltdown 5 hours into the flight but it turned out he was hungry so not really his fault. Other than that it was a pretty good flight.

While we had brought a backpack full of toys and books, he happily spent the majority of time on the plane just playing with his feet:



He even was happy during diaper changes. I think we have a traveler in our hands!

Hi!

Wait, you're not filming this are you?!


Awww, mom. This is sooo embarrassing!

Bye Bye SF

Good-bye to Ethan's first house. I know he won't remember it, but I really loved this neighborhood and the Rivermark community. We had 6 months of great memories here at Doyle Circle. Well, we *should* be back shortly! I already can't wait.