One Small Step

Around the one year mark, the biggest milestone for any baby will be when they take their first step. All of the aunts and uncles are always asking, "Is he walking yet?" From a parent's point of view, I believe it's natural to want your child to advance quickly; I'd rather he graduate college in three years rather than four because that will save me a lot of money. Sure it would be nice if he started walking at a year old, but then I always ask myself, "What's the rush?" If I've already baby proofed everything below my knee, walking would just mean more things to be pulled down, or more things for Baby to hit his head into.

Regardless of what anyone hopes for, I've realized progression happens very quickly. Milestones become stepping stones. As soon as Baby started crawling, he was climbing days after that. When he started cruising, he was quickly walking with support.

This past weekend, he started standing on his own.

"Now who's your Daddy?!"

Taking baby steps, we then took Baby for a walk on the Coney Island boardwalk for a test run. (He sat on some gum on the boardwalk during a tumble.)

By dinnertime, he was taking his first steps all by himself, albeit a little wobbly, but taking meter-long walks on his own two feet.

"Do I still need to wear these silly 'sock' things?"

Now Baby has discovered the ultimate form of locomotion, short from getting his driver's license. If we come for a visit, keep your valuables out of reach, since he'll likely grab something off your coffee table, put it in his mouth, and walk away with it now, a.k.a. "eat and run." As parents, we'll have to bring up our endurance levels to keep up with two chubby, rapidly moving legs. But on the bright side, Baby can start bringing Mommy her slippers, and Daddy his beer, if we can get him to walk to us on command.

"I can't wait to do chores for Daddy!*"

* Slightly edited from actual thought

"No" Means... Huh?

With age comes wisdom. When you’re one year old, you have a lot of wisdom to accumulate. Accumulating wisdom to a baby means getting your hands on anything you can reach. With the all that crawling, reaching, and pulling, that inevitably all leads to one necessary thing: discipline.

Discipline is a topic I never thought I'd think about until the day came that I caught my kid stealing money from my wallet.

"If I blend into this couch, maybe Daddy won't see me."

But apparently discipline is something they need to learn much, much earlier on. To keep Baby away from dangerous things, like those pretty bottles under the kitchen sink, or large appliances, requires strict discipline.

Baby is determined to find his missing sock.

If Baby barely understands “da da,” how do you teach a baby “don’t do that or I’ll have to call poison control?” The experts suggest a firm “no” and then physically move him away from the area of offense. The two things I’m observing so far by doing this:

• Pulling Baby away from danger, whether I pick him up or drag him by his legs, both result in fun rides for him, so he may be purposely doing the wrong things just so I drag him away.
• When I relocate Baby, he’s immediately distracted by something else, so when I think he is being disciplined, in reality he probably just forgot, until he does it again the next day

"I'm not supposed to wha- wow, this can is hilarious!"

The professionals say that instead of constantly telling your baby "no," put him in an area where he can't get in trouble, also known as a "yes" area. If you're constantly saying "no" to your child, they will also eventually become desensitized to it, and that all-important word will lose all its meaning.

Baby in his "Maybe" area.

Things to say "no" to:

• Stuffing one's face:

"Harumph mooma!"

• Taking off one's pants and socks and throwing them on the floor when everyone thinks you're sleeping:
  

"I feel so freeeeeee!"

One Year Today

What's today, Baby? You're one year old today!

365 days ago, you came into our lives and we haven't been able to sleep past 7 AM since. Every day was new experience for both you and us, and hopefully you've learned as much from us as we have from you. If there was a happier time in our lives than the day you were born, it would have been the day you first smiled, rolled over, or crawled. And even though Daddy can barely remember when I could lift you without straining a major muscle group, I'm holding onto all our memories from this past year as tightly as I can.

Do you remember when your Goo Ma (that's baby for "Auntie") threw you your first Birthday party? (Thanks, Goo Ma!) All your favorite family was there, and Goo Ma made you a special cake from scratch, with little mice made out of sugar:

...and that was the first cake you ever ate?

And while you were there, you started to climb and conquered your first set of stairs!

Remember how Daddy bought a fancy camera and flash just for taking pictures of you, and you didn't smile once?

This past weekend seemed so long ago, but then again, it seems like you were born not that long ago. But now instead of being a fat little baby swaddled in a blanket, you're getting to be a fat crawling boy in clothes that always seem to fit too tightly. I should probably stop calling you "Baby," but referring to you as "Toddler" just doesn't have as nice of a ring to it. So Happy Birthday, Baby! We love you! Until you learn to talk back, at least.

On The Road Again

There are life experiences that everyone must eventually face, that no one looks forward to. Getting your driver's license, getting married, your first day at a new job... As a parent, one of those experiences is your first trip with your baby. Braver people take their little ones onto planes, but starter parents, like us, opt for wheels over wings. The way I see it, one less cranky baby in an airplane makes one more airplane in the sky a happier place.

Every trip starts with the packing. Mommy's counting diapers and measuring food and formula, matching onesies with socks, while Daddy outfits the stroller to match the weather, and fits all the hardware and accessories into the trunk. We usually leave the house with one diaper bag, one random bag of stuff, a stroller, a booster seat, blankets, and double of anything he's actually wearing. And that's just going out for the day to visit Grandma. This was a four day trip to Boston we were making, which involved basically too many diapers to count, and a separate bag dedicated to food. Luckily, we were visiting friends who were generous enough to lend us their playpenfor Baby to sleep in at night, saving us about a fifth of trunk space. (Thanks, NY!)

"I want my Playpen back in one piece, capiche?"

The things that we found to be the most essential (and convenient) for for this trip were disposable accessories. Not having access to laundry meant every meal could result in a bib covered in a thicker and thicker layer of sweet potatoes and peas after every meal, so a pack of disposable bibssaved a lot of time and trouble. And not being home meant changing him on the go, mostly in public restrooms of shopping centers, so disposable changing padskept him protected from the previous babies who peed on the changing tables before us.

Timing is essential for the drive, when time on the road is in line with his nap time. Keep baby dressed light in the auto, or else you'll be peeling him out of the car seat later. Frequent rest stops are good for both the baby and the parents. And make sure directions are mapped out clearly - getting lost means extra stress, and that car cabin needs to be free of stress to keep you straight on your course and steady on the highway. (This is what I've heard; for the record, I never get lost myself.)

The hotel supplied cribs, which we requested, with the aforementioned playpen as backup. Good thing we had that backup - The "crib" they provided was a collapsible steel trap* on wheels. Apparently, whoever put the crib together hadn't considered gravity, because when we put Baby in it, the bottom fell out. We gave it back to the hotel and unfolded the playpen. In retrospect, sacrificing some trunk space to ensure Baby retains all his limbs is always preferable, so make your own sleeping arrangements when you're on the go.

"I'm on vacation. I get the King bed - YOU take the playpen."

Something else you'll learn by the first night: if you're in a hotel room with your baby, that's the equivalent of you sleeping in his own room at home. He'll see and hear everything you're doing, so if your baby's bedtime is at 6 PM, your bedtime for your vacation is now 6 PM. Since you can't exactly leave your hotel room, if the option is available, you can try to book a multiple room suite so baby's got their own space. Then you can make as much noise as you want watching free cable and crinkling wrappers from $8 candy bars from the mini bar, and your baby can stick to his sleep schedule.

"A bottle of milk delivered to my room for only $12? I don't ever want to go home."

If you decide to take your baby for a trip in the near future, you can follow everything I've written here, but your experience, like your baby, may be entirely different. Regardless, safe travels to you - and lots of luck.

We're talking about taking the next step and hopping on a plane for our next trip... any suggestions on where to go?

*Image courtesy of http://www.bolgernow.com

Safety First

Now that the little bugger is crawling, his hands, feet, and head end up in every nook and cranny, under and behind furniture, and always underfoot. I just installed these "Safe Plates" over my outlets, and used outlet plugs for anything less frequently used. Asides from the outlets, watch out for any loose wires around your home, from circuit breakers to cell phone chargers. For some reason, everyone tells me that wires conduct electricity and attract babies; both facts I can testify to.

So to help keep Baby safe and confined, we usually plop him into his Baby Einstein Activity Center, courtesy of his Auntie. Looking for more creative ways to hold him in place, we've also placed him in this vintage toy that Daddy found in the attic, likely from the 1970's: If Daddy was not blinded by the happy exterior and red button nose, he may have noticed the obvious lack of safety features and high likelihood of being recalled in the 1980's, in what I now call the Happy Accident Ball, which eventually led to: ...which happened when baby tipped over and landed on his face. So we moved on to safer places to keep Baby, like in a fully enclosed swing, which yielded much happier results.
So a few lessons learned over the past couple of weeks:

• Keep those outlets covered and wires out of reach of crawling babies
  
• Play with toys less than a decade old and likely to be approved by the Consumer Product Safety Commission
• Cardboard boxes aren't just great for holding boxes of Girl Scout cookies

Year of the Ox

While doing some research for Chinese New year, I came across this interesting tidbit from Wikipedia:

According to tales and legends, the beginning of Chinese New Year started with the fight against a mythical beast called the Nian or "Year" in Chinese. Nian would come on the first day of New Year to devour livestock, crops, and even villagers, especially children. To protect themselves, the villagers would put food in front of their doors at the beginning of every year. It was believed that after the Nian ate the food they prepared, it wouldn’t attack any more people. One time, people saw that the Nian was scared away by a little child wearing red. The villagers then understood that the Nian was afraid of the color red. Hence, every time when the New Year was about to come, the villagers would hang red lanterns and red spring scrolls on windows and doors. People also used firecrackers to frighten away the Nian. From then on, the Nian never came to the village again. The Nian was eventually captured by Hongjun Laozu, an ancient Taoist monk. The Nian became Hongjun Laozu's mount.


After reading this, we dressed Baby up appropriately to make sure no mythical beasts eat our food.
Here's Baby doing his best Happy Ox imitation:
Those born in the Lunar Year of the Ox (1913, 1925, 1937, 1949, 1961, 1973, 1985, 1997, 2009) are regarded as patient people of few words. They are supposedly dependable, tolerant, and hard workers, capable of enduring many hardships. Not unexpectedly, stubbornness is the most dominant negative trait for the Ox.

The Ox is the second animal in the Chinese Zodiac, behind the Rat. In the race to be the first animal of the Zodiac, the Ox took the lead with its determination and strength. Just before it crossed the finish line, the Rat, cunningly riding on the back of the Ox, leaped in front, forcing the Ox to be second in the Zodiac.

There are a few calves in the queue for 2009, and we wish lots of luck (and prosperity) for those expecting soon.

On Hands and Knees

I still get those BabyCenter emails every week, talking about where Baby should be at whatever point in time that I'm reading their chronological baby timelines. What those bits of advice usually do is remind me of how below average Baby is, at least in terms of where he is in his locomotion evolution. An average baby will begin crawling around 8 months. Baby is at about 9 1/2 months, and has the strength, the poise, and the form, but he still doesn't know how to move his legs to propel his tubby body forward. He can go in reverse, and turn left and right on a dime, but this model seems to lack any forward acceleration.

Until last Thursday, that is, when I get a phone call at the office from Mommy to report that Baby is finally crawling...

What, no touch screen or 3G support?

Yes, it took some time a little beyond the "average" for him to hit the rug on all fours, but as a parent, always keep in mind that everything about babies is about averages and percentiles, and no number can be concretely tied to development or growth. Where Baby was at the lower end of the spectrum for crawling, we met a baby girl who was walking at 6 months. (The average age for walking is one year.) Baby is 50th percentile in weight, but he's wearing clothes for a two year old. Don't let emails, books, charts, and averages worry you too much - they're just guidelines, and just like adults, every baby will be different.

I'm hoping the average age a baby can hold a game controller is coming up soon.