ReNe: hanami

For the past two years, we've gone to view the cherry blossoms at High Park. This year was no exception. The sakuras were late this year; for the past two years, they bloomed in late April. It was much easier this time to go down since we've a car, and we've been going down every day for the past three days! On Thursday, they were partially opened and today, they were mostly open. We'd probably go down again on Monday when they're completely open. 

Somei-Yoshino sakura.

Ryan had a lot of fun too. The sakura trees, which were donated by the Japanese government to Toronto in 1959, lines a paved walkway that leads down to Grenadier Pond. There are also more trees on the large grassy patch beside the walkway. Ryan throughly enjoyed himself wandering around, mostly downhill, though he did go off along the beaten dirt paths too. Unfortunately he discovered that going downhill will bring him to the pond, where there's much water and mud and therefore fun to be had! 

He picked up pinecones and twigs and stones, prodded at the acorn caps that had fallen everywhere and dropped odd stuff that he picked up in the cracks of the sakura trees. 

Walking around, gaze focused downwards for the interesting stuff. He wasn't too interested in the sakuras. 

ReNe: weaned!

When I was pregnant, I thought maybe I'll breastfeed for about six months, until his teeth comes in and he would be able to bite. Later, I thought I'll breastfeed for a year, typical among many mothers here in Canada, where maternity leave is a year long. The initial couple of months were difficult, painful and bloody, but it soon became much easier. 

Six months became twelve, and in the end, I fed him for 22 months before I weaned him. That's astounding. Admittedly, after a year and half, I wasn't really supplying much by way of nutrition and he was feeding more from comfort than anything else -- whenever he fell sick, he would reject all solids and only wanted breastmilk. 

I chose to wean him gradually instead of cold turkey. Besides my concern for Ryan, I wanted to wean gradually for my own comfort as well, as I had too many bad memories of blocked ducts. Many many months ago, I realized the problem was first to get Ryan to accept a milk substitute. We tried a few brands of formula (an expensive process) and cow's milk, even goat's milk. It was all futile, until one day Ryan saw another baby drinking from a bottle and displayed some interest. From that little spark of curiosity, it took me a tremendous amount of effort to coax him to drink more and more. When he started in the August of 2010, at 15 months of age, he would only drink 30ml, maybe once or twice a day!  By early November, he would drink over 100ml each time, totalling 300-500ml daily. His taking to formula was quite crucial in weaning. It also helped him gain more weight than he did in the past many months!

The other thing I was worried about when weaning was getting him to sleep, as he often needed to nurse to sleep. Oddly enough, that problem resolved itself with little work on my part -- coinciding with his increased formula intake, he started to sleep better. He started to sleep through the night by October 2010 and he started to go to sleep by himself as well; I simply put him in his crib and close the door! 

At that time, however, I was still breastfeeding him five times a day! Gradually I started to cut down and by late December, I was feeding him two to three times a day. It was very slow going because whenever he fell sick, he would want more breastmilk instead of solids. It was two steps forward, one step back. Strangely enough, at that point in time, my breastmilk supply dropped easily whenever I dropped a feed, and even when he was sick and wanted to feed many times a day, my supply didn't increase rapidly the way it did when he was a few months old and undergoing a growth spurt. I guess my body really was ready to stop breastfeeding.

I was on the verge of weaning him in late January, 2011 (once a day, occasionally skipping a day) when he broke his tooth. Sigh. Once he recovered though, it took a short time to drop the feeds again, and the first week of March, feeding became intermittent. 

On March 5, just a few days shy of his 22 month birthday, I fed him for the last time. It was a Saturday morning and I remember lying there, knowing that would be the last time and feeling rather sad. Since then he has asked for it occasionally, even pleading with a cute "pwease", but I simply hand him a bottle of milk instead. 

ReNe: learning words

Sometime in late August, just before we left Singapore, Ryan started to pick up words. It was slow at first. He started with a more definite and deliberate pronunciation of "daddy" (which he had been able to say for quite a while) and "mummy" (he was only able to say "mama", and not very reliably at that). Then he picked up more words while we were in Kyoto, words like "baby", "airplane" ("eh-pwane"), ice-cream ("ai-kim"). However, it was when we got back to Toronto that his vocabulary really increased. At last count, more than a week ago, he could say over 50 words and understand a lot more. That is to say, he learned over 50 words in a month. Well, he probably understood quite a lot before he started speaking. I read that it's around the 16-18 months mark that babies start to talk.

I noticed some interesting learning behavior:

(1) He roughly has mental groups of words, e.g. parts of the face, and a mental sequence of the words learned. "Nose" was the first he learned, followed by "eyes", "ear", "mouth". And when we attempt to teach him a new part, say "mouth" and he gets confused, he'd start over by going back to "nose", then "eyes", etc. If the new word does not appear to belong to a group, he'd retreat to the ultimate set of 'first words': "daddy", "mummy" and "baby". Those he can say very well and will not forget. I think going back to the words he already knows reassures him. 

(2) Either he cannot or will not pronounce his name. He know very well who Ryan is (we call him Ryan all the time and rarely use some pet name), but he always refers to himself as "baby". When asked, "Where's Ryan's nose?", he won't do anything. When asked, "Where's baby's nose?", he'd point to his own nose. We have no satisfactory explanation for this odd behavior.

(3) He also has his own words for objects. For example, he'd call a train "choo-choo", a cow "moo", or a monkey "na-na" (for banana). We know he does know the correct word because if we ask, "where's the train/cow?", he point to the correct object and go "choo-choo/moo". 

(4) He has learned "no" (very well in fact) but not "yes". When asked, "Do you want a bottle?" "Nooo no no nonono nooo~oo no no no nOOoNo~" and etctera. 

(5) He gets nouns quickly; no surprise there. Numbers and colors are much harder (he can only count to three and not too reliably at that, and the only color he really knows is yellow, maybe orange). Abstract stuff (like letters), he just looks blankly at me when I try to teach him. I guess it means he needs to understand what he's saying and not just repeat, which is a good thing.

ReNe: 12 months -- walking

Just in time for his first birthday, Ryan learned to walk!


He could stumble a couple of steps for the past week or so, but last Friday (7th May), he took his first few steps. Then, he'd walk from me to Mike and back again, and he always lunges the last couple of steps in impatience.

His initial steps were wobbly and cute; we called him 'drunken baby'. He always threw himself the last few steps when he's walking towards me, expecting me to catch him or perhaps just impatient to get to me? It's just adorable, yet heartstopping too, to see his unsteadiness.

But he improved very quickly. He still stumbles, but now he's already walking from one end of the room to the other, or from room to room, usually even daring to carry a toy. Or a toy in each hand. Which makes his stumbles quite painful... (Yes, that's my cell phone in his hand in the photos above. I occasionally let him hold it, which delights him to no end.)

We were overjoyed and utterly focused on him when he started to walk. Now I wished we had a video of his first wobbly steps, but at least we have the photos.

ReNe: sick again

Ryan and me, that is.

For the longest time, since his third month, Ryan had a rash on his face (and body too, for a time). Then in January, when he was about nine months old, his rash started to improve and we were pretty happy. We thought that perhaps he would start to outgrow it.

Then he fell sick three times in the past three months. Right now, he's having a bad cold with runny nose and a hacking cough. I suppose such illnesses are normal and expected with kids, especially if they have opportunity to interact with other people, especially kids. Fortunately, compared to his rash, he would recover from his cold much more quickly.

But while he's sick, it's exhausting for me. He clings to me, is often whiny and reverts to a three-month old routine, which is to say he naps every three hours and he only wants breastmilk. That is perhaps the most worrying part; if he refuses solids for a day or two, that's fine, but often he'd only nibble a little solid food during the week while recovering as well. He doesn't have much by way of fat reserves so right now, after being sick for six days, he's looking a little skinny already. Well, I've heard of babies who are exclusively breastfed for a year or more without problems, so I shouldn't worry too much and just feed him every couple of hours.

Taking care of him is exhausting though, and I usually fall sick after. With the same bug he passed to me. Right now, I'm nursing a running nose. Arrrragh.

ReNe: pretend play

Ryan engaged in imaginary play yesterday. He probably had been doing it for a while, for example he'd stir a stick in a cup, but I wasn't sure if he was doing it just because he wanted to stir, or insert a stick into something, or because he was imagining something else. But yesterday morning, his actions were very definitive.

We (me, Ryan and Mike) were all lying in bed Sunday morning, and Ryan was nursing. When he was done, he grinned and sat up, and fingers closed in a pincer grip, pretended to feed me something carefully a few times. Then he turned around and pretended to feed Mike as well.

For a few weeks already, he has fed us food (usually food he doesn't want). For example, I was feeding him grapes a couple of days back (giving them to him to feed himself) and when he was full, he turned to Mike and gave Mike the grape instead. When I stopped handing him the grapes, knowing he was full, he opened his mouth instead. So I popped a grape in. And he promptly took that grape out and fed Mike again.

ReNe: 11.5 months -- regarding a growth spurt

It felt like Ryan underwent another growth spurt lately. (Checking 'The Wonder Weeks', a book about growth spurts, yeah, it was about time.)

When we got back from Philadelphia, he was extra cranky and clingy, and I was worried it was to do with the trip. Perhaps he was upset about all that traveling. Then we noticed he was cutting his upper front teeth and the gums were quite swollen, so we thought that might be the reason instead. Moreover, on top of his crankiness, he was on a solids strike. Definitely teething, we thought.

Now we know it was probably a combination of a growth spurt and teething. Once his upper right tooth came out, he started eating more. His mood improved as well. At the same time, I got him some new toys since he appeared to be bored with the current lot and he became very engrossed in them. More interestingly, he suddenly figured out old toys that he previously didn't quite know what to do with, such as the stacking rings.

Previously he used to only increase entropy (i.e. create a mess) but now he also became interested in stacking things together, or putting objects into a larger container. Oh, he still likes to go around pulling things from shelves or drawers or upturning containers, but he might put back a couple of objects before moving on. He'd hold a stick in one hand and try to slide a stacking ring or a block with a hole through it, or he'd try to slot one object into another. It so happened that after noticing all these, I read that after a growth spurt around this time (~46 weeks), the baby will start to exhibit all the aforementioned behaviors. A-ha.

When he was a newborn, we could see obvious physical growth after a growth spurt. Now, a growth spurt usually meant a mental developmental boost as well. It's weird, but he would almost seem smarter overnight; the mental growth is not linear. It's really fascinating.

Right now, I'm highly amused that he's concentrating very hard on pushing his stacking ring dowel into his sorting toy. Hah.

ReNe: easter monday

Some fun at Christie Pits park on Easter Monday. We initially had just planned to walk down to PAT for groceries, but as Ryan was asleep and the weather was fantastic (23C!), we bought a bit of snacks from PAT and went over the park instead.

Of course Mike whipped out his camera. I think I looked rather nice here.

Then Ryan woke up. Here he looks like he's standing by himself -- not really. He stood unassisted for just a few seconds, long enough for Mike to take a shot. And no, Ryan was not offering me a drink. He likes water bottles; he'd shake them and be very amused.

Some fun on the merry-go-round. This girl of about six or seven was pushing the structure round and round. I was amazed that not only was she not tired, she was also not dizzy. After many revolutions, I was pretty giddy but she kept on and on and on.

Ryan held on very well. He wasn't crying but he didn't seem terribly excited as well. I think he was just concentrating hard on holding on!

And some fun on the swings. Just last Saturday (two days prior), I placed him on a baby swing at Kensington Park and he was quite frightened. (The last time he was in such a swing was in fall, when he was about five months old. I'm sure he had forgotten.) He was not comforted even when I sat with him in a regular swing. So we're pleased to see him enjoying himself here. He's not squealing with delight but at least he's smiling.

This is an interesting swing. I'm quite sure it's for the disabled; the tan plastic harness comes down and clips in place to hold one in securely. We found it quite comfortable.

ReNe: he looks evil because he is

Two cute photos. Here we are, looking quite synchronized. Ryan was actually waving his index finger around and pointing, and I was copying him. Then he put his finger down. So I end up looking a bit silly.

And the back to his onesie, which I like very much. It reads "He Looks Evil Because He Is."

ReNe: fishy drool

The trouble with fish porridge is that Ryan will leave a mess and it's hard to clean. The highchair and tray will smell faintly fishy and soap's needed (for most other foods, I use a wet cloth or a wet wipe). Worse, after I put him down, he likes to hold my legs and go "muah muah", open-mouthed and with lots of fishy saliva, on my thighs. I can smell it. And I can only cringe at the thought of him drooling fishy saliva everywhere, on the floor, toys, furniture....

Auugghh....

ReNe: philadelphia 2010

Philadelphia, March 20-25

It was such a long time since I took a trip! Well, I did go Montreal with Mike and Dez last March but because it was local (4 hr drive, it's like driving to KL), it didn't feel like a huge deal. Though it was a lovely trip, the last I had as a free woman...

This year, Mike was attending the NARST conference in Philadelphia and of course I (and Ryan) must go! I was also eager to see how Ryan takes to traveling, and if we can handle traveling with him. This trip is really a practice run for summer. For example, we could have chosen a direct (more expensive) flight to Philly but we thought to try a stopover. Total flight time including stopover was about 4 hrs each way, not too bad right? After all, we'd be flying 24 hrs to S'pore....

It's Ryan's first trip!

Ryan is a restless flyer. On the first leg there (Toronto to Newark), he passed out because he was woken up too early (6am, for a 9am flight). Then he was awake and curious for the next flight from Newark to Philadelphia. On the way back, he was awake for both flights and very active, often cranky. (Turned out he had a Cheerio stuck on the waistband of his diaper the entire time!) He's an energetic, inquisitive kid and that's great; it's just very tiring for us too.

One problem I didn't foresee was with the hotel room; it's not very baby-proof and it's rather boring. The lack of a high-chair meant chasing him down, literally, during meals. One mistake I made was to take a day off on the third day to decompress in the hotel room. If I was by myself, great. But with a bored baby crawling about, it was anything but relaxing. We were both crawling the walls in frustration by the time Mike got back in the late afternoon. The next day, I brought down to the 'Love Park' a few blocks from the hotel and he loved it.

Ryan looks awfully cute in this outfit.

Yelling in the park.

In front of the famous LOVE statue in JFK Plaza (or Love Park, as it's more commonly called). A requisite tourist shot. We walk through here almost every day since it's so near our hotel (Sheraton) and it's on the way to the Marriott (where Mike's conference is held).

Sitting in Love park, Philadelphia City Hall in the background.

"Arrgh! Stop taking photos already!" Yes, Ryan's had enough.

Philadelphia City Hall. An imposing, majestic structure. Mike says it's ostentatious, vulgar and ginormous.

We didn't know that Philadelphia was the seat of the American Revolution but we do now. There's a lot of America's history in Philadelphia. We joined the tour of Independence Hall (it was free). Though it's short (30mins, plus an additional 10mins to screen your bags), Ryan was bored by the time the tour started. We liked the way the teacherish park ranger who was giving the talk emphasized the important dates and people. "And in seventeen-thirty-two," she'd paused and looked intently while the kids wrote in their Junior Ranger Workbooks. I don't think I learned anything though, with Ryan fussing in my lap.

Independence Hall at the Independence National Historic Park. Here's the room where the Declaration of Independence was signed.

The Liberty Bell with its crack. (Another place where our bags were checked. And between Ryan's stroller and Mike's camera bag, it was rather troublesome.)

One can't visit Philadelphia without trying their famous cheesesteaks. We dropped by Campo's Deli (located in the Old City) after visiting the Independence Park. The cheesesteaks here were great; we're fans now. The soft pretzels (something else Philly is famous for), not so much.

Traveling with a baby was quite a huge change for us (especially me, since Mike would be at a conference most of the time). This time, we traveled with a suitcase (!), we had way more stuff than we normally would pack, and I had to scale back on the sightseeing. I normally love to pack the days and see/do something unusual, if possible, but this time, I had to plan around his nap times and attention span. Transporting him was also a problem. I wasn't too sure if the subways and buses were stroller-friendly (some were, some weren't), but the stroller was a great way for him to nap and extend our trip out. Oh, and for the first time ever, I looked up (and went to) kid-friendly places to see (something I used to actively avoid).

Here we are at the Please Touch Museum (a kids' museum, great place, I highly recommend). Mike was at the conference and I didn't like the thought of wrestling the stroller up the bus so I used the carrier. Not the best idea in hindsight, and I was pretty tired by the end of the day. Ryan was initially a little quiet and hesitant when we got there but warmed up soon enough.

Of all the stuff on this activity wall for babies and toddlers, he liked the button that produces a cricket sound the most. You can't see it but his right hand is continually pressing it. The speaker is just in front of his face.


Most of the stuff at Please Touch is geared towards older kids though, such as the water feature below. Oh well. We'd definitely visit Please Touch if we're ever in Philly again.

All tuckered out after we came back.

Helping us to pack. Somehow he looks chunkier here.

Detroit airport, our stopover on the way back. It's surprisingly impressive. (Yes, for the cheapest flight, we ended up with two different airlines and hence stopovers each way.)

ReNe: evolution of play

It's extremely interesting to watch Ryan as he plays and learns to manipulate objects. When he initially learned to grab hold of a toy some months ago, he would look at it, and then put it in his mouth. He still explores everything that way, by first using his eyes and mouth. Then, because many baby toys rattle, Ryan soon learned to shake everything we give him to see if it makes a sound.

Then he learned to hit objects together. For example, he'd hold a wooden block in one hand and use that to hit the floor or table leg. Since the table legs are made of metal, a nice ringing sound is produced. Later, he learned to hold two hard objects in each hand and strike them together. It's not easy, when you think of it, to manipulate tools as an extension of each hand simultaneously.

He also learned to pull. He'd pull open drawers and doors. The only kind of drawers he can't open are those where you have to rotate your hand such that your fingers come up (palm up) and under the handle. He could pull a toy that has a string or ribbon attached, though hand over hand pulling is beyond him. When we played peek-a-boo, he knew how to hold the cloth/blanket himself to raise (pull up) and lower it.

Recently he started dragging objects along the floor. His favorite is a cookie tin; banging on it makes a satisfactorily loud sound and dragging it along the floor produces a wonderful racket.

Right now, Ryan's learning to drop things. While either seated or lying on the floor, he'd hold up a toy to the height of his head and drop it repeatedly. He does it with all sorts of objects but he especially likes the objects that make an interesting noise. I gave him an empty plastic ramekin, the kind was used to hold a mini lava cake, and the flexible plastic makes a vibrating sort of ringing sound when dropped. I guess he's learning about gravity. Interestingly, I think he's starting to understand the concept of 'falling'. He fell off the side of his crib once, and now he hovers at the edge, wanting to move forward but remembering that it hurts to fall.

When presented with a new object, his exploration sequence goes like this: examine first with eyes, then shake. Put into mouth, and finally drop it.

ReNe: 1st tooth

Last week (12 Jan), when Ryan was crying fussily and his mouth was wide open, we noticed something. "Hey! There's something whitish in his gum!"

We pried opened his mouth further, which of course made him cry all the harder, and sure enough, we could see the pair of lower front teeth still under the gum surface. The lower right looked closer to the surface, and by the weekend (17 Jan), it was out.


Funnily enough, we've always thought he drooled a lot, but last week, he was a veritable faucet! For the past five months, whenever people saw him drool, they'd exclaim, "oh, he must be teething!" If so, he must have been teething for the past five months!

And, I could be jinxing us by saying it, but it does seems like he's sleeping a little better through the nights! The past two nights, he slept through for seven hours without waking, though he still got up once around 12 or 1 to feed. Previously, he'd go to sleep anytime between 8 to 10, and get up hourly or every two hours! Of course he's not always hungry, so either the rash on his face was disturbing him, or his gums.

ReNe: 8 months -- crawling, cont.

Now that Ryan can crawl, he rarely wants to sit up (much less lie down) anymore. And with all the practice on his front, within a month, he has gotten pretty adept at moving around, turning, picking up toys and, recently, moving to a seated position from his front. He also shifts up on his hands and knees quite often, rocking back and forth, however he isn't sure what comes next. I suppose coordinating the hands and knees to move in an alternating manner is not easy.

ReNe: 7.5 months -- crawling

Early in December, Ryan started to exhibit an interest in some motion independence; while seated, he kept leaning forward on his hands, rocking back and forth slightly. However, unable to do anything further, he would then end up falling on his front. Clearly this was a precursor to crawling, but I thought that it would be quite some time before he would manage to actually crawl.

At the same time, he was starting to get more comfortable on his tummy. He used to hate lying on his front, much preferring to sit up, but rather suddenly last month, he was content to spend time on his tummy. And around the middle of December (18th), he started to pull himself forward. It involved a lot of flailing and any movement forward was quite accidental. Sometimes he'd end up pushing himself backwards.

Amazingly, within a week, his movements became more focused. He is now able to pull himself forward using his forearms, leopard crawling quite efficiently. It was really amazing how quickly he progressed. For months he had been content to sit and play, despite our attempts to put him on his front, then within a couple of weeks, he learned to crawl. Well, it's not the hands and knees type of crawling, but he gets around. Already he is trying to push himself up (he can do a push-up) and he can hold himself on his hands and knees; he just isn't sure what comes next.

Thus, we had to baby-proof the apartment. In addition to discovering the electric sockets, he also managed to open a drawer and catch his fingers on it. He shrieked of course. Fortunately, his fingers were all right, the flesh only slightly dented.

Just like the ones she used to know

IMG_3617, originally uploaded by mike.tan.

Baby's first Christmas...

The sleeper reads:

MUM'S DREAMING OF A QUIET CHRISTMAS, JUST LIKE THE ONES SHE USED TO KNOW...!

As mentioned in the previous post, we went to Carl's place for dinner on Christmas eve.

It was an interesting experience to get him to Carl's place and back. Carl lived slightly off the public transit, so we had to take the TTC subway, and then wait for a pickup by Carl's wife, Rachel, who would then drive us to their place. However, in order for him to be driven, he had to be in a baby car seat, which we did not have.

Hooray for living in student family housing, and having friends who do. We borrowed a car seat, but were surprised to find out just how heavy one of those things were. The cradle part was already fairly heavy, and then our friend emailed and told us we forgot the base which allowed the whole thing to be strapped down; the base was easily the same weight or more.

So, we had to lug baby, his toys and accessories so that he could play/fall asleep in a strange place, car seat and my photographic equipment all over the subway, and then struggle to secure the seat outdoors while the temperature hovered around 0ºC. The total load: seat—7kg; camera bag—5kg; camera accessory bag—3kg; gifts—2kg; baby—9kg; baby bag—3kg. Total load: 29 kg, and we were dressed in winter wear, which is not light. All of these were split amond the two of us...

Fortunately for us, setting up the seat was not difficult at all, and we managed to get to Carl's place not too exhausted, although I was somewhat confused why babies needed strapping down in cars but could be held in arms in public transit...

At Carl's place, he was fairly well behaved, not throwing any tantrums, and only panicking once when Rachel brought him into a room full of strangers while we took off our shoes at the door. Other than that, he shared food with us nicely.

Putting him to sleep when he eventually got tired was tough though. The place was obviously not home, and he initially refused to sleep; but after some encouragement, he decided that he could sleep after all, and amazingly, slept through for about 3 hours, something that he does not even do at home at that time of the night.

When it was eventually time to go home, at about 3am, we were fortunate that he woke about the same time, so we did not have to wake a sleeping baby. Sleepy boy could barely hold it together to make a notional protest at being strapped into the car seat before the car started to move, sending him into dreamland.

We even managed to carry him up in the car seat, place him in the living room, get changed ourselves, before putting him to bed.

All in all, a fairly interesting adventure for him, I guess.

ReNe: 7 months -- regarding activity

Ryan's a lot more active now. He used to sit on his own and play for a while, which was very convenient. However, recently he has been exhibiting an even greater interest in things around him as well as those beyond his reach. He would push himself off his bum into a half-kneeling/crawl position so as to reach stuff, though since he can't crawl yet, he'd either manage to pull himself back up or end up on his front.

It's great he's terribly curious. But it's also very tiring for us.

This grabbiness of his makes everything so much more difficult. Sitting on his high chair, he'd try to swipe for the nearest things, such as the table, wall, kitchen door, or kitchen cabinet doors. When changing him on his floor mat (it's just a quilt laid out on alphabet foam mats), he would lunge to the sides to pull up the quilt and then pull up the foam cut-out letters. Or he would lunge for the crib.

So far we haven't exactly baby-proofed the apartment. But I think, not too long now...

ReNe: stunt baby

Ryan had a big adventure last night.

But, backtracking a little, the eczema on his face was flaring up last night, so before we went to sleep, we applied some cortisone to his face and bound his arms with a swaddle cloth. The cloth is folded in a long strip and placed under his back. Then the ends goes around his arms and are tucked in again under his back so his body helps to keep the cloth in place. Recently though he has been getting pretty good at escaping --- if he arches his back to lift his weight off the cloth and if he yanks his arms out at the same time, he can pull himself free. Apparently, that was what he did.

I woke up sometime around dawn to his crying and got off the bed to attend to him. Luckily I opened my eyes instead of stepping out blindly. When I sat up opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was Ryan, on the floor beside our bed! He was lying on his back and bawling away, arms held out in his 'pick me up!!' position.

His crib is located on the other side of the room and there's a tall shelf in the middle of the room, as a room divider. To get to our bed, he would have had to free his arms from the swaddle cloth and his blanket (which was tucked in around him), push himself off his crib (which was about 40cm off the floor), and somehow crawl and make his way around the shelf to our bed (perhaps about 2m in total distance).

Most amazingly, he hasn't learned how to crawl yet. Not even an inch. He isn't even good at turning himself over. So how the heck did he get all the way from his crib to our bed?!?

Maybe the monster-under-his-crib carried him over... *cue dramatic music*

He must have squirmed a lot since the top few snaps on his sleeper were opened and his left arm had slipped out. Plus, he must have spend quite a bit of time on the floor since he was pretty cold. After picking him up, I fed him and tucked him into bed with us. It would have been too cruel to put him back in his crib after his monumental effort. When I tucked him in between our pillows (so we can't roll onto his head), while half-asleep, he immediately spread his arms out in an 'X' position. It was obvious he hates to have his arms bound...

We had joked about his stubbornness, but last night's Big Escape puts that trait in an entirely new dimension.

ReNe: ryan the roomba snail

Ryan has never sat on a hardwood floor before, but tonight I put him on the floor for fun.

He looked interested at the new perspective and was examining the floor. Then, he discovered that if he pushed the floor, he'd scoot backwards. He'd push, move back about 1cm, then look up expectantly with a huge grin. When we clapped and cheered, he'd laugh and look extremely pleased with himself. Sometimes he didn't push properly and hence he didn't move, but he would look up expectantly anyway. In this case, we didn't clap, and he would wait for our claps, cheering and aughing himself on anyway.

Speaking of roomba, I checked his pants after I picked him up, but fortunately I vacuumed the floor earlier so his pants weren't dirty. But he did leave a trail of drool as he pushed himself along...

ReNe: 6th month ped visit

We brought Ryan to the pediatrician yesterday for the rash on his face and for his 6th month vaccinations as well.

He's been having a rash on his face for the past few months, but it was just a smallish patch. Then in early October, he scratched his face and the next day, his face turned red and swollen. It was clearly an infection, and he was prescribed an antibiotic cream. It got better after a few days, then it got worse again. Recently, the rash became really bad; the patch on his right cheek was weeping so much plasma that it dripped down his jawline and ear. Yesterday, the doc prescribed another antibiotic and recommended that we apply both the antibiotic and steroid creams together; the former to control the infection and the latter, the inflammation. Yes, steroid creams should not be used for too long, which was the reason we stopped it some time back, but the doc said it was more important to bring down the inflammation.

Then we weighed him (8.1kg) and Ryan got his vaccinations. One thing we noticed about Ryan; he has a pretty high pain tolerance. Whenever he falls over (from a seated position), even if he hits his head, he doesn't cry for long. Once we pick him up, he usually calms down within a few seconds. It's the same for vaccinations — he'd wail when the needle goes in, but in a few minutes, he's all right.

Having fun before the nurse called us in: