Halloween Treat

Happy's Halloween!



Em as a Charger's Gal:

at the Kids Karnival...

Em as a little (Or should I say Giant) duckie:

At a Pumpkin Carving get together...

Em's as a kitty kat:

at home...

Em at 7-Months: A Retrospective

Emilia is now 8 mos old, but we want to document each month of her development so here's a retrospective look at how she was at 7 mos. These late posts are tough to do since so many things are different now than just a month ago. But here's how I recall it was way back then.

It's getting tougher to weigh and measure her since she's much more active. Gone are the days when I could just plop her on the scale when she was asleep. In September, she went through a growth spurt, and was chugging down food at an incredible rate. Hence, the big spike in her weight. Even with this added chunkiness, she's still only at about the 25th percentile for weight.

Em is able to sit up on her own, and has just started to stand up by using something to help her get to a standing position...

This has also created some interesting morning wake-up situations. You can usually find her sitting...


But sometimes you hear her screaming, and find her standing up. Problem is that she learned to stand up, but not how to get down. So she felt stuck in this position, and would start screaming.


This only lasted for a short while though as she learned that she could squat down on her own. But that didn't stop her from screaming as she discovered that she could get our attention by doing it. By watching her on our webcam, we found that she would stand up and squat down several times with no problem. And then would start screaming when she wanted the calvary to "rescue" her. We're onto her tricks now.

This was also the month for more solid foods. She's getting better at, but can still be quite messy...


But she doesn't care, cuz those big people will clean her up.


With her improved crawling and mobility, Em is more independent, and ventures off into different parts of the house. We haven't fully baby-proofed the house yet, but we know it has to be done. Something Em has discovered is the guitar...

She likes to strum a bit...

And then do a little bongo and finger-picking...

As mentioned in some other posts, Em's been taking swim lessons at the Murray Callan school in San Marcos. Even though she's a Pisces, she didn't take to it like a fish to water. She enjoys the water, but more on her terms. Being swished around and dunked by a strange person wasn't her favorite thing. But over time, she became more comfortable with it, and actually seems to enjoy it.

Em can be a very loud baby. She does a lot of experimenting with sounds, and I guess the volume of her voice. She's not saying any words yet, but sometimes it sounds like she's saying "baby" and "mama". And when she's upset, she just screams. Too bad we don't have any video of that ;^)

It seems that humans (at least Em) were not endowed with an innate sense of self-preservation. I've noticed that Em has no concept of danger. She'll crawl right over the edge of the bed or couch, and she'd land right on her head if I wasn't there to catch her. She is driven more by her extremely inquisitive nature, than by any sense of saving her body from harm. Yes, we must baby-proof house!

8-Month-Old Pumpkin

My little pumpkin (that's the one.. the not-so-orange one in the middle!)


She is not so little anymore. Just turned 8 months AND with her first tooth! (Photo evidence will come later when she stops chomping on everything in sight so that I can take a photo. =) )

Part II - Legoland: Under the Sea

Just look at the world around you...

Right here on the ocean floor.

Such wonderful things surround you!
What more are you looking for?

Down here all the fish are happy
As off through the waves day roll

We got no troubles life is the bubbles

We got the spirit, you got to hear it
Under the sea!

While we devotin'
Full time to floatin'

Under the sea!

Under the sea! Under the sea!
Since life is sweet here
We got the beat here naturally...

And Oh. That blowfish blow!


(Excerpts from Disney's "The Little Mermaid" Under the Sea)

Part I: Legoland - Dance, Baby, Dance

"You remind me of the babe.
What babe? The babe with the power.
What power? Power of voodoo.
Who do? You do.
Do what? Remind me of the babe!"

Then baby said
"Dance, Magic, Dance"
"Jump, Magic, Jump"

Put that baby spell on me!
(Excerpts from "Magic Dance" by David Bowie)



I am starting to think that kids are the reason adults have fun. We can get away with going to see cheesy Disney movies that we secretly like but are too embarrassed to admit; We have an excuse to visit the happiest places on Earth (Disneyland, Legoland, any-kind-of-amusement-park land!); We get to sing rhyming, catchy, nostalgic mother goose songs that are EASY to sing and pretend we're a rock star as an excuse to lull the baby to sleep. And if anything goes wrong, the baby did it!

So, with Baby Em as an excuse, Ryan and I took the opportunity to visit Legoland with visiting family a few weeks back. Lego sculptures, rides, shows, dancing, magic, brick-o-treat, ghouls on stilts, candy, aquarium, and a whole bunch of fun.


An impressive full-size Darth Vader Lego replica for all to tremble in awe... but not so for Baby Em. She's already using the force to hold up the blue light-saber. The force is strong in this one...

Baby Em was in such a good mood all day. We didn't think she would be able to go a full day at an amusement park, but we were there for a good 8-9 hour day walking around, playing, watching shows, attempting to go on rides, and she was a trooper and soaked in the whole day of fun with her cousins.




In the evening, the ghosts and ghouls came out as the Brick-O-Treat path (Legoland's Halloween special for the month of October) lit up with with kids in costumes and trick-o-treating through parts of the park.


Most of the rides had height restrictions, around 48". Seeing how Em is currently at 25", she has a ways to go before she can ride anything. We tried to sneak her on one ride that did not have any posted restriction signs, but after making it to the front of the line, they booted us off because she couldn't walk yet. It was a good attempt. While mom and dad were a little disappointed, It didn't matter to Em. She had fun simply looking all around and seeing everything.


While some of the older cousins went on rides, the babies hung out and had the company of each other.


There was finally one ride that everybody could go on, the boat ride tour of the Legoland lake! Baby was about done by this time, and was a good ending to a full day.


We will be back. It was a sneak peak into our near future where one day we will be riding these rides with her.

Double Double

Em and cousin K are like two peas in a pod.


They are close in age and size and it was so fun seeing how the two interacted. Similar baby mannerisms - the drooling, hand-slapping, thumb sucking, crawling.. but yet different.


Baby K showed Em the ropes around the new environment. She demonstrated how to be non-chalant when big bro T hugs and kisses them, which toys are the cool ones, how to eat solids, and how to play side by side with minimal hair grabbing.


Cousin T was excited to be the big bro of the house. He gave her hugs and kisses and called her his "other baby". Em loved being with cousin T as he would make her laugh and smile from his sheer exuberance and volume. =)


Baby Em showing Cousin K her turf on a separate occasion:

While Baby Em does not fair as well as her cousins in the toughness department, she definitely held her own in scream volume. I have always considered her loud, but I thought it was normal baby loudness level. After meeting a few babies and hearing their cries, I now know that Baby Em is, indeed, a very LOUD baby that is one notch higher on the volume level. Luckily for our ears, the duration and frequency isn't too often.



It's interesting to note the two baby's personalities. K is calm and collect. Baby Em is a little spastic. hehe. Her emotions are well expressed.

Cousin T tries to calm Em down by holding her and rubbing her belly. (Her crying here is my fault. It was past her lunch time and she was hungry. Instead, I took pictures! =P)


And cousin K cries along in sympathy with Em.


Cousins to hang with, and two babies together... double the fun! =)

Family Circus

A family get together can be compared to a circus fanfare of fun. All the kiddies turn up the volume and all the non-kiddies give it their all to match our little counterparts.

As you can tell... there is no match. The adults may have one up on size, but the kiddies dominant with mad energy and quantity.



Em and I spent a bit of time visiting with family last month and she had such a great time. Em is used to being the only child on a daily basis in a quiet environment and interaction mainly with three people - momma, dadda, and Mary Poppins (nanny). With my family, it is a whole new environmental stimulus with lots of people and attention, lots of noise, and lots of other kiddies to interact with and observe.

Em and cousin K center of attention:
(This was prior to their crawling stage.. both of them are speed crawlers now)

With cousins, grandma, and grandaunts:

Em was a social butterfly. She was great with everybody and did not have stranger anxiety. In fact, she loved being held and having variety of people to play with.




Babies with the grandparents:

Grand aunt and uncle:

Baby Em also had the opportunity to meet great-grandma:

Hair Does What It Does

While visiting with her cousins T and K, Em had such a good time that she would be wiped-out during her naps. Too bad it was only in her naps that she would be wiped-out on. Night time sleep was a different story, as she woke 2-3 times a night for most of the time we were visiting family. Even in her sleep, her hair continued to display the day's wild fun...

As of lates...

This is how we wake up in the mornings now.



The past month have been really, really busy. Trips to Nor-Cal, bi-weekly swim lessons, demanding schedules at work, and a baby pushing full-throttle ahead to toddler-hood at 299,792,458 metres per second (aka. speed of light). Lots of highlights that I have not been able posts, but will certainly go and back-post Em's growing experiences.

A brief re-cap, Em had several opportunities to spend some extended time with relatives and family. Em also had a blast hanging out with her uncles/aunts, grand uncles/aunts, grandparents, great-grandma, and especially her cousin K and cousin T. Em LOVES her cousin K and T and they played and got to know each other well. Em also had her first amusement park visit to Legoland with her cousins.

Her developmental growth has been really fun to watch. I don't want to give too much away since Ryan likes to write about it for the monthly summaries, but she has new tricks up her sleeves and she's an expert now at her old tricks. The video above gives a hint to one of her new tricks. For about a week, I would go into her room and help her because I thought she was stuck. I thought she figured out how to pull herself up in the crib but not know how to get down. Then Ryan decided to observe her one day via our baby cam, and he discovered that she would get up, fall down on her butt, and get up again, while constantly playing with the wall, toys, etc. Then when she was bored, she would give us this "help-me-cry" that she uses to get us in there (it obviously works!)

Swim lessons have come and also have gone. It took pretty much all 9 classes to get her to a point where she started to enjoy the pool. She's not so fond of going under the water, but can hold her breathe. She even began kicking her legs when she is swished side to side.

In other areas, work has been ramping up the past month. New projects that require a bit of time for research and learning. Deadlines hovering about, and overall busy-ness has increased significantly. Looks like the holiday season will be crazy as that is when the high-profile project will be impacting. Balancing time has been okay, but definitely a juggling act.

Corollary to Internet Down: AT&T Sucks

Our internet connection started getting really slow last Friday. So I called AT&T, and they scheduled a tech to come out on Monday (10/4) between 4-8 pm. I waited and waited, but no one arrived. No call, no nuttin'. So I called the next day, and re-scheduled for Wed (10/6) between 4-8 pm. At 5pm I figured I better call to confirm that the tech was still coming out. Yes, they said he was definitely scheduled. Around 7 pm you start getting the feeling that they're not going to show up. So I called AT&T again, and of course, all of the offices are closed. So I leave a message since their answering machine says that I'll get a response first thing in the morning. Of course, no one arrived on Wed or responded to my message so at 8:30 am today I call AT&T again. This time they say that a tech has been scheduled for 8am-12, and we're the first stop on his route. As 9:30 am arrives, I'm starting to doubt he's showing up since it shouldn't take that long to drive here. So I call AT&T again. This time they say that the tech was never scheduled for 8am-12, and we're now scheduled for 3 pm. You've got to be kidding! I called guess who again, blew a gasket, and demanded that I talk to a supervisor. This got me being put on hold, and they never picked up. So I called back again, and again asked for a supervisor. It took about 20 minutes before I was finally able to talk to one. Of course no information was passed on to her so I had to relate the entire story once again. Somehow she could tell that I doubted everything she told me so she kept assuring me that she would follow up on it, and get back to me. Well, she finally came through, and the tech arrived today around noon. It took about 10 minutes to find the DSL switch that had gone bad and replace it. So it took almost 4 days to complete a 10 minute job. In a word, AT&T sucks.

Internet Down

Our internet has been down the past week or so. We have lots to post, but no internet! So stay tuned...