Melissa's Major Milestone 13-15 Month

Here are some major milestones when Melissa is 13-15 month old:

• Walks pretty well now and is getting used to wearing shoes. Likes to run sometimes, making Mommy & Daddy really scared =O
• Her 7th and 8th teeth are coming out.
• Loves to eat adult food and have awesome appetite. Daycare teacher says she has to eat about 10 times (meals + snacks) while she is there.
• Loves to eat cracker, noodle, and all fruits. She also eats fruits super fast.
• Holds mama’s handbag or a basket to walk around.
• Understands a lot of words/expressions we speak (i.e. sit down, come over, brush your teeth, high five, give me a kiss, where is Mommy/Daddy/NaiNai, A-yi)
• Speaks more and babbles as if she is speaking in sentences.
• Knows how to play hi-five.
• Gets angry and has no patience. She cries until she gets something she wanted.
• Starts to be more attached to Daddy and is able to fall asleep with Daddy, too.
• Starts crying when we scold her.
• Very interested in playing at the playgrounds. She loves being outside.
• Tries to eat with a spoon on her right and left hands.
• A great observer and copies a lot of things we do like putting plastic bag into the garbage can.
• Great interest in reading books.
• Prefer someone to play with her instead of playing alone.
• Very energetic and doesn’t like to sleep.
• Knows how to imitate dog barking when you ask her what does dog barking sounds like.
• Knows how to give me a kiss, but she puts her hand on our lips instead of her own lip.
• Laughs out loud for fun.
• Can speak the following words: Dada, Mamma, MeiMei, and NaiNai.
• Sleeps from close to 10pm to almost 8am and naps around 12-2 or 3pm.

Melissa knows what to do with plastic bag

Look, Melissa knows what to do with plastic bag! She was trying to put new plastic bag into the garbage can. Then she was trying to throw stuff in the garbage can!

Melissa Brushing Teeth and Playing Around

Melissa Likes her new "hat"

Melissa received a bathing "hat" from Sandy's mom. However, since Melissa doesn't really mind washing her hair and getting a bit wet, we've never used it.. Until now..

Somehow she immediately took a liking to it and started giggling and running like mad all around the room as soon as we put it on her.. Here are some pictures :)

Thanksgiving

On this thanksgiving, we are faced our toughest challenge yet. But as with everything, there's always a silverlining and we look forward to the future.

We are grateful to have each other and Melissa. We are grateful to have good family and friends. We are grateful to have decent jobs and many other things that will help us weather this storm and come out stronger and more appreciative of each other than ever!

Melissa has a new Cousin

Congratulations Andy & Carin! Welcome to parenthood :)



My sister gave birth to her daughter, Jessica, this past weekend. So now Melissa has a new cousin to play with in the future.

Melissa's Major Milestone 12-13 Month

Time flies, and another month has gone by. Mommy barely has time to update Melissa’s blog! Anyhow, here are some major milestones when Melissa is 12-13 month old:

• Can walk many steps now but seems to forget how to walk when she wears shoes.
• Her 5th and 6th teeth both came out.
• Not into a swing at all.
• She picks up a book, brings it over to mommy/daddy, and sit down in our laps.
• Enjoys reading picture cards/books a lot.
• Loves to eat as usual and eats fairly healthy but definitely shows preference towards food and often complains that food is not served fast enough.
• She does not like water boiled veggies but still loves steamed unseasoned broccoli. Discovered that grapes are so yummy!
• Prefers mama’s homemade cook over baby food cans.
• Likes to put things in the box (cleaning up) and pour them out and repeats this process over and over…
• Laughs really loud when you chase after her.
• Knows how to ride her little car.
• Wants to spoon feed herself.
• Uses sippy cup to drink water rather than using bottles.
• Starts drinking soy formula and soy milk, and she is accepting it. Mommy is still breastfeeding twice a day.
• Seems to be losing weight as her size 4 diapers seems loose comparing to a month ago.
• Talks/screams a lot and clearly knows who mommy is.
• Prefers real remote controls, cell phones, and laptops than kiddy ones.
• Continues to sleep pretty well from 9pm ish to 8am ish but only Mommy can put her to sleep...She loves cuddling with mommy when she sleeps.

Melissa Rides Her Truck

Look at me.. I'm a big girl.. I can ride the truck on my own!



Of course, sometimes I get stuck and a little help too!

Melissa's Major Milestone 11-12 Month

Melissa had her 12 months check up 2 weeks ago. Here is a quick summary of her growth and development:

Weight: 20 lb 13 oz (61%)
Height: 29.75 inches (69%)
Head Circumference: 46.1 cm (78%)

Here are some major milestones when Melissa is 11-12 month old:
• Twists and turns like crazy during diaper change.
• Starts walking and can walk a couple steps right before she turns 1 year old.
• Barely crawls after she knows how to walk; she tries to walk as much as possible.
• Points things with her index fingers.
• Very good hand coordination for eating, pointing, grabbing, etc.
• Points at something she wants and shakes her head if she doesn’t want it.
• Shows great interest in our food.
• Continues to have great appetite and eat very fast; She wants to eat when she sees other people eating
• Prefers chunky food and doesn’t like to eat pureed food anymore.
• Doesn’t seem to like soy milk very much.
• Breastfeeds twice (one in the morning and one at night) now and drinks formula twice during the day.
• Her 3rd and 4th teeth are finally coming out, and 5th tooth is showing.
• Waves bye-bye if we say bye bye.
• Likes reading books.
• Likes to put things in the box (cleaning up) and pour them out and repeats this process over and over…
• Likes to be chased after.
• Sleeps very well at night from 9pm ish to 8am ish but only Mommy can put her to sleep...

Who's the girl with the most balloons?

小馬哥玩 氣球 玩的不亦樂乎 Who's the girl with the most balloons? It's 小馬哥 (little melissa) 歐耶 (oh yay!)

Ha ha.. I'm probably gonna get some comments regarding how I cut and paste and try to pretend to be all Chinese literate... :)

Anyways, this is a cute video of Melissa playing with the balloons we got for her birthday party. Also this is a pretty good video on how well she can walk now (when focused and not sleepy or tired)..

Melissa's First Birthday Party

Melissa is 1 year old now.. She had her first birthday party this past weekend. A lot of friends and family came and helped celebrate her birthday. Melissa had a lot of fun and completely skipped her normal nap but it was worth it.

We had the party at the local park, where we reserved a picnic area. Here are just a few pictures from the party. We were too busy to take any pictures ourselves, but fortunately, aunt Susan and Anna took some pictures and sent them to us.. We're still looking for more pictures from friends and relatives that took them, so if you got some, please mail them to Sandy, we'd really appreciate it :) Also wanted to say thanks and we really appreciate everyone who came and help us celebrate this special occasion!

Melissa Reading Books

Melissa enjoys flipping through the books these days. She also pays attention to you when you read to her. Look how serious she is when she reads her books in this video:

Melissa Attends Spencer's Birthday Party

My friend Jeff came up with his family, wife Tracy and sons Spencer and Connor over the long weekend. They invited us to go to ChuckyCheese (A pizza and games place for kids). Turns out it's Spencer's 3 year old birthday party and lots of people showed up.

Spencer, the birthday boy with parents and little bro.

Spencer blowing the candle.


Connor is about 3 months older than Melissa, they look very cute together although they're too young to really interact with each other.


Melissa and Connor in car..


Melissa had lots of fun there and we all enjoyed it as well. Actually, it's probably a little too much stimulation for Melissa, as she woke up middle of the night crying afterwards, doh!

Melissa Walking

Melissa can walk like 10 steps now, and she keeps trying and practicing! She's so brave, even though see walks like she's drunk, she keeps trying and sometimes even refuses help and shakes off my hand.

Melissa Moving About

Melissa's Major Milestone 10-11 Month

Here are some major milestones when Melissa is 10-11 month old:

• Eat 3 times a day regularly.
• Start eating beef and fish. She starts to show preference to some food but is still a very good eater.
• Loves slide and tries to climb up the stairs of the slide.
• Still afraid of swing.
• Continues to show strong determination.
• 3rd and 4th teeth still haven’t fully came out.
• A lot of talking, but still the same words (dada, mama, nai nai).
• Shows strong interests in reading books.
• Stands up and sits down very quickly and crawls fast.
• Good at finger eating and is more interested in feeding herself rather than being fed by spoon.
• Cruise around using furniture as support.
• Stands alone for a few seconds.
• Plays while standing more often.
• Likes to play her diapers for some reasons.
• Wants to go down to play in the park and gets mad if you make her sit in the stroller too long.
• Sleeps from 9ish pm to 8ish am and takes 1 nap during the day. She is almost done transitioning from 2 naps (total 3 hours) to 1 nap (total 2.5 hours) a day.

Recap of Grandma's Visit

Where to begin? Grandma was here for over a month and helped out so much with everything it's hard to capture it all. I'll go with some photos.

Grandma feeding Melissa.. Melissa likes all sorts of food, but loves banana the most.. The other day she screamed Ba NANA while I was feeding her banana... Well, I'm sure it's probably just coincidence that she made those sounds in that order, but it was a happy moment.

Here's us taking a pose with Melissa after a brief walk in the park.

Grandma playing with Melissa. Grandma would patiently play with Melissa all day when the rest of us are a bit too tired.. Actually it's a joy to play with Melissa, but sometimes it's also tiring when she is cranky or keeps trying to go somewhere she shouldn't and you have to keep on stopping her.

We met up with lots of relative during Grandma's stay. In particular, she spent a lot time with Aunt Susan and Aunt Anna working on their video editting and photoshop things and made videos for Aunt Susan's grand kid's trips, 3rd Grand Aunt's visit, and many others.

Melissa's Major Milestone 9-10 Month

Melissa had her 10 months check up couple days ago. She did not cry at all when the nurse tried to draw blood from her arm. What a brave girl! Here is a quick summary of her growth and development:

Weight: 20 lb 13 oz (70%)
Height: 29.5 inches (89%)
Head Circumference: 45.7 cm (84%)

Here are some major milestones when Melissa is 9-10 month old:

• Plays well with older kids (1-2 year old) at daycare and tries to imitate older kids (such as shaking head).

• Pulls herself up by grabbing something and stand up to play for a longer time.

• Walk sideways with support.
• Can climb up stairs (all the way to the top).
• Eats 3 times a day (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) and 3 snacks (one late morning, one late afternoon, and one before bed time).

• Prefers chunky chopped food than mushy food now.
• Starts eating Cheerios, chopped zucchini, banana with her fingers.
• Starts to know what food tastes better and loves banana.
• Has shown great determination and quite stubborn sometimes.

• Swims for the first time; she is a bit scared and needs to be held
• Makes a lot sound.

• Randomly calls dada and mama, and even nai nai (grandma in Mandarin) but doesn’t know what that means.
• Seems to be afraid of the little swing in the park.
• Her hair seems to be getting quite long so we trim her hair near the ear for the first time!
• Really likes to be held by mommy.
• 3rd and 4th teeth are coming out from the top!
• Sleeps from 9ish pm to 7ish am and takes 1-2 naps during the day. She is slowly transitioning from 2 naps (total 3 hours) to 1 nap (total 2.5 hours) a day.

Melissa Goes Swimming

Mommy wanted to get Melissa introduced to swimming early, so we took her to a swimming pool this past weekend. This is Mel on the way there in her big baby car seat and her swimwear!

Melissa at the pool with Mommy and Daddy.. She was a bit scared most of the time, but still seemed to have fun and enjoy the new scenery.. Thanks to Aunt Sally for snapping these cut photos!

Grandpa / Grandma Visits

Grandpa and grandma came over for a visit and really enjoyed playing with Melissa. Grandma is still here but Grandpa stayed for only 2 weeks. Here are some pictures between Grandpa and Melissa. Grandma's visit will get it's own blog later on..



While both Grandpa and Gradma are here, we also had some family gathering, here's a picture with some of the relatives.




Cousin Marlene gave us a lot of toys (and clothing/books/equipments), one of it is a box within box toy. The outter most box just happen to fit on Melissa's head like a tophat.. She looks pretty cut with it so we took some picture of her playing with it.

Melissa is learning how to stand up and trying to walk now.. This last picture is a little deceiving, as though she is actually pushing the little bus along, but actually, grandpa is just holding it still so she can standup holding it. However, I'm sure it won't be long before she really starts walking with it.

Melissa Crawling Stairs!

Look, Melissa is ready to crawl the stairs! It looks a bit dangerous, but don't worry, daddy is right behind her!

Melissa's Major Milestone 8-9 Month

Here are some major milestones when Melissa is 8-9 month old:

• Starts to cry or complain when people leaves her behind.
• Sleeps through the night without waking up (usually from 9-10pm to 7-8am)
• She would rather play than sleep (just like all the kids)
• Gets distracted very easily while eating solid food or drinking milk
• Doesn’t like to eat her own pureed food and is more interested in adults’ food
• Can sit up from facing down position.
• Her two bottom front teeth all came out.
• Crawl pretty well and likes to explore new areas.
• Grab onto something to stand up.
• Still takes 2 naps (one in late morning and another one in the afternoon).
• Not as interested in her toys that much and likes to play our toys like remote controls, magazine, keys, etc. Day care teacher says she likes to play lego and cars. (Melissa seems to be a tomboy!!)
• Grab Cheerios and put them in her mouth by herself sometimes.
• When you say “NO” to her, she will stop whatever she is doing and look at you, but she will continue her action after 10 seconds.
• Shakes and bangs all the toys before eating them.
• First time sitting in the real swing at park, and she laughs like crazy! However, she cries when you try to push her from behind.