Bath time

I thought you might enjoy this.

Be advised....

Okay.. so everytime I try to post something on my blog, my computer freezes or my internet quits working. This really frustrates me and very much discourages me from posting anything on the blog....

Plus, I know everyone loves pictures, and the pictures are only on my desktop so I can't use Joe's laptop to post either... :P

I will keep trying.... Here are some pictures you missed out on.

This is how he says, "Please."

Playing with toys

Adventures at Nicklecade

This is how you're supposed to eat pizza

Bath time = Play time

Our Big Headed baby

On Tuesday, we went in for Alden's 15-18 month check up. Here's the stats. He is 22 lbs. 6 oz., about 18th percentile for his age. He's almost 30 inches tall, which is on the 8th percentile. His head circumference, however, surprised me and the nurse. It was a little over 19 inches, which is on the 80th percentile!!! For those of you who's having a hard time imagining how long 19 inches is, let's just say that that was how tall Alden was when he was born.... Yeah, he's a short chubby boy with a giant head... Ha ha.

A little more on the developments. He can now say "Go, go" when he wants to go somewhere. He can say 까까, which means "snack" in Korean for when he wants a pretzel or his daily vitamin (yeah, it's the chewable gummy bear one). He can almost go down a couple of steps with one hand on the wall. He can also feed himself with a fork or a spoon (we're still working on the chopsticks). He also likes to use a normal cup to drink with, and he's getting pretty good at it. With supervision, he can drink out of his cup without spilling any water. Besides playing with balls, he loves to pretend to run into things, such as doors, walls, cabinets, etc., and fall down on the ground. I will post the videos of that soon.

These are pictures of him playing in the waiting room, dunking the balls into the hoop. :D

Today, we went to an appointment with an allergist, a referral from the pediatrician. We had been wondering what types of food Alden is allergic to, since he seems to be allergic to a lot of things. The whole thing took almost two hours!! We spent most of that time waiting, and waiting, and waiting.... Alden started getting really bored. We found some sample/demo meds to play with. He mostly liked the epi pens, since they have the safety caps that fall off on the back. He kept taking it out and putting it back in. :D Finally, the doctor came in, and we spent some time talking about Alden's medical history of what have caused problems in the past: almonds, milk, eggs, tomatoes, cheese, etc. We did a skin test on his back, about twenty different things. We found out that he is deadly allergic to peanuts, moderately allergic to tree nuts like almonds and walnuts, and mildly allergic to eggs. We have to get some epi pens for Alden, just in case he eats peanuts accidentally and starts going into anaphylactic shock. Everybody, just be aware that he CANNOT have peanuts, please. :D

Alden, playing with the demo meds.

His skin test. The biggest spot is from peanut allergen...

It’s been a while…

It’s been a while since I’ve reported on Alden’s developments, so I’m going to take some time while he takes a nap to tell everyone how grown he is now.

Just three months ago, he was practicing taking steps, and now he owns the floor! He runs around the house like a maniac, and never slows down to even walk! He likes to chase after people, and he’ll push me and ask me to run away so he can chase after me. He hasn’t quite learned to look at where he’s stepping, so trips over a lot, but he stands back up and starts running again right away!

We were starting to worry because Alden’s speaking has regressed since a few months ago, but it’s slowly picking back up. We think he’s taking longer because he’s trying to process two languages at a time, but he’s doing an awesome job at learning both Korean and English. He understands most of Korean (well, at least what he needs to understand anyway), and a lot of English when daddy talks to him. One thing, though, is that he’s learned to nod and shake his head, and he’ll do that instead of asking for things or when I try to encourage him to say a certain word. For example, he’ll point at a book and say, “이거,” which means ‘this’ in English, and when I try to get him to say “book” by repeating the words, he just keeps nodding his head and doesn’t understand why mommy will keep asking him the same question. Ha ha. Sometime when he doesn’t understand the question, he’ll just nod his head anyway, hoping that he’ll get what he wants, and it’s so cute. Joe sometimes uses that toward his advantage and asks Alden questions like, “Do you love daddy the most?” “Is daddy your favorite?” “So when mommy asks you the same question, you’ll say yes to just make her happy even tho daddy’s actually your favorite?”  Ha ha.

Alden loves to explore and examine things. He especially loves to take things out of or put things in bags, boxes, compartments, cracks, etc. He’ll shove his magnets under the fridge, take out his blocks from the bag, open mommy’s wallet and take everything out and put some things back, etc. He’s also learned to buckle up his high chair on his own, so always buckles himself and asks people to unbuckle it so he can put it back in.

We’ve put a hold on trying to potty train him because he keeps having irregular bowel movements, plus dirty diapers don’t seem to bug him at all! We’ll see how that goes….

He’s also getting really good at giving out kisses, and pretty generously too, when he’s in the right mood. Sometimes he gives me kisses without being prompted, and that makes my day!! :D  The video below is him practicing giving kisses to people. lol.

Christmas in a Nutshell

We had a lot of fun during Christmas, Alden especially. He got so many toys that Joe and I decided he wasn’t going to get any more toys until his next birthday… only to find another toy sitting in the family room, given by our parents’ friend… lol. I’m putting up a series of pictures that’ll explain what we’ve been up to.

 

Eat at Chen’s Noodles with family 

Watch lots of Pororo with grandpa
 

Kissed Aunt Yearim. :D

Play with boxes more than the toys

Play with Sophie in the ball pit
 

Open more presents

Play with more boxes

Dress up to go to church

Watch more Pororo

Reorganize the kitchen cabinets
 

It was a good Christmas, we got to spend a lot of time with family. We can’t wait for the next one already!

Trips to the Bean Museum

BYU has this great museum, filled with animals. We like to go there to walk around and look at different animals. :) Alden’s favorite part of the museum is the stairs. lol. He’s been really into practicing going up and down the stairs lately.

He also likes to chase after bigger kids and run after them. I think it makes him feel older.

 

You can see his victory wound on his forehead that he got from running into one of the exhibits at the museum forever ago. It stayed on his forehead for quite some time, maybe more than a month. We’re planning to go back this afternoon. We haven’t been back for a while, being sick and all, but hopefully Alden’ll get more out of this trip than the last. :)

Cute Cousins

I kept reminding myself to post something on the blog before December was over so I could at least say that I did something in December... But it's already January, and January is already 1/4 way over... lol. Anyway, I thought I'd post these pictures of Alden and Sophie from Thanksgiving break. They're so cute together, and there is definately family resemblance there...