Little Bully

This is becoming a little bit of an issue. You are a bully every time you have any encounters with other kids and their toys.

This has happened with every single one of our baby friends. Most of them are younger than you... so I am not sure if you feel like you are bigger and can win. As soon as you see other kids playing with a toy, you must have it. You yank it out of their hand, and if they get upset you just look at them puzzled like what did I do? If they don't get upset and grab another toy instead, you will go after that one. Sometimes the way you take it away is pretty forceful and you even grunt afterwards, and at times run away. Such a little trouble maker. It's totally embarrassing for us when you behave that way, and at the same time it's hard not to laugh. You of course do this with your toys as well. Sometimes it seems like you begin to share and give a toy to the other child, but it seems very brief and more like a tease, since often you take it back and run away. The situation is a little bit different when you have encounters with toddlers that are a little bit older, you are no longer as brave to push them around. :) I think you might be ready for daycare/preschool setting where you interact more with other kids and hopefully will learn to share better. I know it's not a skill that that most kids learn at your age, but I see other kids and they're not as aggressive. Even on the playground, when you want something to yourself, you start pushing other kids away, it's happened so many times and I try to tell you that you're not being nice, and you need to be gentle and share, however at this point it goes into one ear and comes out the other... so we'll see what happens in the future.

On a completely different note, you have started to become more affectionate to us. You give us hugs, and kisses which was so rare before. Before as soon as we picked you up you wanted to weasel your way out to get back down, and you still do that especially when you don't want to be held and want to play, but there are times in the evening and morning when you are super cuddly. You say hi when you see one of us come in the room after you had woken up and you have a huge grin on your face. You also say bye and wave. It is just so darn cute, making it that much harder to leave.

Your First Big Trip to San Francisco

I call it your first big trip because, we've done a few short ones to LA and Fresno, but those were only 2 nights long, this one was 4 nights and further away.

So we decided to drive there, which allowed us to bring a lot more "baby things" like both of your strollers, the baby backpack for hiking and a little booster chair so that it would be more comfortable to feed you in the hotel room. All of these things we used! Babies certainly use a lot of things.

Jeromey and I managed to pack all of our things in one suitcase and for you we were bringing a ton of stuff! So we left our house at 10:30pm, thinking you would sleep most of the way there and that would make it easier on us and you. You did fall back asleep once we started driving, but after we hit a bump or a dip, you woke up and did not want to go back to sleep. We got tired of driving around 3:00 am and pulled off at the rest stop, where you still would not sleep! It took you another 45 mins to finally doze off, which is when I dozed off as well.

We woke up at 5:30 am and found out that your diaper leaked all the way through and you were sitting in wet pjs! Poor baby. I usually don't change you in the middle of the night, but I think it's because you were in your car seat the whole time... You did not enjoy being changed in the cold!

We finally got back on the road and were in San Francisco at 9:30 am. Yay! I had called in an hour beforehand to see if they can have our room ready for us and check in early. Luckily for us, they did and they brought in a crib for you shortly after. We crashed and slept for 3 hrs!

Once we woke up we went to the Pier 39 area to explore. You seemed to really enjoy everywhere we took you, so that was a lot of fun.

You danced to some jazz from a street performer, squealed at some sea lions, savored a hot fudge sundae, and you got to ride on the Powell-Hyde street cable car from the Ghirardelli square back to our hotel.

We went to Jake's medical school graduation the next day, after which you spent some quality time with all of his nieces and nephews, who all ended up on a big trampoline that you seemed to absolutely love.

The following day we saw the golden gate bridge, took you to golden gate park... which is huge, and we took a hike in the Muir Redwood forest which was unbelievably beautiful! We even got to enjoy some time with Jeromey's grade school best friend Matt, and our friends Erin and Abtin made a stop in SF as well.

Your eating habits didn't change much, but you did eat ok while on the trip. It was tough with your naps, because they would get delayed every time, but eventually you did nap, either in the car or hotel and we were able to do more sight seeing after! Your bedtime got delayed as well, but you slept ok through the night and even slept in 2 days in a row... probably because it took a lot longer to fall asleep.

On the way back we decided to save the visit to Hearst Castle for another trip, and we drove straight home, which was also very tiring but we were very happy to finally get there and we didn't get stuck in a lot of traffic either so that helped. I did manage to catch a cold on our way back, but luckily it was just me and not you who got it.

Here are a few highlights from the trip.

Checking out the sea lions on Pier 39

Yummy ice cream sundaes!

Snuggling next to daddy on a windy San Francisco day with Golden Gate Bridge behind you

Talking to some ducks at Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park

Chillin' in the baby backpack on a hike through the Redwood forest

Hanging out near the Center of Fine Arts

The best way to watch morning cartoons...

Toddler Poker Party

I had to write an entry about this, it was just too funny. Daddy had a huge work poker party where 30+ people came to our house, and the morning after Sascha found some chips on the floor and loved playing with them, I think you sat there occupied for at least 30 minutes playing with them, putting them back into the little holder slots and then out again. Later that morning your buddy Kingston came to play and Marjeri and I left the both of you with daddy. Kingston turned out to be just as fascinated by the chips and daddy decided to take a few pictures as the two of you sat at the table playing "toddler poker". :)

Here is how it went down...

Concentrating on the game

Strategizing... and working on the poker face

Kingston goes all in... the poker face says it all (he's bluffing!)

All out on the table... Kingston says "What?"

Sascha collecting her winnings

Time to count my chips and cash in

If only daddy was this good at playing poker!

17 Months

At 17 months you have a few new words including: hi, bye, baby, sheez (for shoes).

You are signing more and more, I am surprised every time I see it. You sign for eat, drink, milk, more, dog, bird, wash your hands, please, shoes, banana, cracker, train and I think you understand a few others... but haven't signed them yet.

Teeth brushing had a slight improvement in the last few weeks, as i've now made it part of your routine to take you to the bathroom, sit you on the countertop and start brushing my teeth to show you what I am about to do. You figured out how to turn the water on while sitting on the countertop and when I turn it off you start laughing and I am able to brush your teeth while your mouth is open. :) We do that repeatedly since you are still resisting and push the brush out with your tongue . Eating is still the same, sometimes you'll surprise us and eat and other times not so much. Somehow you tried a piece of cucumber and liked it, as well as a radish... which is so strange (because most people don't like how bitter they are), but you actually saw someone eating it and wanted it... so I gave it to you to try.

We've now had a few sessions of the music class, and you have a lot of fun there. I think you recognize the songs now because I play them for you in the car and at home and you hum along as well as dance. You are usually not very shy in class, I hardly get to enjoy having you sit on my lap. You're super active and as soon as you see kids get up and walk around, you are right up there with them checking things out. You also love all the little instruments that they pass out.

Running has been something you're into lately, especially when you're trying to get away from us because you know we're coming after you. Climbing on the couch is something that you learned in the last few weeks. You got super good at it while we went away for the weekend, so grandma really had a fun time trying to keep up with you. Looks like you're having a lot of fun exploring. You love picking flowers in our yard and grandparent's yard or pretty much anywhere where you see flowers, you want to pick them. You love your little tricycle that we got for you. It's now a new way to get around, other than the stroller. You're pretty content on it for a long period of time. We went to Sea World with some friends and their babies for the first time a week ago, and had a blast, you did so well. We were gone the whole day and you napped in your stroller (I was afraid that you wouldn't) and you sat through most of the shows that we saw, I can't wait to take you back! I discovered that you're a little bit afraid of large fish... we were in an aquarium and the shark exhibit and you held on super tight and when I tried to get close to the glass you squeezed my arm even harder.

Well I think that just about sums up your last month. I am sure I've forgotten a few things because it's tough to keep track and you're changing and growing so much.

These 2 pictures were taken by our friend Vanessa who is such an awesome photographer, I have so much to learn!

Little munckin at 17 months