I have been really behind on uploading photos and videos of our trip, as I’m trying to enjoy our short time here with our family in friends in Virginia as much as we can before we have to return to California… but I just had to share this video clip. We were hanging out in my younger sister Miwa’s room (It’s Mio’s favorite room at my parents’ house because of all the cool, colorful things she can touch and play with there), and I had just gotten out of the shower and was playing a variation of Peekaboo. She likes Peekaboo, but she rarely giggles this much so we made sure to capture it on video!
Today is Dan’s 29th birthday, so show him some birthday love! I didn’t have to work yesterday, so when Dan came home from work, I surprised him with a German chocolate cake I had decorated with a birthday message I knew he’d love! For those of you who don’t know, Dan is a huge fan of the Android OS, and we’re usually a house divided because I’m a big fan and user of the iOS/Mac operating system, while Dan is all about supporting Android. For his birthday, though, I decided to set aside my loyalty to Apple for a day and decorate Dan’s birthday cake with the Android mascot and the pun-ny birthday message, “Happy Birthday Dandroid.” As I expected, Dan loved it — I caught his reaction on video, too!
German chocolate... his favorite! (and one of my favorites, too!)
Happy birthday, Dan! Thank you for being the best husband and father in the world to Mio and I, and for everything you do! Looking forward to all the new memories we’ll make together in the coming year, and beyond. π
As mentioned last week in Mio’s 8-month update, our baby girl has been practicing self-feeding with finger foods! We started her out with Happy Baby’s Organic Puffs a couple weeks ago — we thought it was a healthier alternative to the Gerber Graduates Puffs, which are popular in starting babies on finger foods. They’re organic and have less sugar content than Gerber’s puffs, and apparently still taste as good! To be extra healthy, we started Mio on the greens puffs, which contains spinach, collard greens and kale, before we move onto the sweeter flavors that Happy Baby makes. She’s loved them from Day One! We used to split the puffs in half because although they’re supposed to sort of melt in the mouth, we were still worried about her choking from prematurely swallowing, but now that she’s gotten the hang of it, we give them to her whole. In the beginning, they would get stuck in the palm of her hand and half of them would never make it into her mouth. While her pincer grip is not completely perfected just yet, Mio has learned how to grasp the puff and successfully shove them into her mouth! The funny thing is that whenever we sprinkle some on her high chair tray, she somehow feels like she has to grab them all at once, so she attempts to grab them by the handful… and then when we start adding more to the tray while she’s working on getting the ones that are already in her hand into her mouth, she gets frustrated because there’s more than she can handle at once. Not sure where the “Gotta-Catch-’em-All” mentality comes from, but it’s entertaining to watch. It’s okay to take things one puff at a time, Mio….
We’ve also started introducing Japanese baby crackers to her in the past week, too. I picked them up at the local Japanese grocery, and I break them up into little pieces and hand them to her to grab and eat. They also melt in the mouth, and come in vegetable flavors that with little sugar. She has been gobbling them up, too! She definitely enjoys self-feeding with snacks more than when we feed her baby food. Recently, she tries to grab the spoon and bowl of baby food on her own and ends up making a huge mess! Trying to be little Miss Independent already….
Here’s a video of Mio eating her finger foods! (Sorry it’s a little out of focus. I’m not as good as Dan at taking footage with the DSLR….)
…and here are some photos of our messy eater:
In the past couple days, our whole family has come down with a cold. I’m feeling the sickest of the bunch, with a sore throat and head congestion. Dan has been feeling some milder symptoms in the throat, and Mio has a runny nose and is sneezing… her throat also sounds a little hoarse. I’m kicking myself for letting ourselves get sick, especially Mio (since it’s her first time getting sick), and I’m frustrated because I’m pretty certain I know the exact place and person we contracted it from this past weekend. I can’t overdose on cold medicine as I usually do to get better because I’m nursing, so I’ve just been drinking lots of fluids (tea and chicken soup) and gulping down spoonfuls of lemon juice and honey, which has been helping. I hope we all get over this soon… I hate being sick, especially during the holiday season!
Thankfully, Mio still seems pretty energetic and cheerful despite it all. Still crawling and standing up wherever she goes….
Mio has been getting better and better at standing on her own every day. It’s incredible how much she’s progressed in only a week! Check out this video we took of her on Friday night, where she pulls herself up from a sitting to standing position using the Bumbo and lets go for a few seconds, balancing herself to stand up.
Mio has pulling herself up to a standing position a lot in the past couple weeks, and yesterday she stood for the first time without any support for a few moments, while we were at our friends Tarrin and Jason’s for dinner. Apologies for the blurriness — the video quality of the camera on my phone leaves much to be desired. (We forgot our camera, so we used what we could to capture the moment!)
Here are some other photos and video from the past week, of her pulling herself up wherever she goes…
On the toy basket!
On the dresser drawers of the changing table!
On the crib rails! (We've been finding her standing up in the mornings.)
Here she is pulling herself up on a diaper box… she’s so strong and agile now, we really have to keep an eye on her because she’ll try to climb everywhere!
Before we know it, she’ll be cruising! We have a feeling she may be walking before her first birthday… yikes!
We’ve also started introducing Japanese baby crackers to her in the past week, too. I picked them up at the local Japanese grocery, and I break them up into little pieces and hand them to her to grab and eat. They also melt in the mouth, and come in vegetable flavors that with little sugar. She has been gobbling them up, too! She definitely enjoys self-feeding with snacks more than when we feed her baby food. Recently, she tries to grab the spoon and bowl of baby food on her own and ends up making a huge mess! Trying to be little Miss Independent already….
