An oldie but goodie… a video of Mio “dancing” — or flailing her arms and bobbing her head — to LMFAO’s Party Rock Anthem with her Auntie Miwa and Uncle Ted, during Christmastime when we were visiting Virginia. (You can hear my mom’s worried shrieks in the background…)
Mio has actually loved Party Rock Anthem since her Auntie Miwa kept playing it for her when she was 3 months old when we visited in June. When she hears the song, she’ll stop what she’s doing and start bobbing her head to it and clapping!
Dan’s cousin Hideaki (on his mother’s side)Â lives in Thailand, and was visiting San Francisco for a couple days, so we had dinner at Dan’s parents’ house the other night. Dan hadn’t seen his cousin since 1999, so it had been 13 years!
Mio eating at the table with everybody.
Hideaki (Dan's cousin) videotaping Mio.
She looks so grown up!
Mio, at almost 11 months old.
Fruit tart for dessert.
Granddaughter with grandmother.
Mio loves Grandma!
Mio showed off more of her walking skills… she’s getting faster and better at it every day!
On Saturday, our little family took a trip to the Oakland Zoo! I’d never been, and had been telling Dan that we should take Mio once the weather got warmer — since Saturday was surprisingly warm, we seized the opportunity to finally go! Our friends Kayo and Sung-kook and their 16-month old son Jinwoo also happened to be free that day, so we invited them to come with us.
I grew up going to the National Zoo in Washington, DC, which is pretty impressive and much larger, but I really enjoyed visiting the Oakland Zoo for the first time. It was very clean, well-maintained, and very child-friendly — there were lots of open areas where children could run around and climb onto animal sculptures, and a petting zoo where they could actually touch some of the sheep and goats. I think the more intimate size of the zoo actually works in favor for parents with young children, because you can get through the whole zoo (or a lot of it, at least), without getting too exhausted but still be able to see all the animals that kids love to see (monkeys, giraffes, lions, tigers, elephants. etc.).
It was of course Mio’s first time at the zoo, and although she’s a little too young to truly appreciate it, she definitely seemed intrigued (and at times, perplexed) by some of the animals at the zoo. Here are some of my favorites from the photos we took at the zoo!
Showing Mio the tortoises
16 month old Jinwoo
Jinwoo saying hi to Mio. "Long time, no see!"
Mio and Jinwoo playing with the "snake eggs"
Mio and Daddy at the petting farm section of the zoo.
Mio looking at the sheep.
A very cautious Mio petting the sheep.
Daddy took Mio right up to the goats.
She looks quite apprehensive...
Brows furrowed to the max!
The giraffes at the Oakland Zoo
A family picture.
Kayo, Sung-kook, and Jinwoo... soon to be a family of four!
A tiger with magnificent stripes!
We ended our trip with the lions - the king of the jungle!
You can see the full set of photos we took on our outing to the Oakland Zoo in the slideshow below:
Mio is looking less and less like a baby and more like a little girl these days. I’ve recently been wondering, “When does a baby become a toddler?”, and it seems like the general consensus among parents is that it’s either when the baby turns one or when they start walking, whichever comes sooner. Since she started taking her first steps a couple weeks ago, Mio has gotten better and better at walking and is now toddling everywhere — she is definitely walking more than she is crawling lately! So at 10 months old, it seems that our little Mio has already graduated to toddlerhood.
Here’s Mio this past week, at 45 weeks old.
Step by step...
Walking walking walking...
Taking a break.
Lately, when I turn on a children’s show (typically a Japanese sing-along) for Mio to watch, she’ll walk right up to the TV stand to get a closer look.
I wonder when she’ll realize that despite the fact that she’s right up against the television stand, she’s actually making it harder for herself to see from that angle… 😛
She love love loves exploring the bathroom! It’s the last frontier because I usually make sure to keep the door closed, but on the rare occasion that I forget, she’ll immediately make her way in to explore this as-yet relatively unknown territory.
She typically crashes around 5pm for an evening nap, after walking all over the house and causing mischief.
But then, by the time Daddy comes home, she’s up and about again and won’t go to sleep again until around 11pm or sometimes even midnight! 🙁
We think she resembles Piglet (from Winnie the Pooh) in this sleeper. Undoubtedly thanks to the pink stripes! Mama's nickname as a baby was "Piglet," too!
Mio is not even a year yet and she’s already become able to do so much! The journey of parenthood has been quite amazing, and we can’t wait to see what other adventures Mio will take us on…. 🙂
Here’s a video Dan took while watching Mio as I was writing up some emails and watching TV — she walked from the living room over to the hallway to him. (Please excuse the mess… we blame Hurricane Mio, who leaves everything in her path in disarray. Plus that I was folding our laundry.)
