Happy Birthday

DSC01959, originally uploaded by rwcutter.

Yoshi is three years old today. It feels like a long time already but also so fast. Sometimes I forget that he is just a "baby" if you consider someone younger than three years old. In these three years he physically grew up to almost 100 cm tall, learned to speaks fluent Mandarin and some English and Taiwanese, can count to 29 (and then need to ask which "ten" comes next), and likes reading, singing and playing a lot of games he invented. He also like to help on houseworks. Happy birthday, son!

Little Helper

Brother and Sister

Who is who?

Now and Then

Above: my son on Sep. 19, 2009, two years later
Below: my son on Oct. 6, 2006, five months old

Yoshi's Dilemma

DSC01109, originally uploaded by rwcutter.

Since his baby sister came home, Yoshi found himself in a dilemma. He likes baby sister and likes to be a big brother taking care of her, but he also want to maintain his old life when he got all the attention. As a result, you'll find him behaves like a grownup helping his mommy changing diapers at one time, and in the next five minutes he degraded to a baby who piss on the floor and refused to change his wet clothes.

My mom and wife are going crazy chasing him before he bumps into walls or closets (he often does), and preventing him from hurting his sister accidentally.

You can talk about many theories how to handle this, but the fact is, nothing works. It's something we just have to live with for a long long time.

Summer Full-Mmonth 1

Summer Full-Mmonth 1, originally uploaded by rwcutter.

Baby Summer now one month old! Thanks to everyone who visited her or sent her warm wishes in the first month of her life.

Summer Crying

26 days old. Hungry.

Yoshi the Driver

Summer Day 8

She opens her eyes looking around, and happily licking her wrapping cloth. When it comes to appetite, this baby girl is much better than her older brother. Her best record is 70 cc a meal so far. My son better be careful otherwise he might be bullied by his sister soon.

Yoshi Play and bumps his head

My Daughter

Born on the 4th of July, 21:23, Weight 3692, length 53cm

New Year

Just returned to work from 9-day New Year vacation. Allie and I took one extra day off, so it was ten days for us. We went 300 km south to Kaohsiung for family reunion, a must-do but not always pleasant tradition. My grandfather and grandmother, now in their eighties, are not the kind of people you want to spent your holiday with. Actually, there were two small argues and one big fight when we were there. It may be the last time I follow this tradition to ruin my holidays.

After Kaohsiung, we then went back north to Tamshui and stayed with Allie's family. Yoshi had a good time there because there was more space for him to run, and there were many toys to play while his cousin was away.

When we finally returned to Taipei, Yoshi fell asleep right after dinner time--very very early for him compared to his usual schedule. He became very shy to strangers in the vacation--maybe there were too many new people and new places to him. That summarized the vacation, if not with the surprise that came on Sunday.

One o'clock in Sunday morning, Yoshi got a fever which reached 39 degrees. I was not too worried because he seemed still as energetic as usual. My mom "strongly suggested" that we took him to a nearby clinic on Sunday morning, so we did. On the way home, he began to said that his belly aches. In the evening he had diarrhea. At sunrise time of Monday, the fever raised to 40 degrees and he shivered badly. So, we took him to ER. The resident on duty was an interesting one. He finishes his diagnosis very quickly but spent a lot of time teaching me the reason of fevers and signs should be alerted. I guess he had saw too many cases far worse then Yoshi so in this case there was no need to go to ER. He also knows that such thing will happen again and again as Yoshi grows up, so he tried to prepare me for that.

Yoshi's fever now lasts two to three hours at 40 degrees, and the peak repeats every five to six hours. This is only the second day in the progress, still several days to go before he recovers from this virus infection and develops new immunity for it.

Yoshi and iPhone 3G

Allie bought an iPhone 3G today. My son immediately said, "Mommy bring phone" as she enters the door. He knows how to wake the phone one and almost unlock it. If a boy less than two years old know how to use it, it must be a good design.

Yoshi packing

We had a family trip to I-Lan last weekend. Last Friday night when Allie was packing, my son was also busy packing his own luggage in the next room.

Yoshi Running at Daan Park

We took Yoshi to Daan Park today. He loves running on the big, green field of grass, and was curious to watch squirrels climbing up and down on the trees. We went to the flower market afterwards, but he was too tired and fell asleep.

A Hunch?

Sometimes I feel that my son has a hunch when someone is leaving for several days. This week, he always wants to make sure that I am beside him before he sleep. If I am in the living room, he asks me to go to bed with him otherwise he does not sleep. This is unusual because he only sticked with his mother when he felt sleepy in the past few months. So, I wonder if he knows I will not be home next week. I'm not making this up because it happened twice when Allie had business trips. I have no idea why he knows, since I have not packed my luggage or something. Maybe he can sense the atmosphere in the air.

More Yoshi Videos

Posted two new videos today. It is really fun to watch him in action, compared to static photos. Many people suggested us to buy a DV to record moments of babies, but I don't see much good video coming from them. Sometimes great moments come so suddently and you just don't have time to go to the drawer and take out the DV. On the other hand, mobile phone is much more convenient, but the quality is relatively poor.

Video of Yoshi Playing

Recorded this with my cell phone couple days ago. My son was playing by himself, talking, and having fun. I picked up my phone and recorded for 90 seconds before he tried to grab my phone. The most interesting part is that he pushed the bar again and agin to swing the hook over so that he could reach his hats. There are so many funny moments but too little chances to record them. I think that's why people don't agree when parents say their children are clever or lovely, because they do not have the chance to observe these moments.

Yoshi Bath on YouTube

My son Yoshi was taking a bath, and then he found that I was filming. This video was taken with a CASIO Exilim EX-Z200 DSC and uploaded with the CASIO software. My boss lent it to me to try the YouTube feature.

Acute Bronchitis

Yoshi got a fever last Friday. The temperature gradually rose day by day, although he was taking medicine from doctors. On Monday it reached 40 degrees, and on Tuesday midnight he began to vomit. The doctors who inspected him in the beginning told us it was probably common cold, but when we took him to the hospital again on Wednesday because of the pattern of temperature rise was unusual, the doctor decided to hospitalize him for further examinations.

The results shows that he was probably infected by some kind of Mycoplasmosis which caused acute bronchitis. He responded well to the treatment of antibiotics, and was released from hospital on Friday afternoon. He still needs to take medicines for at least one week and go back to the hospital to make sure the disease is being controlled. Now we have three sick people at home: Yoshi, my wife and my mom. I wonder if he got it from one of the two adults in the beginning because he seldom contacts other people in the past two weeks.

This is the first time he's been hospitalized since he came home after the first week of his birth. He behaved bravely enough in the exams. They took his blood and urine samples, and gave him intravenous drip and antibiotics along with other medicine to relieve the symptoms. Therefore, a plate was tied at his left fore-arm. When he began to feel better, it was impossible to keep him in the tiny place and he started to pull the tube for IV drip. Fortunately he was released soon enough, otherwise we may have to knock him out to keep him in the ward :D.