bonnie & jason

Alissa babbling

Alissa continues to learn more words but also holds long emphatic conversations about I don’t know what. Here’s an unusually short sample:

She’s also starting her online babbling career like daddy (although it seems more like morse code):

Finally, here’s a pic illustrating how long Alissa’s hair is getting:

Farts, lotion, and crooked smiles

About two seconds before I started the video, Alissa let out this ginormous fart. (You’ll see it register with Bonnie.) Then she proceeds to demonstrate her pretend lotioning skills. And finally, proves that she is indeed a ham, putting on her fake (and crooked) smile doing her best to monopolize the camera she knows is focused on her.

New baby tricks

Alissa is getting more and more adept at imitating things she sees. Here, she is doing her best to follow a Barney song. (The funny waving thing is her trying to clap her shoulders.)

2008 07 10 Alissa clapping with Barney from Jason Wang on Vimeo.

She’s also started this foot clapping thing after bath time:

Finally, here’s a random very mature looking pose for a toddler:

Forgotten pictures/videos

Bonnie has had her cell phone for about two years now and I finally got around to pulling the miscellaneous pictures and video off it today. Here are a few of my favorite ones (quality isn’t great) with the whole group here. It’s kinda fun to look back at the random things that were captured. Makes it feel like the last couple years has just flown by.

Back from NYC

I had a work meeting in Manhattan last week so we ended up making it the beginning to our annual east coast pilgrimage. While in the city, we met up with a couple friends as well as my cousin Anna’s family. While visiting them (likely for the last time before they move to the ‘burbs), Alissa and Chloe decided to take turns pushing each other in a little doll stroller:

(Speaking of which, our Graco Mosaic stroller broke a wheel after being subjected to the gate check from our flight… this was after I had to epoxy it back on after it broke off the first time after our trip to Laguna Beach so it’s not entirely their fault.)

Alissa and Bonnie also spent some time with Vivian. Here they are in Central Park playing with the water:

After working up an appetite, they stopped for some snacks:

Alissa loved this jam apparently. Don’t report us to child services for feeding our baby what amounts to straight sugar.

Alissa also enjoyed her first pickle which we got from the Carnegie Deli along with a pastrami sandwich about the size of her head:

Then, for the weekend, we ended up at Vin’s place for the annual “Wang’s come to the East Coast BBQ.” Here’s Alissa having her first Oreo cookie sans frosting:

She also had a great time playing with Gunther all weekend:

He basically tolerated her while she tried to ride, stand on, pull on, and pet him constantly.
Alissa also got a chance to try out her big hat at the park down the street:

The only thing I forgot to do is take a group picture of all the folks that were able to make it to the BBQ. Too many people to catch up with in too little time. Oh well, hopefully we can make it back again next year. By then, all conversations will revolve around kids as Vin and Denise will have a little Chao, Kiran and Priya will be inconceivably bigger, Alissa will be even more of a pain in the butt, Ellen and Mike may be able to make it with Natalie and their newborn, and Jenny and Eric will have a little one as well. Damn… talk about population growth!

Rest of the pics here.

Wii fit is hiilarious

I was one of the lucky ones who pre-ordered the Wii Fit on Amazon before it officially launched so we’ve been playing with ours here and there for the last week or so. Overall, it’s pretty fun. I wouldn’t say it’s life changing or anything but I guess it’s better than sitting on your butt eating bon-bons all night. I’m actually looking forward to what other games come out that make use of the board. Although the actual Wii Fit games are fun, they’re pretty basic following the formula of Wii Play and Wii Sports. I hear there is a Raving Rabids game coming out that will use it so that might be interesting.

Anyway, on to the main reason for this post… embarrassing family. Here are four videos starring Benita (I’m in one of them). She’ll probably kill me for posting these, but oh well. She can write her own blog and return the favor some day.

This next one is funniest at the end since it looks like we’re going into convulsions as we race for the finish line.

This one is the funniest one to me. Benita looks like she’s doing the Elaine dance!

2008 06 01 Wii Fit Benita from Jason Wang on Vimeo.

Handbags already!?

Apparently, Alissa is already into handbags… and sunglasses. She carried this one around the house for almost an hour. I guess it was bound to happen, I just didn’t think it would be so soon.

Here’s some video of some of Alissa’s fairly new verbal skills. Some of her words are really only distinguishable by us (like ‘thank you’), and she still can only sign ‘please’ vs. saying it. Also, she knows where the ‘A’ is on the playmat but only sometimes correctly identifies the ‘O.’ All in all, I guess she’s making progress. I have no idea if she ahead or behind the curve, but it doesn’t really matter all that much at this point I guess.

Here’s some more of Alissa’s “communication” skills.

Alissa stuck

I’m not sure how, but Alissa managed to get semi-stuck in the basket for a little while. In the end though, she shows it who’s the boss!

Still short

Alissa is still wearing a lot of 12, 9, and even some 6 month clothes despite the fact that she just turned 16 months. And now that she’s walking, we get a lot of comments about how cute it is that such a small baby can walk. Little do they know she’s been practicing for 4 months now. Here’s a picture that speaks to her stature. She’s actually wearing a shirt, but Alissa pulls it off as a dress.

In other news, Alissa is now sleeping in her crib every night. It actually wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be. Some crying here and there, but all in all, can’t complain that much. I think it helped that we started sticking to a routine at night. Dinner, bath, bottle, brush teeth (she now has five and a molar poking out) read a book (Goodnight Moon), and then in the crib.

She’s also started to pick up words at an accelerated pace. In addition to up, down, no, yes, dada, and mama, she has now picked up some semblance of juice, shoe, thank you, ball, bao (Chinese bun), joo-joo (Cantonese for banana), and wow. She also knows the sign for please so now she says up and then does the sign for please. Or the sign for more and then the sign for please. Finally, she knows where the “A” is on our alphabet play mat. Before long, she’ll be solving differential equations and analyzing the thermodynamic properties of her bottle warmer.

I’ll end with a funny video… for some reason, Alissa loves to turn the stereo receiver on and off. We’ve tried to train her not to do it but we haven’t been consistent about it so she still does it. Today, we tried physically blocking her access with some pillows. Also, Bonnie told her “don’t touch with your hands!” Well, you can see in the video how well that worked.

Alissa after too many pieces of j-e-ll-o

Untitled from Jason Wang on Vimeo.