Big Ben at the Beach

Once we're all rested and adjusted to local time, we were headed toward Hua-Hin beach town about 2.5 hours southwest of Bangkok. Little Big Ben had a blast dipping his feet in the warm Pacific ocean, walking on the white sandy beach and tasting yummy local seafood like fresh crab fried rice. He still didn't want to go into the water. Maybe next year. But the best part is just to hang out with Khun Tas, Khun Yai, Uncle Paulie and Na Pui. The Dusit Thani was awesome and Dad said we definitely have to go back there when the ear doesn't bother him. Dad was such a good sport.

Check out some photos of Ben.

Off to the land of Smiles

Too excited to sleep..

Little Big Ben went to bed as usual only to be awaken at 10 p.m. as Dad picked him up from his crib to get into the car in order to catch the midnight flight to Bangkok. Despite the sleep interruption, Ben was as awake and happy as can be. Well of course, he will see Khun Yai, Khun Ta and everyone in only less than 20 hours. Mom and Dad, meanwhile, were nervous. It turned out that Double B only slept for five hours as he was more interested in making new friends or moving about the cabin. MAD somehow gave it an A- and thought that it wasn't so bad after all. There were plenty of other babies for Ben to play with and those five hours were...well, something.

Once there, all Ben had to do was sleeping a lot for two days before adjusting nicely to the new time zone. All he needed was his all-night sleep, his two naps and the awesome baby food Khun Yai and Khun Yai Aae made. They both are angels. Mom gladly enjoyed this unexpected break for baby food duty and even brought home some awesome recipes.

1..2..3..and Yippeeeee!

Morning Stroll with Khun Yai Aae

Oakland Zoo

The weather was nice last weekend so little Big Ben went to the zoo. Grandma, Grandpa and Na Som, who's visiting form Korea, also joined--which made it all the more fun.

It seems that Ben was most impressed by the monkeys, although Mom and Dad thought the giraffes and the zebras were so awesome.

Little Big Ben had a great time checking out the animals, watching big kids run around and wielding some random stick. What a great day!

Tumbling tower

First steps!!!

For the past few weeks, Double B had been pushing his little cart around like this. It was all well and good.





Then three days ago, he took his first (three) steps. Mom and Dad were both there to cheer him on. It was a wonderful moment.

He has since been taking steps, falling on his bottom, standing back up so that he can take some more steps.

After having been working so hard and having so much fun, Double B took 19 steps today--all in one shot. He looked so excited and so proud of this new-found skill. Dad did the counting and Mom ran out from the kitchen and watched with teary eyes.

What a great stride, Ben!

Swoosh!

Double B: Dad, I'm a little nervous.

Dad: It's okay son, relax.

Dad: Now take a deep breath and stay focused.

and...SWOOOOOOOOSH

Double B: Wow, Dad. Let's do it again!!!

Still standing

After the big birthday bash a few days ago, Ben's still standing..

Ben's big birthday bash

Double B had a nice time celebrating his first birthday with his friends and family. He was in good spirit despite the lack of sleep due to a tooth that's coming in. (Yes, Ben's first tooth sprouted 3 days before his first birthday) Double B seemed to enjoy the ceremony a great deal, occasionally bouncing as the monks were chanting. He also paid special attention to the Thai classical music and the traditional dance.

Making the offerings

Helping Mae during Water ceremony

Listening to Thai classical music

Enjoying classical dance


And the cake...

Everybody survived the bash!

Ball games

Grandma Nancy got this magic yellow ball for Double B last week. See how much fun he has with it.


First watching the game and cheering on....





Then it's time for Double B too to play ball....

Munching

While having his snack, Double B was caught blowing air through his lips. This has become one of his favorite pastimes these days.

11 months old!

Yup, getting up there. Big Ben is cruising along and is enjoying the summer a great deal. He spent a really fun vacation in Tahoe with his parents, grandparents , aunts and lots of cousins. The altitude-induced ear infection bothered him one morning and he was up and running and as happy as a clam by dinnertime. Whew!!

So what has he been up to, you ask.

- Talking up a storm. Saying "mae or mama" to Mom and "dada" just about anytime along with new other sounds with which he's experimenting everyday
- Expert crawler. He quickly forgot his old favorite commando crawl.
- Pulling to stand--in crib, at coffee table, over Mom and Dad, at his Leapfrog activity table and Neurosmith cube, etc
- Sleeping through the night. Yes, Yippee! He sleeps 8 to 7 more or less most nights now, to MAD's relief
- Standing briefly on his own. It's fun to watch the expression on his face when he realizes that he can actually stand for a few seconds without support
- Bouncing and clapping when in good mood, which is pretty much all day. He's a happy kid.
- Enjoying Cheerios and bite-size finger foods. All this with no teeth!

Big Ben has been keeping himself pretty busy indeed.

With cousins Fiona and Liam in Tahoe

Fun!

Hanging with Dad

Silly crawling kid

Double B seems to be enjoying the new-found skill. His favorite game goes like this: say something funny, show off silly tricks, crawl a little, sit and talk some more then tackle and climb Mom or Dad. While Ben obviously loves all these new motor skills, we are frantically looking for the right baby gate solution.

Way to go, bud!

We think it's totally cool that Ben says 'mama'. But it's even cooler that he now actually addresses it to Mom...consistently. Needless to say, Mom is thrilled!

M...N...

As if today wasn’t exciting enough with the crawling and preparation for moving, Double B decided to make some new consonants and sounds to distract stressed-out Mom and Dad. He’s been doing “da da” and a bunch other sounds lately. But this afternoon, to Mom’s joy and excitement, he went “mama, mama” and has been playing with the sound since. He also enunciated the N today as well, repeatedly saying “na na”.

Two consonants just minutes apart!! It was a good day for Big Ben.

The real thing!

Double B has been giving us teasers here and there for a little while now lifting himself up while alternating with army crawl. But today, in celebration of the birth of this great nation, he decided to crawl. Just like that. At the new place we are moving into. It's as if he had been doing it for a long time. He still enjoys the army crawl but seems to be more and more willing to lift his tummy above the floor.

Nine months old!

Some pictures of Ben at nine months.....

Silly (An escape while being dressed after bath.

It's getting harder and harder to dress, undress or diaper Double Bee these days.)

Smiley....

Studious

Curious

Or just jamming....

Sleeping away

A few times last week, to Mom and Dad's pleasant surprise and joy, Ben slept through the night!!! Yes 7 p.m. to 5 or 6 a.m.--no crying and no small talks or snacks. Up until now, he wakes up once most nights to eat and falls back asleep. At Ben's nine month appointment last week, Dr Greenspan said it's okay now to try and skip the middle-of-the-night feeding.

Even though Ben has been having three solid meals a day for a while now, he recently seems to enjoy more and more of it-- a lot more.

So we think a combination of an increase in solid food and the skipping of the middle-of-the-night feeding led to this breakthrough.

As a result of sleeping better by night, by day Ben sometimes looks like a tough guy like in this photo.

Army crawl

Ben has been working on straightening out his path. Now he has mastered his army crawl. Check it out.

Sideways

We think this is a prequel to the real stuff. Ben has been working really hard to crawl. He's getting places these days....by slithering sideways! It's kind of fun to watch and the technique improves day by day. We'll see..he may be able to figure it out soon.

8 months old!

Little Big Ben turned eight months with little birthday fuss. Who knows if he’s been exposed to any traditional birthday rituals by now? Perhaps, while accompanying his parents on shopping trips, he’s overheard conversations about things like birthday cakes, candles, and playful spankings. But, even if so, he’s uttered not a word about them. What he did do was treat himself to sleeping in more than he normally does. Normally he’s up sharp between 6:15-6:30am. But on his eight-month birthday, he luxuriously slept to 7:30am! By college, Ben, you’ll know that extra time can be much more valuable than cake and ice cream! Don’t worry, though, I’m sure MAD will be offering you birthday sweets long after you are a big fan of them.

While Ben displayed little birthday fuss on May 5^th, his recent developmental milestones have been attention grabbing. By who, you ask? By his parents, of course! They are (surprise, surprise) smitten. Call it overreaching. Call it ridiculous, but we can’t stop parents from projecting the world and extrapolating what they want. So we should not tease Dad about his belief that Ben may actually already be taking positions on classical questions of destiny versus fate. Yes, we might recall that even before he’d started listening to his parents read Dr. Seuss’s, Ben noted that other people’s laughter made him happy. For several months, he’s picked up on and emulated other people’s laughter and joy. But do good things make people happy or do happy people create good things? Perhaps because he recalled Mae’s OB doctor, Dr. Kim, announcing her belief that good things happen to happy people, he recently decided to test it out.

Mind you that this Voltairian questioning continues, in Dad’s view, as Ben continues to learn some basics. Ben has managed to move around by circling until he gets to where he wants to be. He does a 360 degrees movement in just a few seconds when motivated. He loves playing with anything that's not a toy such as pieces of paper, slippers, remote controls, etc. He eats solid food really well and has progressed to chicken, beef, turkey, egg yolk and a variety of veggies. He sits by himself quite well for several minutes. Ben still wakes up once at night to eat but, to Mae and Dad's joy, he generally sleeps longer now (6-7 hrs). And, on birthdays, an extra whopping 1.5 hours!

So on a visit to Grandma and Grandpa, with his aunt, his great-aunt and great-uncle and his second cousins all present, Ben decided to reverse the chain reaction. Out of the blue, he looked at Grandpa who had been minding his own business and began to laugh. It had the clear tone of “follow me,” “try it out,” you’ll like it.” And sure enough, none of us could resist. An experiment is valid only upon replication, so Ben decided to try repeating things later that evening. He looked at Aunt Amie and, again out of nowhere, burst out with a near flirtatious smile and laugh! There was again a clear tone of “follow me.” Once again, we could not resist.

Now, not only does Ben laugh when we laugh, now he laughs when he wants us to get things started. Wow, little Big Ben, perhaps Dad will remind you of this milestone when you get acquainted with “Candide”. Don’t get there too quick, though, Mae and Dad are not even ready for you to crawl!

Uncle Paulie!!!!

This one is for you. It was warm enough that I could actually wear it.
With love,
Big Ben Kanuut

So happy...

Typical Day

Being a busy guy these days, Ben came up with some routines which work for him pretty nicely. He wakes up around 7 a.m., rolls around or talks in his crib for awhile. The talking works like an alarm for Mae and Dad. He spends a good while playing with Dad, who wakes up first. Then Mom wakes up and gives him some breakfast, which is mostly oatmeal and milk. They play and hang out some more. Then off he goes to his daycare where he spends the next 6-7 hours playing, eating, napping and learning Chinese. He loves being there anyone can just tell and his Mae and Dad couldn't be happier to have found Rita. (Pictures with Rita and her staff to follow soon)






In the evening when Ben gets home, they all hang out or go for a walk and visit the playground. Then Ben has his dinner. His next favorite is bathtime followed by some reading. His current favorite is Eric Carle's "The Lonely Firefly". It's probably 7 p.m. by then when Ben starts being cranky, signaling to Mae and Dad that it's bedtime.



I

The Little Farm

Yesterday, Mae, Dad and I visited Grandma and Grandpa in the Berkeley Hills where they live. We had such beautiful warm weather so they took me out for a little visit to the Little Farm. The Little Farm is located in Tilden Park and features a variety of farm animals including cows, sheep, goats, rabbits, chickens and pigs. Several heritage breeds are preserved here, including Milking Shorthorn Cattle.

I also learned that visitors can only feed lettuce and celery to the animals. Well, I was a little too nervous to feed them, having seen the biggest cow's tongue I have ever seen--it was probably as big as my face. Really!! So I thought I'd just watch this time. Mae was obviously nervous too and she kept steering Dad further away from the cow so he couldn't lick me or accidentally eat my arm. At some point the funny-looking goat came so close trying to get to Grandpa's celery that he spooked me. So I cried. Then I laughed when I saw the piggy bathing in a tub and soaking up the sun. Who wouldn't in this weather, I thought.

So we all had a fantastic time and I can't wait to go back there again. Dad said when I'm bigger, I'll get to ride the Steam Train, do the Pony Ride and the Carousel. Amazingly, all this cool stuff has been around since when Dad was little so he was especially pleased to be able to introduce to me his native Berkeley children's (and adults') classics. I LOVE it!!!