At playground

Music

Ben loves to sing and dance. He often sings the entire 45 minute drive to his grandparents' from our place up to Berkeley. His favorite songs? "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", "Old Macdonald", "ABC", and "London Bridge is Falling Down." The wording is pretty much made up of random words he knows with hints of the original lyrics every now and then, but the tune is very much recognizable. And he would go on and on. Pretty much no room for KFOG or KQED radio.

With dancing, he used to just kind of bounce around or bob his head back and forth whenever he heard music. He's now advanced a notch, however, to choreograph his own movement. This one we got on video is our favorite. It's his slow dance in which he extends his arms out, palms up with his head slightly tilted sideways. It reminds us of Tai Chi. The laughing at the end is ours, not part of the music or a planned part of the show.

Sweet kiddo

While I was driving home, after having picked him up from daycare, Ben said out of the blue: “Mommy, I you”. “I love you too, Ben Boo!!!!!,” I replied, with a huge smile on my face.

A few days later, "I you" evolved to "I I you."

Happy Birthday Daddy!

This coming Wednesday is Dad's birthday and Little Big Ben helped celebrate by handing Dad a lovely birthday card in the morning and sleeping without a peep at his grandparents' house so Mom and Dad can go celebrate at Fonda.

Ben and Mom think they both are so blessed. Dad is the most wonderful guy. Even with demanding and stressful work, Dad has always put us first. He's also very in tune with Ben from the moment he was born.

Have a happy birthday, Daddy!

We went on our usual morning walk along the canal when Ben noticed a little girl on her tricycle. Not only that, but she came over and said to us “Ni hao”. Ben conversed with her using whatever Chinese vocabulary he had in his repertoire at the time. This includes Zheige (this), Ma-yi (ant), hao (good), gou (dog) then they ran off and played together. Little Big Ben recently started to play very well with kids his age and older. We agree that he’s definitely not shy. Just like a politician, he goes around saying to random passers-by hi, hello, bye. At the playground, he expresses interest in what other kids do and play and is eager to join.

Choo...choo....

Little Big Ben just got a new toy. Hmm...but it’s actually not that new. It’s the train set that used to belong to Dad and his sisters when they were kids. Ben obviously was very excited after having played with just the one Thomas the Train this past few months. Now he has more trains and many tracks. An intricate train track Dad builds would normally last for about 10 minutes before Ben tears it all down…only to be beautifully rebuilt again by Dad. He doesn’t seem to mind. Mom still can’t decide who’s more excited to receive this fun family treasure.

It's now all about the trains in the Taussig household.

Happy hiking

We tried the packpack for the first time to see how it works with Ben. Looks like Little Big Benloves the free ride and the view from up there. So much so that he was singing and wouldn't stop talking the whole hike. Actually the latter semd to be true to most occasion these days. Double B is now unstoppable when it comes to talking!!! Anyway, everyone did well on the hike--especially Dad who had to carry the heavy load. Great job Dad!

How to tell Ben loves Cheerios..

He even said "Cheerio" just perfectly the other day. What a proud moment for Dad!

Petting zoo

We met up with some friends at the zoo down in San Jose back in May. He enjoyed petting the goats and followed some of them around as they walked, ate and or tried to get away from these many little petting strangers.

Ben loves animals and appears to be gentle with them even those in his books. His favorites are dogs, cats and birds. Lately we have been slowed down on our hikes because Ben insists on exploring those tiny ants marching on the ground. "Ma-i" (the word means ant in Mandarin), he shouted with excitement as he aquatted down to watch the marching activity.

Little helper

Ben loves pressing those buttons on the washer and dryer. That's the reward for helping out with the laundry.



And the sounds of the vacuum cleaner didn't seem to bother him.

Now that the house chores are done, we can all head out to the park. Yay!!!

This is how one enjoys noodles!

At least according to Ben. See it for yourself.

Chatterbox

Ben has a lot on his mind these days. Last night, he woke up at 3 a.m. and was just there first in his crib and later in our bed chatting away for an hour. Now this is unusual because he has been sleeping through the night pretty much every night for a while now. It reminded us of the few nights after we came back from Bangkok when Ben, jetlagged at the time, would wake up in the middle of the night to play.

We have noticed that he's been extremely talkative the past couple weeks. He can repeat most simple words we say to him. This week he constantly says daddy, mamy, mae, bye-bye, ai-o (for hello) yummy. 'guk'--one of his very first words--remains his favorite, which he uses to refer to dog. From time to time, he says doggy but not dog. So perhaps he needs that extra chat time? Who knows.

Also he has been spending a lot of time on the phone lately. It's cool that he can now seamlessly handle the phone. He used to put it in the back of his head, turned over or upside down. Now looks like he did get the phone skill down. Check out Ben talking on his toy cell phone.

Spoon work

Double B decided that he's now a big boy and needs to be able to eat on his own. He has been insisting that he use proper utensil while he's at a dining table. Starting with using a spoon, he is totally excited and proud that he now can use the spoon and actually get the food in his mouth. Up till now, it's been kind of hit and miss. Sometimes he managed to get food in his mouth, other times and a lot of times, it ended up on the floor, on his face, his shirt, his lap etc. Mom still does some intervention (of spoon feeding) to make sure that Double B gets enough food. But he's pretty psyched with this newly-mastered skill. Note that he uses his left hand in this video. On other occasions, he's as good with his right hand. So no strong indication yet as to his left vs right hand preference.

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..