Sometimes it just clicks

So we annouced kaitlyns first steps... but for a number of weeks she really didn't walk much. A step or two here and there, but not really walking. Until about 20 mins ago. Hitomi and I were discussing what time we should start kaitlyns bed time routine. Hitomi was in the kitchen and I was in the living room watching kaitlyn. She was doing her usual cruising around the couch and ottoman when all of a sudden she let got of the couch and the ottoman and walked to the end of the couch to her baby einstien. At least 5 consecutive steps!

Hitomi and I were floored and were cheering her on like crazy. So she decided to walk some more and more and more.

By the end of it she was walking from the couch to the end of the dining area. 18 steps! she even made some turns into the kitchen. She also able to stop mid way and gently go into a crawl!

We managed to capture some of this on camera, but all of the longer walks required both of us to spot her (she moves quick!)

First Steps, crawling, copycats, daycare and poo

So in the past month or so Kaitlyn has done a number of things.

First Steps
She took her first steps... She's had been cruising around furniture and walls for quite some time and had gotten to the point where hitomi and I could sit a foot or so apart and she'd fall/stumble 2 or 3 steps to our outreached arms. She thought this was hilarious and would laugh like crazy as we caught her.

Then one day a Hitomi's parents place she started standing on her own. She had also been doing this for awhile and was also make a great game of it. To the point where she'd respond to "Kaitlyn No hands!!" (followed by an arms up gesture) she'd mimic that and let go of whatever she was holding onto and make fun squealling noises as she attempted to balance herself.

Anyhoo, so she was practising standing and had progress to dancing at the same time when she took 2 or 3 very deliberate steps. Hitomi said that they were very different to her stubling steps.

We haven't seen her take deliberate steps again, but now she's cruising around at breakneck speeds and can walk with you quite confidently while just holding 1 hand. Actually just this weekend it progressed to her holding onto your finger, rather than you holding her hand.

So I think we are calling the age at which kaitlyn first walked to be at 10 1/2 months and she walked for... um dancing? LOL

Crawling
Funnily enough, the same day that Kaitlyn took her first steps she started crawling. Previous to this kaitlyn just did the tummy drag thing. We were concerned that she'd skip crawling and just start walking. But now she barely tummy surfs and instead crawls to a nearby wall or piece of furniture and walks the rest of the way... LOL

Poops
Something that we may have forgotton to mention is that we now catch around 50% of kaitlyns poo in the toilet. She usually gives us fair warning that one is on the way. When we see this its a mad rush to the bathroom. Usually the excitement of us rushing around makes her back off a tad... sometimes not. We then sit her on her little toilet seat and tell her to push (along with scrunched up faces) she usually copies us and we've been praising her like crazy when she gets it right. However we are worried we are about to loose 2 months of work because of ....

Daycare
So kaitlyn has been to her two test daycare days. She starts this week on fulltime daycare. So far the results are good, she likes her daycarer (teacher? carer?) and seems to cry less than the 3 other kids there.

We have kaitlyn in Family Daycare (a registered daycare run out of someones home) and not in the Capilano College Group Daycare. I'm not uber happy about using family daycare, but we got screwed by Capilano College group daycare and didn't find out until a 2 months ago (which is way too late to get into a decent group daycare facility) Grrr!

However kaitlyn seems happy and always wants to play with the other kids there. The other kids are all 2 year olds and there is 1 girl and 2 boys. Her Daycarer was surprised how easily kaitlyn would go and want to play with the other kids.

So yeah kaitlyn is really growing up. She's showing us that she learns quickly, is socialiable and loves to have fun. Yeah.... she's a pretty cool kid.

Weigh in update

So Kaitlyn is still a small kid. At 10 months old she only wieghs 7.4kg (16.3lbs) which puts her in the 5th percentile for weight. Height wise she is 69cm (27in) tall which puts her in the 15th - 20th percentile for height.

We are not too concerned (as our Dr is not concerned) and I think it's because
a) we are asian and these charts are generally for caucasian babies

b) kaitlyn is really active. Always wriggling, crawling/dragging her self everywhere and walking (with assistance) when ever she can.

Just last night she chased me around our Ottoman for a good 10 mins. She also a really good eater. Honestly the amount of food that she consumes is amazing.

So pehaps she's going to be one of those girls who is petite and can eat anything they want... i was kinda like that (except I wasn't a girl, LOL) until i stopped growing... around the same time I started uni. Well the rest is history (and a spare tire and man boobs)

First words

So just this sunday morning past kaitlyn said her first word. She's been playing with sounds alot lately. She's started with dadadaada and then bababababa then moved onto mumumumumum. However none of it was on context.

for a couple of weeks we've been wondering if she's been saying elsa. However it sounded like "elda" or sometimes we think she'd call elsa Eh!

However on sunday morning the word elsa came out clear as day. It wasn't an elda, it was definitely a very cute high pitched "elsa!" It was in context as well as elsa had just walked by and grabbed her attention.

Later that morning we realized that she might think that all dogs are elsa as hitomi was holding her near the fridge. On the fridge we have a dog calendar. She reached forward to the calendar and said "elsa" again.

Though again we are not sure that she can recognize dogs from other furry animals, so perhaps all small furry things are elsa.

Anyhoo we are definitely calling "elsa" her first word :)

Weigh-in Update!

June 24, 2009 (Almost 9 months!)

Kaitlyn is now dragging forward and backward, can stand up if she's holding onto something, and has her favourite TV shows - Ni hao Kai-lan, The Backyardigans, Quintet (Japanese).

Her weight: 7.1 kg
Her height: 67 cm

She's definitely growing taller, but hasn't gained that much weight since the last doctor's visit.
The doctor has advised that we give her more protein in her diet, so we will be adding chicken, turkey, cooked egg yolk, yogurt and more avocado to her meals!

She's very active when she's awake, so she's needing more fuel I guess?

Asa - chan

From Kaitlyn

Kaitlyn is really changing lately. She's sitting up by herself, is very vocal and is generally a bundle of fun.

I can definitely say she is really turning into a kid now. Often when we are holding her she flops around like a restless kid. She's just started to roll towards things. Just the other day Hitomi witnessed her roll a good 2 feet to reach out and touch Elsa. Which caught elsa off guard, as I guess she didn't think she was capable of it.

Just the other day Hitomi discovered that she knows how to greet people. If you wave at her and say "Hi" she'll make a happy noise back, almost without fail. It doesn't seem to work if you don't wave at her or use a word or tone that doesn't sound like a greeting.

We've been slack but we do have a couple of photo new photos in out picasa web gallery.

6-Month Weigh-in

Here are Kaitlyn's stats as of March 25, 2009:

Weight: 6.87 kg
Height: 62 cm
Head size: 42.5 cm

Since the last blog entry, let me see if I can update what she's been up to...

She's started to roll over onto her stomach, although she can't roll back and she doesn't like to be on her stomach for a long time.

She's started eating solids once a day with milk. We've started her with rice and a few veggies so far - puréed of course.

She can sit up on her own, but we do have to spot her as she does fall over still

She likes to try and feed herself, so when we feed her, we give her another spoon she can hold onto and she can pretend to feed herself.

She's also giggling more. It takes quite an effort from us to get a giggle out of her though!

She also has been going to sleep about 10 pm and waking up about 7:30 am - 8:00 am! She's been sleeping through the night more or less, but recently with some uncomfortableness in her tummy, she's been waking up in the middle of the night. Hopefully that will soon pass.

She also moved on from the baby bathtub to the big (or normal) bathtub in our washroom. She has a bath almost every night with her daddy. She loves sitting in the tub and relaxing. We will have to take her to an onsen (hot springs) the next time we're in Japan!

I think that's all the updates I have for now!

Weigh-in Update!

Just wanted to blog the new weigh-in for Kaitlyn as she went to the doctor's today to get her 4-month shots.

Weight: 5.83 kg
Height: 59 cm
Head :41 cm

The doctor said her size is average for her age. I was glad to hear that she was growing in height as well.

On a side note, as I was about to move her from the bed to the scale at the doctor's office, she peed all over me as well as the bed and the floor. I just changed her so I wasn't expecting that at all! The doctor said, "Don't worry, it's sterile!" ...Yes, I know that, but it was still a shock to have so much pee on me. Good thing my sister was there with me! So we then spent the next few minutes wiping up all the mess and soaking up as much pee from my sweater as possible with paper towels...I can't believe how much liquid she can hold in that tiny little body!

Mum's Journal

One of the cooler things that my mum brought with her was a diary that she kept while she was pregnant with me and made regular entries in until I was a bit over a year old. Very interesting read. Most interesting were her observations and predictions of who I was going to be. I have to say from a fairly early age she picked up on certain personality traits that still I possess Self fulling prophecy perhaps? Who knows.

So it might be an interesting thing to do the same for Kaitlyn. I guess this weblog is a modern version of my mum's journal. So we are halfway there. What about observations into the future? hmmm give me a shot.

Right now Kaitlyn can be demanding. If she doesn't get what she wants she'll let you know. I guess it kinda started with me lifting her up in the air. She loved it so much that she came up with a way to communicate it, she would lift up her shoulders while pushing her arms out and down, at the same time she'd try and stand on her tippy toes. While doing all of this she'd move like she was shivering and give out a grunt/squeal.

Yeah it's pretty cute. Anyhoo if you ignore her request to lift her up above your head her movements get more distincts and her grunt/squeal changes to a grizzle. Ignore her more and she'll cry.

Now her actions for pick me up over your head are used to communicate that whatever you have her currently doing is not what she wants to do. Or that there is something over there that I'm interested in, and you're not taking me to it.

So I'm prepared for lots of "But please daddy, I want an umpa loompa too" and plenty of tantrums when she doesn't get her way.

Another observation is how easily she gets frustrated. Over the past month or so she's taken an interest in my t-shirts. I have many funky (well I think so) t-shirts, most of which have an interesting pattern or logo around the chest area.

Kaitlyn usually notices these logo's when we are sitting on the couch and she's sitting or standing on my lap looking at me. You can really see it. Her eye's drift from my face, down towards my chest. Then her eyes widen.

Usually it's followed by her reaching down to touch the logo/pattern. Then she tries to pick it up, which of course results in failure. She keep grasping at it though, usually to the point of frustration. Even as she cries in frustration she's tries to grasp at the t-shirt. Persistence I guess

So I guess that tells me that she gets frustrated easily or that she gets so focused on a task that she doesn't know when to walk away.

Kaitlyn like most kids seems to be a fan of fun. Right now things she deems are fun are flying/being lifted above your head, bouncing up and down, doing a body slam (when lying on her back her feet go straight up and are then slammed down hard on the ground), sitting up, standing up and practising walking. Kaitlyn seems to know when you have come to play with her, as first her eyes light up and seem to smile, then the mouth catches on and it too smiles.

So perhaps Kaitlyn is going to be like me, motivated by fun? Who knows i think most kids are motivated by fun.

So my Mum has left

My mum left the other day... it was sad to see her go. She was here for 5 weeks, but it went so fast. Unfortunately the snow kept my mum in for the first half of her stay and when we did get out it was for xmas and new years events.

But I think it's safe to say that my mum didn't mind being snowed in too much as she got to hang out and get to know Kaitlyn.

Kaitlyn has changed much in the past month or so. She went through a really talkative stage, but right now she doesn't talk so much, she's into her "reaching out grabbing and shoving it into her mouth" stage.

The funniest thing that she grabbed and ate was Elsa. Elsa was nervously tolerating a kaitlyn pat. Which is more like ear pulling and head slapping, when kaitlyn leaned forward over elsa and put her in a headlock with 1 arm, grabbed a chunk of fur on elsa's back with another arm and plunged her face into elsa neck. Elsa looks like she was ready to bolt, but she stayed and endured yet another head lock and neck biting.

After kaitlyn let go the 2nd time, elsa took off, complete with a rather wet neck. Actually i was surprised that kaitlyn did it twice. I let her do it because i thought she wouldn't like it (and perhaps not do it again).... oh well sorry else, there looks to be many neck attacks in your future!

There has been much footage and photo's of kaitlyn recently, so I'll be updating our photo album soon. However for now here's a video of Kaitlyn saying "Hi!" She does that every now and then. She copies some of the sounds we make, most notably is Hi. Sometimes after we say "hi" to her you can hear he huffing like she's practising her H's and every now and then a full "Hi" slips out. this time we were lucky and had the camera on.

Zi6

From Kaitlyn

So we have bought ourselves a High def video camera. It's in the new pda / star trek communicator / cell phone form factor. Meaning that it is small, and to my surprise I bought a kodak. I bought the Kodak Zi6 . I bought the unit from my favourite home electronics store london drugs, who happily price matched future shops sale price.

It records to an SDHC card and can record at 720p and upto 60 fps. It runs on convienient AA batteries and comes with kodak branded eneloops and a charger. Which is nice. Above and the video after it are from the new camera. Picasa web albums uses google videos which allows you to show hi(er) def videos, remember the original video is 720p so what you see is no-where near the quality of the camera.

The only down points to the camera are a lack of zoom and fixed focus. But this is a point and shoot version of a video camera, and at around $170 CAD you cannot compare it to the $600 - $900 hd camera. The only annoying fault is it's performance in low light. Instead of giving grainy but smooth video, the camera automatically increases the exposure time which in turn decreases the frame rate. The result, a not so grainy, but blurry and jerky low light video. Rumor has it a firmware update should fix this (or at least give the option to not alter the framerate) but I've yet to see this magical firmware update.

However this is leaps and bounds better than the video you get on an iPhone or any other point and shoot still camera and the form factor (which was the main reason we chose it) right now I believe you can't get much more bang for your buck.

So now I need to buy the Apple iLife pack so I can use iMovie.

Things are explained

So it turns out that the police were attempting to block in a stolen car in the mcdonalds drive through. They tried to bust through the police block, shots were fired, the female passenger was hit in the shoulder (nothing serious, she has since been released and put back into custody). Her and 4 other people were arrested.

So now that I think of the scene from last night. There was one police cruiser in the drive through. I guess they were behind the silver car and ran the plates. I presumes that another cruiser tried to box them in. And they may have rammed it to get out.

I did notice that the silver car's license plate was dangling off the front bumper. That probably scared the shit out of the officer attempting to block them in. So he fired, Hitting the girl as the car sped away.... I assume the people then realized she was hit and decided that it was no longer play time.

That would explain the traffic cones they were putting down. That was probably where the shots were fired from, and where the car rammed the other cruiser.

edit: many local papers are now carrying the story. It seems like the police stumbled upon the car in the mcdonalds drive through and that the officer ran the plates to find that the plates were stolen. The car later also turned out to be stolen.

From the reports it looks like the police pulled in behind the white acura (in the drive through) while another cruiser blocked the exit to the drive through. The car reverse rammed the cruiser behind, just as the officer in front got out of his car to question the driver. The driver then repeatedly rammed the cruiser blocking the exit, succesfully pushing it out of the way. Aparently this is when the officers started shooting at the driver (from the front of the car). They missed, but the driver stopped the car and fled on foot, just 30 m from the drive through exit.

He was later found by a police dog, hiding in a nearby backyard. Holy crap! What a guy he left 4 passengers behind in the car, one, a female who was injured.

Sorry for harping on about this so much, it's kinda hard to think about anything else today,

Things that go bang in the night

So we were just awoken by gunshots.

Initially we all thought it was kids and fire crackers which is not that unusual for where we live. But the gunshots (I think I heard 3, in rapid succession) were followed by lots and lots of shouting and a lot of police sirens.

I got up to see two police cars screaming towards the near by mcdonalds. I got up to investigate and noticed that there were many flashing lights coming from the mcdonalds. Then I heard a loud very distinct voice saying.

"Come out with your hands up"

Holy crap something big was going down.

I ran and grabbed hitomi and they joined me watching the scene below unfold.

Police cars continued to stream in. Right now I count at least 7 within my view and I know there are at least 5 or so more that I are obscured by buildings.

From our vantage point we could see that there was a silver or white sedan (looks like a large honda or mazda sedan) and at least 3 or 4 police officers had their weapons drawn and were surrounding it from a distance.

Hitomi and my mum saw people crawling on the ground towards the police and hitomi thought she saw a girl with her hands up walking towards the police.

I distinctively heard, ".... with your hands and knees on the ground... and you won't get hurt...."

I saw at least one guy in a white tracksuit crawling on the ground.

At one point a paramedic SUV came up near us and was kinda creeping up behind the police lines. which was accompanied by much shouting "Get back, get back, get the hell back" to which the paramedic quickly complied.

After we presume all the people crawled out of the car, we the officers approach and check the car. They all looked super wary, their guns all drawn, slowly inching their way towards the car.

Then at least 5 of them gathered at the back of the vehicle, guns all drawn. they popped the trunk, cleared the trunk and then most turned away and headed back towards the mcdonalds. I guess the situation was secured. Though even now a good 45 mins after, there are at least 4 police cars that I can see, and they have still closed off the road and there is police tape across the mcdonalds entrances.

I wonder what happened? the police were very fast to respond. Almost like at least 1 unit was there at the time of the first gunshots. I hope no-one was shot... I have no idea how I'm going to sleep tonight.

Update: so I went downstairs for a closer peak as most of the police cars had seemed to leave. I watch police officers searching with their flashlights for something on the ground and then put a traffic cone over anything they found. (noticed that only 1 officer had an LED light and it was sooo much brighter than the others) I assume that they were bullet casings. anyhoo I counted at least 9 traffic cones. So I guess that means at least 9 shots?

Not sure what happened but it seems like the they are in a straight line from the mcdonalds entrace to a car parked right opposite. With a large number of them to the side of the car? kinda like someone ran from the car towards the mcdonald firing. Or someone shot at the silver car from the mcdonalds entrance and ran across the car park to the parked car and used it as cover to fire more shots.

The first news crew has just turned up. I think it's city TV. just a lone camera man.

Stolen parking spot

Warning Rant ahead

Okay you've been forwarned. I'm about to rant. I normally don't rant about a stolen parking spot, especially if we are talking about an unassigned parking spot on the street. However if it takes you around an hour to dig the snow out of a parking spot and then have someone steal it, then I think it justifies the rant.

So i had done just that, last sunday I dug for an hour in the snow to clear a spot for my car. I successfully retained the spot sunday and monday night (even had to dig myself out on monday morning) however on tuesday night I arrived home to find a huge pickup truck parked in my hard worked for spot.

So I went inside, grabbed the shovel, created a not so pleasant note and went outside to dig myself a new spot.

I chose to dig my new spot behind my old spot (as no-one was parked there). So after leaving my note on the drivers windsheild I began to dig.... in the pouring rain. Did I mention that? that it was really and I mean REALLY raining at the time.

Part way through I got angry... the sort of angry reserved for needlessly digging a new parking spot in the pouring rain. then a thought occurred to me. Screw this guy I'm gonna dig him in.

The jerk had parked with his nose right up against the bank of snow made from my previous efforts, so I happily dumped all of the snow from my new spot right behind him. So now he had no room to get out of his stolen spot.

It may be small minded of me, but it felt good. Good to know that this jerk because of his laziness of not digging would have to dig himself out in the morning... hopefully when he was in a hurry to get out of work.

Anyhoo I got to meet the self centered jerkoff the next morning. So I expressed my disapointment. He claimed to have been using this spot prior to me and claimed that I was lying about digging it out. dickhead! anyhoo I left before he realised that his car was not easily accessible. We'll have to see wait what the consequences are.