Isaac - a couple of firsts

Dear all,

The weather was really beautiful in Tokyo this weekend. Sunny and quite warm! So I took Isaac out on the stroller for his first walk yesterday. So far he has only gone out for medical appointments. The funny thing is, because we never go out, Isaac really does not like being strapped down. So he didn't seem to enjoy his walk that much as he was strapped down by a 5-point harness. He might be a bit unhappy too because I might have dressed him too warmly. In any case, you can see his pouty face on his walk below. Hehe.

Jong and I also went to Toys R Us this weekend. We got a little tricycle for Isaac that we can push him around with a handle. He is still a bit small for it but he is able to sit up by himself while we push it. We put a little cushion in it so there is a bit less room for him to slip through.

I had taken some video of Isaac combat crawling this weekend and I even dressed him up for the video - in his army pants. But something happened when I tried to download the video and its all choppy so I gotta get Jong to fix it before I can post that.

Isaac has been army crawling for a bit over a week now. He is basically a non-stop machine. He is constantly moving around. The moment we put him on the ground on his back, he turns over immediately and tries to crawl away. This makes it quite challenging when we are trying to change his diapers or when I am trying to put his Oximeter probe on his crooked big toe (actually his really tiny crooked big toe). When he crawls, he is really only using his right arm (for some reason he doesn't like to use his left arm for strength) and muscles his way through. It turns out to be quite comical as he looks like a wounded soldier commando crawling. May be I have watched Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers a few too many times in my days (war movies are Jong's favorites). He also tries to stand with our help as much as he can. When we are holding him, he either tries to lean all over the place (seemingly thinking he can get away) or he tries to crawl up on us.

I loaded this video last Thursday but didn't get a chance to upload it on the blog yet. I probably am going to get yelled at by one of Jong's cousins who sternly warned me against showing Isaac any TV at all as its bad for developing his attention (you can even hear me telling Jong we can't post this video - but the video ended up being too cute so I couldn't resist). We only let him watch a little TV each day and we do so because he really is constantly on the move and watching his videos is the only time he calms down and stays still and quiet. Isaac being able to stay still and quiet is beneficial in two ways - one is he breathes really well when he is sitting quietly watching his videos and the second way it helps him is he gets to learn to sit by himself. Most of the time when we try to get him to sit by himself, he topples over as he is trying to lunge forward to reach some toy or he wants to start crawling again so he still isn't sitting very well. Yes, we have a baby who can somehow crawl all over the place but not yet able to sit still by himself that well!



We started to try to feed him some oatmeal cereal this past week. He really liked eating it but his milk intake went down again and his weight gain stalled. So we are going to take giving him solids slower again.

Isaac has a whole bunch of doctor's appointment this week. St. Luke's on Wednesday for his general follow up, Toho on Thursday for his eyes and Dr. Che for his shots on Friday. It will be a busy week for us!

God bless,

Sonia