family, woodworking, photography, K-pop
The hits kept on coming all weekend; it was so much fun to spend time with family members we hadn’t seen in so long. As predicted, E loved hanging out with his cousins. Every morning when he woke up the first thing he wanted to know was where his cousins were. Things were so busy that unfortunately I didn’t take many pictures but we did manage to snap a couple to document a few firsts:
Mimi’s first Fourth of July
E’s first sparklerEven though I’ve lived in Utah for a number of years now I was still surprised when we got three inches of snow earlier this week. (Bleh.) Last year E was too small to really care about the snow but this week he was excited to go outside and explore.
E’s plucky, can-do attitude lasted all of about 30 seconds…
…or the amount of time it took him to trip and plant his hands in the frozen snow.(I know, I know–he needs mittens and a new coat. But cut me some slack; I had naively thought I had until November to get them.)
My older brother Steven has some developmental disabilities and consequently lives with my parents. Last week my mom went to Korea to visit relatives and so Steven came to stay with us for a few weeks while she’s away.
On Saturday I took E and Steven to the state fair (fortunately one without an insane escaped killer on the loose). We rode some rides, walked through the midway, and petted the livestock. E loves rides and went nuts when we rode the ferris wheel and carousel. The weather was quite hot so after a while he kind of wilted, but overall he had a lot of fun.
I bought this sprinkler quite a while ago (before our trip to Seattle, in fact) but never got around to setting it up for E to play in. But over the weekend we remedied that situation. E had a blast.
We’ve been having some pretty unusual (for Utah) weather lately: we’ve had rain and/or a thunderstorm almost every day for the last week and a half. I’ve kind of enjoyed it but it has put a damper on taking E around outside.
So when the weather was nice on Friday and Miranda called about going to the zoo we jumped at the chance. Jan, her boys, and my mom and Steven also thought it sounded like fun and they ended up coming too. Half of Salt Lake also showed up; it was super crowded.
But it was really fun. For E the highlights were attending the bird show (I highly recommend it.) and riding the carousel and little train.
E and me on the carousel and my brother Steven in the background.
Us on the train ride. I know he looks terrified, but he was just startled by some overgrown branches that whipped out at us. He actually really enjoyed the ride and kept saying “choo, choo!”
After a while E zonked out in his stroller.It was a fun day but was definitely a bit of an outing. The zoo is kind of far from our house to go regularly but I’d like to take E back at least one more time this summer when N can come with us.
E and I drove to the airport yesterday and picked up Gwyn and her baby. E was pretty tired by the time we got home and was being kind of fussy. As soon as I took him out of his car seat he ran out of the garage and towards the street. I grabbed him by the hand and was walking him back to the house when he tripped and fell and smacked his mouth against the concrete. And then he started to bleed a lot.
It was really sad. I kept trying to look inside his mouth to see where the blood was coming from and he kept trying to swat my hands away. I was worried that one of his teeth had been knocked out. The blood was pooling in his mouth and running out the sides and he was rubbing it all over his face. He looked pretty gory. I held him against my shoulder as he sobbed and he got tears and blood all over my shirt.
He was inconsolable until he spotted the jar of jelly beans on the counter. As soon as I gave him one he started to calm down. Three jelly beans later, things were solidly on the way to being right with the world.
It turned out that he had cut the little flap of skin that attaches the inside of his lip to his gums. It bled a lot but seems to be okay now. Poor little guy.
On the bright side, E really likes having his little cousin S around. E keeps gently patting S on the head. It’s cute. I’ll try and get some pictures of the two of them together this weekend.
We’ve had two snow storms in a row this week. Yesterday’s was quite impressive. This morning I took E out for his first experience in the snow.
He quickly went from rather amused…
…to apprehensive…
…to decidedly unhappy about the situation.
And it all happened within a quick two minutes, which was considerably less time than it took to wrangle him into his snowsuit.
The only reason he even has a snowsuit (which I discovered are shockingly expensive) is that I saw one for 60% off the day after Thanksgiving. Hopefully E will get over his lackluster feelings towards snow and we’ll actually get a bit of use out of it this winter. But I don’t really blame him; I’d rather be inside too.
E has needed a haircut for at least a couple of months. But N and I both thought his hair was really cute and so we’ve been putting it off. I loved the way his shaggy baby hair fell over his ears and across his forehead–so cute! But then E’s bangs got too long and started getting into his eyes and bothering him. I was too chicken to cut it myself and so on Saturday we too him to one of those places that specializes in haircuts for kids.
Even though he was tired, E was a trooper. He sat in a little toy police car (which, when I strapped him in I noticed had a surprisingly low back to it …more on this later) and didn’t cry while the stylist wet down his hair and went at it with scissors. He did start to get a little fussy but then the stylist gave him a lollipop which kept him pretty distracted. The only time he got really freaked out was when he decided to fling himself backwards out of his seat. He almost fell but was saved by his seat belt. It took a little bit of work to calm him down after that but we did and the stylist finished up. It was pretty awesome to watch her work so quickly and so well with such a squirmy client.
I think the results turned out pretty well. I know it’s not a huge difference, but E suddenly looks older to me: more toddler than baby. *Sigh.* When did he get so big?
Not actually photos from a belated birthday but belated pictures from a birthday. (You know, just in case you were wondering…ahem. Carry on.)
The hat, predictably, did not stay on for long.
E’s cousins were more obliging about the hat-wearing.
E in the traditional hanbok my aunt in Korea sent him.
And the requisite shot of the birthday boy eating (vegan) cake.
E turns one year old today. I made a photo slideshow to celebrate the first year of his life. I was going to post his month 12 letter as well but it took me entirely too long to get the video together. So that will be another post.
Just FYI, there’s something wrong with the aspect ratio and so the photos look a little smooshed. I’m posting it as is because I’ve spent over an hour on it already and still don’t know how to fix it.
Music: “Everything will be alright” by Andy Partridge (of XTC)
