Groovin' and Babblin'

Back in May, my brother bought and sent us an old school boombox so that Emma and my mother could easily play their music.  People, I live with a computer nerd who took away all our CDs after burning the music onto an external hard drive.  Yes, it saves space, but sometimes, I just miss the simplicity of putting in a CD and pushing play, no turning on the computer, no searching for the proper directory, no searching for songs, etc. etc.  And, yes, I know I am a dork and not with the times.  But, do you remember making mix tapes and/or mix CDs?  That, my friends, is a lost art...

Anyways, we keep this boombox in the living room on the floor.  It only took Emma a few days to learn how to operate it and she has been using the thing ever since.  She picks the CD she wants to play from a small CD case, puts it in the player, pushes play, and then starts dancing away.

Here's a video of Emma dancing to a song from her Pororo CD and to Wheels on the Bus.  She *LOVES* her Pororo CD.  I have heard this CD so many times, my head aches just thinking about it.  Let me tell you, Pororo the Little Penguin is like cartoon royalty in Korea (warning! clicking on the link takes you to a site which plays one of the crazy-making songs from the CD).  He is everywhere.  I guess he is like the Elmo of Korea.  Her new favorite song is Wheels on the Bus.  She knows the hand motions that go along with the song.  In the video, you see her looking off to the corner because that is where I am standing, following along with her motions.  You will also see her running over to me a couple of times to make sure I am paying FULL attention to her.  Did I mention she is having some jealousy issues since the arrival of baby Ethan?? 


Emma really loves to sing as well.  She knows quite a few songs, but her favorites to sing are Wheels on the Bus, the Alphabet Song, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Baa Baa Black Sheep (all three of which have the same exact melody, just different words), Are You Sleeping, and three or four other Korean songs. 

I don't know what Ethan makes of all this singing and dancing.  I think sometimes he is just overwhelmed by Emma and all the noise a 2 year old can generate.  Here he is, babbling away after his sister's bedtime, which is really the only time he can get a word in edgewise.

On the Move!

A Phone Call For You

My Dancing Monkey

Emma loves dancing to music.  She loves her little music table, and has figured out how to start the tunes by rolling the rattle feature on it.  She knows when a tune is about to end, so will go over and roll the rattle again to keep the music going.  She is hilarious. 

Unfortunately, we could only get a video of the back of her head.  When she sees the video camera, she is so distracted by it that she stops whatever she is doing and comes over to the camera.  Which is why you get the extreme close up of her at the end of this video - you can tell exactly when she noticed the camera!

First Pool Party

We were invited to our first pool party last Saturday.  We rushed out to get a little swimsuit for Emma's poolside debut.  She did really well.  She clung tightly to husband at first, but then she wanted to splash and play with the water.

An Older Video Unearthed!

So here's an older video I am just getting around to posting.  This is from April 12, about two months ago, which in baby time is like a million years ago. We finally managed to capture on video Emma standing up. She had been pulling herself up to stand for a couple of weeks prior with varied success. Now, a million years later in baby time, she can pull herself up easily and walk if she is able to hold onto something while walking. Her favorite thing to do right now is to hold onto the bars of her playpen and patrol the border by grabbing the rails and walking around the pen.



In the video, you can also partially see the hideous haricut that husband gave her at the end of March. Her bangs were poking her eyes, so he cut those, which came out ok, but what you can't really see is how he went TOTALLY overboard on the sides. Her hairstyle came out with uneven sides, one side much, much shorter than the other, resembling a sort of lopsided Moe from the Three Stooges bowl cut.  Even he fully admitted the error of the cut immediately after he gave it to her. In fairness, it is pretty difficult to cut baby hair. Her hair has finally evened out now, but for a month or so she had a bad hair day, everyday. Poor thing.

Emma Kicks into Overdrive

Look at Emma, kicking into overdrive and trying to break out of her playpen/baby jail:



What was the trigger you might ask?  Do you hear the strange static noise in the background?  It was husband blowing his nose.  Emma does this almost any time she sees husband blow his nose.  Very strange.

Also, for the past month or so, Emma has developed her own sort of baby sign language.  We have not taught her any baby sign language (although I know that is a popular thing these days), but she seems to have created her own.  Whenever she wants to be picked up from her crib, she will start tapping her chest in short bursts.  When she wants to eat something you are eating, she starts to smack her lips and points or reaches to the food.  And recently, within the last two weeks, she has learned the art of :fake crying when she wants something..  She will sometimes even reach up and rub her eye, all drama style, while she tries to get your attention with her fake crying.  It is so amazing to see her learn something new and to witness her process all the surrounding information in her world each day.

Laughing Like a Big Girl

Emma here. Ever since my grandmother moved to San Francisco, things have been great. She loves me a lot, and I love spending my days with her. She makes my mom and dad delicious food every day, and she is teaching me Korean! Check out how happy I am these days. There's some funny lady in the background making weird noises and faces (that's my mom). She thinks I am laughing with her, but really I am laughing at her. Look at my shoulders jiggle when I laugh!

Look At My Moves!

Kung Hay Fat Choi!

EDITED TO ADD VIDEO!

Happy Chinese New Year, everyone!  It's the Year of the Tiger!  And Happy Valentine's Day!  And Happy Half Birthday, Baby Emma!  February 14th is a special day this year.

We visited husband's family in the Central Valley to celebrate the Chinese New Year.  We met other family members at a Chinese restaurant, ate a ton of Chinese food, and then watched as lion dancers pranced through the restaurant.  Emma loved it so much, and smiled and laughed when the lion's head came right up to her and winked.  She bounced on her feet and wriggled around to the drums in her lucky red dress.  But, alas, due to iPhone video camera malfunction, all this was lost on video.  Apple, there is a reason why you and I are not friends.   If only our Flip camera had been with us, but for some reason we left it at home. 

Here is Emma at six months:
 

She just loves sticking out her little tongue now.

She is even graduating to solid foods.  We are starting with simple organic brown rice cereal. 

Her Chewbacca gurgles make me laugh, and I wonder how much of her cereal is actually making it into her tummy.  That huge orange thing in the video is the Boon spoon.  So far, we really like it.   You pour the food into the spoon, give it a sqeeze, and the food squirts out onto the spoon portion.  Easy, fewer spills and less mess to deal with!

Flipping Over

Yesterday, we caught Emma on video flipping herself over.
 
She actually flipped herself over for the first time a couple of days ago, but we missed it.  That day, we placed her on her playmat tummy side down, and turned away for a few seconds, only to turn back around and see her tummy side up, placidly smiling at us.

She is growing up so quickly.  I have such mixed emotions about it.  On one hand, I want her to stay a little baby forever, so small and cute.  On the other hand, I can't wait to see all the fun interactive things she will do with us in the future.  It's exciting and sad all at the same time.

About the video camera - Lance bought the Flip video camera (warning: clicking on this link will take you to the Flip video website which will play music and stuff) a couple of weeks ago.  It is small, really easy to use (meaning even I can use it), and you can edit the videos using free editing programs.  We don't really know what we are doing on the editing programs, but Lance was able to add music to the video in this post, and to take out our ridiculous proud parent exclaimations using free Windows Movie Maker.