Mason's eyes - recent trip to HK

Mason and I went to Hong Kong this past Sunday and got back last night. We went for his second visit to the pediatric ophthalmologist. Basically he's still got the problem, (right eye crossing most of the time) but it is a little better. It's hard to tell whether the glasses and patching thirty minutes a day are going to "solve" the problem and the doctor said there is still a good chance he'll need surgery. This particular doctor prefers to wait until the child is 18 months to do the surgery. We will most likely go back in two months and at that time Mason will need to have a deeper examination of his eyes which will require him to be sedated as well as to have had special prescription eye drops started three days before. We got the drops this time so we'll be able to give them to Mason ourselves before heading to HK.

Here are a couple pictures from our trip

In the airport on the way there, Mason got some attention from this man waving his boarding pass around for Mason to play with

Here is the very nice doctor that is seeing Mason for his eye problem. Dr. Christopher Yu (speaks perfect English and is a member of the American Board of Pediatric Ophthalmologists)

In Hong Kong, we traveled everywhere by the subway system called the "MTR" - it's really awesome except for the places that don't have elevators or escalators up to ground level when you're carrying a stroller. At least Mason only weighs around 8.2kgs (around 18 pounds)

In the aiport on the way back, Mason was a hit in the waiting area by our gate. This mom REALLY wanted a picture of Mason with her son, but her son was not about to sit by Mason by himself (is he that scary looking?! :) ) So finally she asked if she could hold Mason with her son to get the picture.

It was a quick trip but went pretty smoothly. I didn't take the stroller last time but I am SO glad I did this time. It totally saved my back!

Please continue to lift up Mason and his eyes. We know Father will continue to glorify Himself through this.

Open House at Reister's School

Last Wednesday was "Open House" at Reister's preschool - parents were invited to come for the morning to see what a typical morning is like. Micah went for about 30 minutes and I stayed the whole time. Here's the basic order of things (I may have forgotten something since it's been a week already):

8:30-9 Students arrive

Morning exercises / dancing

Potty

Snack (Reister is pouring milk - it's part of the curriculum for the students to learn basic skills like that)

Storytime activity

Potty

Craft

Playground

Potty
Song and Dance Time

11:30am Lunch

Then they have naptime, but for students that only stay half day like Reister, parents come to pick up the kids after lunch

First Egg Hunt

Sorry this is almost a week late, but I wanted to post pictures from Reister's first egg hunt. Some other American friends down the street organized a hunt so we got to go! It was really funny - Reister picked up almost all yellow colored eggs. You can kind of see them in the picture below. A mother asked me if he was color blind - which I'm almost positive he's not because he knows his colors.

We were trying our best to get a picture of the brothers in their matching Target shirts. This is the best we could do...

Reister ate a LOT of his candy right after the hunt sitting here on the ground. Later that day he started yelling and saying his tummy hurt (wonder why!?)

Couple of Cute Ones

I just wanted to post these two cuz I thought they were cute...

I went in to get Reister up from his nap one day and I found him surrounded by his books.

Mason enjoyed sitting in the toy basket for a little bit one day.

Potty Training (beware of 'potty talk')

I tried to start potty training with Reister last month while Micah was traveling and it didn't go over very well. So I decided to stop and wait a couple weeks before trying again. We picked it back up again on Saturday and although it was a slow start, he's been doing really well the last couple days.

* Sticker Chart - we've been using a chart that came with a Sesame Street coloring book. It included a sheet of stickers and he gets one each time he goes on the potty. We're filling up the chart! Also we've been doing a small prize every 5 stickers. (But we'll probably stop that now that he's getting the hang of it) BTW, he did go some Sunday, we just were out a lot of it, so we didn't do stickers.

At first I had to ask him every so often if he needed to go (I paid attention to when he had had a lot to drink) and even make him sit on the potty for extended periods of time until he went. But now he is going to the potty himself when he needs to go.

He went to pre-school on Tuesday and went once there. But yesterday he had two accidents at school. They only have child sized urinals or a long "trough" for squatting over in the boys restroom. He's still not too comfortable standing up to pee so the teacher said he wanted to squat to go on Tuesday.

Tuesday afternoon we went to play with some friends outside at a playground. I know this is inappropriate in America, but it's extremely common here (with the split pants) - when I thought he had to go, I held him in front of some bushes and he went (#1).

The major accomplishment is no accidents-especially while we're out (except for at school yesterday) for the last 2 1/2 days!

#2 (this is why I put the potty talk warning - but those of you who have potty trained can get excited with me about this!) Last night I knew he needed to go #2 because he hadn't gone all day. We kept encouraging him to try and he wasn't going so we pr*yed with him and asked JC to help him go poo-poo. Less than 15 minutes later, he went (on his own!).

"Manna Poo" - I'm so sorry if this is TMI (too much information) but I thought it was hilarious. Just now, I put Reister down for his afternoon nap. knowing that he might need to go while he was in his room, I put his potty inside his room and told him if he needed to go, he could. He yelled at me once that he went pee and then I heard him yelling about going poo. He kept saying "I did a 'manna' poo!" I was really curious as to what he meant so I opened the door and sure enough he had gone #2. I think he was really impressed with himself (being one of the first times he's done it in a toilet) and he was telling me he did a "banana poop" (you can use your imagination on that one :) Ha ha ha!

Double-Tasking - why not make music while we potty!?

Micah and I are both so proud of him. I am amazed at how well he's learned and already feel like he's so much more grown up now that he can go to the potty himself! If it continues to go well, I know we should be really grateful it wasn't harder. I know it can be a real frustrating experience. Maybe Mason will be harder...

Mason's learning to crawl

Our Little Tumbler

I'm not sure why there is no sound... but we were having a great time tonight with Reister - if you could hear him, he would be telling you that he's going to do a "sommersauce" :)

Brothers at Bathtime

Mason is 9 months

I decided to take some without his glasses so you all could see him in his "natural" cuteness!

I can't believe he still has his blue eyes and blond hair! I never imagined I would have a blond haired and blue eyed kid!

Mason is almost crawling - he can drag himself around on his stomach, not yet on his knees though. He can feed himself small bits of food and Gerber stars (which he likes a lot). He loves to eat, he's still nursing 4-5 times a day. He is a very happy baby and can say "ba ba ba" and some other babble. He can do some sign language (which is amazing to me because Reister didn't start signing till he was around a year). He sometimes waves bye-bye, signs "more" and has imitated some other signs when I have done them. He loves watching Reister play, loves when anyone focuses on him and plays with him. He loves music and will "dance" often when he hears it. He has a V-tech toy piano that has a small mic attached to it and he can "sing" into it. That really surprised me that he knew what to do - to make noise while putting his mouth on it!

We love Mason and he is such a joyful part of our family. We thank our Father for giving us him as a precious gift and for forming and making him such a special little boy.

Fun at School

On Friday last week I stayed a little longer when I took Reister to school. They headed up to the roof of the school for their outdoor playtime. The children were doing a mini-obstacle course. Reister didn't really follow it too well but some of the other kids were doing pretty good.

Teacher Yong (the one in the last post about school) I think she's the head teacher in his class

Teacher (?) I need to find out her name! She's not one of the main teachers in Reister's class so I'm not as familiar with her

Teacher Wu

Teacher Wen

This is Ya Ya - she is really cute and always very curious. She asks me a lot of questions, like where we live, whether Reister can speak Chinese, etc.

Going to see the Pandas!

We went to see the pandas at the panda research base last Thursday with our friend Jason and his daughter, Hannah Grace. They came in town specifically to go see them for her birthday present!

This sign was just inside - I was slightly appalled that the last verse of this quote was left off. But I guess that's the way things go here...

All these things and creatures just appeared, huh?

This was our favorite panda! He was just chillin, munching on bamboo. He kept peeling the sticks of bamboo and just going to town. We stood there watching him for quite a while. He resembles Po from Kung-Fu Panda, huh?

Family pic (can't really see Mason that well)

Here's Hannah Grace, who actually got to hold a baby panda (for a 'donation' of course)

Since you couldn't see Mason that well in the family pic, here are a couple of him with us. He has become such a HAPPY baby!

How sweet is his grin here?

Reister's teacher

Reister is going to a local preschool across from our apartment complex 3-4 mornings a week from 8:30-11:45am. He's liking it and enjoys playing with the toys and other kids. Here he is with one of his teachers - he has four - with his classroom in the background. For those of you in the US, is her attire typical for a preschool teacher in America? :)

Look alikes?

A lot of people ask if I we think Mason and Reister look alike. Here's Reister and Mason both about 8 months. What do you think?

Here's another of Reister in the walker he had also around 8 months

Brother Talk

Reister: "Mason, you know, I'm the big brother and you have to do whatever I tell you."


Mason: "Ha ha You're dreamin', bubba, I'm the baby with the cute glasses - I can get away with whatever I want."


Reister: "Hey, no, you're the 'WITTLE' brother. I'm the big brother and what I say goes."


Reister: "Oh... Mom were you sitting there the whole time? Just kidding :) "


Actually Reister doesn't try to "boss" Mason around too much. He just takes toys out of his hands, but he's getting better about giving him new ones if he does that. He does try to boss around other kids his age. Mainly he just wants them to do whatever he's doing but the other kids are still in the "I'll play beside you, not with you stage" so he gets ignored a lot. We're trying to help him understand that he can ask if they want to go with him or do what he's doing but they can also decline.
Mason loves just watching his big brother and often gets really tickled and starts laughing at him when he's running around or dancing or whatever. You can tell Mason is really going to look up to Reister and want to be just like him. That makes me really happy too, because I think Reister is a really stellar kid. He's got a sweet heart and I'm starting to see that he's not really at all exhibiting much "terrible two's" behavior. He is overall really pretty obedient and is getting more and more so and will listen to reason or explanation sometimes more than I expect him to. I really love being his and Mason's mom.

My Little Pirate

Here's Mason sporting his patch - two different days. He really hates wearing it - I'm so glad it's just for 30 minutes a day. It's hard to tell if it's really helping any but we're doing it consistently to at least try! As you can see from the pictures, he's sitting up on his own really well. He can lean forward to grab toys that have gotten out of his reach. But he can't get to the sitting position on his own yet. He still doesn't like to be on his tummy for too long but can roll from front to back and back to front (more easily). But he has gotten into a habit of sleeping on his stomach. I stopped swaddling him when I took him to Hong Kong and forgot his blanket. He is still not sleeping through the night consistently. Every several nights we'll have a good one. Last night was not one of those, though, and I think it was because his first tooth is coming in. I can see and feel it but it's not totally out yet. It's his bottom middle/left one. Mason is almost 8 1/2 months. Reister didn't get his first tooth until 9 months and it was on top (both came in right around the same time I think). Mason is getting to be a happier baby all around. He LOVES his solids - especially anything salty and seasoned. I've made him peas, pumpkin, sweet potato, carrots, spinach, apples, bananas, chicken, and also blended up meals we were having such as Hamburger Helper (thanks to the local import store), potato corn chowder soup, taco soup, and stir fried cabbage.