Hills of Hayward

Okay, there were a lot to catch up during the summer. This is one of them.

I started taking Anders to the swimming class every Monday to Thursday in the morning. The class was organized by Hayward Recreation at Hayward Plunge. The first class, he was a little bit afraid and I had to hold him going into the water. However, he didn’t cry or make a fuss.

The second day, he was picking up toys from the bottom of the small swimming pool which was only one foot deep. He lost his balance and dropped himself fully under the water. He was already afraid about water going above his chin or into his eyes. He would point to his eyes and said, “eye eye! eye eye!” which means that water has gone into his eyes. He was afraid of going into the water the next couple days and soon after that, he became normal again and loved playing in the water even more.

Every time when we passed by Hayward Plunge, he said, “游泳衣, 游泳衣!” He didn’t understand swimming pool but he said, “swimming suit, swimming suit!” instead, since that was what the nanny would say to him every time before he went to the class – “Let’s put on the swimming suit.”

He looked so serious at the very beginning but started laughing and enjoying it much more one month after he started swimming. At the end, he does not want to leave the pool.

It was a really hot day yesterday. The temperature reached 100 degree. We decided to go out to the mall to get some air conditioning. Halloween is close so there was a big custom store in the Mowry Mall. Anders was scared by a scarecrow next to Santa Ramen a couple weeks ago and now he was afraid of all the “ghosts” in the store again.

Last night, we “leveraged” his fear of the ghosts to ask him finishing his milk before going to bed. He was very tired and sleepy today. The arms of his holding the bottle went lower and lower with his eyes already closed but he didn’t want to give up the bottle. As long as we pulled the bottle out of his mouth, he cried to ask for finishing it. Guess what!? He was worried that the ghost would come!

You can see how scared he was.

Scarecrow

Big black mouse

Ghosts

On the other hand, Arden was so interested in watching the moving ghost and not scared at all.

寶寶今天看醫生，是有史以來最乖的一次了。

他在兩邊大腿上各打了一針預防針，竟然一聲都沒吭！一直到出了醫院15分鐘後才稍稍縐著眉頭可憐兮兮地哭著說 “痛痛！腿腿痛痛！”

身高 33.5 英吋 (85.1 cm) – 26%
體重 24.6 英嗙 (11.16 kg) – 11%
頭圍 18.9 英吋 (48 cm) – 32%

Anders turned two years old last week. He was shy and was afraid of strangers though he was active at home. We used to describe him as “在家一條龍, 在外一條蟲.” However, he suddenly became much more social in the past month. We had a BBQ gathering for him and the kids seemed to have lots of fun.

Here are some pictures.

Anders’ true personality started coming out. He is very anal and likes to tell people what to do. He even tries to control older kids. Harrison was laughing that “他真是不知死活! 居然想管大孩子!” I didn’t know why but he seemed to know that guests were coming since he kept picking up clothes from our sofa and making it clean.

One activity that Harrison set up for the kids was the dancing machine. Here is a clip with Charles, Audrey and Anders. I don’t think any one played it after this since the next activity was a landslide winner.

The kids’ favorite program that day was playing the bubbles. Thanks to Harrison for thinking of this fun activity and his dedication of making the best bubble solution!

Here is the happy birthday song and Anders’ first cake. We did buy a cake for his first birthday but the funny thing is that we ate the cake and Anders didn’t have even one bite. He was still allergic to eggs and I also didn’t want him to taste sweets too early!

寶寶終於開始講句子了！

平常寶寶起床時只會大叫＂阿姨＂或是哭哭，猜猜昨天怎麼著？

我們都在客廳，只聽見房裹有人大喊＂阿姨，我睡醒了。我自己起床了！＂