I am an unimaginably regretful Mommy right now…Owen won’t play with me anymore and it’s all because I spoke to him sternly yesterday afternoon.  He bit me HARD (with his 1.5 teeth) yesterday when I was nursing him and it was SOOOOOOO painful that I laid him down on the bed and gave him a good stern talking. 

Baby Owen initially tried to lighten the mood by grinning at me with his innocent smile and trying to play with me, but I remained serious.  Athough he did not understand what I was saying, he quickly got the idea that Mommy wasn’t happy with him.  He stopped smiling and started avoiding my gaze - his eyes wandered everywhere except at my face, just as a toddler would do when he knew he did something wrong.  His expression was so cute that I could not stay mad at him and started smiling at him again.  However, my baby have not treated me the same since! He doesn’t really play with me anymore and is no longer that happy when he sees me…our especially close mother-son bond has been broken. I’m so sad. *boo hoo*

Moms-to-be, don’t listen to whoever tells you that you can start disciplining a child before 1 year old - you can’t and you will suffer terribly for trying!

Almost two months since Owen’s last photo session, this time, we present you a baby in nude, that totally breaks the cute-meter.

It is increasingly difficult to shoot baby’s photo as he is getting stronger and having the desire to control himself, I was sweating a lot in this afternoon’s photo session with Owen, he is constantly moving and I basically have to set the camera at its continuously shooting mode so that I can get some quality photos, at the end, I got 30 photos that look pleasing to my eyes. but to protect Owen’s privacy, five photos are protected so that they are only viewable to family members.

If the difficulties persist, you may soon see photos of Owen from other photographers

Don’t know what is really in people’s mind, I guess the conventional wisdom is baby girls are cuter, why do I say that, here is the proof: one month ago, I used Owen’s photo as my avatar in a web forum, my boss saw the photo and he knew I had a baby recently and after a few minutes of staring at the photo, he then gave me a compliment “your daughter is so cute”; last week, we visited Jim’s parents, after seeing Owen, they cannot help asking for holding the little chubby, as Owen is leaning the way to their arms, they said “come here little girl, you are so cute…”

If you ask me, I still think boys are cuter, as for now ;)

Can’t believe our little one is already 8 months! It is absolutely amazing how time flies by and how fast they grow/develop!

Some interesting developments during the last few weeks:

• Teething - a few weeks ago, Owen started “dieting” - his appetite waned.  Had I not read books, I would’ve been concerned but all his symptoms seem to point to teething and sure enough, 2 weeks ago, we can see 2 white specks through the gum (oral hygienist informed me that babies usually grow the 2 front bottom teeth first) - Daddy and I were so proud! The two teeth look like they will break through any day now, so we are eagerly waiting.
• Displays a sense of rhythm - when you turn on music, if you hold Owen up and hes standing, he will start dancing/bouncing!   He has a favorite pig video that he loves to dance to - the amazing thing is that he truly dances to the beat of the music; when the music is fast, he bounces up and down frantically and to the rhythm and when it slows down, he slows down as well!
• Desires approval/compliment - Owen seems to understand that clapping and smiling means approval/compliment.  Whenever he does something and someone claps, from then on, he will pause every time he performs that activity again and look over at you for your reaction.  If you clap, he will continue.  If not, he will continue looking at you. Just a few nights ago, Sherwood and I were playing with Owen on the bed at night and he was kicking feet up and down really hard - I clapped so he happily went back to doing his exercise.  After a few more kicks, our little cutie cracked us up by pausing and turning his head towards his Daddy, as if to say, “What about you?” Sherwood hurriedly clapped to show his admiration for his son, and Owen went back to his business. It was the most adorable thing!
• Eating lots of fruits/solid foods and drinking many juices - Owen is currently the king of fruits.  He eats the recommended 5 fruits a day (of course not in whole since his tummy is too little to hold so much).  He loves fresh Asian/Korean pears, Fuji apples, Dole banana, red seedless grapes, and freshly squeezed cantalope and tangerine juice.  He tried lemonade for the first time today and loved it as well! This is on top of the Gerber veggies that he eats (carrots, beans, peas, sweet potato, etc.). He also eats ground fish meat.    No wonder he’s got silky smooth and white skin and natural rosy cheeks that I envy so much and can’t even come close with expensive skincare products! ;P