Ian is learning new things every day. It's amazing to see him catching on to things. His list of "tricks" include: (1) pulling a blanket over his head to play peekaboo, (2) standing behind me and when I say, "Where's Ian?" poking his head around to look at me and smile, (3) clapping his hands when you say, "Yay!" or "Hooray for Ian!" or when you clap, (4) splashing in the tub when you say, "Splash!", (5) giving a hug or a kiss. The newest ones this week are that he is starting to imitate what we say. I say "Uh oh!" when something falls. A couple of days ago he started saying, "Uh...umm" when I did that. This afternoon, he dropped a block while he was playing and I heard this little voice go, "Uh... oh." He kept doing that every time he dropped something. Then tonight in the bath, he was playing with his rubber ducky. I always say, "Ducky" or "Ya-ya" (Chinese for ducky) when he has the duck. So I asked him for "ya-ya" and he picked up the ducky out of all of the toys floating around in the tub. I think he also said "ya", but that may have been wishful thinking. He stopped saying "nai nai" this week, though.

Yesterday he had his first egg. The doctor says he can have egg yolk, but not egg white, so I made him a little omelet with egg yolk, milk, basil and chicken. I took some photos and a video of him eating the omelet. He LOVED it. He would get anxious if I put the fork down. I made another omelet for him today (Jeff and I had omelets for lunch) that had egg yolk, milk, fresh basil, onions, zucchini and chicken (ours had cheese and egg whites, too). There were 2 egg yolks in it today and he ate it in record time. Then we gave him some Cheerios while we ate ours. He saw what we were eating and started crying. Jeff gave him a bite of his omelet and Ian was happy. I'm guessing Ian's going through another growth spurt because he napped for 2 and a half hours today and ate like crazy. After we ate, we went for a walk and played in the park for a while before Jeff had to head out to the airport. At 5:30, Ian started getting all cranky and I gave him a banana -- he likes to eat them fresh, so I just peel one and let him take bites. He ate almost the whole banana! Unbelievable.

Let's backtrack to Thursday. When Jeff and I dropped him off at school in the morning, Christina said that she had a special treat for Sir Ian (that's what she calls him). Pancakes! Here's a picture of Ian enjoying his first pancake. He's using his thumb to cram the pancake in there. On Thursday evening, Jeff had a cocktail party at his new office. Ian had a great time crawling all around (it has nice new carpet throughout the office) and roughhousing with Alexander. He was tackling Alex and giving Alex hugs and kisses. He bonked his head when he slipped while trying to stand up and fell on the leg of one of the conference room chairs, but that was the only time he cried the whole time. He didn't even cry that much and wanted to get right back down on the floor to try again.

Here he is giving Alex a full body tackle.
So back to tonight: a few minutes after Jeff left for the airport, Ian looked like he was going to take his first step. He was all set to take the step, but his feet got tangled up with each other and he fell instead. I'm telling you, he could be walking by Thanksgiving!

The other thing I noticed is that he likes his books, but the only one that he calms down for is "Goodnight Moon". He was a bit cranky and crying after I tried to let him fall asleep by himself for his nap. So I went in and tried to calm him down by reading. He was not happy with the Fuzzy Duckling book and tried to knock it out of my hand. But when I picked up "Goodnight Moon" and started saying, "Goodnight Moon", he immediately settled down and looked intently at the book. I guess it's because I read it to him every night before he goes to bed (as does Jeff), so he now knows that it means it's time to sleep. Tonight he wanted his bottle, but was very patient while I read "Goodnight Moon". As soon as I gave him his bottle, he looked up at the light. I always turn out the light right after I give him his bottle, so I guess he was expecting me to turn it off.

What do you think of his hair? Jeff cut it on Tuesday night. I fixed it up a bit on Wednesday morning. His school picture is next week, so I figured if we messed it up, he would have a week to grow it out!

He went to sleep at 8:00 tonight, so I'm going to bed early tonight, too!