An Amazing Woman

We were in LA last weekend celebrating Shani’s Grandma’s 88^th birthday.  There is a Japanese rite of passage celebrated at various ages to pray for long life (70, 77, 80, 88, 90, 99), so this was a big one for Grandma Hori!  We almost had the entire family together to celebrate and it was a blast!  Dinner was at a  delicious Chinese food restaurant that Aunt Margaret and Uncle Bo picked.  The food was just amazing and we completely stuffed ourselves before going home for dessert.

Silly Uncle Bo

Landon playing with Uncle Ryan

Landon had a great time getting attention from everyone there!  Uncle Bo, Uncle Ryan, Uncle Kel, and Aunt Rox got to meet Landon for the first time.  He was a little shy at first, but definitely warmed up quickly like he always does.   He also had fun crawling around Grandma Hori’s house and playing in Kobe’s water dish.  We put together a makeshift bed for Landon on a futon between twin beds with pillows on both sides to prevent him from rolling off.  We were a little concerned on how well he would sleep being in a completely different place on top of his already poor sleep schedule.  Thankfully, he was on his way to his better sleep pattern and it actually worked out well.  The only “opps” time was when John heard Landon waking up from a nap through the baby monitor. He waited for a moment to see if he would go back to sleep or if he was up for good. Landon made noise again so John went to check on him. He opened the door to find Landon sitting by the door waiting patiently. He had crawled over from his little bed (good thing the mattress was only two inches off the floor). He gave John a big smile…no harm done! 

Eating a persimmon with Auntie Tak

Our little Japanese boy

Uncle Kel, Aunt Margaret, Grandma, Nonni, Uncle Bry

Cousins picture with Grandma

Great Grandma Hori and Landon (no he didn't get to taste the cake)

Surrounded by loved ones!

Playing tops that Grandma has had around since Shani was little

Almost as big as Kobe

Flying with Landon this time was tougher than the last time; that kid does not want to be held for too long.  Thankfully, Nonni and Papa were with us on this flight.  First off, Shani had forgotten her Ergo and was tempted to buy another one because of how much she needs/uses it.  Not being hands-free at the airport made things quite chaotic.  She thought she had misplaced her ID once she was on the plane because she had be trying to hold Landon and gather her things when going through security.  John had his hands full with our carry-on bags and Landon’s carseat.  Plus John gets major anxiety going through the security line that he takes literally every possible metal thing off as well as anything that would require them to send him back through.  It’s quite comical how much he strips down.  It’s surprising he doesn’t go through in just underwear!  Shani’s id turned out to be in her purse by the way.

The day before we left John took his final test in order to get his psychology license and he passed!  Hurray!  His license posted on January 17^th, so he is officially able to practice on his own…although plans for that aren’t in the near future.  Napa will stay his (work) home for a little while longer.  As a little celebration for passing we met our friends Pat and Kim in Long Beach for lunch.  Or as John would put it…Beer!  He’s been missing Beachwood BBQ since he moved back to Sac so this was definitely a celebration.  Plus it was great fun catching up with Pat and Kim since we hadn’t seen them in a couple years. 

Pat and Landon, the bottle is empty :-)

Kim supervises as Landon plays spin the bottle

We also made a quick trip to Downtown Disney while we were there.  We look forward to taking Landon to the parks one day but this worked great for our short weekend.  There were quite a few people there for a Monday, but we figured people had the day off for Martin Luther King Day.  A young group of friends were going to let their oh so exciting Mickey balloon go and offered it to Landon instead when they saw how interested he was.  He loved it!  Guess we don’t actually have to go to Disneyland, we just need to get him a balloon!

Landon loves fish tanks

Cute butt!

Toy Story lover in training

 

11 Months

According to Aviva Jill Romm, MD in her book Naturally Healthy Babies and Children, "Fever has another effect that often goes unnoticed. When children recover from a fever, they often demonstrate new skills and abilities.  It is as if the heat of the fever served as a motivating developmental force."  This book has been the go-to book for Shani when it comes to helping Landon with many different things.  It's right up her alley with all natural ways (mainly herbal and homeopathic remedies) to stay or get healthy.  Although she has heard that with a fever/sickness comes a jump in development from another source, it was reading it again after Landon was sick last week that she realized that it has definitely held true for him.

Our sick boy

For the past week and a half Landon has been fighting quite the bug.  He had a few nights of low-grade fever and several days of very warm temperatures.  He had the snotty-runny nose, cough, fussiness, even worse sleep, and trouble breathing.  We were definitely ready to be out of it and I'm sure he was too!  As he's beat his bug this past week we've noticed quite the change in our little guy. 

Here are some of the things going on with Landon lately:

• Turned 11 months on Saturday!  
• Four teeth on top and just the two on bottom.  
• Weighing 21 lbs 1oz and 30.5 inches long
• Standing on his own for about 5 seconds
• Expressive signing: milk, more, light (his favorite), dog/Mochi, possibly all-done
• Can clap and wave on prompting (don't even have to do the motion first)
• Throwing toys/balls for Mochi,offering her a bone
• Points to people in pictures (mom, dad, Nonni, Papa, Uncle Chris, cousin Morgan)
• Gives high fives, kisses
• Feeding himself well and eating larger portions (no more purees)
• The Biggest of All: 2 nights in a row he's put his head down and fallen asleep in his crib by himself (with some supervision from mommy or daddy, but no holding and no crying).  Also with this he's giving us 4 hour stretches of sleep and only nursing twice/night.  Yay!

Happy New Year!

New Year's Eve was spent playing at the park with cousin Morgan. It was such a beautiful day!  Landon had great fun with his cousin.  Later that evening we watched movies at Nonni and Papa's house.  We were excited to actually stay up to ring in the New Year together but Lando woke up right before so Shani spent midnight trying to get him back down to sleep.  How life has changed.  Not that we were big New Year's Eve celebrators in the past, but we usually did more than this.  However, the relaxing evening of pizza and movies without going anywhere was exactly what we wanted...and needed.  New Year's day is always spent in a food frenzy at Shani's parents.  Although John was disappointed that the Bowl games weren't on, we enjoyed pigging out and watching more movies. 

Having Monday off was great too.  It actually felt like a restful weekend, definitely a first for us in a really long time.  That rest was short-lived.  By Friday we both laughed at the fact that just Monday we had talked about it being restful.  Between Monday and Friday John got the okay to sign up for his California license test which meant getting back into hard core studying,  Landon got sick (fever Wed/Thur night, must sleep upright to breathe, restless sleep, fussy, needy, etc) and is still trying to fight it, and exhaustion for the both of us as we are up every 1-2 hours because of poor Landon.  We are definitely going to be more strict in the future about keeping Landon away from those that are sick.  We do know he will get his colds, but to get a bad one about 1 week after fully recovering from another one is killer on all of us.  The good part is, we know it's strengthening his immune system and there is always great growth that comes out of fighting a cold.  Hopefully that growth is better sleep!