Alex is getting thisclose to crawling. He has no problem holding himself up with his arms and sticking his butt in the air, but he doesn’t have the motion down yet. We went to an open house at Scripps Exploring Academy, his daycare, on Friday and chatted with a mother whose daughter is a few months older than Alex and had started crawling recently. “We can’t wait for him to start crawling!” we said. “Wait”, she said, explaining how she’s had to carry her daughter 100% of the time since she learned to crawl because she’d just crawl all over the floor picking things up and putting them into her mouth.

Whatever… I still can’t wait!

Here’s Alex on the slide at the open house.

Mommy got Daddy a birthday present: a ball that rolls away on its own and makes funny noises. Here’s some video of Alex playing with it.

Alex has also been playing with his Learn and Groove Musical Table quite a bit over the last couple of weeks. His friend Connor in Seattle got it for him. He’s an expert at closing the door on the table once mommy opens it.

Alex has two teeth, and we’re expecting more any day. I guess it’s time for us to start brushing!

Mom is in San Jose for a meeting through tomorrow evening, so this is Alex and Dad’s first night home alone. Alex misses Mom a lot (and of course Dad does too) but he’s done very well today.

I took the day off today to take Alex to his followup for his ear infection. Turns out it isn’t gone yet, which explains why he’s still congested and coughing. Seems like that’s been the case for a month now! Poor kid. We got some more powerful antibiotics and we’re going to give that another try.

Here are some more shopping pictures from a couple of weeks ago. Alex has started chewing on his starfish chain toy quite a bit… more teeth to come, maybe?

Alex loves to shop. Look at the anticipation on his face as we enter Costco.

Eric and Vivian and Olivia came over last weekend and we had another play date. It’s fun to watch the kids develop. Here Alex is saying goodbye to Olivia. I know it looks like he must have said something truly outrageous…

…but he was just kidding around. It’s all good!

We’ve been really busy and tired lately–ear infections will do that to mom and dad, in addition to kid–so we haven’t been taking as many photos as usual. However, I’ve got some from the camera phone to post.

Alex got a Clean Shopper at his baby shower and we’ve been looking forward to using it. He’s sitting up well and filling out the shopping cart better, so we put him in it a couple of weekends ago when we went to the store. He enjoys shopping so much it makes him salute!

易峰能自己坐了之后真是方便很多。他可以自己坐在地上，沙发上，婴儿专用的吃饭的椅子上，看！他甚至可以自己坐在车里逛店了。

Mommy is a great piano player, and Daddy likes it when she plays. It turns out Alex likes to play too. He’ll sit on Mommy’s lap and mash keys for minutes at a time. Soon we’ll need to get another piano so they can both play at once.

易峰现在喜欢每天挥舞他的手，可惜我们都不知道他挥手是什么意思。把他放到钢琴边，他就一气乱敲，把钢琴敲得叮叮当当的，到也满有趣的。

Now that Alex is in daycare, we don’t see him as much as we used to when we were home all day with him. We love taking him for a walk, and do it almost every night. Alex really seems to enjoy getting out of the house and roaming around the neighborhood.

易峰很喜欢呆在屋外，再闹的时候，带他到院子里转一转，他就变得开心起来。每天晚饭后的全家散步是他一天最悠然自得的时候。他常常把脚翘在推车前面的挡板上，坐在车里，东瞅瞅西望望，羡慕地看着从他身边开过去的每一辆车。

Last night, he was so tired that he fell asleep in his stroller while en route!

昨天晚上，还没到家，易峰就睡着了。

We followed Uncle Han’s lead with Thomas and got Alex a Britax Marathon to replace his infant car seat. The Britax line has high capacity for child weight–it should be the last seat Alex needs, except maybe for one of those little boosters in a few years–and the company is legendary for safety and quality.

Britax stuff is also quite expensive so be sure to shop around. Our friends Eric and Vivian got a good deal on theirs by shopping online. We ended up picking up a new one at Babies’R'Us and going the craigslist route for a backup. This can save you a lot of money, but if you do this, be sure to check the fabrication date for the carseat, as the manufacturer only recommends a 7-year life for them before the plastics start to degrade.

易峰坐在新的汽车座椅上。这个座椅估计可以用个三四年。

Alex didn’t like his Marathon at first, but Dad’s gotten better at strapping him in and now he seems OK with it. As an additional bonus, he seems to fall asleep in it more readily than he did with the infant seat, which should help when we have to take longer car trips.

易峰在去奶奶家的路上又睡着了。

One day last week, Alex felt on the floor and knocked his forehead from bumbo chair at school when he stretched himself too much to reach a toy. I thought to myself right away if Alex could sit without a chair he wouldn’t fall. So at that night, I let him sit by himself next to me on a sofa and put the pink pig we bought from Walmart in front of him to plan to train him. To my surprise, he sat there by himself without any of my help for ten minutes or so. I couldn’t wait to declare this good news to Dave. I called my parents in China and they are very happy to know that too.

Alex was sick for a while last week. His congestion is always better today and worse the day next. The Sunday before last one Alex coughed very badly and threw up all milk every time right after we fed him. Also you could hear the whistling sound of mucous in his lungs when he breathed. I was so concerned that he might be dehydrated and need IV or something so that I called and made an appointment with his Pediatrician. Our favorite doctor, Dr. Grayson, was not in that day. The backup doctor turned out to be a very good one. After she listened to our description what happened last two days, she checked up Alex’s ears immediately and told us that Alex had his first ear infection! I told her I didn’t understand the relationship between throw up and ear infection. I expected her to listen to Alex’s lungs rather than look at his ears since Alex vomited so much. She was very nice and patient to explain how congestion Alex had for a while could cause ear infection even though the germ seemed gone. Of course, she still listened to Alex’s lungs and admitted that it sounded juicy to her. But she seemed not very worried by that. After we came back from this unexpected doctor visit, the war to give Alex the antibiotics started. I have to say I HATE to give Alex medicines. He screams,cries, closed his mouth, turned away his head, and waved his arms to knock down the spoon every morning and evening at the medication time. The doctor assigned this war to be 10 days long. My dear baby, two more days to go as I am writing this post today. Hope you will never need those distasteful medicines.

Everybody on this earth must know American swimmer Michael Phelps harvested 8 gold medals at this summer’s Olympics in Beijing. So does Alex. One night when NBS was interviewing Michael, Alex suddenly raised his head to look up at our TV when he was playing in his jumper. I am a little bit disappointed that we couldn’t go back to Beijing to watch Olympic games first time at my hometown. It is Alex’s first Olympics after all. In four years, we will go to London to watch the games for sure.
有两个礼拜没有更新易峰的网站了，一想起来就觉得很惭愧。小孩子长的很快，仅仅两个礼拜也有很多事情要更新。

首先要高兴地宣布易峰自己会坐了，不需要别人帮助的。今天晚上他自己坐着和他的小粉猪玩了１５分钟。小粉猪是我们在walmart买的玩具，一捏鼻子小粉猪就会又叫又蹦又转圈。易峰小一点的时候根本不会玩，有一阵让我觉得这个玩具很失败，但从某一天开始，易峰突然一听到小粉猪叫就会咧嘴笑，我才知道原来他什么都记在心里了。

这礼拜易峰病了两天。咳嗽，吐奶。礼拜二去看了大夫，没想到大夫说易峰耳朵发炎，开了两个礼拜的消炎药。易峰非常不喜欢吃，每次喂他药都把他搞的又哭又闹了。但易峰一个最大的优点就是容易高兴，再怎么哭，哄一下他又给马上给你个灿烂的微笑。

Alex’s had his first tooth!

I saw the white spot first last night, but was not sure what that was. Then I put my finger on his gum to feel it. It turned out that grandma is right, Alex does have one tooth already!!

Daddy took off to Chicago yesterday for three days. Dear Alex, what else you will surprise me before daddy comes home?

易峰的奶奶两个礼拜前说看见两个白点在下牙床上，我们都没看见。昨天在给易峰洗澡的时候，看到他嘴里白光一闪（写得跟武侠小说似的，呵呵），我把手指放到他嘴里面，果然感到下前牙床上硬邦邦的，仔细摸了摸，看了看，可不是正往外突的小牙吗？我顿时心花怒放。