from zero to Exie (words) | family blog (Exner Stanat: parents' journal, photos, and video)

no more smooching for you!

By Grace | Published: Aug 26, 2009

At the most recent playgroup session (a few days ago), Antoine gave Exie a big ol’ smooch goodbye. His parents are teaching him the traditional French custom of kisses on both cheeks. This one, however, was a long-lasting smackeroo right on the lips. Exie hasn’t quite figured out the kissing thing yet, but once in a while she makes an attempt, which usually ends up looking a bit like she’s doing a fish impression. Anyways, everybody that witnessed Antoine’s goodbye smooch will certainly testify that it was very cute.

But today in the park, after he did it again, Exie put her fingers from both hands together and said the word that goes with that sign: “more!” Antoine seemed more than happy to oblige. Hmm… perhaps this is going too far. Maybe I should sit little Frenchy down and give him a good talking-to. Next time that hoodlum and his mother show up at our door, I’ll simply stand in the background looking very tall and angry with my arms folded.

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first steps

By Grace | Published: Aug 25, 2009

My folks arrived today. They’ve visited quite a few times this year, so that’s great. This is the first time, however, that I think Exie has really remembered them from the time before, so that’s even greater (for them, too).

On the way home from the airport I told them that I thought that Exie would be walking before they left in a week. Of course, I wasn’t sure about this, but both Susan and I have been feeling that it is imminent. In our playgroup, she is the only one not walking (no pressure). But this does mean that she sees people her size toddling around all the time; I’m sure that this must help move her towards her own first steps.

Anyways… sure enough, that afternoon Exie let go of Mama on her own accord and took a few steps to end up in Gramma’s arms. Gramma’s gotta’ love that! (I will post some video soon.)

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first IM chat

By Grace | Published: Aug 19, 2009

I’m not a big IM user. Just never really got into it. I’ll do a little Facebook and a little Twitter, but IM not so much. I find it somewhat disruptive, though I certainly acknowledge its potential uses. We do, however, use it for intra-house communication. Especially now that there are times when we don’t want to wake the baby by yelling from floor to floor like barbarians. Or as just a quick time saver instead of trekking up the stairs. Usually I’m upstairs in my office (i.e., the guest bedroom), and Susan’s downstairs in her office (i.e., the kitchen/dining room). Come to think of it, maybe I should submit a complaint; her office is about 6 times as big as mine.

So of course it eventually comes to pass that Exie is sitting on Susan’s lap when I IM her about something. Exie isn’t allowed to watch TV, and she’s not really supposed to be looking at computer screens either, but once in a while it’s difficult to avoid. Here is the transcript:

Susan: so amazing, Exie just said “french fries”!
Grace: really?
Susan: apparently she’s been craving them for 13 1/2 months
Grace: let’s go get some!
Susan: I told her we just ate out yesterday but she’s a little insistent
Grace: which establishment do you think she will most relish (no bun intended)?
Susan: don’t know. she doesn’t know that many. I’ll ask her
[pause]
Susan: GB or we can go 2 Counter. if you don’t want burger u can ordr smthng else at GB
Exie: k,.nijmjumnhn cv gxXjny l
Grace: if the fam is eating burgers, i’m eating a burger! wanna go now?
Exie: vc fdgrv tcdes
Grace: (trying to figure out if i should be wrapping up)
Exie: cfP c556;’y6vb c]\
Susan: yes
Exie: mb cv f6cx ‘
Grace: k. on the way. lol
Exie: clx0–p['CX
Exie: vg//]P_wZ!
Susan: x is typing
Exie: [q’ v
Exie: \
Exie: \v-
Exie: sxsxc”
Grace: ok stop. i’m coming down. :)

It occurred to me afterwords that I should start using my daughter as an awesome password generator.

Note to Exie: By the time you read this, the acronym IM may be so outdated that you have no idea what it means. It stands for “Instant Message.” Sometime in the progression of technology after email and before the ubiquitousness of cell phones, people started using a technology that allowed them to send messages to each other on their computers, and they’d pop up immediately. So, instead of having a slow email conversation or a consuming telephone conversation, people could “chat” with each other, usually while they were doing something else on their computers at the same time. This last bit explains why your father never really got into IM’ing; my ability to multi-task is… um… limited at best.

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electric slide

By Grace | Published: Aug 15, 2009

Wanna’ go on the big twisty slide, Exie? Okay, Poppa will go with you.

Hmm… that’s interesting. Wanna’ go again?

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toddler?

By Grace | Published: Aug 9, 2009

Apparently the definition of “toddler” is somewhat up for grabs. Of course, it would be quite reasonable for one to be considered a toddler as soon as one can actually toddle (which Exie can’t yet). But often times it seems like it simply means someone between 1 and 3 years old (which Exie is). So either we already have a toddler instead of a baby, or we will soon.

But hold on one second! We’re not done with the baby stuff yet. Do we absolutely have to move on to the next stage? Already? I *like* it that she talks nonsense. Of course it’s great to see her learning words and starting to actually communicate, but that means that pretty soon she’ll never again blabber on for five minutes in complete gibberish. And it will be easier when she can consistently feed herself, but it’s fun to do it for her and watch her consider the momentous meaning of every mouthful. She’ll never again be able to try tofu for the first time. And crawling will go away. That’s a shame, cause there’s not much cuter than that little booty going furiously back and forth as she scrambles across the room. And while it can be a major time suck, I liked rocking her to sleep. Now we rock her for a few minutes and put her down in her crib. So she no longer falls asleep in my arms. Bummer. I’ll take the tendinitis that goes with it. And what about the clothes that she only wore a few times before she grew out of them? Pretty soon we’ll have to buy shoes where the hole part is not bigger than the rest of the shoe. I could go on and on, but you get the idea.

It is ridiculous how many people say to you, as a new parent, “They grow up so fast.” Yea, yea, heard that before. Only a million times. Guess what? It’s true.

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animal sounds

By Grace | Published: Aug 8, 2009

She learned cat first, because of Chloe. Then cow, which for some reason has always sounded like “buuuh” instead of “moo.” She can obviously make an “m” noise (“mama”), but for some reason she just doesn’t want to use it when talking like cows. Here’s a quick sampler (this isn’t all of them, but it’s certainly enough to get the idea):

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animal sounds 8/8/09 (34sec)

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ken & anna get hitched

By Grace | Published: Aug 1, 2009

Our good friends Ken and Anna got married today. The location was a nice winery (Clos La Chance) south of San Jose. The weather was awesome. Too nice, if anything, so fortunately they provided sun umbrellas, which was excellent – babies have very thin and sensitive skin, you know. And poppas that are trying to stay not-too-old-and-weathered-looking also appreciated the umbrellas.

The ceremony was short and sweet, which is also perfect for babies. But apparently Exie didn’t think it was quite short enough. Somewhere very near the end, after sitting quietly on our laps like a model child for an unusually long time (for her, at least), she decided to start making noise. But not just any noise; she decided it would be a great venue for busting out her new monkey sound. So without any prompting (usually we say, “Exie, what does a monkey say?”), she commenced with a fairly long string of “ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh.” Maybe ’cause Ken was in a tuxedo? We’ll never know.

Anyways… biggo congrats to Ken and Anna! May you live long and soon produce an offspring that is old enough for Exie to play with and young enough for her to boss around.

Credit: Top two photos by Maurice Ramirez

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first xiao long bao

By Grace | Published: Jul 26, 2009

First what? Xiao long bao are a specific type of Chinese dumpling. The exact translation is “small dragon bun/dumpling.” [10/30/09 update: Oops! That translation is not correct; our friend Hope has informed me that this particular "long" means "basket," as in the steamer basket used to cook the dumplings, instead of "dragon." Apparently, it is a common mistake for those not well-versed in Chinese. The characters are very similar: = basket and = dragon. Okay - back to the entry.] Xiao long bau are a bit like a steamed potstickers: meat wrapped in a thin dough skin. They are traditionally steamed in a bamboo container and served in the container (usually in groups of somewhere between 6 and 10). They are one of my favorites. There’s a bit of a trick to eating them since they have yummy juices inside which one must be careful not to let get away when biting the dumpling (I personally recommend using a Chinese soup spoon). The juices explain why they’re sometimes also referred to as “soup dumplings.”

I tend to like the lower-class street version with the more doughy skin instead of the up-market super-thin skin version, but I’m not kicking any of them off the table. When we are in Taiwan, I usually manage to convince the family to eat them a couple times per week. But if that doesn’t fly, then I’ll happily walk to the nearest little shop and grab some for myself. Like many specific foods in China and Taiwan, there are often shops (or complete restaurants) that specialize in one thing.

Of course, for any of you that know our family, Susan is (by far) the most food-educated, and the one that cares the most about all things culinary. I basically just struggle to keep up in a never ending battle to shed my natural eat-to-survive attitude. This said, Susan is more than happy to cater to any strong feelings I have about food since it means that I’m taking an interest in her “hobby,” and that makes it more fun for her. So she’s all about getting the xiao long bao, too.

So… back to Exie. They say one’s palette is formed in the first two years. But hey, no pressure, right? Just feed her a wide variety of food for the first two years and you should be in good shape. Sounds easy enough, but factor in i) that most babies are somewhat finicky eaters; and ii) the inherent difficulty involved with taking your little one out to eat, and it’s actually not all that easy to get them to eat a wide variety of food. Of course, some do better than others, but we’re usually pretty happy when she eats a good sized meal, never mind what it actually comprises. [Side note for anybody that cares: Yes, that is the correct use of comprises, even though most people will say, "is comprised of," which is an accepted idiom, but only because everybody has started to say it. This results, strangely, in "comprises" and "comprised of" having the same meaning even though it seems that they should be opposites. The gravy in the above sentence is that by using it correctly, I also managed to avoid ending the sentence with a preposition. Whoohoo!]

Anyway… ahem (grammar police guy goes back into the closet)… we were both pretty happy to celebrate the occasion when Exie had her first xiao long bao, especially since she really seemed to enjoy it. She’s eaten dim sum quite a few times (and seems to really like it, which is great), but we hadn’t fed her xiao long bao yet. To be honest, these particular xiao long bao were somewhat below average (Susan thinks so, too, which means a lot more than me thinking so), but that’s okay. It just means that when Exie gets to have the real deal, she’ll like ‘em even more!

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“clock!”

By Grace | Published: Jul 15, 2009

Exie has a clock obsession. Period. It is now the word she says most, and the thing that she wants to see most. Anytime she enters a new room (or store) she immediately scans for clocks and then points enthusiastically, bouncing up and down saying, “Clock!” Susan walked in the door with Exie the other day and remarked, “I had no idea there were so many clocks in Trader Joe’s.”

But wait, there’s more. When one of her parents re-enters the room, she’ll thrust her arms up and say, “Bau bau” (meaning “hold” or “hug” in Mandarin), indicating that she wants to be picked up. Of course, this usually results in the parent picking up their cute little angel who so lovingly wants a hug. But no sooner than she is picked up, she immediately points and leans towards a clock (the microwave clock, the oven clock, the clock on the thermostat, somebody’s wristwatch, whatever). The lean is so intense that it actually gravitates you toward the clock. In other words, she lures you in with the hug, but then uses you simply as a means to get a close up view of the nearest clock.

She’s not particular; she’ll just as soon use a grandparent to fuel her obsession – in this case Akong is the lucky one.

Amazingly, she seems to understand that clocks can be either analog or digital, though she does tend to extrapolate beyond actual clocks. For example, she can correctly identify the little clock icon on my iPhone, but she also thinks the compass icon is a clock. Fair enough; it’s round with markings around the outside and a hand on it. And she sometimes thinks addresses are clocks, especially if they are lit up in some way. Again, fair enough; they are sequences of numbers, just like digital clocks. Things like thermostats, scales, and alarm panels are also dead ringers. How does one explain to a 12-month old that these things are not actually clocks? I think the answer is probably, “One doesn’t.”

Surely this is just a phase, but it’s already lasted longer than we would have initially guessed. Maybe we should move to Switzerland.

UPDATE (Sep 19): She still loves clocks. And she really loves it when you say, after she’s pointed at a clock, “The clock says 3:23!” Gets a smile or a giggle every time. Really – every time? Yep, pretty much.

I didn’t bother recording it months ago since I didn’t think it would be such a longstanding trend, but here’s what she sounds like now:

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And this is what she sounds like if she can actually get her grubby little paws on something that she thinks is a clock, like the small recorder that I used to record this. All the clicking sounds are her madly pressing buttons on the recorder – thankfully she didn’t stop the recording. And since she’s right next to it, it’s quite distorted, but that seems appropriate given the her high level of excitement:

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birthday bonanza

By Grace | Published: Jun 28, 2009

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first birthday song (including retaliation strike) 6/28/09 (51sec)
[bigger version]

There were a lot of birthday parties this month. First there was my brother’s birthday party, which took its usual casual form. Then there was Exie’s pre-birthday party, which happened two weeks before her actual birthday because Akong (grampa) was in town from Taiwan. And since first birthdays are important in Chinese culture, this was somewhat of a big deal, involving a private room at a Dim Sum restaurant and lots of relatives. (I figure first birthdays are important in most cultures, but they seem especially so in Chinese.) Then there was a group birthday party, involving somewhere around 20 babies all born within a few months of each other, celebrated at a brave (and generous) volunteer parent’s house. And finally there was Exie’s correct-date birthday party, which happened at our house and involved mostly close friends. Phew. It was fun, but maybe next year we can have fewer.

group birthday party semi-controlled mayhem

Exie’s first cupcake

At the pre-birthday party, we did something called the Chinese Grab. A bunch of grab-able objects are presented to the baby, each representing a different profession. If we were limiting ourselves to the professions traditionally favored by Chinese parents we’d have only offered a stethoscope, a gavel, and a calculator. We didn’t have a stethoscope or a gavel, and accounting strikes us as perhaps a bit boring (sorry, all you accountants out there), so the assembled objects included a maraca (musician), a small laptop mouse (computer person), a pen (writer), a bottle of pills (doctor), and a whisk (chef). In the heat of the moment, somebody chucked a dollar bill into the mix (so accountant made it in after all), and Susan’s mom added a small wooden Russian doll – the kind that stacks inside itself. When asked what profession that represented, she replied, “Um… married to a Russian?” This seemed to be neither a profession nor something that a traditional Chinese grandparent might commonly want for their granddaughter, but my protests were shouted down and the doll remained in the mix. Don’t get me wrong, I see nothing wrong with being married to a Russian, but it strikes me as a tad odd for it to be one’s occupation.

the Chinese Grab

After a few tricky feints at other objects, she ironically chose the bottle of pills. I say “ironically” for a couple reasons: 1) While some parents might hope their child will grow up to be a doctor, and it is arguably among the most prestigious of professions, Susan and I really don’t have any such specific aspirations for Exie; 2) It seems to me that a bottle of pills could be interpreted in a few ways, not all of them positive. I might have even preferred “married to a Russian” after all.

For fun, we tried the same game at her correct-date birthday party, albeit with different cast of objects. Much to our surprise, she again chose the bottle of pills. Go figure. I suppose when Susan and I are old and feeble, and ailing from multiple maladies, it might come in handy.

It was an exciting (if not somewhat exhausting) couple of weeks. In fact, that’s pretty much true for the whole year. It both crawled and whizzed by. And now we have a one-year-old. Weird.

having some cake

opening presents

cleaning up after the party; “Now I’m one!”

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