Goof

More goofing around and acting silly with sister K-bao.

At the end of the video when C-bao leans forward you can more clearly make out the patented "Ghidorah Style" (3-headed monster) hair-do that C-Grandmum invented.

Flowers

C-bao has always been a lover of flowers (hua or 花, as the C-folks have taught her). Whenever she sees them, she'll stop, point and bellow until C-Pop or C-Mum acknowledge the pretty petals. Here she takes in the colorful collection at Golden Gate Park while rolling around on the grass.

Orchestra

C-bao, a natural musician, has been treated to a whole new set of Chinese nursery rhymes over the past couple of weeks by C-Grandmum. At first, she contented herself with waving her hands to the music whenever she heard the music. The last few days, whenever she sees C-Grandmum, she will start proactively waving her index finger around as if conducting an orchestra, instructing her grandma to begin with the tunes.

Below you can see her conducting away, and then giving a round of applause.

Stand!

C-bao, who has been pulling herself up on any and every ledge or handgrip she can find for a few months, has finally started to try and stand on her own, and will even do so now on command.

Here you can see C-Pop asking C-bao to stand, and her open-leg technique for completing the task.

As you can also see, she's awfully proud of even a second of unassisted standing (at 0:27), and trumpets victoriously like a wild elephant.

iPhone

Like her sister - and most other kids, undoubtedly - C-bao is enamored with phones, blackberries and tablets. Here she pleads for the iPhone and says "Dada" in her most obliging voice.

Great-Grandmum

Here is lucky little C-bao with C-Great-Grandmum.

Appropriately, C-bao looks back in gratitude. To think: if not for the many miracles in the lives of this great woman, her daughter, and then her granddaughter over the years - enduring multiple world wars and countless harrowing experiences along the way - C-bao wouldn't even be here today.

His mercy passeth from generation to generation!

Spoilage

With the arrival of the C-Grandfolks (on C-Mum's side), C-bao is enjoying life - just as her sister did at this age.

Already, the attention is coming fast and furious, with extra reading and singing sessions, lots of additional shoulder rides, and plenty of 2:1 play sessions with the kitchen set. A few snapshots of the action below.

Trains

C-bao spent the day riding the steam trains at Tilden Park, thanks to the Jerez twins' (Dylan & Naomi) birthday bash. Here she is enjoying a snuggle with C-Mum and K-bao right before the train takes off.

C-Mum couldn't resist getting in a few tickles as the train rounded the corner.

One Second

Another short compilation of snippets from the last six weeks, with the siblings generally giggling and being silly. Credit to Cesar Kuriyama's One Second Every Day app.

Speedy Gonzales

Ever since C-bao's breakthrough at Xiao Jiu's (Uncle Calvin) apartment a half-dozen weeks ago, she has enjoyed the new found freedom of forward movement. These days, she won't tolerate being held for long and generally struggles to get down on the ground so she can get herself into mischief more freely.

Indeed, her land speed is now quite remarkable. Whenever she spots trouble (namely the kitchen, a bathroom, an outlet or a cabinet or drawer of some kind), she'll put on a burst of speed, and with a pitter-patter of small hands and knees hitting the ground and a huge smile on her face, she'll make a bee-line for it. Usually, before she actually engages in tasting the forbidden fruit, she'll look back to make sure someone is witnessing her naughtiness. The below is illustrative.

C-bao is also pulling herself up on anything that her little fingers can grip. It won't be long before she begins teeter-tottering on those little hoofs.

Not Peachy

The notoriously picky C-bao was digging into her sweet peach when suddenly she stopped. A long silence ensued, during which she suspiciously scrutinized the peach in her hands. Something was not right.

A wail of complaint issued forth. "What's the matter, C-bao?" asked C-Pop. The little one slowly untangled a piece of sticky, dark peach skin. Peach skin! Poison, no doubt! After inspecting, and confirming, this last point, the skin was quickly flicked away, and shortly thereafter the entire peach was summarily swept off the high chair.

Scratch & Giggle

Meal time at the Hu's is a slow and laborious affair, usually because someone is teasing or provoking someone else to giggle.

Here you see C-bao being highly entertained, inexplicably, by K-bao's head scratch. C-Mum gets in on the action too.

Discovery

C-bao made a visit to the Bay Area Discovery Museum this weekend. Her favorite was of course the outdoor area at the Tot Spot, where she splished and splashed happily while soaking through both her and C-Pop's shirts. Incidentally, this was also a favorite haunt of sister K-bao when she was about C-bao's current age, as recorded here.

Below she crawls through another section of the Tot Spot, navigating the tunnel with a big smile on her face.

Stinson Beach

C-bao hit the beach this weekend for the first time in her young, privileged life. It was a blazing hot day and the single-lane mountain road was congested and horribly curvy.  Not too far into the trip, C-bao began to complain and several times along the way C-Mum threatened to commandeer the car and turn the family around.

Once the gang arrived though at Stinson Beach, the pain was forgotten and C-bao settled down to some serious sandplay and seagull watching.

Did a little sand end up in the tummy, not to mention diaper, somewhere along the way? Undoubtedly. But C-bao was too busy to notice.

Below she runs alongside of sister K-bao in the sand. More accurately, she kicked her legs and pumped her arms furiously while C-Pop carried her underarm like a football to help her keep pace.

Happy Birthday

Happy birthday to our sweet little C-bao!

Below is her humble birthday celebration with sister K-bao and a strawberry frosted cupcake. You can see C-bao rocking out to the Birthday song, leaning in to blow out the birthday candle (ultimately delegated to her older sister, of course), and finally taking a poop right as she makes her first wish.

Ab Smooch

Here is C-Mum getting in her abs workout with the help of little C-bao.

Squeeze It

As noted on these pages before, C-bao is not the most obliging eater, which generally makes the job of any unlucky fellow assigned the task of feeding her a rather trying experience.

Here she is using her remarkably strong little fingers to pulverize her food and scatter the crumbs, while being egged on in her mischievousness by sister K-bao.

Party

C-bao attended the 1st birthday party of her buddy Emily over the weekend, where she gorged on sumptuous Korean delicacies while being loud and rambunctious and drawing all sorts of unnecessary attention.

Here she is agreeing reluctantly to a Daddy-Daughter pic with the birthday gal and her Pops, all the while sporting her patented "Ostrich Tail" hairdo.

Reality

Here is little C-bao praising the Lord with C-Mum in Sunday School at RealitySF.

Actually, that was the aspirational reality; the real reality is that she spent her time jamming random toys and carpet fuzz in her mouth in between demanding to be held. Hopefully she gets more worshipful over time.

(Photo Credit: Gus Dizon)

Forward

Triumph!

At last, little C-bao has acquired the foundational skills to crawl forward (as opposed to backwards, which was her only achievement in this area to date).

The breakthrough appeared this weekend at Uncle Calvin's ("Xiao Jiu") sunny Sunnyvale apartment.

You can see older sister K-bao clapping and encouraging her through it - and setting up the tempting water bottles just out of reach to motivate her forward. C-bao is lucky to have a real cheerleader in her sib - who was more excited about the accomplishment than she was ("Yay!!! She did it!!!")

Tilden

Here is C-bao enjoying a day at Tilden Park with the C-folks and her sister K-bao. After watching her sister hand out some munchies to the greedy goats, she took her first steam train ride, which she thoroughly enjoyed. You can see her gurgling with delight below.

Jieh Jieh

Each morning after C-bao takes her milk and gets her diaper changed, she starts looking around for her sister K-bao. Indeed, her first two phrases have emerged over the course of the last week: "Jieh Jieh" (older sister) and "Da Da."

C-Pop and K-bao can't seem to agree which one came first; naturally, K-bao insists vehemently she started hearing the former ages ago.

By the way, C-Mum, who has been trying to elicit the "ma" or "mum" sound from little C-bao for some time to no avail, has taken the view that C-bao's "da da" is actually the Chinese phrase "beat down," rather than any paternal recognition.

The Silent Swinger

C-bao swings in a contemplative silence - largely because she can't see what's going on around her.



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Footstool

The C-folks have apparently not done a very good job with passing on strong Confucian values to the next generation. As you can see, the concepts of "parental respect" and "dutiful daughter" are about the last things on C-bao's mind.



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Pretzel

Another reason C-bao hates covering up her little hoofs is because it doesn't allow her to demonstrate her remarkably flexible and agile footsy moves. Here she demonstrates the "pretzel foot" - which involves twisting and turning her feet and toes in quick succession.

A Dip

"Hooray! Going swimming!"

"I like beach balls and I cannot lie."

"Less posing, more swimming."

"Not going as fast as I think we should be, for some reason." 

"I did great! Just like my sister K-bao."

Sock Conqueror

C-bao has a deep seated hatred of socks, shoes and any other paraphernalia that prevent her ten little sausages from seeing the light of day or inhibits easy foot-sampling.

Put anything over those hoofs and her 9-month old mind instantly dedicates all of its resources to finding a way to remove the articles, by hook or by crook.

And once she does, she celebrates by waving around the offending items like trophies of war (0:30 of the below) - or better yet, shoving them in her mouth to show them who's boss.

Umm

C-bao enjoys her Umm-Umm biscuit.



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Love Slap

Here is C-bao demonstrating affection for her sister (i.e. "Let me slap you as hard as I can").

Pod-oisseur

When it comes to her preferred snack / personal pacifier, C-bao has moved on from her hands to her feet.

As you can see below, she likes to juggle and massage the little puppies while orchestrating them like a maestro conductor. At one point she serenades them with a benevolent squeal.

In the second clip, she decides - coincidentally while she had baby jam all over her mouth - to bring the little babes up for closer inspection. She savors with all the expertise of a wine-taster - slowly sipping, aspirating, sniffing and swirling.

Princess & the Frog

C-bao gets hold of a slimy amphibian at the California Academy of Sciences. Here she is contemplating whether or not to pucker up for it (deciding of course, to go for it, though she mistook the feet for the lips).

Xiao Goo-Goo

Shortly after C-bao was finished being spoiled by the K-Grandfolks and Shu-Shu, Aunty Catherine (Xiao Goo-Goo) arrived to pick up where others left off.

Hallelujah! More hugs! More kisses!

Here is XG2 doing the Surprised Cuddle and the Patented Stroller Portrait.

The Motorcycle

C-bao has patented a new dance move - "The Motorcycle" - where she twists her hands as if she's revving the handlebar accelerator of a bike. Here she can't help but break into it as older sister K-bao does the "C-bao Chant." Afterwards, she gives herself a round of applause.

Bookworm

Little C-bao enjoys her literature. Eating it, that is.




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Path of Grace

C-bao gets a frontrow seat with the talented Shu-Shu (aka Uncle James). Mesmerized by Uncle James' silky voice and the excellent praise music ("Path of Grace" - written by our dear friend Grace Tseng of Streams of Praise), the little one nonetheless could only stay focused for thirty or so seconds before being distracted by her blue bumbo. Luckily, like the army captain he is, Shu-Shu would have none of it and called her attention back to where it belonged.

(Too) Much Love

The C-Grandfolks and Uncle James ("Shu-Shu") were here visiting from Taiwan over the last week.  Little C-bao took full advantage, soaking up the love like an ultra-absorbent diaper.

Every little smile elicited coos, fawning gazes and delighted chuckles. Every whimper or sneeze brought a concerned grandma or uncle to her side, tissue and baby blanket in hand, ready to comfort, wipe or hug, on demand. Camera phones were working on overdrive.

Let it be shown for the record that the additional attention from all these parties did indeed have an impact on the little one's behavior. A highly deleterious impact indeed.