Mia is one and a quarter today. She is climbing on everything, and now loves to hang onto any object above her head with her feet off the ground. When hanging she can almost pull herself up into a full chin-up. She loves the pool and no longer minds getting dunked under water. She still eats anything we put in front of her, and can recognize tons of objects in her books by either their English or Spanish names.

Here's a few videos to add to yesterday's pics.

This first vid first shows her establishing her sea legs. Mommy and Daddy had some questionable parenting; we got more than a few stares letting her run all over the top deck of a moving boat. But she has a good sense of "off-balance", loves to run like a drunken sailor, and never complains when falling.




This next video is more fun with dry ice.

Mia had a bit of jetlag from the return leg of our trip, but overall she settled back into her routine in Hong Kong quite smoothly. Here are some more pics taken from the tail end of our US trip and the next few weeks recuperating back home in Hong Kong.

Highlights included:

• Attending her first pirate-themed birthday party on a junk boat - Mia definitely thought she had commandeered the boat and had high rule of the open seas



• Performing her first chemistry experiment - Our mooncakes for Mid-Autumn festival came packed with dry ice, so we had to have a little exercise on sublimation



• Smelling (or at least leaning into) just about eveyr tropical flower known to man at the Flower Market



• Playing at Alex's house during Doris' baby shower, and watching lots of Barney DVDs that could drive any normal adult insane

One fun aspect of parenting is watching how Mia's laugh changes and develops as she grows. Thankfully she does plenty of laughing so it's easy to see.

Mia's favorite pastime is still reading. She especially loves books with various buttons that mkae sounds or play a tune. Recently she tries to cahllenge herself by setting off as many as possible at the same time to create a cacophony of sounds the likes of which could only appeal to a one-year old.

Here is Daddy reading Mia a book on America's favorite pastime. This shot is about the 10th time Daddy has read about Elmo going to the ballpark today, and to keep his own sanity he starts making up odd voices which Mia finds very amusing.