1 year! and a quick recap

Sorry, I haven't had much time to write lately, so here's a quick recap:

- We went to Mexico with Isaac's family over New Year's. It was a nice, relaxing trip and Aaron got to show off his standing skills for everyone.






- Aaron turned 1 last month! We celebrated with Isaac's family in Mexico, and then we had a small party with my family here.





- He's taken a few steps here and there, but mostly seems unaware that he's walking. Anytime I try to record him doing this, he drops to his knees and zooms toward me to grab the camera, so no video yet. Generally, he seems to prefer crawling because it's faster.

- He refuses to let us feed him, but he enjoys feeding himself and making a huge mess. He mostly uses his hands, but occasionally, he'll use a spoon.



- Sometime since the last post, he seems to transformed from a baby to a toddler (minus the toddling). This hit home for me when I found him in the bathroom transferring his dirty diapers from the garbage can to the toilet. Sadly, I forgot to take a picture at the time, but it was both gross and hilarious. He's been getting into everything lately.




hmm..he needs a haircut!

11 months

Aaron is 11 months old now. He's coming up on a year so quickly!


He hasn't begun to walk or talk yet, but he's become more proficient at crawling and cruising. He's also begun to stand by himself for a few seconds. Usually he doesn't notice he's doing it, and when we get him to try to repeat the feat, his legs get all noodley. He's also getting taller! I can tell because he likes to pull himself up to stand on basically anything he can get his hands on, and his head used to be level or below certain pieces of furniture even when he was standing, but now he's inching up above those same things.

He has four teeth now, with another two making their way through his gums right now. He's able to feed himself cheerios, and small pieces of food like broccoli, fish, or cheese.

He's biting a lot, but isn't too interested in gnawing on his teething toys. Not when there's paper, books, clothes, furniture, and people to bite instead.


He laughs a lot, and you can see the pride in his face everytime he does something new. Like when he learned how to splash. Or climb into the laundry basket. Or open kitchen cabinets. Or, like just now, when he opened the Band of Brothers DVD case by himself. I have no idea how he does some of these things. I just look over and he's already doing them. He loves cords, outlets, laptops, and everything he shouldn't be getting into.


His main "words" seem to be "ma-ma", "da-da", and "bao-bao". He also likes to babble "ba-ba-ba" and "wah-wah-wah". Today I sang "Baa Baa Black Sheep" to him while he was eating dinner, and he kept interjecting excitedly to add his own "bah bah bah"s to the song.

We've been trying to spend a little more time with his cousins so he gets social interaction with other kids. Aaron and his younger cousin love to shriek and babble at each other, and he also enjoys following his older cousins around (already). Of course, they're both running around, so Aaron's "following" mostly consists of crawling three feet in the direction they've run and then reversing direction when they run past in the opposite direction. Basically it looks like he's pacing, except he's crawling and grinning wildly.

It's all going by too fast.

grrarrr!!

So i guess it's kinda hard to tell what Aaron was dressed as from the previous post. He was a dinosaur!

so much happens in one day (kinda)

2:00am - "WAAAAAAAHHHHH"...Isaac changes a diaper and I feed him.
5:00am - "ba-ba-da-da-ma-ma"...same as 2:00am, but I take more time rocking him back to sleep because he's not as tired, and it's too early for him to get up.
7:00am - "da-da-da-da-da"... Isaac pulls himself out of bed to change a diaper and goes back to sleep
7:15am - "ma-ma-ma-ma-ma"... I pull myself out of bed to play with him and feed him breakfast.
9:00am - Nap #1 - supposedly for baby, definitely for me, Isaac is still sleeping.
9:40am - Isaac wakes up; Aaron is up, so they play together while Isaac gets up for work. Aaron likes our Sonicare.
10:30am - Isaac wakes me up and puts Aaron back in his crib. He pulls himself from a crouching position to a kneeling position in his crib for the first time. Isaac goes to work. It's playtime and we're reading.
11:00am - On our second time through "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?", he turns a page and bursts out sobbing. I switch to "Freight Train," and he's fine for the first few pages, but bursts out sobbing again. Apparently Nap #1 either a)didn't happen or b) was too short - back to sleep.
11:30am - I hear babbling and check on him - he's awake, and has pulled himself to his knees again. More playing, reading, and then lunch for him followed by more playing.
1:30pm - I put him in his crib for a nap; Make lunch for myself.
1:45pm - When I peek in to the room, he's pulled himself to a kneeling position again. I lie him back down.
Repeat every 15 minutes until 2:45 pm when I finally get him to fall asleep.
3:00pm - IM to Isaac: I think we need to lower the crib soon. Aaron's been practicing pulling himself to his knees for the past hour.
4:30pm - Aaron awakes, CRANKY. I try to comfort him, but he's unhappy being left to play by himself, so I carry him around with me, feeding him cheese while I make his dinner. The few times I leave him to himself today, he ends up gnawing on some wires or just as bad, exploring the area around the toilet (because I forgot to close the bathroom door).
5:30pm - Pop out to Gristedes for some last minute shopping for dinner.
6:00pm - Dinner followed by a bath for Aaron.
7:15pm - Isaac comes home and Aaron goes to bed.
7:45pm - Aaron is complaining in his crib, Isaac goes to check on him. I'm making dinner for us. Isaac comes out - Aaron was kneeling, and we discuss whether or not to push back Aaron's bedtime to lower his crib or to wait until later in the week since he's not standing yet. Isaac decides to lower the crib just in case. This way I can have peace of mind during his naps tomorrow.
8:00pm - "He's standing up!!" I dash from the kitchen to find Aaron proudly standing in his crib opposite Isaac. Multiple attempts to get him to repeat this prove fruitless. I return to the kitchen.
8:05pm - "He's doing it again!" Isaac decides to tape this feat before he lowers the crib.
8:30pm - I finish cooking, come in to see for myself and to watch Aaron while Isaac finishes lowering the crib.
8:45pm - Crib is lowered, Aaron is asleep. We eat dinner and watch the debate.


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crawling

As promised, a video of Aaron crawling.

Look Ma, No Hands!

As you can see from the previous video, Aaron can sit up on his own now.


He's been able to do this for over a month now, and just a few weeks ago, he started crawling. At first it was more of an army style crawl, where he used his arms to pull the rest of his body along, but now he's graduated to using his legs to help his movement. I haven't gotten a good video of it yet, but I'll work on it and post one later.

It's really fun to watch him explore and discover new things on his own, but we recently moved, so now we're rushing to finish unpacking and cleaning up so we can babyproof. He's displayed a knack for getting into everything we don't want him to and he's also putting everything in his mouth right now, so he requires near constant vigilance. Sometimes I'll step into the bathroom to wash my hands and when I come out, he'll be on the other side of the room where he's managed to rummage through some piles of papers and boxes to find a plastic bag(!) to stick in his mouth.

Here he is playing with a catalog for the first time.

San Francisco recap

We're back from San Francisco! It wasn't exactly a vacation - Isaac was out there to work, but we really did a lot while we were there. During the days, Isaac would work while I explored the city with Aaron, and at night, we met up with friends or family for dinner. Over the weekend, my family joined us from NJ and we celebrated my cousin's wedding with my extended family - most of whom I hadn't seen in 14 years.

Here are some highlights from our trip:

father's day brunch

relaxing and zoning out with US Weekly

Just after having his first solid meal

Enjoying the king bed - much roomier than his crib!


An example of one of the many hills I unnecessarily pushed the stroller up. After the trip where I pushed Aaron up three hills like this and then down one very steep hill to get where I needed to go, I wised up and consulted Google Maps (in Terrain view).




This was helpful, but could've used more detail. Maybe hills don't look very steep according to this map, but try pushing a stroller up them in 90-something degree weather! (It was unusually hot while we were there)

Cable car ride

The view from the Golden Gate Bridge

I think Aaron enjoys being out, but he's way too young to appreciate most of the touristy things we did. He definitely enjoyed playing in our hotel room though.

it's been a year now

I found out I was pregnant exactly one year ago today. It was a shock, to say the least, and I couldn't fathom and didn't want to imagine how my life was going to change. But now that Aaron is here and our little family is settling into its own sort of routine, I can wholeheartedly say that he was a good surprise. I do still miss the flexibility and freedom that we used to have, and the way my body used to feel young and not old and creaky the way it does now (although that has been improving), but I'm very thankful that God chose to bless us with this surprise.

No new pictures today - instead, a short video of Aaron playing with the mobile.

more music please

Aaron likes music. He enjoys classics like "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider" and whatever little tunes I randomly sing to him. He also enjoys his mobile which plays Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach (Thanks Crystal!) for 15 minutes straight. Isaac and I often use it to occupy him in the mornings so we can grab a few extra minutes of sleep.

One morning, we woke up to the strains of Mozart and we realized he had accidentally turned on his mobile with his feet! This was a few weeks ago and he didn't do it again, so I chalked it up to a happy accident. This morning, he was lying in his crib and I put a few toys in to see what would draw his attention, but he kept staring at the side of the crib at the mobile control. I walked away, and ten minutes later, he had rotated his body 180 degrees and was kicking at the control panel. He managed to turn it on, and is is now happily turning it on and off every 30 seconds.

update

I can't believe summer is almost here. Time seems to be flying by. It's strange, having a baby makes me feel simultaneously young and old. Old because of the responsibility, of course, but young because I feel like I get to see the world through fresh eyes again.

Aaron is growing so quickly! He's four months now, and about 14.5 pounds. He's more fun than he used to be and he seems to be doing new things everyday. Since last week we've noticed that he's learned to roll side to side. This doesn't seem like a big deal at first, but considering the fact that he's been stuck on his back since January, any new whole body movement is pretty cool. Also, he's just started to discover his feet which has started to interfere with the whole diaper changing deal as he loves to grab his toes while I'm trying to get him straighten out so I can get the diaper on. And just yesterday, he started shrieking excitedly while playing with his toys. It's a little hard to tell if it's a good or bad mood indicator as the nature of it seems to turn on a dime, but it's funny. Or it was for the first 10 minutes. After that I started getting a bit of a headache ;) And he's started to get more head control which is great thing!



He's also fairly well traveled now. He's been to NJ, Chicago, and San Diego and he's ridden a bus, ferry, car, taxi, subway, train, and airplane.

Mother's day has come and gone. We were on the plane coming home from San Diego all day so we didn't really celebrate. I was semi-hoping that my mother's day present would be a "Mama" or something from Aaron, but nothing like that. (He does make the "ma" noise now, but only when he's crying really hard.) Instead, he spit up all over me on the plane and I got to smell like vomit for 3 hours until we got home. But he was full of smiles that day, so that was a pretty nice present in itself.

to work or not to work

I'm officially a SAHM(Stay At Home Mom) now. Partially by choice and partially by circumstance. Last fall we looked into daycare and put ourselves on a waiting list, only to discover this month that we are STILL on the waiting list and will not have a chance of moving off until September. Great.

Part of me is quite disappointed. I wish I had at least been able to make the choice out of my own volition, not because we have no childcare. (Technically, we could hire a nanny to provide childcare, but neither of us wants to do that.) I'll miss my work friends and regular interaction with adults. I had just gotten a promotion last November and I had been hoping to get more experience in my new role. Our department moved locations while I was on leave and I heard that I was assigned an office all to myself. With a window. And a door! But of course work is not without its stresses. My job kept me pretty busy and with the promotion, I would have had to work more late nights and early mornings than I would probably like to now that I have a baby.

So I'm a little relieved too. It would've been a tough decision and it does seem a bit too early to go back. Aaron is growing so fast. I remember dressing him when we were coming home from the hospital and everything was just huge and flopping around on him. His feet barely reached the knees in most of his outfits. And now I've already had to put away some of those same outfits because he can't fit into them anymore. And it's not only his clothes that he's outgrown. In his first few weeks of life, he used to make this face where he would look kinda curious and scrunch his lips up into this teeny tiny 'O' shape and his mouth would shrink until it became little dot on his face. Alas, we never got a picture of him doing it because we never expected him to outgrow it so quickly.

If I were to go back to work, I know it would feel like his life was almost passing me by and I would probably miss a lot of his little phases. Like how he has recently become enamored of the lamp in our living room. He'll whine until we move him so that he can see it. And then I'll catch him alternately grinning at it and looking away shyly. It looks like he's flirting. He did this repeatedly for an hour the other day. Apparently it's his new best friend.

It's weird - I'm excited for him to grow and develop more - to start sitting up! talking! crawling! and walking! But I'm already nostalgic for his little tiny mouth face and all his clothes that he's already outgrown and I'm a little sad to know that some day he will wriggle out of my arms to run around as fiercely as he cries to be held in them now.

sleep parenting

During Aaron's first month, I was mostly exhausted because of I was recovering from the whole labor and delivery and its effects on my body. From what our moms tell us, Aaron is a fairly pretty easy baby though. From the beginning, he slept in pretty regular spurts of 3 hours, and even slept 4 hours at night sometimes. I wasn't getting a nice long stretch of sleep, but at least I was getting sleep when I wasn't feeding him or myself.

Now I'm exhausted from taking care of him. He's been fussy and overtired for the past few days. You'd think that would mean that he would pass out and sleep like a log until he woke up hungry or dirty. I wish! Overtired for him has meant that he can't fall asleep easily. No matter how I've held him, he cries and cries until he manages to doze off. But then any little movement or sound will wake him up. We've just been living in a sort of dazed cycle - nap, wake up, change his diaper, feed him, maybe change his diaper again, try to quiet him down (sometimes for hours) and get him to sleep again.

I think being overtired is only partially to blame for his recent spurt of fussiness. He's also starting to become socially aware. He now pushes himself to stay awake to hang out with the moms and pops and whoever else is around. His eyes will be rolling back into his head because he's so tired, but he'll suddenly start and look around to see what's going on. The great thing about this newfound discovery of the world and people around him is that he smiles socially now!



The not so great part is that he cries for attention, wants to be held constantly and doesn't like to sleep by himself anymore. It's tiring, but I just remind myself that he's already grown so much and a day will come when he won't want me around as much anymore, so I might as well savor it while I can. Anyway, I've been trying to hold him until he's asleep and then place him in his crib, but as soon as his little butt hits the mattress, he starts wailing this sad, scared sounding cry. So we've taken to letting him sleep on us sometimes just so we can all get some sleep.

Last night, I awoke to the sound of Aaron's whimpering cries followed by some hollow thumps coming from Isaac's side of the bed. I look over and Isaac is sound asleep and patting his chest, trying to comfort the baby. Except Aaron wasn't sleeping on Isaac's chest. He was in his crib.

one month

Aaron is getting fatter! We went to the doctor and found out that he's gained 2.5 pounds which isn't that much when you think about it at first, but it's almost 40% of his original weight! My weak arms can definitely feel the difference. I can't hold him like a football anymore; he's too tall for me to do that now.

When I first came home from the hospital, my mom and Isaac's mom each stayed over for a few nights to help us adjust and they both cooked a ton of food. I didn't follow some of the more old fashioned Chinese confinement traditions (not washing hair for 30 days, staying in bed for 30 days), but I did try to eat according to Chinese tradition and I tried to stay warm and dry.

This meant no "hot" or "cold foods" and lots and lots of ginger. I've had A LOT of ginger and chicken in the past few weeks - pretty much at every meal. At one point I was drinking milk that had ginger in it and sponge bathing with ginger water. I think I've had my fill of chicken and ginger for quite some time. I do think there's something to the Chinese food tradition because I know Isaac was really sick of ginger, but it was all really tasty to me so maybe my body needed it. But the month is over and I can have a greater variety of food and eat sushi and ice cream again, guilt-free!

I also get to go outside a little more which is really really nice. I've been going a little crazy cooped in the apartment. Throwing out garbage and going downstairs to do laundry became exciting excursions for me. But I have big plans this weekend! I'm attending a bridal shower, going out with Isaac's extended family and I'm planning to go shopping for a baby carrier so I can start taking Aaron out for walks around the neighborhood.

pregnancy randomness

I'm just about at that point in pregnancy now where I should be feeling the baby move at least once every day. Its movements are pretty strong at times - like to the point where I get uncomfortable and/or I can actually see little jumps in my belly or ripples across my stomach as it squirms around inside. My bellybutton is starting to come out, and it's been feeling a bit tender, so I've just started putting a bandaid over it. I'm hoping that it won't pop out all the way, but I don't think I'll be that lucky since I still have a good amount of time to go.

One of the more difficult and immediate adjustments to being pregnant was the sudden profusion of food restrictions...here's a short list:
- 3 servings of caffeine per day (chocolate counts towards this!) from the 2nd trimester on. Before that, no caffeine!
- no sushi
- no soft cheeses (brie, goat cheese,etc)
- no alcohol
- no deli meats (unless heated to smoking)
- limited types of cooked fish (no shark, no sea bass, tuna but not often, etc)
- food has to be cooked through (well done steak! :/)

During the first several months, I was really particular about everything I ate because the rate of miscarriage is higher early on, and even though early miscarriages aren't usually linked to food, everything just seemed a lot more precarious. Now that I've been able to feel the baby move more regularly, I'm less strict about what I eat. For example, I had Coke for the first time a few weeks ago. It was so smooth, like liquid gold. I had a sip of Isaac's sangria one night and a tiny bite of his oh so smooth salmon sashimi another night. And sometimes, we get free sandwiches for lunch at work, so I'll have deli meat. When we do get lunch at work, I don't like to stand around and open all the sandwiches to check their contents, so I kinda eyeball them and hope for the best. The other day, I accidentally had a ham and brie sandwich (sooo good, by the way!).

But the night and the day following the brie sandwich, the baby was unnervingly still. No flutters, no kicks, nothing. I started getting pretty worried and I remembered the bandaid on my bellybutton, and I thought that it might be causing the baby to suffocate, which makes no sense of course.

In the beginning, I had a hard time seeing how I would ever get to the point where I would love this baby. I knew I would eventually, but nausea and dizziness doesn't really inspire any affection. But as it's developed more and we've been able to see and feel its movements, I've found myself growing more attached to the baby. And its lack of movement that day solidified the growing realization that I think I'm learning to love this unborn and unmet member of our family.

It really does feel like a miracle to think that a few months ago it didn't exist, and that it's grown so much and I had nothing to do with it. I think pregnancy is helpful for the whole transition from a carefree adult to a parent with responsibilities. There are months for you to absorb the shock and to accept the coming changes, and then some time for you to just enjoy and learn to appreciate what is happening, and then some time after that to focus on the practical things that need to be done in preparation for the baby's arrival. That's not to say that we're ready or anything - I'm definitely glad to have nine months!