Learn to Sit

As the saying, "3, 6, 9, lie, sit, crawl". Renee is learning to sit as she approaches six-month old.

First, she learned to grab her foot. Once again, left hand first.









This was the first day we successfully sat her up.








Another shot with her sitting in the ring.








Her mom bought her a book that she can play with and, to her greatest joy, chew on.







We took her to a very nice restaurant in Danville. By the way, she is taking on her mother's skin tone, such that they are exactly the same now. When I told my sister about it, she said, "That is fortunate!"











Like I said, very nice restaurant.

My Little Lefty

On the date that Renee turned 100-day old, by the tradition of Lian's family, we went out and celebrated at a nice restaurant. This day is called "Bai Sui", which sounds like "100-year old". Of course, it is not surprising that nobody ever bothered to clear that up.





We also took a picture at home where she is wearing the set of clothes that her grandparents bough for her from China, and holding on the two items that the fortune-teller said that she should have.










We get up once or twice during the night. It is a little harder to get her back to sleep sometimes, but then again, there are always time like this that she could barely open her eyes to feed.








Her neck is much stronger now, and she is enjoying this position more and more.






Stronger neck also means that I can face her forward when taking her out for a walk.









For a walk in the apartment complex, this is her typical outfit.









And she finally learned to grab. And guess what, I think she is a lefty! It is actually not surprising because both I and Lian's mother are lefty so the genes are definitely there.







Trying out Blogger's video upload capability. We actually take more video than pictures now because it is more fun to watch it this way. The only problem is that iPod touch does not mix pictures and videos as well as photo album.

New Patterns Everyday

I know the existing parents will read the title and say "yeah, so?" But hey, I am a new father. When she is content, i.e., not hungry or sleepy or not sure if she is hungry or sleepy, Renee is a lot of fun to be around with. She will sometimes even try to talk to you through babbling. Of course, her mother and grandmother have much better priority on those moods. So far, she only talks to me continuously if she really wants me to pick her up, before resorting into crying.

Her neck is much stronger now, giving me a new angle to work with.

During the day, she does not like to be wrapped in anymore. This is her favorite sleeping position now. The sleeping time ranges from 5 to 90 minutes. Sometimes, she will wake up, cry until someone comes and pick her up, then go back to sleep on your shoulder. If you put her down, she will sleep another good 10 minutes or ever more.

These kind of broad smiles are only reserved to her mother and grandparents, who have been caring her day in and day out for the last three months. I get them occasionally too, and each time it calls for celebration. Sad eh? Well, I couldn't help it!

Well, it is not like the new father dose not have something special. He gets this kind of stare ALL the time. I was really proud of myself for a while because, I thought my face "makes her wonder", well, until I discovered that she does exactly the same thing to the camera.

This is a very good one too.

Growth with an Atitude

The quite days of nursing Renee is now officially over. Well, we still have the occasional good days but most of the time she will find something about burping, nursing and sleeping to work us.

We are still enjoying our parenting experience with Renee. Especially after I learned about the unfortunate Grace. Sometimes, life is just so fragile.

She is more responsive now. Her eyes can really follow you around when she is awake, which is really cool. I always wonder what she is thinking when she does that.

Sometimes, we let her lie on her stomach on top of Lian or I. This will give her a chance to exercise and we can watch her from close distance in case she cannot lift her head up or position it correctly. Twice I did it she fell into sleep after a little while.





She enjoys sleeping with hands out more now. It is hard to tell sometimes. Having her hands out like this, she sometimes will have sudden movement and wake herself up. So I am learning to close the door and my laptop gently now.

There were nights that she sleep for longer hours and we only needed to get up once to feed her. Those sure felt good, and I have gained a deeper understanding of the phase "sleeping like a baby".

Being more active means that we get more chance to capture her smiles and stares.




Burping is becoming her favorite time now. And her neck has got much stronger.





To quiet her down, we had to hug her, burp her, sing to her, talk to her, pat her... Today we were both still sleepy in the morning, so I took her to lie with us and held her in my arm. After she went back to sleep, we took these two picture.











Some references:

• The doctor recommended this book: Caring for Your Baby and Young Child
• I found this Visual Stimulation on line. Renee seems to like it at the beginning. Not so much lately.

One Month Old

We went to the doctor's before she turned one month old. Renee weighed 6 pounds and 8 ounces. Even though it was still less than the birth weight of most of the baby we know, for her this is already 22 ounces than what she was 14 days ago.

She peed on me for the first time at the doctor's. she also peed on the changing table, the weight. And that was preceded by a small stool and followed by puking some of the milk out. The assistant said that she has seen each action individually but but never together.



Maybe it was my imagination. But every time she dose something like this (surprise you with pee when you least expected), she would become quite, as if quite pleased with what she just did.







We hosted a month-old party in the apartment with a few old family friends. Renee's performance reached record high on this day. She would only complaint when she became hungry, then just eat quietly. Then she will either go right back to sleep, or staying awake playing with herself, allowing us to show her to the guest and took some photos.


Her grandma gave her a good bath, which she enjoys more and more lately.









Then we dressed her up.








While we were waiting for the guests, her grandpa finally worked up the courage to hold her long enough for a picture. We all thought that she appeared to be much more comfortable than the grandfather.









The guests are here! Renee had her first star moment with the three lovely aunties. Sorry Jing and Erica, the angle of the camera could have been better had we turned her a bit.






And here are the proud parents!









Here is one of my potential son-in-law. There is another one, but he was yet too young (less than a month older) for this trip.








Weili for the first time asked me where are the new posts, which could only mean that he was proud of this picture.











And at the end of the day, the grandparents, who arranged everything for the party, finally took the rest and enjoyed some family time.

First Outdoor Stroller Experience

After the month-old party, she became less easier to take care of. It appeared to be the gas in her stomach, but the Mylicon has lost its magic. My sister recommended to keep her in up-right position after the feed, and rub her stomach in clock-wise direction. Two nights in a roll I had to stay up for an extra hour to calm her down, during one of which she had her first earth quake experience.


When she is happy, she is still cute as well.









After her mother and grand parents spent a whole day calming her down, I came home a little early so that we can all go out together. We came to this green field that is to the north-west of the apartment.





I think she enjoyed the little trip, because she slept right through it.

Plum, Gas, and Backrub

She became fussy. She will lift her legs up very high and her face will turn red. We called the doctor, who thinks that she might have some gas and recommended Mylicon, a gas relief drop. Before we started giving her that, we talked and realized that it could be the plum juice and plums that the mom had.

But it only improved very little. So we still ended up giving her Mylicon. It seems to work, because she is much better now. It is funny to watch her taking Mylicon. She will suck hard on the tube, then she will making loud smacking sound and frown slightly, as if trying to figure out what is this liquid that does not really taste like milk.

"Now, will you change my diaper?"

This has happened three times already, and every time it was pretty funny to me.

Renee got gassy lately. She will let out gas loudly, sometimes with a bit of stool. We would open up her diaper, take a look at the damage, and discuss if we should change it, or just wipe that little stain since the diaper is still clean.

Three times during that discussion, she will start urinating (yes, girls can make them high too!) and make a scene. As the new mom and dad were in a hurry checking to make sure the bed and clothes are ok (we are actually getting better at that), she will follow it up with a big stool.

Then, she will stop all her arms and legs movement, become very quiet and look at us rather satisfied, as if to say:

"Now, will you change my diaper?"

It is worth to note that her stool business is quite strong, and twice we had to wash our hands. The last time she did it, it literally reminded me that little bird at the end of the movie "Scary Movie III".

If you get the picture, sorry.

She sometimes scratch her face, so we give her gloves whenever she is active.

Eat, Drink, Pee, Poop, Sleep (吃喝拉撒睡)

These five Chinese characters are the five very basic activities that every human does in order to be alive, and that is pretty much what Renee is focused on this period of time.

Eating and Drinking

We still have not found a good pattern for her to feed effectively. What this means is that she will have two feeding patterns. Pattern one: eats for half an hour, goes limb, burps and falls asleep during the second or third round. Pattern two, eats for an hour, keeps falling into sleep, wakes up after being put into swaddles, cries, eats for an hour as if last hour of eating didn't happen.

Pooping and Peeing

She still does not cry with a wet diaper or stool. But we are getting better at smelling it, well, much more accurate with stools anyway.

Sleeping

Sleeping is a bit random as well. She seems to like less about being in the swaddle once she wakes up, because she will put a lot of effort into getting out of it. Well, we know for sure that she puts a lot of effort into something based on her expression and the sound that she makes. She always succeeded in getting at least one hand out. On a good day, she will become quite and sleep like this for a while longer. On a bad day, she will keep doing it, even after we get her free.

Nova's Visit

Nova happened to be in town with her boyfriend. Due to the Chinese traditional belief that the new mom and baby should see as few guests as possible, and least of all strangers, the poor guy had to wait outside while Nova went with me to see Lian and Renee. Nova brought some cute clothes for Renee. I also asked her to buy calabash to hang at the bed side. With calabash and the silver lock, we finally have both the decorations that was suggested by the folks from my birthplace, who made the suggestion based on Renee's birth date and time. Actually the silver lock was supposed to be under her pillow, but for one she does not have one, second that would be a choking hazard.

Acne

The book says that diaper rash may "grow" on the diaper area and baby acne may "break out"on the face. When her acne came right on time (started third day on the third week), I finally understood why it was "break out" and why the book describe it as "bother parents more than it does to the baby".

Week 2 - Nursing

Renee's cord dropped on Sunday. I took a picture of it. But it came out too blurry.

Like father, like daughter. She has exactly the same foot as her father. Her face was pinky when she was born, but it now slowly turned to be more like my skin tone. I cannot say that the mother is very happy about this.





We had some difficulty nursing her. She would get sleepy and stop eating, but become very active an hour later. Calming her would take an hour. But when we tried to feed her, she would become sleepy again after just 10 minutes. The next feeding would also be quite short. We are not sure what to make of it but we are keeping an eye (or rather, all of our eyes) on her hunger signs. The book says that a child goes through growth spurts, maybe she has just started her first.

With the mom and grandparents taking care of the baby, I actually don't do much during the day. So I returned to work on Tuesday. One nice thing about working for Guidewire is that you surely have your work and life balanced. I looked at the feeding schedule, realized that there is no way I can go to bed at 11pm and go to work on time without being sleepy. I now go to bed after 7 pm, so that I can wake up three times during the night to help feed the baby, and not losing sleep. So far it works well. It also helps to have "Uberman Sleep Schedule" experiment with other Borlanders several years back.

I noticed that playing with her a bit during the nursing can wake her up. Among all the warm greetings, fatherhood welcome, and comforting that "it will get better" from Guidewire coworkers that were sent to my work email address, Janice recommended the book "The Nursing Mother's Companion".

Is this a smile? Lianxin's parents told me a saying, "one day cat one day dog", describing the fact that the baby behavior changes all the time. That is really true. One day she could be so quiet, that you can change her diaper without even waking her up. The next day she would be so active, that you just have to stay up with her.

We went to pediatrician today. Guess what? Renee weighs 5 pounds 1.75 ounces! That is 7 ounces in 6 days. We were all very happy to hear that. She got hungry at the doctor's (only 2 hours from last feeding), so we had to stay in the room and feed her.

I am learning different burping position. This position is not as effective as others have told me. And it gets a bit harder with her letting out gas by my nose.