Flu season and holiday season

The one and half month before Thanksgiving was the flu season, where Renee was having one or other kind of cold all the time. We wipe her nose so often that she has learned to go to the table, reach for the tissue, wipe off the nose and throw it to the garbage under the sink. We just need to remind her from time to time. The only downside is that she enjoys picking her nose a lot and we have to try very hard to distract her with other activities.

During the period, everyone in the family got sick at least once, with Renee and Max had a fever once. I hope the worst is behind us (knock on wood) now, and we are all looking forward to the holiday season.

(update, Renee is having a fever today. I hope it will get better during the night)

We bought Renee some drum set. Still not sure if it is a good idea. She enjoys them on and off

Renee loves going to the park with us. She also has learned to pose for the camera. The only thing is that she does not know what makes a good picture. The upside is that sometimes you get funny pictures like this one.

Max has learned to roll! By the time this picture was taken, he could only roll and would get his hand stuck. Now he knows to shift his weight to free the hand after rolling over. Sometimes he still has trouble, and he will roll all the way back to try it again. Max also can grab things a lot better, and Renee is still his most favorite object to grab.

I stayed home during the week of Thanksgiving to be with Renee instead of sending her to the extended care. I went out with Renee for a walk after her nap. In the middle of a walk, she pulls out a piece of popcorn like a magician and starts eating it. It turns out that she pocketed half a dozen of them the previous day from the sampling station at the farmers' market.

This is my favorite picture of the month. She just looks so cute in the black.

We went to the shopping mall nearby to visit the Christmas tree and Santa's chair.

A cowgirl shopping on a black Friday.

With Max' neck being strong, and the whole family is feeling better, we came out to a nice park overseeing the highway. Renee does not pay attention to Max, and not interested in taking pictures together with him. I had to sneak in while she is playing to get a picture of them both.

Max has a great smile and he uses it all the time.

I am starting the tradition of setting up the Christmas tree on the weekend of Thanksgiving. For the first three days, Renee yelled "WOWWWW" every time she sees it after a night's sleep, a nap or playing outside.

When Renee is in a good mood, we can persuade her taking a picture with her little brother. Max is just happy whenever he is near Renee.

Good natured Max and whining Renee

Finally, I have picked out the pictures of the last two months and am writing the next blog post. Looks like blogger fixed the picture update issues too. I am afraid that my focus is still on Renee, who whines a bit more nowadays. My reaction has been from anxious, annoyed to lately indifferent. Whine, don't whine, it does not change our quality time together.

We went to Gilroy garden, a place recommended for all parents. Renee's old playmate, Ethan is also there. It is always fun to watch the two play next to each other following each other without any interaction.

Max has grown a lot. His neck is now strong enough to support his head. I don't know if it is because we let him be a lot more than Renee, or he just has a good nature, Max is a lot easier to take care of. He can lie in the bed and entertain himself for about hour before he gets bored and crying for attention. And boy he loves to smile at faces. Max can also recognize the voice of mother and grandmother, and try to follow it whenever he hears one of them talking in the room.

It is still fun to play "let's make a similar pose and compare Max to Renee two years ago". Can you tell which one is Max and which one is Renee?

Here is another picture in another park around here. Our playdate group has grown. We even have a blog for the group!

The grandfather dropped by for a weekend and visited Max for the first time. Renee got the full blast of story reading that she didn't even go out that day.

Want to know how big Max looks sometimes? Check out this one. I laugh every time I look at it on my iPhone.

Renee's eating habit changed a bit and it is actually easier to take her to restaurant now. This is us going out to eat at sweet tomato. It is also fun to see how other parents discipline or fail to discipline their kids in the public sometimes.

Finally, I will conclude this blog post with another picture of Max showing his good nature.

Week 1

The day with Max and Renee are flying by so fast. I think I should just catch-up.

Day Four: Sleepy Day

The title is actually for me. The sleep debt finally caught up with me and I felt very sleepy the whole day. Twice I took a rest at Renee's bed, twice I felt asleep.

Here is Max sleeping. I pulled up the same picture for Renee when she was born.

The day went pretty uneventful and fast for me, but I did manage to take a few pictures.

By the end of day, I dropped to zombie mode, only up for changing the diaper and burping, even that was mostly done by the mom. I would just get up, unwrap Max, check the diaper (not necessarily change it), hand it to the mom and drop back to sleep.

Feeding Max is not as easy according to the mom, because he will eat, then stop to enjoy it. But as soon as she puts him down, he will start fussing. None of this bothered me, as I was sound asleep.

Did I mention that I was very sleep deprived?

Day Five: Seeing the Doctor

I finally recovered from the sleep deprivation and the slight dehydration in the morning.

It seems that the only way to get Max to eat is to hold a bit until he is really upset, which does not really take much. He will go from totally calm to crying and demanding to be fed in one minute.

We don't follow the clock strictly now. We just set the timer to four hours and he always start crying before the timer goes off, except maybe once.

I start spending more time with Renee so that she does not feel left out. I ended up taking a lot more cute pictures of her with My iPhone. These two are the ones that I particularly liked.

Max shows great energy and appears more alert comparing to her sister. I call this one "Tai-chi master"

We went to see the doctor, who declared Max to be a healthy boy. He got a minor Jaundice, nothing much to worry about.

While waiting for the doctor, I took a picture with Max holding my finger.

They say with two kids, you get a lot less sleep now because they will wake up in turn. With the grand parents' help, this has not been the case for us. We did get some quiet time when Renee is sleeping during the day or after nine o'clock.

Day Six: Just another day

Today is pretty normal. I got up around 10. Renee is out playing with the grandparents in the park. I went grocery shopping.

Renee did not eat much during lunch time was a bit acting out during dinner time. We have been warned about something like this, even though I didn't feel that Max was the reason because he was upstairs sleeping both times. Even so, I don't feel like giving her a hard time for it.

I spent the afternoon playing tea party with Renee. I also walked around the house with her when she does not want to have dinner.

The above are according to the notes that I took.

I take Renee out more often now. Here is one where she is pointing to a rabbit hopping on the slope.

At the night, I was changing diaper and found Max's lower body was covered with these mysterious gel-like particles. I have never seen them on Renee so I was a bit worried. After examining it for a while and not able to figure out what they are, I decided to call the nurse, who correctly identified the source, diaper.

Can you guess why I never saw it before? I'll give you a hint... Let's just say that despite being sibling and all, Max and Renee go about their business a little differently.

The grandma did not forget Renee. She still gets to enjoy her favorite bath time.

Here is another comparison of burping Renee and Max. Did I mention that Max was more alert?

Did I also mention that Renee and I got to spend a lot of quality time together outside? We went to farmers' market and visited a little train show in the old train station.

I did say "A LOT" quality time, right? Anyway, here is us at the Costco.

Day Three: Bribing the Way

Home Sweet Home


We got up in the morning, fed Max. I went out for my morning break, aka breakfast (literally), at the cafeteria. During the short time that I was out, Lianxin finished most of the hospital discharge process and filled out the form for the birth certificate.

Max is in his new clothes. We played with her for a while and took some pictures.







We got our stuff together, moved them to the cart accompanied by the nurse. As usual, we took a picture with Max in the car seat. This reminded my very much of the first day when Renee was in her car seat. I dug out my old post and found this picture of Renee in her car seat when she was going home.














I did not want their sibling relationship to start up on the wrong foot. It probably didn't matter for brother and sister, but I just felt that we should give it our best try. On our way home, we took a detour to Gymboree and bought a Gymbo hand puppet for Renee. Renee used to come here on weekends before she had other outdoor activites, and she always wanted to play with Gymbo.

This time it worked very well. Renee loved Gymbo and kept playing with it, such that she did not mind parents and grandparents holding Max. She always remembers that it is a gift from her little brother.

Quickly we all got fed and went to nap. At one point, the daughter, son and the mom are sleeping in three different bed, and it felt so peaceful. I walked around, enjoyed a little quiet time, and joined napping.




I got up half an hour later, got car seat installed and went to the police station for the inspection. One of the two seats was rejected by the inspector because it expired long time ago. We ended up buying a new one for Renee.

We stopped the formula because the mom is producing the milk. Max seems to be hooked on the formula because he would not eat for long.

Day Two: De Ja Vu

Well, sorta

The second day morning I felt that all my sensors are a bit off, such that I didn't know if I had enough sleep. After Max was fed and mom was ready to eat, I went out to the cafeteria and had a quiet breakfast by myself.

Feeling a lot better, I went and picked up grandparents and Renee. This time, I tried a card with big medal sticker for "big sister". It sort of worked. We took turn to play with Renee and Max, took a few family pictures.

It didn't last very long, though. Soon, Renee started asking to play with whoever was holding Max, and kept saying "don't look at little brother". That was the cue for us to separate the two, so that their relationship can survive for us to try another day.

When I dropped Renee and the parents off the house, Renee wouldn't let me go. I had to escape when the grandma distracting her. Not feeling like risking it, we stayed the rest of the day by ourselves. We thought we should give the bribe one more try when Max going home, so I went out and bought a guitar. It was a bit big, so we decided to check out Gymboree in the morning and use guitar as a backup.

We also learned a bit of difference for Max. Apparently he likes to be wrapped when feeding. This exactly the opposite from Renee, who could barely stay awake during the feeding.

We had our celebration dinner, during the middle of which Max invite himself in by crying his eyes off. The parents still felt relaxed, because he could just latch on and finish his business.

However, at 1 a.m., the nurse who did the checkup told us that Max' weight has dropped 8% and we should watch out. Based on our experience with Renee, we immediately decided to try the formula to at least make sure he is well fed. The formula worked its charm. Max had just the recommended volume and went back to sleep without a fuss.

Day One : It's Time

First of all, sorry for waiting for so long before I started blogging. I could blame on the cryptic instruction about how to hook up blogger to my website hosting service. I also blame on the fact that taking care of Max is a whole new different experience in which blog posting did not exactly fit in. I could also blame on the fact that I spent most of my free time to be with Renee for various reason. But at the end, I have nothing but myself to blame. As I have argued many time on many subjects, " You always have a choice, you just made it without knowing it or admitting it" So, without further a due, the birth of Max Duan.  

"Oh, by the way" 

It was Sunday morning and I was sound asleep. (almost 4 a.m.) I suddenly woke up to a bright light. "What the..." It was Lianxin turning on the light and asking to wake up. "The BOSS system downstairs is playing music for some reason" I listened, sure enough, the iPod somehow turned itself on and is playing my collection "the 60's music". I got up, it was around 4 in the morning. "It must be Renee's work" I thought to myself. She is getting used to iPod and likes to play with it. As I was on my way out of the door, Lianxin said

"Oh by the way, I think I am having contraction"

Still pondering about the meaning of this, I went downstairs. Sure enough, Renee turned on the alarm clock on the iPod to 4 a.m. Turned off iPod, I came back up. I woke up more during the process, realized the implication of contraction, and figured out the right question to ask

"how many minutes apart?"

They were five minutes apart. But we didn't want to raise false alarm, so we waited for an hour. During the period, the contractions were very regular with five minutes apart. At 5 am, we called the doctor. Based on the past experience, she recommended checking us into the hospital. We checked us in through the ER and went back to sleep. Nothing more exciting happened after that. By 8 a.m., the nurse decided to send us home because it could just be a false alarm. Looking back, we think our mistake was not to walk around but lie in the bed, because the moment we collected our decorations and got moving, it got worse. By 9 o'clock, it was so bad that Lianxin had to call the doctor again. The nurse was really apologetic for sending us back, because by the time that we settled in the same room, it was apparent that the child birth was immanent. That is when I got a chance to update the Facebook status (She wouldn't let me take a picture) We were ready to use epidural but the nurse was afraid it was too late already. Figured that we had nothing to lose, and that the pain was really unbreakable even to watch, we requested it anyway. That was a smart move. The epidural kicked in pretty quickly and Lianxin was able to take a break from the pain. Very soon, the nurse announced that everything is in order and brought in the doctor. Within just two rounds of pushes, Max was born. I couldn't resist but took video of the whole thing, really cool. After the baby is wiped clean and put back to mom's chest, I went back home to pick up the grandparents and Renee. Renee was not exactly sure what is going on, and was a little bit jealous. Two days before, I toured around a Toy R Us store and bought her a little model car, Romone from Cars. It did not exactly work its charm, because Renee was not too impressed, especially not with the noise. 

Max was 6 pounds 6 ounces, and appears to be ready to come out. He figured out the art of latching on with a few tries and never had problem ever since. Pretty soon, Max had three bowel movement and got all the black stuff out. It feels like the same thing over again, especially so at the moment I set the alarm clock for three hours later with blood-shot eyes. The night was pretty tense, as we are trying to figure out Max' feeding habit. He cries a lot. We ignored it for one round but I couldn't hold it. So I dragged his cart by my bed side and did what I did with Renee - Patting him while sleeping sitting in my bed. It sort of worked. 

Our life of a family of four thus started.

URL changed

With Max's birth, I am changing this blog. I have renamed it to "Parenting", and the new URL is going to be http://parenting.shaneduan.com

Please update your feed subscription to http://parenting.shaneduan.com/atom.xml

Becoming a Big Sister

(Ok, one last post on Renee before the next series of Max's birth) Renee has certainly grown up.

She can sort of riding the bike now. She will try to paddle and control the direction, with some degree of success. She does not like to stay on it for long, though.

On her birthday, we bought her a tea set to play with. She recently learned that when you put ice water in it, you can make the tea cups change color. She now asks for ice all the time.

What would be a birthday without cake? Renee blew the candle with the help of grandpa. She even sang along during the birthday song, and clapped her hand.

Here is Renee trying to figure out this strange bridge with Auntie.

This is how I know that she has really grown up, climbing up without any physical help. She can figure out where to step most of the time too.

This is last picture of Renee on her own, holding a big Chinese doll, present from Huang Juan.