4 months old and sprouting!

Our baby girl is 4 months old this week!! Yes, time has flown by. In one aspect it's like she's been her for years and in another aspect it's like she's only been her a week. But when we read other people's blogs about their newborns (2 weeks old and another at 7 weeks old)... we think "oh yeah, she was that small too just a few weeks ago." Sometimes I can't believe how much (and how fast) she has grown... she doesn't seem to be "eating" that much. But alas all our pictures reveal her maturation into a mini-toddler (or you can say grown up infant...).

Oh, and a very cute antidote... Ian recently has been calling E a sprouting "carrot", which references her hair. I think it's also very fitting for how she has been growing. So she's 4 months old and sprouting! Next week we have our 4 month check-up with the doctor. We'll let you know how much she really has sprouted. My guestimate is that she is abot 15 pounds and 24-25 inches long. We'll see.

If she is hitting the 15 pound mark, we might have to "graduate" her to her crib sooner than we had planned. I recently took a look at the instruction manual for the bassinet that she sleeps in next to our bed, and it states to stop using it after the baby reaches 13 pounds or 3 months. Ooops. We could tell she would need to be moved sooner than later because she can almost reach one end with her feet and the other with her arms, but we thought maybe we could get another month or so out of it while we transition her to her crib AND subsequently to her own room!! I guess the bassinet would be unsafe for infants who can roll over. E can't yet. Of course, this could be hindered by the fact that she doesn't like tummy time and that she has very fat cloth diapers, that sort of prevent her from rolling her hips too well. Ha lol. Anyways, jthis move will be a big step... for her to move to another room. At least just in the last week she's been napping better during the day... (We can actually put her down! Even if she still only sleep 30 minutes. It seems like a lot longer 30 minutes when she's lying down by herself than when she's in our arms)... I guess it's time to start getting her to associate her own crib as a sleepy place, and not just our room and her bassinet (or our bed). Although for Ian and I, that will make the nighttime wakings harder to deal with (and harder to hear).

Then after this next "challenge", we'll be just about at the time to start trying to give her solids or be combating teething pains. Oh the joy of childrearing! :) Fun (ok, sometimes fun... sometimes not so fun, ha lol) and challenging at every turn.

Here's a picture of E "sprouting". We just love her hair!

And another picture of her, Ian and our newly organized pantry of games.

Really, it is organized and not as full as it used to be... it might be hard to tell, but the other 60% of our games are now in boxes in another closet. E is asking, "Anyone want to come over and play some with us??"

Never Before Posted

Here's some more (yep... more!!) never before posted pictures of E . Some from the day she was born to some recent ones from just this last week. As always, enjoy!

Her Birthday... Cute, Pink, and ready for the world! Ok.. but after just a quick nap.

Her first outing... at the end of that first week. That was a doozy of a outing. Let's just say, I didn't get to eat lunch at all... but we learned fast what she could (and couldn't) do early on. She's still so cute and small too. Wow, how she's grown (just look at the pictures below)!

Much more recently... E all wrapped up after a bath.

Just last week, we got ourselves a BebePod... now we can eat dinner at the same time. It's the little things that we look forward to. But isn't she too cute!!

The Wonderful Westfield Mall of Fairfield

This is our new favorite mall. Not because the stores are exceptional... or because of the location per se... or because of the people you'd find there. No. It's all because of this one amenity that we haven't yet to find anywhere else - the Family Lounge.

So you might be asking us, "What the heck is a Family Lounge?". Well in a lots of places, it's just a larger bathroom that a mom (or dad) can take a few children and help them go to the bathroom, without the wait and with the room for strollers and multiple children. But the Fairfield Mall's lounge is different. The fist time we walked in, we were stunned. It is clean, it is nicely furbished and has all the amenities that a parent and especially nursing mother could want.

First, it has a row of changing stations, with special areas where babies won't roll off the changing table. They even thoughtfully added mirrors and mobiles so kids could be entertained while having their diapers changed. On this row of changing stations, there is a small sink next to each station... to clean your hands of course. Then there is the usual family sized bathroom that includes even a kid sized toilet. Second, it has three rooms with cloth curtains for nursing children. The rooms have separate light switches, comfy padded chairs and even reading material. To say the least, a mom could fall asleep in there while nursing! It's that nice. And then to top it off, it has a microwave, a bottle warming machine, a TV (that plays some cartoon movie), couches for the husband and some toddler block toys (like you see at doctor offices) to keep the rest of the family entertained.

So, if you're a new mom in the area or a to be new mom... know that you can get out and about and not have to worry about all the challenges of changing, feeding or getting to the restroom yourself at the Fairfield Mall (BTW, the exit is Travis Boulevard). And, you can probably get some shopping in too!

Back to Back to Back

It's been almost a month since our "last blog" (I'm not counting the other two that I just wrote today) and a lot has been happening, hence the lack of updates.

First off, we've had back to back to back full weekends. More to come on that below. Second, Ian's been busy grading and grading and trying to get some work on his dissertation. Third, I've been trying to get as much work done each week as I can, especially since there is more for me to learn and do now than when I first started. It's good, but of course, it keeps Ian more occupied (and he often watches E then). And lastly, E has been on quite a spurt of growth and discovery. She's doing lots of new things - making new noises, giggling, playing with toys by herself for short periods of time, blowing lots of bubbles, constantly chewing on her fingers, waking up in her bassinet and just entertaining herself - but also has been quite a handful as she is eating more, wanting to be held all the time (still), needing more naps (this is recent and she actually needs at least a 30 minute nap every 2 hours... of course fighting sleeping every time we try to put her to nap) and wanting to explore more of the world than our 2 room apartment. We think she's starting to teeth (hence the exorbitant amounts of drool and the chewing anything she can get to her mouth) and also hitting another growth spurt. We "weighed" her this weekend (by using a regular scale and getting on with her and then again without her and figuring the difference) and she is around 14.5 pounds. We've also had to move up the straps in her car seat to the top holes. And she isn't even four months old yet. At this rate, I think we might have to graduate her into a new car seat in 2 to 3 months!! But it is an exciting time and pretty fun as we can really play with her now. Only if we could have those "sleep through the night" nights again.... sigh. :)

So... the here's the breakdown of our back to back to back weekends. First we went were supposed to go to Stockton to celebrate Ian's sister's birthday. (She turned 22. Happy Birthday Colleen!). But that was cancelled as she had finals for their winter quarter, and how fun of a birthday can you have if you're crunched for studying time. So instead we stayed home, saw some friends, went to Babies R Us and had a pretty lax weekend. Then the next weekend we went out to Stockton. It was fun, but we could have used more sleep. Granted, most of the time the lack of sleep was because we stayed up too late (after E had gone to sleep at her normal bedtime). Sigh, we always need a weekend to get over our weekends.

Then this last weekend we went to the Yee home for Chinese New Year. (Gung Hay Fat Choy!) E got her first set of Lunar New Year Red Envelopes and that's good, as we might be needing it not too long from now for a new car seat. Oh, and in case you're wondering, this year is the Year of the Boar (also known as the Year of the Pig). Having shared that, I'm very glad E was born last year, so she could be of the Year of the Dog and not the Year of the Pig. This weekend too was exhausting... because of the same reason... staying up too late after E goes to sleep. Add on top the fact that she wakes up every 3 hours to eat... and we're back to Tired-land. We also ate a lot of meat... so much that we're meated out for now... and feeling a bit lethargic. And to end the whole weekend off, we got caught in half rush hour traffic and half long weekend returnee traffic... all with a crying hungry baby. Sigh. But we did make it to the Westfield Mall in Fairfield (see separate post on it's significance) and everything was good after that.

Long Awaited Red Egg and Ginger Pictures

I should be working.. but I feel the need to catch up on some blogging and sharing... especially since I had time to see the Amgen Tour of California (ok, it only took like 20 minutes) and post that blog. So ... here's the long awaited pictures!

For the first 30 minutes of the party, E slept soundly at the sign in table. Such a party sleeper!

Then she woke up and was cute, cute and cute. Oh and if you look closely in this picture, just to the left of her shoulder is a "lucky red envelope" ... these are usually filled with money.

Here's E with her aunts! Aunt Gigi above (on the left) and and Aunt Gennie below.

E with her grandmam. She's starting to get fussy...

Oh, what an unhappy baby!

E got hungry nearing the end of her Red Egg and Ginger party, so we decided to try giving E a bottle (instead of me nursing her). Boy was she angry! But she eventually finished her scarce 2 oz (it was just to hold her over till after the party)... and was in a better mood.

This is E's great grandma.

And last but not least, here's our families. Ian's above (If you're wondering where E is... someone else is holding her while Ian and I try to grab a bite to eat. It is a buffet after all.), and us and my parents below.