The 100 Day Birthday

On February 12th we celebrated Alex's 100th day birthday. In Korean culture, this is considered to be an important milestone. In the old days, babies frequently died of illness or other health issues before reaching that age; so when they did reach the age of 100 (days), it was considered pretty special.

For Alex's celebration, we broke it up into several parts. On Monday, Catherine's Korean American friends Monica and Grace came over; we had a little cake to celebrate. Monica had been one of the first people to see Alex after her birth, and had brought with her seaweed soup, which according to Korean culture is a great dish to give a mother right after giving birth.

On Thursday, February 12th, came the big party. Catherine invited several babies and moms from one of her new mommies groups. We put some balloons up and got Alex another cake (lucky girl!).

Alex and the other babies had a great time! I think she really liked the cake, too! I can tell you, we are all looking forward to what the next 100 days will bring...

The Best Days Yet!

Ok, maybe "the Best Days" is a bit of an overstatement. However, I'm so enjoying these days with our babydoll, Alex. She's truly blooming, although she's got to deal with the annoyance of teething.

Here's my most favoritest picture of her yet.


Even when Eric & I are out on date night, I close my eyes for a few seconds and imagine what she's doing. Of course, I'm hoping that she's having fun with her wonderful nanny, Nika... perhaps on one of her zillion playmats or watching a rattle with those big eyes.

I am so in loooove with my baby! sigh...

January: smiles and cries

This is another guest post from the proud daddy!

In the past few weeks, Alex is smiling more than ever. Her vocabulary is also improving by leaps and bounds. OK, she isn't actually saying any real words (although it sure sounds like she says 'Hi' every now and again) . But she sure makes a lot of different sounds. One particular cute habit she has is to let loose a rather loud, high 'whee' sound if she wants attention and we are not looking at her. As for the smiling, she usually is in her best mood right after she wakes up; at that point, she sometimes smiles almost constantly. One of the big challenges has been trying to get a pic of her when she smiles. It seems like every time we get the camera ready, she stops smiling the instant before the shutter clicks. But in the last few weeks we finally got a few photos of that elusive smile, although they came out a bit blurry.

But the last few weeks have also had plenty of tears. Alex has started to teethe; we can even see the little teeth starting to push up through her gums. It's a bit early, but every baby is different, and she seems to be ahead of the curve on this one. Maybe she didn't like it when I playfully made fun of her for not having any teeth? Anyway, with teething comes a lot of crying, and her sleep is sometimes not as smooth as it was before.

She is also getting more into playing with her various baby Einstein mats. She especially likes looking into the mirrors and grabbing onto the various hanging toys. One thing she really likes to do is hold onto a set of baby keys; one night she held onto them the entire evening. She is also starting to respond to a vigorously shaken rattle. This is a pretty good way to calm her down when she gets upset, actually.

Her 100th day birthday is soon coming up. That will be a big milestone for her, and I'll be sure to report all about it after it happens!!

A Week with the bebe

This is another guest post from the daddy!

This week I'm taking the entire week off from work to spend time with the little darling! A few days ago, we took her to the lactation specialist, who told us that Alex is now just over 12 pounds! Woh, that means she's grown nearly five pounds since being born.

Alex is starting to become more responsive, and she seems especially happy in the morning after a nice night of sleeping (well, most nights, anyway!). She not only smiles a lot, she also likes to engage in a little baby talk banter with mommy and me. If you imitate what she says, she seems to get a real kick out of it. She also, I swear, seems to be able to say a few words. I know it seems like it's way too early, but honestly, it does sound like she can say 'hi' and 'love'. She hasn't said 'daddy' yet, though... I'm working on it!

We are going to be soon having a baby sign language class, which we will be hosting in our house! It's pretty amazing that babies can learn how to tell you things using their hands months before they can speak those thoughts. Supposely, if they can tell you what's wrong, you can help prevent them from getting too fussy. Here's hoping!

Alex is two months old!

This is a guest post from Alex's proud daddy! Alex is two months old today! She has grown so much in the past month it's getting ridiculous. The last time we weighed her, she had just reached 10 pounds, including her clothes and diapers. That was a few weeks ago, and I'm betting she's even bigger now! I know that when I carry her around, she sure gets my arms tired! And we have finally graduated from using the smallest diaper size to the next biggest. It won't be long before we start using the 3-6 month onesies.

Now that we've been with her a few months, she's starting to get into some predictable patterns. She seems to sleep most of the night, although she usually wakes up once or twice for a brief feeding. Night time before she goes to bed seems to be her fussiest time. That's when she'll cry quite a bit. We both take turns trying to soothe her. Sometimes she just wants to fuss. But we've noticed that she likes to hear me sing to her; usually after a couple of songs, she'll fall asleep. We also have to give her a few different medicines for acid reflux. Reflux makes it hard at times for her to eat.

Best of all, she's starting to interact with us a lot more. She likes to smile, and has started 'talking' to us in her strange baby lingo. I could swear I can make out her saying 'hi' to us at times. She's a happy bebe when she's not refluxing.

More later!

6 Weeks Old & Growing Stronger

I can't believe how quickly these weeks have flown by. Sure, sometimes time seemed to stand still, when Alex was a bit colicky in the wee hours of the night. However, we've come a long way, since those first days back from the hospital, when I felt as if I had no idea how to take care of my baby Alex.

Now, Alex is over 9 lbs, well over 2 lbs past her original birth weight (7 lbs & 4 ozs). She has been taking reflux medication, to try to address her nighttime fussiness.

What makes these days & nights so glorious, is that I get to stare at Alex to my heart's content. When she presses her cheeks against mine, & falls asleep in the warmth of our body heat, I couldn't be happier. These are the best days of my life.

Born on Nov 5th!

My mommy has taken a few weeks off from posting anything here because she spent a lot of energy giving birth to me on November 4th & 5th. I finally decided to give her a break & come out into this world at 4:32 pm on the 5th.

Here are a few pictures of me, my mommy & my daddy, just moments after I was born.
Even though I was pretty tired too, I was so happy to finally meet my parents! I recognized my daddy's voice right away, as I remember hearing him all of those nights when he had his conversations w/me (even though I was still in Mommy's tummy).