Alex's First big trip!

This is another post from Dad Eric!

In mid-March, Alex took her first ever trip out of Seattle! In the pre-baby days, Catherine and I liked to go down to San Franciscso at this time of year to attend the annual Asian American Film Festival there. Catherine has several cousins in the Bay area, and they wrote to ask us if we were going to come again this year. At first we thought we'd better not; after all, Alex is only a little more than four months old, and we felt perhaps the trip would be a bit much for her. Also, just how much would we have to bring? How would we be able to transport all the stuff we use every day? What if she had a meltdown in the middle of the flight? But we talked to several other parents with babies Alex's age who have made trips already, and felt like we could do it, too. So we booked our flight!

The trip down proved to be pretty easy, actually. We brought the stroller, the car seat, our usual collection of diapers, pacifiers, changes of clothes and bottles, and a few other supplies. Probably half of what we took was Alex stuff, but we managed to get it all on board, and didn't even have to check any bags in! We were fortunate that they had a special security scanner where they processed us, because I had to put about six things through the scanner by the time all was said and done. But Alex was great on the flight! She handled take off and landing like a pro. We had to change her once on the flight, but we flew Virgin America, which has changing tables in the bathrooms. Except for a little fussing mid-flight each way, she was perfectly fine. What a relief!

I ended up seeing two movies while I was there, but mommy decided to stay with Alex instead of going (our original plan was to leave her with cousins during the movie, but we decided she's still a bit too unpredictable at this age, and didn't want them to have to deal with her if she became upset). As usual, we stayed in Japantown, which is where the film festival takes place. Here you can see me and Alex posing in front of the pagoda in the center of Japantown.

On Saturday, we met up with three of Catherine's relatives. Her cousin Esther was there with her daughter Rebecca, and Cousin Steve and his wife Judy came with their daughter Abigail. Abigail is only a few months older than Alex. It was kind of a cold and rainy day, so we stuck to inside activities. First we went to the Conservatory of Flowers in one of the parks and saw the model train they had there.

Later, we all went to a French restaurant called Zazie, which is in the Haight.

On Sunday, we walked all over San Francisco with Alex. First we had a nice breakfast in a place off of Fillmore, then walked through Pacific Heights and window shopped. Catherine bought a nice scarf. Alex had fun most of the time, although it got a bit windy towards the end and she got a trifle cranky at that point.

The week was a lot of fun, and hopefully we can go again next year when Alex will be old enough to enjoy it more!

Nika the Nanny

Alex has been blooming more than ever these days. I think a lot of this is owed to her wonderful nanny, Nika (shown here, holding Alex). They get to spend many hours together, playing different games.

Some of the more notable advances in Alex's development include her grasping at objects (see how she's holding her bug toy in the photo?), holding her head up on her own, and doing tummy time (where she's in a puah-up position with her head up) for several minutes without fussing.

Unfortunately, she is also in a phase where she does not like to be held by anyone besides me or her nanny. Even when her father picks her up lovingly, Alex starts to protest with tears. It's also important for Alex's daddy to start spending regular amounts of time with her, so that she associates him with fun and happy times. Slowly but surely, if this happens, Alex will love hanging out with both of her parents!

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!