week 16

Just took Mak in for her 4 month check up and everything seems normal. I swear she feels heavier than 15 lbs but the scale said 14lb3oz. Well, that's still within the 72 percentile so I guess she's doing fine. We were a little nervous bringing her to the injection room cuz she was getting a little fussy. I fed her a little bit before we headed down to get her vaccines. Watched the nurse stabb the first giant needle into her tiny leg but to our surprise...no crying...then came the second needle...and here comes a loud AHHHHH....for exactly 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 seconds then back to her normal self. Abe and I thought, WHAT? that's it? she must have a super high tolerance for pain. If it were me, I would have cried for the next hour or until I fell asleep!

Here're some pics from week 14-15:

story time

Last Saturday, Heidi graciously let me have a night to hang out with Stone, Ming, and Tom. We met up at Po Dogs in Capitol Hill and then took a stroll through the new location of the Elliott Bay Book Company. For a moment, Stone and I had lost Ming in the store. When we found him he was chuckling to himself about something. He was looking at Safe Baby Handling Tips, by David Sopp, Kelly Sopp. Hill-lar-ree-us, if you have a sense of humor. If you're stuck-up or take things too seriously, and don't think anything is funny, don't apply.

I miss working out, I wish I could take Mak to go weightlifting. According to this book, I shouldn't. I guess I need to figure out other father/daughter bonding activities.

nom nom nom

YUM!

This is currently my favorite pic of Makayla, and it's the wallpaper image on my phone too. It was taken when we met up with Yohei and Taka (visiting from Japan via Texas) at the Seattle waterfront Crab Pot for a Seattle tourist lunch on a Saturday in April. Notice the adult bib worn by Heidi. When Mak is hungry, she lets you know. Luckily this time, she was tasting the hand to past the time, since grown-up meals are so boring. That's until the waitress poured the bucket of seafood onto the table! Nom nom nom!

stay-at-home

This past week was the 2nd week of me being a full-time stay-at-home dad and part-time freelance graphic designer. It's actually not as tough as I thought it would be, but then again, I didn't have any pressing deadlines that required extreme focused times of work.

Recently, I thought of some things that are what I call "underrated things that you have to endure with a baby that no one really talks about." These are definitely are not deal-breakers to having babies, but it's just some things that are not enjoyable (at least when you first encounter it).

1) Clipping finger/toe nails: when I first did it, it was the most nerve-racking thing I've done in a long time. The whole time I'm thinking, "Don't cut too much. Don't draw blood." After half-an-hour, I move to the other hand. At least it felt like half-an-hour. Let's just say after I was done, my back was all sweaty.

2) Cluster feeding: not enjoyable, but it's a good sign that baby is going through growth spurts. But when you haven't had time to shower or eat and she starts screaming for more milk for the 3rd time in 3 hours, it gets tiring. It's only temporary, it gets better...

3) #2 in the bathtub: we were told to watch out for it during birth/parenting class. So, when it first happened, it's like, "What the? Oh no! Get her out! Get me a towel! What do we do now? Rinse her off with the shower head. Hold her here. No here!..." After a couple more times, we were pros at poo in the water. It hasn't happened recently, so that's a good thing. A tip, don't feed the baby right before the bath. Now it all makes sense.

bigger belly, bigger bottle

...and we have upgraded to 9oz bottles to accommodate Mak's growing appetite...notice the one-finger-bottle hold technique!

good morn-- what the hey?!

We always enjoy seeing Makayla in the morning after she has awakened from her night of slumber, dreaming of milk, and before she reaches her point of uncontrollable hunger for breakfast. She always greets Mommy and Daddy with the biggest smile that melts your heart like Starbursts left in your pocket after going through the washer and dryer.

Today wasn't too much different except for this:

Normally we find her in this position...

...this morning, she was like this!

Somehow, she's learned to rotate herself counter clockwise ~108 degress (yes, that precise). We saw this, had to take pictures and blog about it. Whoa, wait a minute! 108 = 1/08 = Jan 8 = Makayla's birthday. I've broken the code! Even now, during a nap, she's already rotated 45 degrees. So weird.

Next trick, one arm handstands.

week 14

Besides her periodic growth spurt, Mak is pretty much 'on a schedule'. She wakes up around 8am, eats, stays up for 1.5-2hours and goes down for nap, sleeps for 2-2.5 hours, wakes up exactly 4 hours from previous feeding and repeats the same cycle 4 times before sleeping through the night for 8-10 hours. On some nights she sleeps for 12 hours. Eating has been going good. I was worried that she wasn't getting enough (for no particular reason, just me being worrisome) but she seems to be doing fine according to the unscientific way of weighing her. (weight of myself holding her minus my own weight). We'll know for sure when she goes in for her 4 month check up in a few weeks.

Here are some of Mak's latest accomplishments:

* Holding bottle by herself- mak has always had strong hands. Maybe it was just coincidence but at 5 days old, she held up her pacifier and prevented if from falling. Lately, she's been super helpful when it comes to feeding time by holding or attempting to hold the bottle with our help. We thought we'd try and see if she'd hold it on her own and to our surprise, she did! She even has this "one finger bottle hold" technique - where she securely holds a 4 oz bottle with one finger with one hand and one or no fingers with the other. And she somehow knows that if she lifts her arm up a little, the bottle will tilt and more milk will come out! I was so impressed! (will post a video of the one-finger bottle hold shortly)












* Falling asleep by herself - we can now put her down AWAKE and WALK AWAY!!! It's amazing how far we've come. She cries for a few minutes and goes to sleep on her own. I used to feel bad letting her cry but now I guess she's learned that when mommy & daddy puts her down in the crib, puts a blanket on her and kisses her on the cheek, that means nap/sleep time.









* Half roll over - where mak shifts her weight to one side as much as she can but not quite all the way (don't have a picture for this yet)

* Blowing bubbles with her spit









* Sticking out her tongue and licking everything that comes close to her mouth









Other recent pictures:

happy 3 month birthday!

Makayla and Uncle Jeremy

Today, we (Mommy, Daddy, Uncle Jeremy, Uncle Nathan) celebrated Makayla's 3 months with a chocolate cupcake that Uncle Jeremy picked up from Whole Foods. It cost $2.99, round it up to $3 and it's a perfect match - $1 for each month. No, it doesn't mean that on her 300 month birthday that we'll be getting her a $300 cupcake. By that age, she can buy her own $300 cupcake, or her friends can. We'll chip in 25 bucks or something.

[On a side note, Jeremy discovered that Whole Foods knocks off 20 cents off your bill if you don't use a bag or you bring your own. Other grocery stores only take off 5 cents. Although, WF costs a bajillion times more for food.]

As you can see in the picture, Mak was quite intrigued by the fire that was in front of her. I was secretly hoping that she would wow us by blowing out the candles without us telling her. Since this was the first time we've done this, there was no way she would know what to do anyway. Hey, she's already amazed us with plenty of other things, so I expect the unexpected. Especially when she had a hefty blowout poo right before the festivities.

Happy 3 months baby girl!

are you serious?

Easter Sunday, it happened again...

Genius Chinese Lady: "Son or daughter?" [in chinese]
Heidi: Huh?! [not asking because she didn't hear it]
GCL: "Son or daughter?"




Ok, come on now, Makayla was wearing:
1) White beanie with a gaudy PINK flower stuck on it
2) A white onesie outfit with small PINK flowers on it
3) PINK sock
4) Another PINK sock

Hey GCL, I don't know how many more hints you need. You made Makayla cry. Nice going. Next Sunday we're going to dress her all in blue and see what happens. Stay tuned.