Babycenter said our little tyke was as big as a kumquat at 10 weeks... and it just stuck. So here we are, a Korean-American and an American-American, starting a family in Macau.
Charlotte has slept through the night (e.g. 7:30 to 5:30 at least) for 6 of the seven nights last week! Hallelujah! A second tooth has emerged as of Sunday. Perhaps it was a month long of teething? Babycenter thinks teething lasts no more than a few days. Bleh on them.
Last week we decided to buy a toy for Charlotte. I opted for fun (infant basketball!) while Matt veered towards the more critical thinking one (shapes going into a turtle's back). We ended up getting the turtle and also a plastic ball (of Disney princesses - slim pickin's at Toys 'r' Us). Guess what? She does not like the turtle and she loves the ball. I appreciate that she has some propensity towards sportiness and perhaps hand-eye coordination (and the piece de resistance - depth perception). Screw learning!
In other news - my arthritis is better when I jog 5 miles a day. Will I have to do this forever?
Here is a video of Charlotte tormenting Bucky while she is feeding. She is eating chicken hence his presence here:
Happy at the park. Looks like she is on a merry-go-round:
Mock surprise at the camera:
"Thanks Dad for catching me!"
"Look! I've got a turtle on my head!"
"What? Turtles are a delicacy? They are delicious!"
Speaking of turtles, here is the aforementioned educational turtle toy - being put to good use:
Happy to eat anything we put in front of her (even tofu!). And a teeth shot:
Charlotte is in a state of flux these days. What was once a routine of bottle feeds, naps, and overhead play gyms has evolved into more exquisite meals (er, purees), more vertical play, and erratic overnight sleeping. This sleeping bit has me in a bit of a tizzy and a grumpy mood, as it is a reminder that my arthritis is not yet over. Blah. Luckily Matt is pinch hitting and doing quite a bit of night waking, taking one (or several) for Team Mom and Dad. Thanks Matt.
Charlotte has her first official shiner. A bruise courtesy of me - she fell off a bed eighteen inches and boy did it suck. It wasn't such a bad fall (she fell so softly I did not immediately realize it) but I felt like crap afterwards. All I was thinking is please don't tell my parents. So if you read this blog please don't tell Kwang and Ock. Thanks.
I really wanted to try baby led weaning but I really enjoy making purees. I love my pressure cooker and my 1000 watt blender! The other day I put white rice in with some chicken thighs in the pressure cooker, blended it up and I have lunch and dinner for a while. I thaw these with carrots, squash, spinach, and (as of today) broccoli. Charlotte has yet to balk at any food (or show any allergic reaction to date) and is very good at the spoon fed puree process. Sometimes she gets bored (ok, often she does) so I sometimes throw Elmo on youtube to finish a meal. Her open mouth smiling throughout provides a nice venue for a plastic spoon to enter. :)
Charlotte is having a growth spurt of sorts. Three meals a day and 5 bottles of milk? Christ that is a lot of food. We weighed her this week and she is 21 pounds. Yikes.
Charlotte is sitting up without falling backwards (so we noticed as of today) and has one tooth! The right bottom one peeked through! Hopefully she can start sleeping better...
Working on perfecting my aperture mode photography this week as well...
I love this Blabla top. Thanks Larry and Paul for this!
Baby Gym in the park (Thanks to Thomas and Em for the gym! It is quite squishy and good):
That darn sky! Again!
Relief after spinning with Daddy:
Happy with Daddy on the slide:
Baby led weaning - with her toys!
Kvatching:
Cheerful with Ling, Lilith, and Gwen:
Ok - this is a Bucky shot. But he looks angelic in this light, no?
"You are a handsome bloke, daddy!"
"Whoa. Marina Bay Sands IS impressive. Good job Mom and Dad!"
Spinach face:
A cute video of Charlotte loving her turtle, again:
Back to boringland of no visitors or visiting. Charlotte seems ok with it. Every day can't be a circus can it?
Matt has spent 2 nights in Bangkok (heh!) and Charlotte has miraculously slept through both nights. Coincidence? I hope not, or Matt will need to move out. I even stayed up till one on both nights, as the idea of getting up at 12:30 to go downstairs, retrieve a cold milk, and come up to the middle floor was enough to do my head (and my crap arthritis) in.
Speaking or arthritis - I went to the rheumatologist and waited an hour and a half to see her! Bloody hell. Why is it you always have to wait to see a doctor in Singapore? She was covering for another doctor as well so.. why didn't I get a call? "Hi, the doctor is behind schedule if you would like to reschedule or come in later." So I roamed the hospital a bit, took a survey about my thoughts on a hospital marketing magazine (that I had never seen before) and scored a thumb drive for taking the survey. Yea, the highlight of my day.
In other Charlotte news - I have started to make baby food with a pressure cooker and an immersion blender. It is fun! This week she has had squash, carrots, bananas, avocados (which she didn't like), prunes, and oatmeal. All homemade (well, the prunes came from my mom from America).
Charlotte is a total chatterbox. Seriously when she is talking a language we understand she and her cousin will get together and it will be a meeting of the motor mouths (I mean this from a very loving place).
Here is Charlotte laughing at Bucky over her first oatmeal dinner:
Charlotte - precocious reader:
Excited about her first band onesie:
Practicing for her first Thanksgiving gorge food coma:
Looking crotchety with Toby in the Radio Flyer in the park today (but oh, how she loved that Flyer!):
Charlotte - touching Toby's hair shots (could it be first love?):
So Charlotte is officially getting up at night. It was twice a night until a few days ago so now it is once a night. Either at midnight or at four. She awakes for a little milk top up. I have read in Dr. Weissbluth's book that this is ok, normal even, until she is nine months. These wakings cause me some stress and aggravates my arthritis which I thought was done and gone. We are soon to buy a mini fridge to keep in the middle level, adding to the cavalcade of crap to get rid of if and whenever we leave idyllic Asia.
We are trying to expend her energy by putting her in the walker that she loves. She is a speed demon and can negotiate corners better than I can (let us hope the whole depth perception thing is a trait for Matt's side). We even take her to the park with it.
I have, on more than one occasion this past week, contemplated the road not travelled, e.g. going back to work. Do I want to go back to work? Not entirely, but the constant social interaction (and its spin off of personal identity) I do miss sometimes. But I do remind myself it is not entirely about me anymore. It is about giving Charlotte the best possible start in life. And for us that means having a parent at home, just like Matt and I had.
Feeding is more consistent. She is loving winter squash and rice cereal. I want to try baby led weaning but want to take a baby CPR class first.
Halloween has come and gone. We did not dress Charlotte up but she did wear a T-shirt. Matt and his sis are astounded at my lack of pumpkin carving history. It happened once - my parents carved a monstrous one in Stone Mountain and put it on the washer in the public use bathroom of our apartment. I was so scared of it (at age 4) that I did not even want to use the toilet and had to have someone go with me. So maybe I am just traumatized.
