Halloween, Part 2

Today was Halloween party #2. The party started at 3:30pm so I figured that since "no-nap Stella" would probably not sleep this afternoon, we'd arrive on time. Wrong! The one day that I want to get out early, she decides (after some protest) that she would actually like to take her afternoon nap. Finally, at 3:15pm, I woke her up and off we went. Dan and I both agreed that the event was very well done. The food was good, the room was well decorated, and the drinks delivery was "ok" (which is good for HK). This definitely was not Dan's cup of tea but he did have a good time. I didn't take many photos because we had a professional photographer there who took a ton. I'll post those on Picasa probably next week some time. The first photo we took was of all the dads lined up with the babies. There were so many that they all could not fit in one photo! This clearly was an event for the mothers that get together every Thursday, and more often if we can. Stella and I are just lucky that everyone likes to meet in the IFC mall that is attached to our hotel. People text us if they are killing time in the mall and we can meet them in minutes.

Stella was VERY well behaved. She got a little bit fussy a few times because it was loud and there were so many people. She does like to grab other babies, but we were cautious about this today as we forgot to clip her nails before we left. In the photo above, Stella is grabbing at Max the zebra. She likes him a lot and is always making a go for his feet. Jack may have some competition! Anyway, Max's mom also came dressed as a zebra so we all cracked up when Max's dad came dressed as a game hunter. Stella was so overwhelmed that of course she was starving toward the end of the party, but her head kept whipping around as she was trying to drink her bottle. Too much going on! We came home and she scarfed down some dinner. We played with her a bit and then she was so wiped out she fell asleep while drinking her bed time bottle. Believe me, that is rare!!!

Cat Woman: The Hero Who Never Sleeps

Today, Stella went to her first Halloween party. The Four Seasons Hotel Apartments had a kids party on the 59th floor. They invited orphaned kids from a charity called Mother's Choice. There was a chocolate fondue fountain, tons of candy, and a magician that performed tricks in English and Cantonese. He also tied animal balloons which Stella was mesmerized by. She wanted one so badly but I was afraid she'd pop it. I'd hold her while her arms were spinning, legs kicking and eyes bugging out of her head as she tried to grab them away from the other kids. They also had plastic pumpkins full of candy for the kids. We let Stella play with one and she loved that too. We thought she wouldn't be at all interested in the event and in the beginning she was more interested in the middle-aged metro guys in Speedos at the pool, which is also on the 59th floor. Unlike the magician, they are not available for children's parties. Dan had me add that last bit in.

Dan then went to the gym. After spending about an hour at the party, I took Stella down to the spa to show the girls her costume. They all loved it!

Tomorrow we have another Halloween party to go to. This one is with all of her friends. There will be about 20 babies with their parents. It's at a Chicago-themed restaurant called Dan Ryans which specializes in serving what amounts to a caricature of American food: hamburgers, fries, nachos and Sizzler-style steaks, all in portions intended to amaze non-Americans. We have the back room and, thankfully, they serve drinks. The entire restaurant is overly decorated for Halloween which is why it makes a good location. There will be a professional photographer also!

The Hero Who Never Sleeps has decided that she doesn't want to take afternoon naps anymore. She'd rather have another meal instead. This is a huge problem because she's overtired and is sleeping poorly at night. She's eating a ton too. She had finger food for the first time today which she ate with a little bit of success. My baby bulletin said that since she's attempting to feed herself with a spoon, she's ready to learn how to pick up food and eat it. She's not ready for the cheerios they suggested so I cut up a very ripe banana into small pieces. The side benefit to finger food is that it's distracted her from performing her "gravity experiments." She likes to throw her dishes and spoons on the floor. Dan gets tired of picking them up.

Sitting Pretty

The latest innovation is that she can sit up on her own. We still watch her because she sometimes topples backward and then cries. For the most part, she can stay upright. I also read that an important milestone is for her to be able to reach out and grab things from the sitting position. She does that all of the time. In fact, the other day she reached so far that she did her first face plant. I didn't react quickly enough to catch her. After the initial shock wore off, she couldn't decide if she should cry or not. We've wisened up to this trick so if we just keep smiling and laughing, she won't cry. She'll look at us immediately to interpret our reaction. If we hesitate or look worried, then on go the waterworks.

Today, we started feeding her solid food at lunch. She's just hungry constantly and despite nursing about 3 times between noon and 5pm, she was still cranky and visibly hungry. Today her afternoon nap was peaceful and long which is a good sign. Dan fed her for the first time today, unsupervised by me. I go to the gym or run errands at lunch. He said he never realized how she got so messy until he did the feeding himself. Ha.

Her friends are a bunch of budding overachievers so to keep her on par, I bought a baby sign language book. We had lunch the other day with one of my friends and her 5-month-old who is in a playgroup already learning songs in french, ballet and swimming. I figure we're slacking. I keep forgetting to make the signs for this and that but the one she really likes is "all done." That's one thing I would like to know, as it's for when she's full. Around 9 months, supposedly, babies can start to sign back to let you know if they want milk, more food, diaper change, and more. Dan and I are skeptical about that. She clearly understands when we say her name, "drink" and "up" (when we warn her we're going to pick her up, she'll now lift up her arms). She likes "hello" but I don't know if she knows what it means. She understands "cado" (as in avocado!) which cracks us up. She doesn't at all understand "no" because we never say it to her. She doesn't do anything bad yet except for chew on her Metamucil Wagon. Which, by the way, is not operational at the moment because she took a ginormous poo in it that blasted through her diaper and ruined the bottom tarp which kept it from being a walker. Walkers are no-no's these days.

We'll do Mandarin playgroup and some other right brain learning playgroup when we get back in January. Both are at our club and virtually free. It gets us out of the house too.

Stella + Cold = Insomniac

We had an ok start to Dan's birthday weekend. Friday was a public holiday so he had the day off. He woke up not feeling well (very, very tired) but we went to Jimmy's Kitchen for his birthday lunch anyway. He felt much better after moving around a little bit (I had been experiencing a minor mono relapse since Tuesday, so he'd been trying to pitch in a bit more). Stella was very well behaved and the staff kept her busy while we ate. There was a small window behind our table where the maitre d' stood. He waved to her and tapped the glass, etc. He even offered to hold her while we ate, but I was just about done anyway.

She was a little bit fussy later in the day, but we thought it was because of her shots. Then she started coughing, got a stuffed up nose and vomited up green beans for the first time in a while. Dan swore up and down that she was not sick and that I was being a hypochondriac. She had a horrible night of sleep and woke up the next morning with a runny nose that was like a faucet. It ran non-stop all day. Shockingly, she was in a pretty good mood unless we tried to get her to nap. She also has developed this thing where if she cries or gets remotely upset, she vomits. I read it's because of all the mucous which she vomited up a few times after coughing. So, keeping the crying to a minimum when she feels sick is a challenge. This leads to Dan and I hanging over her crib for hours and hours trying to get her to sleep. As a chronic sinusitis sufferer, I get where she's at. She will not lie flat and every time she she sucks on her fingers (which is how she falls asleep) she blows snot bubbles which then cause her to wake up and cry. And on and on and on. I can't aspirate it out. That's never worked for her and I've spent about $100 USD on various nasal aspirators.

So, forgive me for the typos because I'm not at all "with it" today. She will not sleep. She was wide awake until well after midnight last night and then woke up every 60-90 minutes until 7:45am.

To make matters worse, the night before last, I had a spoonful of sweet potatoes headed for her mouth. She jerked her head downward, her nose went straight into the spoon and because she was surprised, she inhaled quickly. A ton of orange boogers and a lot of crying followed.

She seems to be on the mend today. Let's hope so!!!

Baby Got Back (Junk in the Trunk, Part 3)

19lbs 10 oz! Hope everyone is lifting weights because she's heavy now. We went to the doctor today. The wait was a bit long but it's worth it. I ran into my friend Shannon there who is seeing Dr Ghosh, my Ob/Gyn who is in the same office. We always run into someone we know there!

At Stella's 4 month shots in the U.S., she screamed her head off for 20 minutes before we could even collect our things to get out of the exam room. The nurse there gave her the shots and it was a frustrating, drawn out process. Dr. Thondup is the king of shots. He had me carry her upright with her head on my shoulder. I backed her up to him so she didn't see him. He pulled down her pants, slightly undid her diaper and gave her the shots...quickly. What a difference. Her first shot she didn't even feel, but then she cried for about 10 seconds after the Prevnar shot because I think it has a pretty big needle. As she started to cry, he flung open the door to his office. He said that way she'd know it was all over. The second he did that, she stopped crying. Babies are smart, he always reminds us.

Dr. Thondup said he could tell by Stella's expression that her next big obstacle is "stranger danger." Dan liked the term. But it's very, very true. She isn't all that great with new people unless we're holding her. Anyway, she's doing fine. Her weight is in the 90th percentile and she's also 27.5 inches long which is the 97th percentile. At least she's back on the grid. I thought she was probably longer because her 6-12 month onesies are showing stress at the neckline which means they are getting too short. She can start eating chicken next month. Dark meat only, Dan jokes. She'll then go to three meals a day. That's going to be hard as it's quite time consuming to feed her solids as it is. And, she is a complete mess. Last night, somehow her bangs got plastered to her forehead with cereal and I cleaned green beans out of her nose and ear canal.

She was all smiles in the taxi on the way home. She's napping now and then we'll go to coffee with her friends later.

"The Mayor" Politely Disagrees With Mother That Fruit Tastes Good

Stella has decided that she doesn't like fruit. No bananas, apples and especially no pears. She hates pears. She used to tolerate banana and apple but lately they've been denied entry. I think she's just learning about her preferences. She "prefers" (Dan might say "demands") avocado, rice cereal w/milk only, sweet potato and green beans. That's it, lately. We tried peaches with little success. I may be able to sneak them into her cereal as I did that this morning and she ate it. That is, until she wisens up to the jig.

"Mayor McCheese" has now been lovingly shortened by Dan to just "The Mayor." He says "The Mayor" rules her town with an iron fist and that he's basically "just livin' in it."

Sleeping is back to "normal" for the time being. I'm pretty sure she slept on her stomach last night for 9 hours straight because she was in exactly the same place at 5:30am as she was at 8pm last night. I fed her at 5:30am and put her back to bed until a little after 8am and she was in the same spot, on her stomach. She was not at all ready to get up and a little ticked about it.

She is also definitely teething because she chomps down on everything. I can't get her to take a bottle normally because she clamps down on the nipple instead of the drinking milk. We desperately need to work that out before we get on the plane because the seats are narrowish in Cathay  Pacific business class and Stella is much longer than she was on the way over. Nursing her on the plane is gong to be a nightmare. Dan is laughing that her seat cost the firm $5500 USD.

6 month vaccinations are tomorrow at 1pm. I'm not looking forward to them but we're all wondering how much she weighs. Her friend, Nana, who is a smaller baby is actually eating as much, if not more than Stella. That makes me feel better. A lot of her friends are also not sleeping or napping nearly as well as she is either. We'll probably have to skip the Thursday coffee with her friends as I'm expecting her to be a crankasaurus after the appointment.

Fishy

It's Sunday here. I went to the gym this morning and then the 3 of us went to lunch at Caffe Vergnano in the mall. We get takeaway from there several times a week because it's really good, healthy, reasonably priced and very stoller-friendly, most importantly. And, I always seem to run into my friends there.

Anyway, we came home and then Stella faked taking a nap. I'm pretty sure she just rolled around her crib for an hour, clearly overstimulated from being out at lunch time. We later took her to the pool. Dan got in and swore up and down that the water was too cold. I think he must only go in pools in Mexico and Hawaii because it was NOT cold. The thermometer said the outside temperature was 85 degrees at 4pm. She loved it. She was tired, but wanted to swim around. Then Dan got cold and yanked her out before she was ready. Good one, Dad.

For some reason she cracks up when I call her a fishy. She likes certain words. Cheese is another word she thinks is hysterical along with "Chunky Monkey" and "Wassup!!!!!!!" from that old Budweiser commercial. The latter causes spastic laughter.

I also learned that I can't wear earrings if I want her to eat. I bought some chandelier type earrings that I put on before we went to lunch. I woke her up from her nap and rushed to feed her so we could get going. No way, Jose. The earrings were way too interesting and she couldn't focus on anything else. I took them off and then it was over. The feeding window had closed by then--it's a very small window lately. As Dan says, she can probably afford to miss a meal anyway. He's calling her "Mayor McCheese" lately. Mayor McCheese is the mayor of McDonaldland who has an enormous cheeseburger for a head.