New Year Eve

It's a shame that Elle and I slept through the new year eve. Hin was on meds, laying semi-consciously on the couch while the TV was broadcasting the new year countdown. We bid farewell to year 2007 silently.

Elle has made progress on crawling forward and even pulling herself up by holding on the furniture. She amazes us of her observation towards wee things. She can spot on tiny little things that we don't even realize they're there, such as a dirt, a stain, a scar, or a string of hair. I love the look of her when she concentrates on a thing. Her face expression is a mix of curiosity, wonder, and mind-crunching with a furrowed brow, as if it's the biggest discovery, the biggest mystery in the whole universe.

Happy reader

We read a lot to Elle when she was around 3 months old and since then we have been slacking off due to so many reasons and excuses. The only book she reads and chews on is given by her pediatrician in 6 months checkup.

Today, we finally made it to the library to get some books for Elle. There's a go-cart type of transport for baby-riding by the elevator. We thought it would be fun and were so excited to let Elle to ride on it. Guess what, the seconds she left our arms and placed into the cart, she started pursing her lips and crying, wanted to be out of it. We ignored the noise she made and pushed her around, hoping she would shut up and enjoy it after a while. As her noise level was rising significantly, we had no choice but to pull the screaming baby out of the cart. After all, we're in a library.

She acted a little bit cautious, grabbing a corner of my shirt, when we put her down on the floor exploring the books. It only took her a while to flap her arms and bang the books, pull them from the shelves, and gnaw on them. Pure joys!

7 months in red cap

Changing diaper and outfit has become a totally new experience for us now! It's ridiculous that two adults can't keep a baby from rolling over and sitting up during changing. The most horrifying moment is when her bum is covered with explosive poops. Gosh! We need some help! Maybe a few handcuffs and twine will do!

We suspect there's teething going on with Elle by her constantly licking the lower gum with her tongue. Keep our finger crossed. We have a fantastic day at home today. No meltdowns. In between meals, we play for two hours and then she naps for one and a half hours. It's a bliss.

Elle has a big head. It's sort of weird that she still fits in her red cap she worn when she was just born.

Elle got elfed!

Mama couldn't resist turning Elle into a singing, dancing, mirthful elf troupe and spread the Elfin' cheers to y'all. Click here to watch Elle, the elf troupe.

Clingy baby

Elle's clinginess has been escalated since a week ago. When we drop her off to the daycare, she'll purse her lips and hold out both of her hands, desperately wanting us to take her back. She looks so pitiful yet silly, make me want to wipe off the tears streaming down her face.

She wants to be carried a lot lately. She cries when we put her down or out of her sight. She doesn't let anyone else, besides mama and dada, holding her. We're very surprised that she totally enjoyed the company of Santa Claus, no crying, fussing, or frightening over the scary big beard guy.

Looking back the past 7 months, it's funny to reflect how Elle always throws us one or two curve balls that when a problem gets resolved, more problems surface. In the first 2 months, that was a period that she only wanted her granny and grandpa to carry her and she would cry colicky when we were holding her. Getting her to nap was a headache. In her 3rd month, she developed a blissful sleeping routine; however, she didn't want to eat and sleep in daycare, which worried us so much. 4th and 5th month were the months we dealt with her nose stuffiness, lots of mucus sucking and saline drops. Her bottle striking at home drove us over the edge, almost. 6th month is the whining month; however, we're blessed that feeding her is no longer dreading. 7th month is the month of clinginess and we're going back to sleeping problem again for the sake of her ability to sit up.

Merry Christmas!

I have been neglecting the fact that Elle is way different than she was a month ago. My baby is growing and has a mind of her own now. It seems to be a mission impossible to make her sitting still and not rolling and moving all over the place, not taking off the Santa hat every single time I put it on her, not whining and throwing me tantrum, so that I could take Christmas holiday pictures for her. This photo session has a lot of wrestling involved.

We helped Elle open her Christmas gift after the breakfast. At night, we drove through the
Nite Lites Christmas Light Display to spark up the Christmas spirit.

Merry Christmas to y'all! Ho Ho Ho!

T'is the season!

We had a wonderful time at the German Christmas market, Christkindlmarket, in Chicago. It's filled with festive holiday atmosphere: the gigantic Christmas tree, sparkling lights, fragrance of food, the puppet show, the crowd and the holiday musics.

Elle was very excited and tired at the same time when we were walking around the market. She was like jumping in our arms joyfully in one second, squirming and whining in the next second. We had been waiting about 45 minutes in line to the Santa House. Her whimsical behavior made us thinking that we should prepare for the worst, screaming, yelling and kicking, to happen when she met the Santa Claus for the first time. Out of our expectation, she was not startled at all when we passed her to the Santa. She sat quietly on the Santa's lap and looked curiously at the red suit, big white beard jolly man. Being a good baby for a few minutes, Elle started acting mischievously. Grabbing the Santa's beard with two hands and then pulling his mustache! The funniest was she turned to us giggling at what she just did. She definitely looked proud! It's a killer! Everyone in the room burst into laughter at these classic acts.

Tabblo:Christkindlmarket

Sitting up

Elle has discovered using her hands, knees and butt to pull herself up into sitting position now. She lifts her butt high in the air, bends one of her knee and shifts her butt to one side, turns one leg over, and voila! she's sitting up! It's amazing that she can do this, rolling, rocking, sitting up, on the bed for 3 hours straight. She's just one energizer bunny! Getting her to sleep takes much more longer now because she wants to sit up all the time. When Elle is about to get into deep sleep, she'll suck her thumb rhythmically. It's so funny to see her suddenly sitting herself up when we thought she's about to sleep.

This evening, Elle somehow got around the pillow fort we built and fell off our bed. I dashed into the room when I heard a loud thump sound coming from the room. She was laying on the floor, surprisingly no crying. Probably because of she had not recovered from the shock, or she was pretty stunned when seeing mama storming into the room screaming crazily.

Inconsolable

Another meltdown exploded last night for no reason. We were having funs and laughs for an hour and suddenly she switched into a very grumpy mood, screaming Ma-ma Ma-ma Ma-ma.. Na-Na Na-Na Na-Na.. Teething, gas, over-stuffed, over-tired, or just being a spoiled brat? We almost pulled our hair out, thinking all possible causes.

This picture reminds me how sweet she is.

Let it snow!

We have a 6-inch of snow accumulation over the night. Kalamazoo becomes a winter wonderland, covered with a blanket of snow. The sun shining through a clear blue sky, making the snow glistening like crystals. Absolutely gorgeous and stunning.

It's the perfect day to visit the Christmas tree farm. The snow just made it look more christmasy. Don't be fooled by the sunshine, the wind chill was below freezing. We woke up our sleeping bug in the carseat, bundled her into the snow suit and ventured into the wonderland. It's funny how the crispy cold air chased away Elle's sleeping bug in a finger snap. She's all curious and excited for this new sensation and experience. She stuck out her tongue a lot, probably trying to get a lick or two of the evaporated snow in the air? The freezing weather made us acted real fast, snapping a few pictures here and there and we hopped back to our car.

It's a beautiful day, despite a few baby meltdowns. Elle spit out Na-Na Na-Na for the first time when she acted up cranky at our lunch-out today.

Stand up!

I was jaw-drop stunned when I turned around and saw Elle holding onto the slates and standing in the crib. Gosh! She was lying on the crib just a few seconds ago; all of a sudden, she was standing tall and proud! She seemed to enjoy her new perspective of bird-eye view. In no time, Elle started chewing and licking on the teething guard along the rail.

Rock 'N' Roll

Elle is raising herself onto her hands and knees rocking back and forth, and doing a few push-ups. I can't help having silly thoughts of these baby push-ups have something to do with the spinach we added to her diet just a couple of days ago. Hin and I were joking about Elle's biceps bulged from her powerful arms, just like the Popeye, the sailor man, after she gulps down the spinach.

You can tell from the pictures that it's very ungraceful of her throwing arms and legs in the air, tossing and rolling all over inside the crib. Well, it's a delight for her.

E-L-I-B-O-M

That's right! Mobile spells backward. Yay! Elle's newfound backward mobility!

We set her on the floor and sit in front of her luring her with all sort of toys. It's funny that the more she wants to move forward, the more she scouts backward until her bottom gets underneath the crib. We'll have to pull her out and start all over again. Elle doesn't seem very fond of scouting on the floor. After moving for a while, she'll wah-wah-wah to protest. If we do nothing about it, she'll just take a break and lie on the floor and suck on her thumb.

She is a great performer in gymnastics on our king-sized bed. She loves slithering on her stomach and rolling across the bed, screeching with joy. Elle will roll back and forth between me and her dada when we lie down on each side of the bed.

Holding her becomes more like wrestling with her. She wriggles in our arms like a worm, left, right, upward, downward, and upside down. Her new stunt is pushing up off our chest, lift her butt high in the air, straighten the legs and stand on our lap.

For Elle, there's nothing more intriguing than the remote control, place mats, papers and stuffs on the coffee table. She hardly sit still on our lap. Our wriggly bug leans her body forward and stretches her upper body muscles to reach every possible things on the coffee table. Until everything gets knocked off from the table, she will stare at the objects on the floor and give the innocent what-are-you-doing-on-the-floor look. From time to time, we have incidents of all of a sudden the TV being shut down, the channel flipped from one to another, or sleep mode being turned on. It takes no time to figure out what's happening when we see Elle have the remote control by herself.

You bet life is getting more interesting when she starts crawling.

Swing into pre-X'mas spirit

Elle met the mini version of the white beard, red suit Santa.

Just because we had 20 minutes to spare before the fried chickens got out of the fryer, we wandered around the Christmas decor aisles. Elle's eyes were glittering with curiosity at the festive Christmas decorations and fascinated by those funky dancing musical figurines.

We had a little drama going on with the fried chicken. The fresh batch of fried chickens were already gone when we got back there. Unbelievable! What's the chance of the person before us buying all those chickens?! By the time we finally got our chicken, another half an hour had passed. Elle was already very hungry that she could gulp down an elephant.

Who to blame? Me. Because of me spending too much time on taking pictures. Hin gave me some attitude for this incident, trying to make me feel remorse of what I did. He said I should learn where to draw a line between taking photographs and everything else. Hmmm...

Sunday Morning

Breakfast time! Dada cooks the breakfast, mama enjoys her eggs over easy and Elle chews on her whole grain bread with no hand. She's eating like a puppy. It's so funny of her looking around with the bread hanging from her mouth.

Ornament me!

A diaper, babylegs, a bib and a hat. That's the way mama dresses me up!

7 months old

Dear Elle,

You bring out the child in us
We become fun, silly and childlike again
Yet, you make us grow up and step up to be a parent
We become papa bear and mama bear, flaunting our paw with shinny claw

Happy 7 months old, baby bear! You sprinkle magical happy dust on us every day.

Love,
Mama

My darling

Everyone raved about Elle so darling in her cute outfit when I picked her up from the daycare this evening. Mama just went frenzy snapping a couple hundreds pictures of her. Here's one for show and tell.

Just talk my ears off

Elle is really into talking now. Baby talking is totally music to the ear. It rhymes: Da-da Da-da pbbff.. Ta-ta Ta-ta pbbff.. Ah pbbff.. Ba-ba Ba-ba pbbff.. Yes, Elle loves remixing talking with blowing raspberries in her la-la land.

Three of us snuggled up in bed to get more sleep after a morning feed. It's utterly lovely to be awaken by the most angelic sounds in the universe. When I opened my eyes, Elle was talking to me with her sweetest tone, looking into my eyes and caressing my face with her tiny fingers. We just let the morning slipped by as we laid lazily in the bed. I can imagine myself getting addicted to this.

Oh! Capricious baby!

One second she laughs her heart out, the next second she bursts into crying. My capricious baby just acts ridiculous and silly. No doubt, there's a mild separation anxiety developing in her now.

I'm just a new mom who loves to tease my baby, make her cry and the fix my bads by making her laugh again. We have a new game going like this:

Mama disappears from Elle's sight
Elle looks around for mama with a clueless face
Mama peeps from the hideout
Elle spots mama peeping and giggles
Mama disappears again and stays put in the hideout (no peeping this time)
Elle can't find mama and starts sobbing
Mama pops right in her face to come in rescue
Elle's crying turns into hysterical laughter

Oh dear, so much fun!

Happy Birthday, Mama!

Today's mama's birthday and dada's sick-like-a-dog day. It's still an awesome day nevertheless.

The day started with Elle baked mama a poopy cake early in the morning! Mama had the afternoon off just because she didn't feel like working on her big day.

It's really sweet of dada to have Elle held on the gift and gave it to mama. Elle was so excited (looked silly though) when we were singing out loud the birthday song at a upbeat tempo. She just couldn't get enough of the strawberry swirls on the cake.

I love you both!

I digg pig trotter!

See how much Elle enjoys her pig's trotters! It does make changing diaper a breeze. She'll hold up her legs and stuff them into mouth, remain focus on her pig trotters and leave us alone with the diaper changing.

Ba-ba-ba-ba

Major milestone for today is Elle's mumbling strings of "Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba", which makes mama very jealous of dada.

There's an outburst of "mama" happened about a month ago while I was feeding Elle. It didn't melt me in tears though. She was in a very cranky mood that she refused to eat. However, mama never gave in so easily. At one point that she was too frustrated with the always-in-her-face spoon, she jerked her head away from me and screamed out "Ma-ma Ma-ma" at her dada for help.

Calling dada "Ma-ma"? We had quite a belly laugh workout.

Black Friday

We survived through the thanksgiving day with no internet connection. Our plan of doing online shopping on Black Friday this year was basically ruined. By the time we're back online, half day had been through.

Not much of a die-hard doorbuster in us. Hin "doorbusted" the computer stores at around 10-ish in the morning and there's no surprise all the good deals were gone and he came back empty handed.

Wrestling through the crowd with a baby attached was a lot more challenging. After a little bit of shopping, we quickly settled down in our usual suspect place. We had much fun hanging out there and be chilled. Elle was our entertainer. We had a "No cheesecake for Elle" drama documented at this tabblo.

Happy Gobbles!

Bath time, fun time!

Monkey see, monkey do

Elle's appetite is back. It makes feeding her a breeze. Happy tears rolling in our eyes! Believe me, we felt dreaded in every feeding for the past couple of months. She must have put on a pound or two in these few days. Oh boy, she sure feels heavier when we carry her in our arms.

We spent the afternoon lounging at B&N again. After Elle awoke from her power nap, she started busy bossing everyone else around: jumping on our laps like a monkey, looking at people over our shoulder(left, right, left, right), sitting on the table flipping/tasting the magazines, babbling and blowing raspberries in every directions.

There was one 3-years-old-ish boy sitting across our table kept staring at every movements Elle made. Elle stared back and blew raspberries to him. Guess what, after a few minutes, the little boy couldn't resist blowing raspberries back to her. How sweet and funny! Right before we left, the lady sitting at the next table threw us a compliment of "Your baby is so much fun"!

Baby is so much infectious.

Humping baby

OMG! Baby humps!

It's astounding, yet hilarious when Elle starts doing the "humping" thingy a couple of days ago. When we hold her, she rocks her body like riding a horse, screaming happily but no Yee-ha yet! Some said it's a movement some babies learn before moving on to crawling. So, let's see if Elle's going to crawl soon.

This humping one is just as good as the farting thingy we experienced in our first day of parenthood. We are amazed at how unpretentious a baby acts in every way. Elle's farting away like caring no one in the world. Her helicopter farting sounds never fail to entertain us. We laugh our ass off and anticipate the next fart coming around.

She's always our sweetie pie no matter of she farts, uhh.. or humps.

My first snow day

While I was still curling up under the comforter and snuggling myself in bed, Hin yelled out "Look out the window!". Oh mine, it's white! Snow's raining down. This is Elle's first snow day. Her face looked pretty frozen up. It's freezing.

I hold bottle

A lazy, lovely weekend

We were packed with plans and spent lots of time on the road for the past couple of weekends. It's really nice that this weekend we got to simply lounging around at home, enjoying a cup of joe with cheesecake at B&N and making a grocery trip. No rush, no hurry.

Little Miss whiny has turned around. Elle is in way better mood now! We have introduced tons of flavors to Elle in these two days: French fries, apple pie, cracker, pot pie, pea and chicken porridge. I know, quite a few are junked food that aren't suppose to be given to baby. Well, what can I say. It needs a really strong will to resist giving our little sweet bug a bit taste of what we ate. We surrender to her drooling open mouth and wistful begging eyes almost everytime.

These are Elle's signature bird-beak mouth. She is making this face all the time now.

Miss Whiny

The worst combination of 3 vaccine shots, a flu shot, ear infection, cold and cough makes Elle a very cranky whiny baby.

It is darn easy to push her little whiny button. A change of holding position, she whines. Feeding her bottle or baby food, she whines. Taking bath, changing diaper and clothes, she whines whines whines. This is a very emotional phase for Elle the she has massive needs of cuddling, hugging and comforting.

The amount of antibiotic given to Elle for her ear infection scares us a bit. Elle is very cooperative when we’re giving her medicine like baby Tylenol. She would even smack her lips and stuck out her tongue for more. But NOT for this antibiotic. It doesn't smell appetizing at all and it definitely doesn’t look like one teaspoon to us. A couple of days ago, seconds after giving Elle a tiny bit of antibiotic, waves of milk pouring out of her mouth and washing me over like a tidal wave. She threw up the whole bottle of milk she drank minutes ago. It horrified us like a sudden heart attack.

I miss my sunshine.

6 months old

Dear Elle,

In a blink, you're 6 months old today! You're packed full of belly laughs. Seeing your mischievous face simply makes us want to shower you with kisses and sneak in a nibble or two.

Remember you were so pissed off about being held in our arms and rocked back and forth like a little baby? Instead, you would let us hold you against our shoulders, faced-out with leg dangling in the air, your beloved grandpa's superman hold which you would fall asleep in it, or in some unordinary, ludicrous ways that beyond imagination.

We were overjoyed with tears when we found out you love being held in our arms lately! Forgive mama and dada always try to wrap you in a cradle, and rock you a little while whenever we can. We want to redeem the joys we missed when you were a little baby. Nevertheless, you're a big baby now. But, mama and dada still enjoy it a lot!

The way you look at us, resting your head in the crook of our arms, holding onto our shirt, just melt our hearts.

love,
Mama

6-month checkup

Elle's singing "Ah..Aah..Aaah.." cracked up her doctor during her 6-month check up this morning. She weighs 17 pounds 6 ounces and is 27 inches in length. Her weight drops to 75 percentile and height climbs up to 98 percentile. The doctor kept assure us she's an above average baby that we shouldn't be too worried about her not eating enough. Elle's having a mild ear infection in her left ear. That explains the foul smell coming from her ear. She got another 3 shots in her legs today. Poor baby!

My big tub

Elle is so thrilled over her new big tub we picked up from IKEA on the weekend. For months, she had been jam-packed in her hand-me-down infant bath tub. We could only fill up the infant tub with about 2 inches height of water. Once Elle got inside the infant tub, the water level was already at a very-dangerous-overflow mark that a kick or a twist there making water splashing all over.

The big tub has room for rubber ducks now.

Meet the birthday boy, Gabriel

Viv and Wil were throwing a birthday party for Gabriel to celebrate his 1st birthday. Elle gave Gabriel a couple of drooling birthday kisses. How lucky was Gabriel, eh?

Boo!

Elle, the teddy bear, was having her first trick-or-treating on the Halloween night in the drizzling rain. The spirit of Halloween overwhelmed the rain. There're swarms of kids in costumes knocking door to door for trick-or-treating around Jessie's neighborhood. Our teddy bear did not fall far behind the kids in participating the act of trick-or-treating at all. After people got over how cute she was in her teddy bear costume, she picked out her candy, put it into her mouth and started licking it.

By the end of the night, our teddy bear was treated with more than a handful of candies. Not bad for a gonna-to-be-6-month-old. Elle was over-exhausted and super starving on our way back home. Remember, she worked hard for her candies? I couldn't be happier to watch her gulping down the whole bottle in one shot. To boot, she finished half cup of squashy rice cereal after the bottle. After we got her fed, then it's our turn to eat. Before we could finish our dinner, she had already started rubbing her eyes (her sign of sleepiness). We rushed her to take a bath and then put her to bed. By the time we got the chance to wind down, I was already too tired to remain conscious that I hit the bed instantly. In the next morning, I just realized Elle missed her 5th meal the night before. Mama was already asleep, dada was too tired to stay awake to feed, and little baby was too weary to be awake to eat. All three of us just knocked out till the next morning.

Happy Halloween!

My first pumpkin

Elle had her 1st pumpkin at "Gene the pumpkin man". It's a tradition for Mr. Gene to give babies their 1st pumpkin in his farm. He is a friendly, six-feet tall, cowboy look man. He wears orange clothes and greets everyone with his orange glitter face. Hills of pumpkins, squash, and gourd in his orangish farm.

Next year this time, Elle will be big enough to sit inside the hand-pulled wagon to hunt for her own pumpkin.

Meet my cousin Summer

Finally the cousins met up! How cute of Summer and Elle to sit side by side. Thanks Beeleng, SenHwee and Summer for your warmest welcome! We had a swell time!

Autumn in Grand Ledge

Gorgeous fall color at the Fitzgerald Park in a small town nearby Lansing.

A challenge lied ahead at the trail head was a flight of stairs. We were fortunate to have more than a couple of hands to help us carrying the baby gears down the stairs. It's an enjoyable, stunning colorful trail winding through the forest along the bank of Grand River on the left and the ledges on the right. An ancient railroad trestle marks the end of the trail.

As we unwinding at the end of the day, the soreness of arms crept in. Carrying a 17-pounder along a trail was quite a workout.

Faces

This week's highlights are rolling from back to tummy, sitting upright inside the car seat, holding her legs, and sleeping on her side.

We had one of those baby bloopers happened last Sunday while we were all sitting on the sofa for dinner and movie. We set Elle sitting at the corner of the sofa. Minutes after, when I turned back to check on her, she had already tumbled face-down behind my back, no screaming for help but happily doing her own thing. When Hin was trying to pick her up, he caught her sticking out her tongue licking my yummy butt! Elle is kissing my ass! That's hilarious!

I'm NOT a boy!

I used to think it's a cliché to wear baby girl pink. Unfortunately, I have became one too.

"Your baby a boy or a girl?"
"It's a boy?"
"He is....."

It can't be more ironic to hear these especially when I dress up Elle like a girly girl: pink hat, pink shirt, pink pant and pink socks. Come on! It's like a baby goes pink overboard. Are they color blind? They can't be totally ignorant about the pink outfit she's wearing right? Please, just shoot me!

There's one guy popped the "boy or girl" question like 10 minutes ago came back to me for reconfirmation went like this, "It's a SHE right?". I just went slapping my forehead and screamed: " SEE! Pink! Pink! Pink!". Believe me, I would never dress up my baby pink if she were a boy.

I think I may as well go ahead to buy a oversize bib with a label saying "I AM NOT A BOY" and wear on Elle every time we go out. Maybe I should dress up Elle like a boy, so that when people pop the question again, we'll both feel better about ourself since it's not anyone's fault to mistaken Elle a boy because she dresses up like one. All these may help, I think.

Bedtime ritual

"Ah..Ah..Ahhh..", "Wah..Waah..Waaah..",squealing, "Ah..Ah...Ahhh..", "Hmm..Hmmm..Hmmmm..", blowing rapsberries. These are going on and on and on until the silence hits, our little bug falls asleep. Pure bliss!

It's totally the opposite in the first 6 weeks of Elle's life. The biggest challenge was getting her to sleep. We expected newborn sleeps most of the time and only awakes for feeding. Elle chose to be differ. Her grammy, experienced with manhandling 5 grandkids, even amused by Elle's not-so-newborn-like behavior. Elle slept about 6 to 8 hours a day. She was a eating and playing machine during the day. Nap time was almost out of the question. Never count our luck for more than a 20 minutes nap. This pattern continued for 6 to 10 days and then all of a sudden she would be in hibernation mode for one whole day. No matter how we bing, bang and bong, she was sleeping like an angel. It's like catching up all the sleeps she had missed and reclaiming her energy in that one day. Voila! The cycle was back again.

We're blessed that bedtime is no longer a torture routine.

Sweet dream, smoochie.

Happy Birthday, Dada!

We went to The Bib restaurant in Gun Lake area to celebrate Hin's birthday. Elle's spirit remained high throughout the day. The seashore-themed decor intrigued her a lot. She kept bouncing her legs, looked like tap-dancing along with the music on play. We had king crab, seafood sac, fried clams with sides of crab bisque soup, the bib's salad, coleslaw, fries, and cornbreads. It might sound crazily plenty of foods, but they were not. It was a fun day. The new addition of our little one just made it extra special. You can tell from the father-and-daughter's smiles from ear to ear.

Tabblo:Happy Birthday, Dada!