C’mon, already. Just drink it!

It puzzles us a lot how on earth does Elle grow into her 90th-percentile weight. After been daycare for 2 months, bottle striking is still going on strong. Elle scores so many "DIDN'T WANT" on her daily care sheet at the end of each day that we have no problem making them into a "Wall of Fame".

It has never been a problem at home, until recently. For some reasons, Elle refuses drinking her milk at home. We have tried forcing and coaxing this stubborn little thing. In the end, it's always her way or no way at all. She is just one feisty baby to fight with.

She purses her lips and jerks her head away, twisting, screaming and kicking, like we're trying to feed her poison. She strikes in silence when she is fade up of fighting back. She holds perfectly still, lets us keep the nipple inside her mouth, but no sucking action whatsoever, stares at us eye-wide or closes her eyes pretend sleeping to declare a stand-off.

Bottle feeding has become a trial of wills and patience. Ours wear thin.

Mealtime

Elle's first encounter with food is Michigan peaches. Her face was all scrunch up after her first taste of peachy tartness. She smacked her lips and stuck out her tongue wanting for more. We were amazed of her using the gum to suck off the juices and the wedge was half gone by the time we pulled it out. She absolutely loves peaches! It's cracking us up seeing her screaming and yelling when we walked away with her newfound food. She was 3+ months old then.

Since a couple of weeks ago, we have been spoon-feeding Elle rice cereal and sweet potato. Elle makes "hmmm..hmmm..hmmm.." noises when licking off the food from the spoon. She is one happy and messy baby when a meal is served.

An ode to the hands

Elle fancies her hands so much that they seem like a wonderland for her. She can explore her hands for hours and never get bored with them. She stares at them, stuffs them into her mouth, swings them, grasps them together, and then pulls them apart. Oh, an absolute bliss!

Tabblo: Lookie! Hands!

Goodbye Summer!

Fall colors begin to show at the woods we live. Gold, yellow, orange, and red leaves pop up among the greens. Looking out the window from Elle's room, there are two trees. They're getting a little more splash of autumn color as each day goes by.

This Saturday, after a morning feed, I decided to gear up Elle to take a walk around the woods to soak up the beauty of an early autumn. Elle was pretty psyched about watching the leaves tumbling down to the ground and listening the leaves rustling softly in the autumn breeze at the begining until she started gurgling to sign: "I need my nap NOW! Don't you dare to stop moving! Keep going! Go stroller!". After a few pushing, little Elle drifted into an angelic sleep.

It's about time to wave goodbye to summer.

Bald is COOL!

Dear Elle,

Your naked head has brought an uproar. People reacted in sympathy and thought this is the most horrible thing that could ever happened to a baby. They poor baby you! One commented that "It is getting colder. Fall will be here soon. So what Mom to do? Shave baby's head, of course. And then feed her spicy chili.". The spicy chili part has a different story behind it.

Elle, you were born with a head full of hairs. That's why mama can hardly swallow the fact of stucking with a bald 4+ months old baby. It would be a little bit easy on mama if you were bald when we first met you.

Mama had the thoughts of not taking any more pictures of you until your hair grows back. Shame on mama! It appeared that mama had underestimated the power of a bald baby. While you were laying on the couch the day you had your hair shaved, mama just couldn't stop snapping photos at you, of course, and your naked head.

Sweetheart, you are beautiful in your bald way.

Love,
Mama

P/S: Please forgive mama and dada can't stop kissing your naked head.

Tabblo:Super bald baby is way way C~O~O~L!

Photo of the Day

Dear Masifu,

Congratulations! Your photo has been chosen as ImageStation Photo of the Day. Your picture titled "precious moment" will appear on September 25, 2007. You will automatically be entered in the monthly drawing. Good luck and thanks for participating!

http://www.imagestation.com/content/ pod

Regards,
Michael
Sony ImageStation



This is an email I received today. It reminds me that I had submitted some photos for the POD. However, I can vaguely remember which precious moments until I found out that the one that got picked is a hilarious photo of Elle with a funny ugly face. This was 2+ months old Elle. I guess the judge must have sensed the humor in it. Ugly baby rules!

Because Grammy says so

Say farewell to Elle's hair, all of them. Elle goes bald! What's left her to remember this special day is a "1st haircut" certificate and some leftover hair. Technically, it's not her first haircut, but definitely her first, hopefully last, BALD haircut.

Elle was drawing a crowd. We, being her parents, were swarmed with pitiness for Elle and questions like "Why do you want to shave all your baby's hair?", "Why? at 4 months old?". This tabblo is showing Elle's adventure towards baldness.

I have to admit that it starts feeling really weird to have a bald baby.

4-month checkup

Today, we brought Elle in for her 4-month checkup. The picture was taken while Elle was waiting for the doctor. She now weighs 15 lbs 14 ounces and is 26 inches long. She’s in the 90th percentile for both height and weight.

Another pee incident happened during her weighting. Not much damage done this time as she was peeing inside the scale. The nurse was not so lucky at Elle's 2-month checkup though. She got peed on immediately after I passed Elle to her for weighting.

It's hard not to remember the embarrassment moment we had on Elle's first pediatric visit. Elle pooped. A reality check hit us instantly when we were asked to change Elle's diaper. Hin and I stared at each other with the look of "with what?". We FORGOT about the diaper bag! Little poopy Elle just made her parent looked so silly. Did this happen to majority of first-time parents? I hope so. So that we can convince ourself we're just following the norm.

The law of cause and effect

Elle has been addicted to aah-bluueeing since last week. Yes, she did that during her "sick" week with her stuffy nose too. The Aah-bluuueeing switch turned on when she wakes up, before she sleeps, after feeding, even during diaper changing time.

Well, this all come down to Elle's daddy wants to teach her cause and effect. Hin suggested we should react when she does the aah-bluuueeing thingy. So, we respond with an exaggerated face expression whenever she blows her lips like a motorboat. I know, we act dumb and crazy just like all others with a newborn. The effects make her giggling and want to do it over and over again. She becomes a master of aah-bluuueeing now, with occasionally out-of-control spitting on our face. Oh, lovely!

However, it starts to get on Hin's nerve as she's having so much fun doing it that she wants to pass feeding and nap time. Nevertheless, we succeed in attesting the law of cause and effect.

We gave Elle a hair cut!

Dear Elle,

I did not plan to write about your new hair cut when I posted your new look yesterday. Pictures tell all. I changed my mind. It's all because of what happened last night. I heard you squealing in your room in the middle of the night. Before I was able to chase away my sleeping bugs and came to you, I heard your daddy's sheepish laughter coming out from your room. That laughter really raising the suspense and rushed me to your room thinking what could be so funny with your squealling. I saw you half naked and your daddy was trying to put on a new diaper on you, with a smirk smile. I asked your daddy what's the deal of it. Guess what, your daddy said he couldn't help laughing by just looking at you in your new hair cut. I admitted I laughed too, seconds after taking a peek at the outcome of our love. You stopped screaming all of a sudden and stared wide-eyed at us wondering what's wrong with these two crazy adults. I bet your thought at that moment was What the heck you're laughing about? Aren't you going to fix something when I cry!

"No worries baby. Hair grows back." says daddy.

Love,
Mama

09.10.2007

Farmer Market

Gorgeous Saturday morning, the farmer market was packed with early birds. It's a totally unexpected surprise to find green tomatoes and heirloom tomatoes here at the market. I've heard so much of how divine the heirloom tomatoes are, but yet haven't found it or tasted it. There's a great variety of heirloom tomatoes available at the market, such as watermelon beefsteak, red zebra, orange banana, black prince. No doubt, we picked a few of these beauties home. We also got some asian eggplants, 5 for a dollar. What a steal!

There were two little boys, 3 and 4 years old, with their parents, came over and checked out our little Elle when we stopped at the sunflowers stand. The big brother gave Elle a kiss on her forehead and the little one wanted to share his popcorn with my little baby. These two little boys treated Elle like a doll. Their way of showing affections towards Elle amused us.

We're pleasantly surprise to find Kalamazoo farmer market becomes a little gem in the community. We'll definitely come back more often until the season ends. On site note, we encountered an iguana, named Dr. Pepper, enjoying his snack apple.

4 months old

Cool hair style for Elle eh? Hin took this picture while Elle having a bath today.

Elle has a runny nose since the labor day weekend. With this stuffiness, she doesn't sleep or eat well. Otherwise, she is acting normal, very playful and active that we have to make her to have some down time.

As of today, Elle is 4 months old. We enjoy the parenthood with full heart. Seeing little Elle first thing in the morning is just the perfect way to start our day. She is just like our another favorite, coffee, dangerously addictive.