Emily has been a singing machine! It's been so fun to watch her learn how to sing songs - and also super impressive at how much she memorizes lyrics! So far, Emily can sing Happy Birthday, the Alphabet, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, God is So Good (in english AND korean!), Old Macdonald, and a few songs from Little Baby Bum - her favorite tv show. It's been so so fun watching her sing - and she just loves to sing all the time. Sometimes, she'll just lie in her crib singing by herself. Other times, she loves to grab the mic on her mini piano and just sing straight into the mic. And the rest of the time, she just loves to sing all day long. It's pretty cute that she doesn't even want me to sing sometimes. She'll say "Emmy sing it!" and not let me sing along. Haha. Or otherwise, she demands I sing it first and then she sings afterwards.
It boggles my mind how much she can learn these songs. I mean, the alphabet is 26 letters. That's a lot to remember! I'm so incredibly proud of her and also thrilled that maybe music is in her genes! Maybe she'll be a singer like me!
She's also been really into dancing these days! Her dance moves have evolved from her baby days, and now she likes to move her arms up and down in alternating movements or do little fist pumps in the air and I'm surprised with the agility! Her old baby days, it was mostly just swinging her arms side to side. But this new coordination is pretty cute!
On another note - Emily has begun telling stories. It's pretty cute that she's learning to string words together to make sentences and turn them into stories. She also repeats these stories over and over and it's so interesting to see how her memory has improved so much. She remembers events from weeks ago. She remembers facts and details we tell her. This new brain development is so fascinating!
Emily's top stories: "Emmy fall down downstairs. Carol put bandaid Emmy face. Umma sorry." "Emmy fall down bed". "Santa Habujee - Emmy cry". "Habee take Emmy jokee". Haha, these stories crack me up! Emily fell down the stairs while I was talking to Sy's mom, and it was a pretty big fall. She fell from half the stairs downwards, and then bit her tongue on the way down and bled a little. Overall, she was fine, but she definitely loves telling this story. She recounts her story of how she cried when we tried to sit her on Santa's lap every time she sees someone wearing a santa costume. She has learned that "Santa bring Emmy presents!" but when I ask her if she wants to sit with Santa again, she says NO! Hahaha, what a greedy girl - wants the presents without the action to get it. Sy's mom once tossed Emily's vest to him to take down with the laundry, and Emily flipped out bc he took her vest. She cried and they eventually had to give it back bc she was relentless. And now, she will constantly tell us how her grandfather took her vest. Haha, I guess it was traumatic for her!
That being said - Emily's terrible 2s have come early. She now cries hard whenever we do something she doesn't like. It's surprising to see how the tantrums are so ridiculous. We tried to put a new green jacket on her, and she cried bc she wanted her black jacket. I told her no iPad right now, and it was full on crying. She doesn't want to take off her backpack - full on crying. When we tell her no, she cries. She throws things. It's very frustrating. The interesting thing is, she has somehow learned the concept of sorry. When she's been bad, we tell her to say sorry. And every time, she looks down, and quietly says sorry as if she were ashamed. I don't know how she learned this emotion or even this gesture, but it's so interesting that she understands that she was misbehaving. There was one time when she was being so tantrum-y, just yelling and crying and whining, but not using her words. And I kept yelling at her to say - I don't understand what you want! You have to use your words! You can't just whine bc I don't know what you want! Tell me what you want!!!! And finally, she looked at me sheepishly and in a nearly-whisper, she said "kka kka" (snack). I think she knew that she was being a brat about something unimportant, but it was still what she wanted. It has been a frustrating and trying time, but interesting regardless. (I will say - I just hope that she doesn't get any worse than this. Emily's cousin is in the terrible 2s as well, and she cries bloody murder for 1 hour if she doesn't get her way. I hope that we don't come to this!)
Emily's sentence structure has gotten better! She went from 2 word sentences like "emmy jacket" to now 3 to 4 word sentences like "emmy eat that," "emmy did it," "umma shower all done," "where are you?" It's pretty awesome to see her learn how to string words together. I've been told that Emily's speech development is pretty fast for her age. I hope that this never slows down and she just continues to excel!
In more fun developments, Emily has learned our names! She first learned my name because there's a song on Little Baby Bum about names, and the main character's name is Mia. So she learned Mia a while ago, but it was fun when she learned that my name was also Mia. So then she learned that appa's name is Sy. So when we test her, she's always right! We have now trained her on Adam's name, Carol's name, Gomo (Gina)'s name, and Gomoboo (Eric)'s name. She legit remembers, and it's really fun to watch her think as she tries to remember! She's even getting better at remembering where things are. Like if I tell her to go get her bubbles, she knows which drawer it's in (which is actually better than Sy - bc he never knows where all her toys go. haha). Even if I tell her about something she might not remember where it belongs, she remembers the general details and vicinity of things. For example, Emily has a picture flashlight that you has 3 different reels of film (purple, blue, green). One time, I was searching for the purple one bc it was missing, and I asked her - Emily - do you know where the purple one is? And I showed her the green one and the blue one, and i said - where's the purple one? And I watched her face comprehend that 1 of the 3 was missing. And she started looking around for the purple one. Haha. It's so interesting how she remembers. The funniest is when she remembers promises - like when we promise to give her a bite of chocolate after bathtime. She'll patiently sit through the lotion, diaper, putting on clothes process and then run out and look for chocolate. Despite so many things to distract her, she still remembered the chocolate process.
Emily's ability to count has become fun bc now she likes to shout 1, 2, 3, 4 before she runs or jumps. It used to be 1, 2, 3. Then it increased to 4. and sometimes she goes up to 6 before she propels herself. It's pretty funny. She still has a little trouble recognizing her numbers. She usually gets 1 right and 10 right. The rest is still shaky. Same for the alphabet - W is her best one. She can find W really well, but the others not as well.
Emily's stranger danger seems to have gone up to another peak. While she still doesn't cry, she seems to be recoiling more and burying her face in our bodies. And if she can't bury herself, she'll just close her eyes to avoid eye contact. While it's hysterical to watch her close her eyes, it's still hard to deal with bc you want your child to interact and be friendly with other people. It can be a little disheartening when other people (mainly adults like aunts and uncles) don't show her as much love bc she's being too shy to make them see what a fun little girl she is. And while I get that this is just who she is, she's just a shy person, it's hard on my soul to know that she isn't being fully her wonderful self in front of other people. Instead, they just see a somewhat rude, petulant toddler who won't say hi, won't smile, won't do high-five, won't give hugs, won't say thank you when she accepts your bribe, won't do anything - and no one likes that child. It's tough bc Carol is such a friendly, social girl. So the juxtaposition can be stark and also immediate when it comes to the lack of affection for Emily. I truly hope she gets over this phase soon and that people will get to see what a fun-loving girl she is.
Emily is such a little rascal and goofball. She loves to be mischievous and laugh at her own jokes/practical jokes. She makes herself laugh, and she loves to deliberately do the opposite of what you tell her - all while giving you a sly smile and side eye. It's super funny and cute to watch. Sometimes I wonder who she gets that from - me or Sy. Sy is one of the funniest people I know - so I wonder if Emily just has a good sense of humor bc of him. Or is she like me - just a corny goofball who likes simple jokes like "boo!"? One of her favorite jokes is to say "don't throwwwww" before she throws her puppy and lovey out of the crib. She cackles with laughter every time. She loves giving us funny kisses with her mouth wide open - just because it makes us go Nooooo! It's pretty sweet.
She's also little miss independent now. She's learned how to go down the slide by herself (or at least low ones), and she always says Emmy do it! or Emmy honjah (alone)! She wants to feed herself, and walk by herself. It's times like these that I feel so much like my baby is gone.
Food-wise, still loving all soups, maybe starting to come back to liking rice again. She's coming around on avocado again, and really loving clementines. She has been eating a little more frequently at her little table, but maybe bc she just is so active during her meal times. Her preferences and dislikes over specific snacks is annoying bc who wants to waste money throwing away snacks just bc she doesn't like that flavor anymore! Still hates animal crackers, starting to dislike ritz crackers, but going strong on all puffs.
It's been a busy month for us - celebrating Sy's birthday, Thanksgiving, and just doing lots of friends hangouts. It's been really wonderful to continue making new memories with Emily - our night drives to the city for pizza and cookies, blowing out birthday candles, playing with cousins, it's all been great. I can't wait to see how our Christmas enfolds as we make even more memories. The holidays are chaotic, but they sure are nice.
Tuesday, December 17, 2019
Tuesday, November 5, 2019
Beach baby! - 1 year 8 months
We have just returned from our Bahamas trip! And boy was it was exhausting!
To celebrate Sy's father's belated 70th birthday, we took a big family trip to the Bahamas - an all-inclusive resort for me, sy, emily; sy's sister's family, and his parents. Overall, it was a great trip - but note that I used the word "trip" and not "vacation." This was the most exhausting trip I've ever done - more than our Arizona trip where we hiked and walked all day! Traveling with 3 kids is no joke - and pretty tiring!
Emily was pretty good during the plane ride. And though she didn't sleep, she didn't scream or yell, so we were pretty thankful. Emily, as usual, loved the pool. She constantly asked "pool?" every time she saw any body of water and wanted to go swimming. She mostly just enjoyed jumping off the steps of the pool and into me or sy's arms. we did that OVER and over. can you imagine our delight?
As expected, emily did not love the sand. i even tried putting the sand shoes i had bought for her to help her not feel the sand on her feet. But alas, it did not work. She refused to walk on the sand. We were lucky to have gotten a few steps out of her, but that was it. The good news is that she learned to enjoy sand play! Sy's mom brought a bucket, shovel, and some sand toys, and Emily loved shoveling sand into her bucket. It was really cute to see her sit still and just keep shoveling.
Going into the ocean was another big hurdle to overcome. At first, Emily was scared to be in the ocean. Perhaps the uncontrollable waves made her feel uneasy. But after several attempts, we finally got her to like the ocean. She really enjoyed sitting on the flotation mat, while we held her as we floated ourselves. She also enjoyed being in our arms in the ocean water as well! After she finally came around to it, it was hard to get her out! In general, taking Emily into the ocean is a bit of a scary thing to do. When the waves were a little strong, I didn't feel safe holding Emily and had Sy hold her instead. I'm short - waves can overwhelm me pretty easily and I just didn't want the water to accidentally hit her in the face, or God forbid, I get knocked over by a wave, and we both end up in the water. And when I was holding Emily as she sat on the flotation mat, it gave me major Castaway vibes and conjured up thoughts of what it would be like if I were to be shipwrecked with Emily and had to survive on the ocean alone with her. How would we survive? I couldn't ever not hold her, but how would we get food or water to drink? What if there was a storm? It was the most terrifying thing to think about - ever.
Overall, the kids had a lot of fun on this beach vacation. Adam, who is now 6, was basically a fish and was constantly swimming in every pool, beach, and water activity he could find. For the parents, beach vacations are super annoying! First, you have to go through the long process of changing into swimsuits, sunblocking everyone, packing up all your snacks and toys. And then after the pool, the process of washing up is even longer! You have to bathe the kids super well to get all the sand, chlorine and sunblock off. And then you gotta lotion them up. And then all the parents have to shower and wash up. And you also have to rinse out the swim suits so that they can be worn again the next day. It was such a long process that it took most of the day! I'm so glad that we don't have to wear sunblock again for a long time!
Food-wise, the trip was a little tricky. For breakfasts, Emily surprisingly did not want to eat things like pancakes, waffles, or french toast (even though she eats it fine at home). She only wanted to eat peanut butter. It was so strange! And yet - breakfast was the easiest meal of the day! Lunch was tough bc we usually were on the beach for lunch time. None of the toddlers wanted burgers or hot dogs. One time, I ran into the buffet line and brought back pasta for the girls. And other times, we just packed PBJ and bread to eat at the beach. But bc the kids just didn't eat a ton at lunch, by dinner time, they were starving - and often hangry. emily ate pretty well for dinner. once, she ate lamb meatballs and conch fritters and i was like wow, i'm surprised she ate that! I was pretty worried about emily getting constipated on this trip, and I was constantly trying to get fruit and vegetables in her. But it definitely wasn't easy since we weren't at home to chop things up finely to hide it in her food. In general, she ate SO much PBJ on this trip, and also SO MUCH JUICE. She really got spoiled with having juice at every meal. smh.
Sleep-wise, that was hilarious, in hindsight. We had to share our small hotel room with Emily's crib. So at night, we'd put Emily down, and then head into bathroom where I had set up a pseudo-hangout room for us. We put pillows on the floor to feel "comfortable" as we just looked at our phones waiting for her to fall asleep. I had thought we would need a lot of entertainment in there, but it turned out that we were so exhausted from the day that we just wanted to go to sleep early ourselves. The first night, we did phone stuff for 40 min, and then went to sleep by 10pm. The 2nd night, we did the same thing. The 3rd night, we were a little more ambitious and watched half an episode on Netflix, and ate some of Emily's snacks. The 4th night, I was so exhausted that I fell asleep on the bathroom floor. We never made it past 10:30pm at the latest. I think sun activities are more tiring than regular activities. Couple that with the fact that we got pretty much no breaks from Emily during the day, it really drains all your energy. Some days, Emily didn't nap during the day. That means 13 hours of continuous watching Emily - that's a lot of work! During the 2 days that we did nap Emily, sy and i actually left the room and watched her on the baby monitor and tried to enjoy our free time. The first time, we lounged on some beach chairs and when we heard her wake up, we ran for our lives to get to the room as fast as we could. I shake my head at myself in hindsight now.
The plane ride home, Emily fell asleep in Sy's arms. It was pretty sweet to see. She was so exhausted from not getting to nap and she quietly just closed her eyes and fell asleep. It was a nice 40 min of peace. Again, I basically watched movies with just closed captions and no headphones. Emily just doesn't allow me to wear headphones. haha, that girl. She was pretty good again after she woke up. Mostly watched tv and ate snacks and didn't make too much of a fuss.
We have returned from this trip more exhausted than ever despite getting 9-10 hours of sleep per night - which is WAY more than we get on a normal night. The memories were priceless. Seeing Emily and Carol interact all weekend was so fun. I'm glad we did this trip despite all the weariness it comes with.
From a developmental update, Emily is talking more in sentence-attempts! She's learning to pair words together - especially possessives - like Emmy's car, umma's jacket, appa's bag. She is also sort of learning to narrate a little - she has been trying to say things like duck go bus, duck go train. She's learned how to say "umma mugguh" which means "umma eat it." It's pretty amazing to see her learning how to speak more.
She's also learning to sing more. At night, when I put her to sleep, she sings "God is so good" with me as I sing it to her. She now sings baby shark a little better too - baby shark shoo doo doo doo doo. Baa baa black sheep has gotten better, and her W, X, Y and Z is pretty good too.
Emily is a coloring monster. She wants to color non-stop. I've had to tape craft paper onto her table bc she just gets crayon everywhere. We had to pack crayons and a coloring book for the trip! She also really likes paintbrushes too. I'm deathly scared to let her actually paint though. She always gets crayons on her clothes and on the table and sometimes the furniture. I'm so afraid to get paint on everything. Markers are still off the table for her. She is not to be trusted.
Emily is also a running monster. All she ever wants to do is just run. She loves long, open spaces for her to just run with no obstruction. It's a great way to kill time with her. I have no idea how we're going to survive the winter without parks to go and run in or swings or slides to ride.
Food-wise, she's still fairly picky. She's still not loving rice dishes, but loves red sauce pastas and korean soups with rice. Even her snack preferences have changed. She hates animal crackers, but loves all cheesy, puffed snacks. She still hates pouches, and is 50/50 on korean rice snacks. Sometimes she likes them, sometimes she doesn't. And sometimes she just gets sick of her own snacks if she eats them more than once in a row. Man, what a little diva!
Diaper change is super annoying bc she hates it, fights it, noodles her body to try to escape. And so has teeth brushing! She went from hating it, to loving it, to now hating it again. The good news is that she's finally getting better at learning how to spit water out. And us cheering her on has made that more fun for her.
Overall, Emily has entered the terrible 2s. She entered it early, and it's hard. The tantrums are definitely patience-testing. When she doesn't want to do something, she screams (mildly), she whines, she says no, she crosses her arms, she noodles her body, she turns her body away, she runs away, and it is HARD. It makes me want to yell at her and just manhandle it. It's hard to remember that she's a toddler and doesn't necessarily understand the reasoning behind everything. But man, I wish it hadn't started early. I do hope the terrible 2s will end earlier too then. Sometimes I think about how this could stretch on for a year - and the thought of going through a year of this very annoying behavior is daunting. She's lucky that she's cute and that I often forget my frustrations with her. But man, toddler life is tough.
Even the way she plays now is so different as a toddler. She wants so much to jump off things and that is a big test of patience as well. She's really been enjoying trains, cars, and trucks. Watching her zoom her cars is so fascinating to me bc it's so different from her baby days. She likes cutting her play fruit, still crazy about bubbles, and using her flashlight.
Hopefully, I can keep updating at a faster pace so that each entry doesn't have to be a novel! The holidays are coming soon. I can't wait for her to experience it again as a toddler!
To celebrate Sy's father's belated 70th birthday, we took a big family trip to the Bahamas - an all-inclusive resort for me, sy, emily; sy's sister's family, and his parents. Overall, it was a great trip - but note that I used the word "trip" and not "vacation." This was the most exhausting trip I've ever done - more than our Arizona trip where we hiked and walked all day! Traveling with 3 kids is no joke - and pretty tiring!
Emily was pretty good during the plane ride. And though she didn't sleep, she didn't scream or yell, so we were pretty thankful. Emily, as usual, loved the pool. She constantly asked "pool?" every time she saw any body of water and wanted to go swimming. She mostly just enjoyed jumping off the steps of the pool and into me or sy's arms. we did that OVER and over. can you imagine our delight?
As expected, emily did not love the sand. i even tried putting the sand shoes i had bought for her to help her not feel the sand on her feet. But alas, it did not work. She refused to walk on the sand. We were lucky to have gotten a few steps out of her, but that was it. The good news is that she learned to enjoy sand play! Sy's mom brought a bucket, shovel, and some sand toys, and Emily loved shoveling sand into her bucket. It was really cute to see her sit still and just keep shoveling.
Going into the ocean was another big hurdle to overcome. At first, Emily was scared to be in the ocean. Perhaps the uncontrollable waves made her feel uneasy. But after several attempts, we finally got her to like the ocean. She really enjoyed sitting on the flotation mat, while we held her as we floated ourselves. She also enjoyed being in our arms in the ocean water as well! After she finally came around to it, it was hard to get her out! In general, taking Emily into the ocean is a bit of a scary thing to do. When the waves were a little strong, I didn't feel safe holding Emily and had Sy hold her instead. I'm short - waves can overwhelm me pretty easily and I just didn't want the water to accidentally hit her in the face, or God forbid, I get knocked over by a wave, and we both end up in the water. And when I was holding Emily as she sat on the flotation mat, it gave me major Castaway vibes and conjured up thoughts of what it would be like if I were to be shipwrecked with Emily and had to survive on the ocean alone with her. How would we survive? I couldn't ever not hold her, but how would we get food or water to drink? What if there was a storm? It was the most terrifying thing to think about - ever.
Overall, the kids had a lot of fun on this beach vacation. Adam, who is now 6, was basically a fish and was constantly swimming in every pool, beach, and water activity he could find. For the parents, beach vacations are super annoying! First, you have to go through the long process of changing into swimsuits, sunblocking everyone, packing up all your snacks and toys. And then after the pool, the process of washing up is even longer! You have to bathe the kids super well to get all the sand, chlorine and sunblock off. And then you gotta lotion them up. And then all the parents have to shower and wash up. And you also have to rinse out the swim suits so that they can be worn again the next day. It was such a long process that it took most of the day! I'm so glad that we don't have to wear sunblock again for a long time!
Food-wise, the trip was a little tricky. For breakfasts, Emily surprisingly did not want to eat things like pancakes, waffles, or french toast (even though she eats it fine at home). She only wanted to eat peanut butter. It was so strange! And yet - breakfast was the easiest meal of the day! Lunch was tough bc we usually were on the beach for lunch time. None of the toddlers wanted burgers or hot dogs. One time, I ran into the buffet line and brought back pasta for the girls. And other times, we just packed PBJ and bread to eat at the beach. But bc the kids just didn't eat a ton at lunch, by dinner time, they were starving - and often hangry. emily ate pretty well for dinner. once, she ate lamb meatballs and conch fritters and i was like wow, i'm surprised she ate that! I was pretty worried about emily getting constipated on this trip, and I was constantly trying to get fruit and vegetables in her. But it definitely wasn't easy since we weren't at home to chop things up finely to hide it in her food. In general, she ate SO much PBJ on this trip, and also SO MUCH JUICE. She really got spoiled with having juice at every meal. smh.
Sleep-wise, that was hilarious, in hindsight. We had to share our small hotel room with Emily's crib. So at night, we'd put Emily down, and then head into bathroom where I had set up a pseudo-hangout room for us. We put pillows on the floor to feel "comfortable" as we just looked at our phones waiting for her to fall asleep. I had thought we would need a lot of entertainment in there, but it turned out that we were so exhausted from the day that we just wanted to go to sleep early ourselves. The first night, we did phone stuff for 40 min, and then went to sleep by 10pm. The 2nd night, we did the same thing. The 3rd night, we were a little more ambitious and watched half an episode on Netflix, and ate some of Emily's snacks. The 4th night, I was so exhausted that I fell asleep on the bathroom floor. We never made it past 10:30pm at the latest. I think sun activities are more tiring than regular activities. Couple that with the fact that we got pretty much no breaks from Emily during the day, it really drains all your energy. Some days, Emily didn't nap during the day. That means 13 hours of continuous watching Emily - that's a lot of work! During the 2 days that we did nap Emily, sy and i actually left the room and watched her on the baby monitor and tried to enjoy our free time. The first time, we lounged on some beach chairs and when we heard her wake up, we ran for our lives to get to the room as fast as we could. I shake my head at myself in hindsight now.
The plane ride home, Emily fell asleep in Sy's arms. It was pretty sweet to see. She was so exhausted from not getting to nap and she quietly just closed her eyes and fell asleep. It was a nice 40 min of peace. Again, I basically watched movies with just closed captions and no headphones. Emily just doesn't allow me to wear headphones. haha, that girl. She was pretty good again after she woke up. Mostly watched tv and ate snacks and didn't make too much of a fuss.
We have returned from this trip more exhausted than ever despite getting 9-10 hours of sleep per night - which is WAY more than we get on a normal night. The memories were priceless. Seeing Emily and Carol interact all weekend was so fun. I'm glad we did this trip despite all the weariness it comes with.
From a developmental update, Emily is talking more in sentence-attempts! She's learning to pair words together - especially possessives - like Emmy's car, umma's jacket, appa's bag. She is also sort of learning to narrate a little - she has been trying to say things like duck go bus, duck go train. She's learned how to say "umma mugguh" which means "umma eat it." It's pretty amazing to see her learning how to speak more.
She's also learning to sing more. At night, when I put her to sleep, she sings "God is so good" with me as I sing it to her. She now sings baby shark a little better too - baby shark shoo doo doo doo doo. Baa baa black sheep has gotten better, and her W, X, Y and Z is pretty good too.
Emily is a coloring monster. She wants to color non-stop. I've had to tape craft paper onto her table bc she just gets crayon everywhere. We had to pack crayons and a coloring book for the trip! She also really likes paintbrushes too. I'm deathly scared to let her actually paint though. She always gets crayons on her clothes and on the table and sometimes the furniture. I'm so afraid to get paint on everything. Markers are still off the table for her. She is not to be trusted.
Emily is also a running monster. All she ever wants to do is just run. She loves long, open spaces for her to just run with no obstruction. It's a great way to kill time with her. I have no idea how we're going to survive the winter without parks to go and run in or swings or slides to ride.
Food-wise, she's still fairly picky. She's still not loving rice dishes, but loves red sauce pastas and korean soups with rice. Even her snack preferences have changed. She hates animal crackers, but loves all cheesy, puffed snacks. She still hates pouches, and is 50/50 on korean rice snacks. Sometimes she likes them, sometimes she doesn't. And sometimes she just gets sick of her own snacks if she eats them more than once in a row. Man, what a little diva!
Diaper change is super annoying bc she hates it, fights it, noodles her body to try to escape. And so has teeth brushing! She went from hating it, to loving it, to now hating it again. The good news is that she's finally getting better at learning how to spit water out. And us cheering her on has made that more fun for her.
Overall, Emily has entered the terrible 2s. She entered it early, and it's hard. The tantrums are definitely patience-testing. When she doesn't want to do something, she screams (mildly), she whines, she says no, she crosses her arms, she noodles her body, she turns her body away, she runs away, and it is HARD. It makes me want to yell at her and just manhandle it. It's hard to remember that she's a toddler and doesn't necessarily understand the reasoning behind everything. But man, I wish it hadn't started early. I do hope the terrible 2s will end earlier too then. Sometimes I think about how this could stretch on for a year - and the thought of going through a year of this very annoying behavior is daunting. She's lucky that she's cute and that I often forget my frustrations with her. But man, toddler life is tough.
Even the way she plays now is so different as a toddler. She wants so much to jump off things and that is a big test of patience as well. She's really been enjoying trains, cars, and trucks. Watching her zoom her cars is so fascinating to me bc it's so different from her baby days. She likes cutting her play fruit, still crazy about bubbles, and using her flashlight.
Hopefully, I can keep updating at a faster pace so that each entry doesn't have to be a novel! The holidays are coming soon. I can't wait for her to experience it again as a toddler!
Monday, September 23, 2019
Not a baby anymore! - 19 months
I feel terrible that I've been so bad about updating this blog,
especially when I love reading old entries in posterity. But life has
been so busy - in a great way!
We had a busy summer, but it was such a memorable one!
1. We went on our first airplane trip! in late august, we took a short family vacation with sy's sister's family to atlanta! sy and i were pretty nervous about getting on a plane with emily for the first time. but we hoped that bc it was a short flight of just 2 hours, it shouldn't be too bad. good news was - emily was great on the first plane ride - bad news was we were terribly delayed. our plane was stuck on the tarmac for 2 hours - not even moving. we filled emily with snack after snack after snack - and she watched a ton of little baby bum on sy's phone. i had bought her headphones to use on the plane, and after maybe 20 min, she no longer wanted to wear them, and was happy to just watch it on his phone with no audio. so strange to me - but i'm glad it worked! emily was great despite the long flight, and we had also been blessed with a free upgrade with more legroom. emily didn't cry, nor shout. people complimented us after the flight was over that emily was the perfect baby! on our return flight, we again, we were delayed - this time in the air. and we spent an extra 1 hour in the air. emily was crabby for this flight bc she hadn't taken ANY nap that day, and was getting more antsy to move. she had a few outbursts of yelling NOOOO! but at least she didn't cry. afterwards, sy and i were so proud of how well she really did on both flights considering how badly it could've gone. and it's given us the courage to keep trying to go on more flights!
2. atlanta was great! we rented an airbnb with sy's sister's family, so it was really nice to have all the kids together. we went to the georgia aquarium and emily was scared of any large creature or creature that looked a little scary. she was so cute how she clung to us in fear. the pictures we took make us laugh so much. interestingly, she was not scared of sharks at all bc of her love of Baby Shark. hahaha! and she also loved penguins so much bc of her book at home that has a picture of some penguins sleeping. so everytime she saw penguins, she went shhhh. emily loved eating georgia peaches, and had such a fun time running around as much as she could. eating out was always a struggle with her and the kids in general. emily has gotten picky with food and while we were at restaurants, we didn't always have much luck with getting her to eat what we chose for her - even though they were things she normally would've loved! who knows if it was bc she was out in public, or if she just wasn't hungry. but that was definitely the most annoying part of the trip. on that trip - emily had her first day of not napping at all. we were pretty nervous she'd be a hot mess, but it turned out she was not that bad. she was just her usual active self - maybe just a tad more impatient. overall - the atlanta trip was so much fun. emily got to explore and play; we made some good memories as a group family trip; and it felt good to finally go on a real vacation!
3. sleeping - sadly - emily has officially transitioned over to 1 nap per day. at first, i had thought maybe it was just a fluke bc we were on vacation and just not giving her the chance to sleep properly, or bc we were out so much, it just messed with her schedule. who knows if those are what caused it, but emily is now a once a day napper. i'm still waiting to see if she will now sleep longer as a result of it. some days she sleeps 1.5 hours, other days she sleeps 2.5 hours. i hope for my own sake, she will sleep at least 2 hours and we can all get some peace!
4. in the first week of august, we went on a short vacation to Boston! we rented an airbnb apt and drove up to boston first thing in the morning. to prepare for this, we purchased emily a new car seat - one that was roomier - in the hopes that she wouldn't hate the car ride. i was prepared to basically feed her snacks the entire car ride up, but luckily, she DID fall asleep out of sheer exhaustion for a small bit. she cried a whole bunch leading up to it, but at least she slept! once we were in boston, we had SO much fun! it was a short trip - basically a day and a half - but we jam-packed it with so much sight seeing - like the boston public garden, the park, the water side, etc. emily loved running around, eating so much bread and snacks, and basically hanging out with us all day. actually - we had taken that whole week off - and we went on a several small day trips. we went to go get lobster rolls in port washington on 1 day - and that was emily's first taste of ketchup. and man, does she love ketchup now. we went to boston for 2 days. we went to greenwich, CT for a day. emily had so much bread, ice cream, fries, and ketchup. it must have been so fun for her too!
5. zoo - we took emily to the zoo with a bunch of our friends with kids. and emily really enjoyed that as well. she was scared of any animals that looked scary - but again - super surprisingly - she was not scared of bears bc of her love of bears. hahaha. what a funny girl. she loved penguins again, and was fascinated by the red pandas. she held hands with a boy for the first time, and it was the cutest thing i ever saw.
6. beach - we took emily to the beach twice this summer. the first time, emily was so weirded out by the sand. she kept telling us to "ddakkuh" - which means "clean this" in korean. but trying to clean the sand off her feet was an impossible task bc she just kept on getting sand on her feet. emily loves the water so much - but she was definitely a bit scared of the ocean. she was scared to be put down into the water - but it could also have been bc of the sand. so we ended up staying just like 30 min at the beach. haha! the 2nd time we went to the beach, she again was not happy about sand, and was still scared of the water. but sy was persistent to get her to keep trying to step in the water when the waves came up, and soon she was loving it bc of her love of splashing in the water. we all got drench in our pants bc she just wanted to stay and play and splash. we ended the night with a pizza dinner before the long drive home. (ps. emily LOVES pizza now.). it was such a fun night that sy and i will always treasure.
7. pools - emily spent a lot of time in the pool this summer! like i mentioned - she loves the water so much. sy has a friend who has a pool, and she was always so happy to go in the water. she's actually pretty natural and likes to paddle her feet too! sadly - she also seems to get sick almost every time we took her to a pool. so that was not cool. haha! we also bought an inflatable pool to use at sy's sister's house. emily and her cousins pretty much spent the whole summer in that kiddie pool like every other day. they loved playing in the pool so much. it started off with them playing inside large kimchi tubs, and that's when we invested in the pool. haha. on the first day that emily used the large kimchi tub as a pool - we didn't have swim diapers yet - and emily pooped in the tub. hahaha! the rest of the summer - carol talked about the time emily pooped in the pool. hahaha. but overal - emily loves the pool. she loves splashing her feet, she loves pouring water, she just loves being in the water. i even bought a water table for our house to put on our balcony. she loves it and it's impossible to get her out! hence - now she LOVES bathtime too. she probably just thinks it's more pool time!
8. overall travel - we've been doing lots of stuff with emily all summer. she loves taking the train, so going to the city is a lot more fun. with each activity we do, we find it gets easier and less daunting to try to do stuff with her. and then it becomes so rewarding when we make these fun memories and not just stay home playing with her usual toys.
9. roseola - for memorial day - we went on our annual hamptons trip with our friends. one of the babies there was really sick, and then lo and behold - a few days later - emily was terribly sick. we discovered she had roseola when the rash broke out. it was one of the toughest illnesses she's ever had. she had zero appetite and wouldn't eat anything but snacks and yogurt pouches. she had so much trouble sleeping and we regressed so much with all the rocking her to sleep and middle of the night wake ups. seeing her body covered in little red bumps was so sad. i really hope she never gets roseola again.
10. crib - which leads me to the next story. after emily got sick after one of the pool events, she regressed as usual to wanting us to hold her to sleep. when she was all better, we had to re-sleep train her bc she wouldn't sleep unless we held her til she got drowsy and that was not cool. i was fearful that emily would climb out of the crib, but sy didn't believe me. and one night, while we were trying to eat dinner while emily cried for us, i kept panicking that emily was going to fall out. she kept trying to lift a leg amidst her crib slats. sy thought i was overreacting, and then just when i started yelling - she's going to fall over - and sy started to run down the hallway - we heard the thud. she had climbed out and fallen out. she had landed a little on the step stool we keep near the bed bc i'm too short to put her in the crib. she did not cry - just laid there stunned. we ran in there and immediately picked her up and her silence scared me more than if she had cried. she just was so stunned and in shock that she had fallen out of the crib that she literally had no words. i was scared that maybe the fall had impacted her speech capabilities bc our normally chatty girl was silent. we had to try to coax her to say something to make sure she still knew how to talk. it was a scary night. and we lowered the crib the next day. man, i really wonder what we will do when she outgrows this lowest level of the crib. what if she falls out again? it's really terrifying!
11. talking - emily is a talking machine! the sheer volume of words that she knows is so incredible. our doctor thinks that emily is definitely a little advanced for her age. most kids her age should be able to speak about 15 words. emily is definitely over 100 words. we've lost count on all the words she knows. emily can name almost every image in the vocab book she has, and she can identify so many things when we're out in public. emily also knows the sounds that lots of animals make. it's so much fun to test her on them: dog, cat, whale, cow, monkey, chicken, shark, bee. and she's lately begun to sing a little. she can sing the first verse of baa baa black sheep; she can sing A, B, C, D; and we just discovered she can sing Baby Shark a little bit. she says "baby shark doo doo doo" and repeats for mommy, daddy. it's pretty impressive how she knows the sequence too! i swear for baa baa black sheep, i heard her trying to say "have you any wool. yes sir, yes sir"! it was so cool. we also randomly found out that she knows how to count from 1-10! she obviously memorized it from songs - but still! sy and i were stunned that she knew which numbers came next and could just do it! sadly - every time we tried to record her doing it, she stops and won't. eugh. she's so camera shy! emily is also starting to use 2 word phrases. it mostly comes in the format of emily's ___. she likes to point out emily's car, emily's bear, emily's water, etc. but she's also learning to say the phrases we tell her to say - things like "i love you," "goodnight," "i miss you." she mimics us, and though it's super garbled, it's really adorable.
12. playtime - emily's playing has evolved over the past few months. she feels like such a toddler now. she loves to "color" with her crayons, pens, and paper. she always finds her crayons and demands paper to be given to her. she also has started doing imaginative play by pretending to pour tea and drinking out of tea cups. she loves sitting in her "car" and putting her stuffed animals in the trunk. and she also needs to make sure she feeds her animals whatever she is eating and drinking. puppy has become her new favorite stuffed animal. she must sleep with puppy, and she brings her along to most things. she loves stuffed bears and always wants her bears to participate in her activities. she really likes to run around and climb stuff. so it's really cute to see when she's at her cousins' house and they race down the hallway over and over. emily also loves toy cars, trucks, and trains. i wish that we could have a bigger house so that we could get her larger toys to play with. at her cousins' house, they have a battery operated car that she loves to drive. and she enjoys things like scooters even though she can't really use it yet. we bought her a mini table and chair set bc she loves sitting in her own sized chair - we just haven't found the time to set it up, nor can we decide where it'll fit in our house. she likes getting getting behind our living room curtain and playing "where'd emily go?" by saying "emmy go" over and over. she also plays this game by going in and out of my closet in our bedroom, and also sy's closet. she recently discovered our ottoman opens up. so she likes going inside there and putting toys in there. she's also obsessed with bubbles and balloons. she makes us do bubbles at least once a day. and whenever she sees a balloon, she must touch it. we once brought a balloon home from a party all the way from the city. it was quite a pain.
13. eating - emily is a full blown toddler now and now really eats regular people food and has become much pickier than her baby days. as a baby - emily ate anything and everything. now - the word no is much more prevalent. if she doesn't like it, she'll cross her arms, turn her face and say No! she also goes through phases of liking and disliking stuff. right now, she's loving all kinds of soups/guks. she's currently going through a phase where she doesn't like rice-y stuff. still love pasta in red sauce. not so much a fan of chicken pieces. she still loves bread to death. she no longer likes kiwi. went through an anti-banana phase, but i think she's back now. loves strawberries, watermelon, blueberries - but disliking melons. she still loves yogurt, but she's kind of anti yogurt pouches. she loves eating bagels with cream cheese, and man, she loves pizza. when we finally introduced pizza to her, she went nuts for it. even her pronunciation of pizza is spot on now! emily still eats pretty well for the most part. but on days when she doesn't, man, it's so mentally exhausting and frustrating. those are the days that sy and i fight the most bc we both are so on edge from dealing with her tantrums and trying to figure out what the right thing to do is - and then our different parenting styles go head to head. i'm always on the side that she needs to eat - needs the calories. if she won't eat, then i'll give her something else. sy is on the side that saya she needs to learn how to not be picky and eat what she's given. i don't want emily to go to bed hungry, he says it won't kill her. we're both right, but what's right in each scenario? aside from that, she's a snack-eating machine. she has an endless snack belly. but it's also interesting to see how her snack preferences change through time as well. she used to love dried fruit, now she likes it less. sometimes she likes cornflakes, sometimes she doesn't. same with cheerios. she officially doesn't like honey grahams anymore. but she loves goldfish, most salty snacks, triscuits. sometimes she likes bbongteegee and popped rice rolls, but sometimes she says no. it's fascinating. i guess she's like us - sometimes you're just not in the mood for a certain snack.
14. stranger danger - we're learning that emily is a pretty shy person. even though she's super social and active when she's with us and family, when she's with strangers, she sticks close to us. she usually hides herself between my legs or burrows her head into my neck if she wants to hide. while she's still good and doesn't cry when people try to say hi to her, it does make me a little sad that she's such a shy girl. the good thing is, she usually warms up after about 20 min of seeing that you're a safe person. but it's still tough. church service is only about 30 min long. she usually spends the first 20 min sitting with me before being brave enough to venture out away from me. and then by then, it's time to go back home. she especially is scared of men. she'll warm up to women a little faster. i hope that this phase continues to get better bc i do want her to be a social person. but i guess i can't force it if it's not her personality. my poor brother in law - emily was so scared of him for so long. and even now, she still doesn't like him much. but at least she's warming up to him after spending more time with him this summer.
there's probably a ton more that i could keep updating on, but it would take forever. i'll stop here for now, and try to do a better job of updating more frequently. she's growing up so fast, and i don't want to forget any of it. these blog entries help preserve these memories so much better than my brain can in a few years.
sigh - love that girl so much!
We had a busy summer, but it was such a memorable one!
1. We went on our first airplane trip! in late august, we took a short family vacation with sy's sister's family to atlanta! sy and i were pretty nervous about getting on a plane with emily for the first time. but we hoped that bc it was a short flight of just 2 hours, it shouldn't be too bad. good news was - emily was great on the first plane ride - bad news was we were terribly delayed. our plane was stuck on the tarmac for 2 hours - not even moving. we filled emily with snack after snack after snack - and she watched a ton of little baby bum on sy's phone. i had bought her headphones to use on the plane, and after maybe 20 min, she no longer wanted to wear them, and was happy to just watch it on his phone with no audio. so strange to me - but i'm glad it worked! emily was great despite the long flight, and we had also been blessed with a free upgrade with more legroom. emily didn't cry, nor shout. people complimented us after the flight was over that emily was the perfect baby! on our return flight, we again, we were delayed - this time in the air. and we spent an extra 1 hour in the air. emily was crabby for this flight bc she hadn't taken ANY nap that day, and was getting more antsy to move. she had a few outbursts of yelling NOOOO! but at least she didn't cry. afterwards, sy and i were so proud of how well she really did on both flights considering how badly it could've gone. and it's given us the courage to keep trying to go on more flights!
2. atlanta was great! we rented an airbnb with sy's sister's family, so it was really nice to have all the kids together. we went to the georgia aquarium and emily was scared of any large creature or creature that looked a little scary. she was so cute how she clung to us in fear. the pictures we took make us laugh so much. interestingly, she was not scared of sharks at all bc of her love of Baby Shark. hahaha! and she also loved penguins so much bc of her book at home that has a picture of some penguins sleeping. so everytime she saw penguins, she went shhhh. emily loved eating georgia peaches, and had such a fun time running around as much as she could. eating out was always a struggle with her and the kids in general. emily has gotten picky with food and while we were at restaurants, we didn't always have much luck with getting her to eat what we chose for her - even though they were things she normally would've loved! who knows if it was bc she was out in public, or if she just wasn't hungry. but that was definitely the most annoying part of the trip. on that trip - emily had her first day of not napping at all. we were pretty nervous she'd be a hot mess, but it turned out she was not that bad. she was just her usual active self - maybe just a tad more impatient. overall - the atlanta trip was so much fun. emily got to explore and play; we made some good memories as a group family trip; and it felt good to finally go on a real vacation!
3. sleeping - sadly - emily has officially transitioned over to 1 nap per day. at first, i had thought maybe it was just a fluke bc we were on vacation and just not giving her the chance to sleep properly, or bc we were out so much, it just messed with her schedule. who knows if those are what caused it, but emily is now a once a day napper. i'm still waiting to see if she will now sleep longer as a result of it. some days she sleeps 1.5 hours, other days she sleeps 2.5 hours. i hope for my own sake, she will sleep at least 2 hours and we can all get some peace!
4. in the first week of august, we went on a short vacation to Boston! we rented an airbnb apt and drove up to boston first thing in the morning. to prepare for this, we purchased emily a new car seat - one that was roomier - in the hopes that she wouldn't hate the car ride. i was prepared to basically feed her snacks the entire car ride up, but luckily, she DID fall asleep out of sheer exhaustion for a small bit. she cried a whole bunch leading up to it, but at least she slept! once we were in boston, we had SO much fun! it was a short trip - basically a day and a half - but we jam-packed it with so much sight seeing - like the boston public garden, the park, the water side, etc. emily loved running around, eating so much bread and snacks, and basically hanging out with us all day. actually - we had taken that whole week off - and we went on a several small day trips. we went to go get lobster rolls in port washington on 1 day - and that was emily's first taste of ketchup. and man, does she love ketchup now. we went to boston for 2 days. we went to greenwich, CT for a day. emily had so much bread, ice cream, fries, and ketchup. it must have been so fun for her too!
5. zoo - we took emily to the zoo with a bunch of our friends with kids. and emily really enjoyed that as well. she was scared of any animals that looked scary - but again - super surprisingly - she was not scared of bears bc of her love of bears. hahaha. what a funny girl. she loved penguins again, and was fascinated by the red pandas. she held hands with a boy for the first time, and it was the cutest thing i ever saw.
6. beach - we took emily to the beach twice this summer. the first time, emily was so weirded out by the sand. she kept telling us to "ddakkuh" - which means "clean this" in korean. but trying to clean the sand off her feet was an impossible task bc she just kept on getting sand on her feet. emily loves the water so much - but she was definitely a bit scared of the ocean. she was scared to be put down into the water - but it could also have been bc of the sand. so we ended up staying just like 30 min at the beach. haha! the 2nd time we went to the beach, she again was not happy about sand, and was still scared of the water. but sy was persistent to get her to keep trying to step in the water when the waves came up, and soon she was loving it bc of her love of splashing in the water. we all got drench in our pants bc she just wanted to stay and play and splash. we ended the night with a pizza dinner before the long drive home. (ps. emily LOVES pizza now.). it was such a fun night that sy and i will always treasure.
7. pools - emily spent a lot of time in the pool this summer! like i mentioned - she loves the water so much. sy has a friend who has a pool, and she was always so happy to go in the water. she's actually pretty natural and likes to paddle her feet too! sadly - she also seems to get sick almost every time we took her to a pool. so that was not cool. haha! we also bought an inflatable pool to use at sy's sister's house. emily and her cousins pretty much spent the whole summer in that kiddie pool like every other day. they loved playing in the pool so much. it started off with them playing inside large kimchi tubs, and that's when we invested in the pool. haha. on the first day that emily used the large kimchi tub as a pool - we didn't have swim diapers yet - and emily pooped in the tub. hahaha! the rest of the summer - carol talked about the time emily pooped in the pool. hahaha. but overal - emily loves the pool. she loves splashing her feet, she loves pouring water, she just loves being in the water. i even bought a water table for our house to put on our balcony. she loves it and it's impossible to get her out! hence - now she LOVES bathtime too. she probably just thinks it's more pool time!
8. overall travel - we've been doing lots of stuff with emily all summer. she loves taking the train, so going to the city is a lot more fun. with each activity we do, we find it gets easier and less daunting to try to do stuff with her. and then it becomes so rewarding when we make these fun memories and not just stay home playing with her usual toys.
9. roseola - for memorial day - we went on our annual hamptons trip with our friends. one of the babies there was really sick, and then lo and behold - a few days later - emily was terribly sick. we discovered she had roseola when the rash broke out. it was one of the toughest illnesses she's ever had. she had zero appetite and wouldn't eat anything but snacks and yogurt pouches. she had so much trouble sleeping and we regressed so much with all the rocking her to sleep and middle of the night wake ups. seeing her body covered in little red bumps was so sad. i really hope she never gets roseola again.
10. crib - which leads me to the next story. after emily got sick after one of the pool events, she regressed as usual to wanting us to hold her to sleep. when she was all better, we had to re-sleep train her bc she wouldn't sleep unless we held her til she got drowsy and that was not cool. i was fearful that emily would climb out of the crib, but sy didn't believe me. and one night, while we were trying to eat dinner while emily cried for us, i kept panicking that emily was going to fall out. she kept trying to lift a leg amidst her crib slats. sy thought i was overreacting, and then just when i started yelling - she's going to fall over - and sy started to run down the hallway - we heard the thud. she had climbed out and fallen out. she had landed a little on the step stool we keep near the bed bc i'm too short to put her in the crib. she did not cry - just laid there stunned. we ran in there and immediately picked her up and her silence scared me more than if she had cried. she just was so stunned and in shock that she had fallen out of the crib that she literally had no words. i was scared that maybe the fall had impacted her speech capabilities bc our normally chatty girl was silent. we had to try to coax her to say something to make sure she still knew how to talk. it was a scary night. and we lowered the crib the next day. man, i really wonder what we will do when she outgrows this lowest level of the crib. what if she falls out again? it's really terrifying!
11. talking - emily is a talking machine! the sheer volume of words that she knows is so incredible. our doctor thinks that emily is definitely a little advanced for her age. most kids her age should be able to speak about 15 words. emily is definitely over 100 words. we've lost count on all the words she knows. emily can name almost every image in the vocab book she has, and she can identify so many things when we're out in public. emily also knows the sounds that lots of animals make. it's so much fun to test her on them: dog, cat, whale, cow, monkey, chicken, shark, bee. and she's lately begun to sing a little. she can sing the first verse of baa baa black sheep; she can sing A, B, C, D; and we just discovered she can sing Baby Shark a little bit. she says "baby shark doo doo doo" and repeats for mommy, daddy. it's pretty impressive how she knows the sequence too! i swear for baa baa black sheep, i heard her trying to say "have you any wool. yes sir, yes sir"! it was so cool. we also randomly found out that she knows how to count from 1-10! she obviously memorized it from songs - but still! sy and i were stunned that she knew which numbers came next and could just do it! sadly - every time we tried to record her doing it, she stops and won't. eugh. she's so camera shy! emily is also starting to use 2 word phrases. it mostly comes in the format of emily's ___. she likes to point out emily's car, emily's bear, emily's water, etc. but she's also learning to say the phrases we tell her to say - things like "i love you," "goodnight," "i miss you." she mimics us, and though it's super garbled, it's really adorable.
12. playtime - emily's playing has evolved over the past few months. she feels like such a toddler now. she loves to "color" with her crayons, pens, and paper. she always finds her crayons and demands paper to be given to her. she also has started doing imaginative play by pretending to pour tea and drinking out of tea cups. she loves sitting in her "car" and putting her stuffed animals in the trunk. and she also needs to make sure she feeds her animals whatever she is eating and drinking. puppy has become her new favorite stuffed animal. she must sleep with puppy, and she brings her along to most things. she loves stuffed bears and always wants her bears to participate in her activities. she really likes to run around and climb stuff. so it's really cute to see when she's at her cousins' house and they race down the hallway over and over. emily also loves toy cars, trucks, and trains. i wish that we could have a bigger house so that we could get her larger toys to play with. at her cousins' house, they have a battery operated car that she loves to drive. and she enjoys things like scooters even though she can't really use it yet. we bought her a mini table and chair set bc she loves sitting in her own sized chair - we just haven't found the time to set it up, nor can we decide where it'll fit in our house. she likes getting getting behind our living room curtain and playing "where'd emily go?" by saying "emmy go" over and over. she also plays this game by going in and out of my closet in our bedroom, and also sy's closet. she recently discovered our ottoman opens up. so she likes going inside there and putting toys in there. she's also obsessed with bubbles and balloons. she makes us do bubbles at least once a day. and whenever she sees a balloon, she must touch it. we once brought a balloon home from a party all the way from the city. it was quite a pain.
13. eating - emily is a full blown toddler now and now really eats regular people food and has become much pickier than her baby days. as a baby - emily ate anything and everything. now - the word no is much more prevalent. if she doesn't like it, she'll cross her arms, turn her face and say No! she also goes through phases of liking and disliking stuff. right now, she's loving all kinds of soups/guks. she's currently going through a phase where she doesn't like rice-y stuff. still love pasta in red sauce. not so much a fan of chicken pieces. she still loves bread to death. she no longer likes kiwi. went through an anti-banana phase, but i think she's back now. loves strawberries, watermelon, blueberries - but disliking melons. she still loves yogurt, but she's kind of anti yogurt pouches. she loves eating bagels with cream cheese, and man, she loves pizza. when we finally introduced pizza to her, she went nuts for it. even her pronunciation of pizza is spot on now! emily still eats pretty well for the most part. but on days when she doesn't, man, it's so mentally exhausting and frustrating. those are the days that sy and i fight the most bc we both are so on edge from dealing with her tantrums and trying to figure out what the right thing to do is - and then our different parenting styles go head to head. i'm always on the side that she needs to eat - needs the calories. if she won't eat, then i'll give her something else. sy is on the side that saya she needs to learn how to not be picky and eat what she's given. i don't want emily to go to bed hungry, he says it won't kill her. we're both right, but what's right in each scenario? aside from that, she's a snack-eating machine. she has an endless snack belly. but it's also interesting to see how her snack preferences change through time as well. she used to love dried fruit, now she likes it less. sometimes she likes cornflakes, sometimes she doesn't. same with cheerios. she officially doesn't like honey grahams anymore. but she loves goldfish, most salty snacks, triscuits. sometimes she likes bbongteegee and popped rice rolls, but sometimes she says no. it's fascinating. i guess she's like us - sometimes you're just not in the mood for a certain snack.
14. stranger danger - we're learning that emily is a pretty shy person. even though she's super social and active when she's with us and family, when she's with strangers, she sticks close to us. she usually hides herself between my legs or burrows her head into my neck if she wants to hide. while she's still good and doesn't cry when people try to say hi to her, it does make me a little sad that she's such a shy girl. the good thing is, she usually warms up after about 20 min of seeing that you're a safe person. but it's still tough. church service is only about 30 min long. she usually spends the first 20 min sitting with me before being brave enough to venture out away from me. and then by then, it's time to go back home. she especially is scared of men. she'll warm up to women a little faster. i hope that this phase continues to get better bc i do want her to be a social person. but i guess i can't force it if it's not her personality. my poor brother in law - emily was so scared of him for so long. and even now, she still doesn't like him much. but at least she's warming up to him after spending more time with him this summer.
there's probably a ton more that i could keep updating on, but it would take forever. i'll stop here for now, and try to do a better job of updating more frequently. she's growing up so fast, and i don't want to forget any of it. these blog entries help preserve these memories so much better than my brain can in a few years.
sigh - love that girl so much!
Monday, April 8, 2019
13 Months - A Toddler Before My Eyes
It's been a super busy time for me - learning how to my job, going back to the crazy working mom life, the exhausted evenings. I wish I could've done a better job updating this blog, but a recap will have to do.
For the past few weeks, Emily has been SO MUCH FUN! Emily is developing so much and so fast!
1. Talking: Emily talks SO much! And I am absolutely loving it! She really imitates everything she can. One of my favorite new memories is that Emily loves to watch Little Baby Bum on Netflix. And there's this one song about shapes, and she tries to imitate it as best as she can! She imitates the words: square, circle, triangle, rectangle, star, heart, oval. She gets stuck on hexagon and pentagon, which cracks up me and Sy. Haha! She has learned more that objects have names and she calls out those objects and points to them. She says bbin = hair pin; buh = bird, puh = plane, cluh = clock, she's getting close to saying "light", she mispronounces yangmal (socks) as meymee; mee = mool (water), etc. I can't even remember all of the words she can say or tries to say. All I know is, she is a mimicking machine. Once Sy yelled out Dang! and she yelled out da! and then we switched to Man! and she went mahh! If we go Shhh, she'll copy us. If we whisper, she'll whisper. Watching her learn how to talk has been so much fun. And the fun part is that she's getting her cousin Carol to talk more too bc she wants to do what Emily does. Haha!
2. Walking: Emily has been getting pretty good at standing up on her own. She stands up, smiles really big and is so proud of herself for being able to do it by herself. She's starting to take a few steps too. She can do about 2-6 steps on her own as she goes to you with arms outstretched. The cutest part is that she closes her eyes a little while she walks. Probably bc she's a little scared. But she's still so excited to do it and does her steps with a big smile on her face. I feel like she's going to start walking by the end of the month. I can't wait to see her accomplish this fully! Yesterday, at church, she actually took a few steps walking AWAY from us. and Sy and I were so proud of her and also stunned by her bravery! So crazy and exciting to approach this milestone!
3. Cognitive skills: If we ask Emily where's her nose, she can point to her nose! She's not as good at pointing at her eyes and mouth. But at least she's mastered nose. Haha. And we have a book full of vocabulary words with pictures. And she can identify things! At the picture of string cheese, she'll say ch. And the picture of bananas, she says nana. At the picture of a baby - she says baby. Haha. She also calls every child a baby. And we have to remind her that SHE's a baby! Emily also now understands that diapers are dirty, and she likes to throw out the diapers herself! We hand it over to her, and she crawls her way over to the trash can and throws it in while we hold down the pedal to keep the lid open. It's pretty fun to see her "help" out. We also taught Emily how to do "geedo sohn = prayer hands" before meals. She'll clasp her hands, we'll say a prayer, and then she claps when we're done and is learning to say amen. It's so cute to see. My mom especially is loving this video. That said - Emilyhas also learned how to clap! She really loves clapping to If you're happy and you it. So she loves to clap - especially when we sing that song. When we go get her from the crib, she calls out "kkuh" = turn it off, to shut off her humidifier and sound machine. It's so funny. And nowadays, she's realized that she can kind of say her own name - and she pronounces Emily as emeeyah. She also knows that the wooden sign over her crib says Emily, and she points to it and say emeeyah. Oh, she also has learned over the weekend who she is. So when we say where's Emily? She points to her chest. haha! We learned that Emily knows who everyone is as well. If you ask her where's hamee (grandma) - she'll look in her direction. And we tested her with everyone: grandma, grandpa, adam, carol, aunt, uncle. It's pretty amazing!
4. Car rides with emily has gotten hard again. My suspicion is that she now feels super restrained in there bc all she wants to do is crawl around and explore. So for a while, I tried to give her toys to keep her entertained. But then she would throw the toys to the side and then cry super hard bc she couldn't reach them. I tried singing to her in the car, but that only worked for maybe 10 min at a time. The best solution I then found was to give her a piece of bread. she would slowly munch on that and stay quiet in the car until she finished her bread, and then cry super hard again. (AND it would leave me with a car seat full of crumbs. smh). BUT, we have now found the perfect solution. We discovered that Emily's favorite Little Baby Bum was available on youtube, and we found that if we streamed it over bluetooth, she was happy as a clam to listen to her favorite songs. It's been a miracle godsend. And now our long car rides to and from Long Island are way more tolerable for her and for us.
5. Food: Emily's eating has totally gone back to normal and she eats really well again. Granted, she still doesn't like tofu nor eggs. But she loves to eat other food. We gave Emily her first taste of jjajjangmyun - and she loved it. We also have been letting her eat croissants - which she loves as well. She definitely loves carbs. People always marvel at how much she eats - especially for her size. But I'm super proud of her eating skills. And yes, she's a little picky, but she's still a pretty great eater. In terms of milk, Emily is slowly starting to drink more milk now. We still can only give her milk int he morning and night bc she really doesn't like to drink milk with anyone else but me. But hey - we're getting close to 7 oz per feeding. That's pretty amazing according to Emily's history. I'm finding Emily's smartness to be so endearing. Every time it's time for milk or meals, she always asks for her "bi" for bib. If she sees me in the kitchen preparing her food, she tells me we need to get her bib. Same for milk time. And when she drinks milk, she always has her favorite position - head in the crook of my arm, her leg draped over my leg, bottle cap in one hand, her pluto doll at her feet. She's a creature of habit. But it's pretty darn cute. Teeth-wise, Emily has gained new teeth. She now has almost 4 bottom teeth, 3 on top, and 1 on the side back. It's so nice to know her teeth are coming in and soon she'll be able to bite things better. I am looking forward to when we can slowly stop spoon-feeding her.
6. Child-care: In big news - we have hired a nanny for Emily. Our nanny search was pretty tough. We had a lot of no-shows, weirdos, people that just found other jobs fast, etc. I was pretty stressed for a while. But we've hired someone finally. She doesn't have any direct babysitting experience, but she's a retired hakwon owner who is a friend of a friend's mother. I've been spending the past 2 wednesdays training her via half days. I just don't think Emily can handle being left alone with her without any form of time to build a relationship of trust. So despite how awkward it can be to spend 4 hours a day with this woman, I'd rather endure that than to know that Emily will be scared out of her mind being left with a stranger. I'm hoping that after 3 sessions, Emily will be familiar enough with this woman and it will not be a disastrous day of crying. I hope that this woman will grow to love Emily like her own grandchild and that Emily will grow to love her too. But man, it is still terrifying to entrust a stranger with your child. We've been lucky to have Sy's parents watch Emily. At the end of the day, they are her family, and they love her to death. But a stranger is a stranger. I really, really pray that Emily will do okay with this woman and it will be a fairly smooth transition.
It's been quite the month since I last updated. I hope that I'll be able to update a little more frequently. But in the meantime, our little baby bloomed into a toddler, and I feel like she's become cuter than ever. It's crazy how you can continue to grow and grow more in love with your child. =D
For the past few weeks, Emily has been SO MUCH FUN! Emily is developing so much and so fast!
1. Talking: Emily talks SO much! And I am absolutely loving it! She really imitates everything she can. One of my favorite new memories is that Emily loves to watch Little Baby Bum on Netflix. And there's this one song about shapes, and she tries to imitate it as best as she can! She imitates the words: square, circle, triangle, rectangle, star, heart, oval. She gets stuck on hexagon and pentagon, which cracks up me and Sy. Haha! She has learned more that objects have names and she calls out those objects and points to them. She says bbin = hair pin; buh = bird, puh = plane, cluh = clock, she's getting close to saying "light", she mispronounces yangmal (socks) as meymee; mee = mool (water), etc. I can't even remember all of the words she can say or tries to say. All I know is, she is a mimicking machine. Once Sy yelled out Dang! and she yelled out da! and then we switched to Man! and she went mahh! If we go Shhh, she'll copy us. If we whisper, she'll whisper. Watching her learn how to talk has been so much fun. And the fun part is that she's getting her cousin Carol to talk more too bc she wants to do what Emily does. Haha!
2. Walking: Emily has been getting pretty good at standing up on her own. She stands up, smiles really big and is so proud of herself for being able to do it by herself. She's starting to take a few steps too. She can do about 2-6 steps on her own as she goes to you with arms outstretched. The cutest part is that she closes her eyes a little while she walks. Probably bc she's a little scared. But she's still so excited to do it and does her steps with a big smile on her face. I feel like she's going to start walking by the end of the month. I can't wait to see her accomplish this fully! Yesterday, at church, she actually took a few steps walking AWAY from us. and Sy and I were so proud of her and also stunned by her bravery! So crazy and exciting to approach this milestone!
3. Cognitive skills: If we ask Emily where's her nose, she can point to her nose! She's not as good at pointing at her eyes and mouth. But at least she's mastered nose. Haha. And we have a book full of vocabulary words with pictures. And she can identify things! At the picture of string cheese, she'll say ch. And the picture of bananas, she says nana. At the picture of a baby - she says baby. Haha. She also calls every child a baby. And we have to remind her that SHE's a baby! Emily also now understands that diapers are dirty, and she likes to throw out the diapers herself! We hand it over to her, and she crawls her way over to the trash can and throws it in while we hold down the pedal to keep the lid open. It's pretty fun to see her "help" out. We also taught Emily how to do "geedo sohn = prayer hands" before meals. She'll clasp her hands, we'll say a prayer, and then she claps when we're done and is learning to say amen. It's so cute to see. My mom especially is loving this video. That said - Emilyhas also learned how to clap! She really loves clapping to If you're happy and you it. So she loves to clap - especially when we sing that song. When we go get her from the crib, she calls out "kkuh" = turn it off, to shut off her humidifier and sound machine. It's so funny. And nowadays, she's realized that she can kind of say her own name - and she pronounces Emily as emeeyah. She also knows that the wooden sign over her crib says Emily, and she points to it and say emeeyah. Oh, she also has learned over the weekend who she is. So when we say where's Emily? She points to her chest. haha! We learned that Emily knows who everyone is as well. If you ask her where's hamee (grandma) - she'll look in her direction. And we tested her with everyone: grandma, grandpa, adam, carol, aunt, uncle. It's pretty amazing!
4. Car rides with emily has gotten hard again. My suspicion is that she now feels super restrained in there bc all she wants to do is crawl around and explore. So for a while, I tried to give her toys to keep her entertained. But then she would throw the toys to the side and then cry super hard bc she couldn't reach them. I tried singing to her in the car, but that only worked for maybe 10 min at a time. The best solution I then found was to give her a piece of bread. she would slowly munch on that and stay quiet in the car until she finished her bread, and then cry super hard again. (AND it would leave me with a car seat full of crumbs. smh). BUT, we have now found the perfect solution. We discovered that Emily's favorite Little Baby Bum was available on youtube, and we found that if we streamed it over bluetooth, she was happy as a clam to listen to her favorite songs. It's been a miracle godsend. And now our long car rides to and from Long Island are way more tolerable for her and for us.
5. Food: Emily's eating has totally gone back to normal and she eats really well again. Granted, she still doesn't like tofu nor eggs. But she loves to eat other food. We gave Emily her first taste of jjajjangmyun - and she loved it. We also have been letting her eat croissants - which she loves as well. She definitely loves carbs. People always marvel at how much she eats - especially for her size. But I'm super proud of her eating skills. And yes, she's a little picky, but she's still a pretty great eater. In terms of milk, Emily is slowly starting to drink more milk now. We still can only give her milk int he morning and night bc she really doesn't like to drink milk with anyone else but me. But hey - we're getting close to 7 oz per feeding. That's pretty amazing according to Emily's history. I'm finding Emily's smartness to be so endearing. Every time it's time for milk or meals, she always asks for her "bi" for bib. If she sees me in the kitchen preparing her food, she tells me we need to get her bib. Same for milk time. And when she drinks milk, she always has her favorite position - head in the crook of my arm, her leg draped over my leg, bottle cap in one hand, her pluto doll at her feet. She's a creature of habit. But it's pretty darn cute. Teeth-wise, Emily has gained new teeth. She now has almost 4 bottom teeth, 3 on top, and 1 on the side back. It's so nice to know her teeth are coming in and soon she'll be able to bite things better. I am looking forward to when we can slowly stop spoon-feeding her.
6. Child-care: In big news - we have hired a nanny for Emily. Our nanny search was pretty tough. We had a lot of no-shows, weirdos, people that just found other jobs fast, etc. I was pretty stressed for a while. But we've hired someone finally. She doesn't have any direct babysitting experience, but she's a retired hakwon owner who is a friend of a friend's mother. I've been spending the past 2 wednesdays training her via half days. I just don't think Emily can handle being left alone with her without any form of time to build a relationship of trust. So despite how awkward it can be to spend 4 hours a day with this woman, I'd rather endure that than to know that Emily will be scared out of her mind being left with a stranger. I'm hoping that after 3 sessions, Emily will be familiar enough with this woman and it will not be a disastrous day of crying. I hope that this woman will grow to love Emily like her own grandchild and that Emily will grow to love her too. But man, it is still terrifying to entrust a stranger with your child. We've been lucky to have Sy's parents watch Emily. At the end of the day, they are her family, and they love her to death. But a stranger is a stranger. I really, really pray that Emily will do okay with this woman and it will be a fairly smooth transition.
It's been quite the month since I last updated. I hope that I'll be able to update a little more frequently. But in the meantime, our little baby bloomed into a toddler, and I feel like she's become cuter than ever. It's crazy how you can continue to grow and grow more in love with your child. =D
Thursday, March 14, 2019
Poor girl, poor parents - 12 months week 2-4
It's been a busy few weeks, and I've been having a hard time updating this blog now that I've gone back to work.
2 weeks ago, we went on a family trip to Atlantic City. It was our first hotel experience with Emily and I was surprisingly happy with how it went -- at first. Atlantic City is about a 2.5 hour drive from our house. As soon we got home from work Thurs night, it was a race to get everything ready. We had to pack up all of Emily's stuff, pack up our own stuff, feed her a bit, clean up, etc. All so we could hit the road as quickly as possible. We didn't end up leaving the house until close to 9pm, and I was glad that Emily was doing okay with her pushed back sleep. The car ride down to AC was pretty awesome. Emily just fell asleep in the carseat with literally no problem. Within 20 min of driving, she was out. Sy and I quietly munched on mcdonalds in the front while Emily slept and we thought to ourselves, this is awesome. When we arrived at our hotel, Sy went ahead to check in so that Emily wouldn't be exposed to too much light while we checked in, so I stayed with her in the car so she could sleep a little more. She woke up somewhat when Sy closed the car door, but she was able to fall back asleep. When it was time to get to the hotel room, Emily woke up and was curious as usual. We quickly set up her pack n play in the hotel room and immediately dimmed the lights and I did our night time routine of prayer, song, and a little rocking. At this point, it was around midnight, so she was pretty tired. After I put her down, Sy and I hid in the bathroom to wait for her to fall asleep. And she fell asleep pretty quickly! Maybe like 20 min! We crept quietly back to the room and crawled into bed to sleep. It was a huge success!
The next day was pretty great for the most part. We had breakfast in a restaurant and Emily ate pretty well in her high chair and gave me a chance to eat myself as she munched on a roll. After breakfast, we took her back to the hotel room and got her ready for a nap. It was again - very smooth sailing! I did my usual routine, Emily fell asleep within 20 min, and I quietly laid in the bed doing phone stuff while I waited for her to wake up. After she woke up after about an hour and 20 min of sleep, we got her ready to go hang out at the pool.
Emily LOVED the pool! She was a little apprehensive at first and clung to my neck. But soon after she realized she was safe, she had a blast! She was all smiles and loved splashing with her arms. On top of that, she was a natural! When I held her somewhat horizontally, she would kick her little feet in a paddling motion and would smile so happily. It was a really great time in the pool! I did notice though that Emily seemed to be getting progressively a little sicker and sicker with a runny nose that seemed to become more frequent. I had had some suspicion that maybe she was getting sick the night prior. I hoped it wasn't going to be a big deal.
After the pool time, we brought Emily back to the hotel to wash her and nap her again. Washing her was tough in the shower since she was so slippery. And then this is when the trouble began. I did my usual nap routine and put her down and that's when the hard crying began. Emily wailed at the top of her lungs and was standing up in her crib begging us to take her out. At one point, the hotel staff knocked on our door repeatedly to the point that I answered it. Turns out someone reported us and thought we had left a baby in there unsupervised. It was so embarrassing. We realized that Emily was just not gonna sleep, so we would just have to keep her awake for the rest of the night. We figured eh, no problem. She'll sleep later tonight.
We went to dinner, Emily was again fine during dinner. And finally, around 8pm, we brought her back to the room to get ready for bed. Everything seemed fine. We drank milk, we changed her diaper, we changed her clothes, etc. By the time it was bedtime, it was closer to 9pm. I did the usual night time routine and we snuck off to the bathroom again to wait for her to fall asleep.
Emily cried HARD. She was screaming at the top of her lungs. She was standing and begging for us to come and get her. Sy and I were sitting in the bathroom unsure of what to do. I was mentally freaking out listening to her cry - worrying that she was scared out of her mind - being in a foreign room and her parents are just gone. After about 20 min, I went out to go get her. She was nearly inconsolable. I rocked her for a semi-long time and then put her back down in the crib while she was drowsy. In the past, she would just drift off into sleep. Instead, it became full on wailing again as she freaked out that we abandoned her again. After a short time, I went back to go and get her, and this time, I rocked her until she fell asleep in my arms. Then I waited for her to get into a deep sleep before I put her down in the crib. My arms were KILLING me. Emily is heavy now - at least 18 lbs. It had been at least 20 min of holding her. I was feeling numb and tingly. When I put her down, I ever so gently lowered her into the crib and it was a success. Emily was asleep. By this point, it was nearly 11pm. After we felt that Emily had officially fallen asleep, we crawled into bed exhausted. Unfortunately, about 40 min later, Emily woke up crying hard again and Sy and I couldn't believe our eyes. This has never happened to our little girl! She's usually such a good sleeper! I got up to rock her and my arms were so weak already. I tried to rock her in a sitting position. But Emily just wouldn't fall asleep. She laid in my arms fidgeting and fidgeting for close to 30 min. I was so exhausted - physically in my arms and legs, but also sleepy. Finally, Sy came and tagged me out. He then rocked Emily for another 30 min and then she finally fell asleep. He carefully lowered her into the crib and slept. We thought we were in the clear. But the rest of the night - Emily literally woke up crying every hour. Sy and I got the worst sleep of our lives being woken up by her all night long. But who cares about that - our poor girl must have been so tired and exhausted if she woke up crying all night long.
Finally, morning came. I was more than excited to pack up and go home. And so began Emily being REALLY sick. Her nose was like a faucet. Her nose couldn't stop running. She grew miserable from us constantly rubbing her nose and face. We went to breakfast and luckily, she was good so long as she had bread to munch on. (On a side note, the chef of the restaurant fell in love with Emily and wanted to give her a treat. So he got fresh made donuts for the whole table bc of Emily. That girl is earning her keep by getting us free stuff!) Finally, it was time to go home. We were so scared of the 2.5 hour car ride. Emily was already so sick. She could potentially hate the car and we would be stuck for so long. But instead - Emily performed a miracle! She fell asleep pretty quickly in the car- maybe within 10 min? And then slept for 2 HOURS!!!! It was the best possible scenario! 1. She was exhausted from the worst night of sleep she's ever had. So she really needed the rest. And 2. She didn't have to hate the long car ride! We were so thankful for her miracle sleep!
That was like the craziest 48 hours we've ever been through. We had some big highs and lows, but at least we survived. Since then, Emily is still recovering. Her sleep has been poor for over a week now. She still wakes up several times throughout the night - just crying out in her sleep and then falling back asleep. We don't know what's up with her. Is it teething? Is it still this cold? But either way, Sy and I haven't had good sleep with her for almost 2 weeks now. We're both so tired all the time.
In terms of fun developments, Emily has become a talking machine! She is learning words at such a fast pace, that it's incredible to watch! While she can't pronounce most things, she's getting close to the consonants, syllables and intonation. It's pretty amazing! She pretty much mimics everything we say now, so we have to start being careful around her! The most fun thing has been the ability for us to somewhat communicate with her. She can say bba for bbang (bread); ch for cheese; meh for mool (water). So now when she whines and points, we can just ask her what she wants, and she'll tell us! It's pretty amazing! She can kind of say ddalgee (strawberry), apple, ah chagowuh (oh it's cold); ah ddooguhwuh (oh it's hot); neh (yes). Her clearest words are mama for food/bottle; kkakka for snacks; umma for mom and appa for dad. Yesterday, she learned how to say hamee (grandma) and now she's constantly asking for her grandma. On another side note, Emily now looks for people. When I was at work and Sy was home with her, she would make him walk through the house and look for me and say umma over and over. Emily always asks for appa when I'm watching her. And now I hear she calls out for hamee. It's pretty crazy to see how cognizant she's become. She's so aware of everything and truly understands us. I can't believe what a person she is becoming. But on the flipside, it also kills me that she is now aware of when we leave her and she misses us. I hate that, and it breaks my heart to have to leave her to go to work. I truly worry about when we find a nanny and she feels like we abandoned her with a stranger. Sigh, that's a whole different issue that I just can't get into now.
Emily learned how to do "no no no" by wagging her finger. She's also starting to dance a little - she waves her arm when music plays. Lastly, every once in a while, she'll stand up and stand by herself for like 2 seconds before she grabs ahold of something. While I don't think she's going to start walking soon, it's definitely coming.
Emily's eating has gone back to normal and she seems to be eating fine again. She definitely has learned what she likes and doesn't like. She will spit out what she doesn't want, and point at what she wants. But at least it's not 100% rejection anymore! Furthermore, Emily has finally learned to drink from a sippy cup! After weeks of rejecting all sippy cups and only wanting to drink from open cups (which are SUPER messy), she finally figured it out and drinks plenty of water now. I'm so proud of her!
2 weeks ago, we went on a family trip to Atlantic City. It was our first hotel experience with Emily and I was surprisingly happy with how it went -- at first. Atlantic City is about a 2.5 hour drive from our house. As soon we got home from work Thurs night, it was a race to get everything ready. We had to pack up all of Emily's stuff, pack up our own stuff, feed her a bit, clean up, etc. All so we could hit the road as quickly as possible. We didn't end up leaving the house until close to 9pm, and I was glad that Emily was doing okay with her pushed back sleep. The car ride down to AC was pretty awesome. Emily just fell asleep in the carseat with literally no problem. Within 20 min of driving, she was out. Sy and I quietly munched on mcdonalds in the front while Emily slept and we thought to ourselves, this is awesome. When we arrived at our hotel, Sy went ahead to check in so that Emily wouldn't be exposed to too much light while we checked in, so I stayed with her in the car so she could sleep a little more. She woke up somewhat when Sy closed the car door, but she was able to fall back asleep. When it was time to get to the hotel room, Emily woke up and was curious as usual. We quickly set up her pack n play in the hotel room and immediately dimmed the lights and I did our night time routine of prayer, song, and a little rocking. At this point, it was around midnight, so she was pretty tired. After I put her down, Sy and I hid in the bathroom to wait for her to fall asleep. And she fell asleep pretty quickly! Maybe like 20 min! We crept quietly back to the room and crawled into bed to sleep. It was a huge success!
The next day was pretty great for the most part. We had breakfast in a restaurant and Emily ate pretty well in her high chair and gave me a chance to eat myself as she munched on a roll. After breakfast, we took her back to the hotel room and got her ready for a nap. It was again - very smooth sailing! I did my usual routine, Emily fell asleep within 20 min, and I quietly laid in the bed doing phone stuff while I waited for her to wake up. After she woke up after about an hour and 20 min of sleep, we got her ready to go hang out at the pool.
Emily LOVED the pool! She was a little apprehensive at first and clung to my neck. But soon after she realized she was safe, she had a blast! She was all smiles and loved splashing with her arms. On top of that, she was a natural! When I held her somewhat horizontally, she would kick her little feet in a paddling motion and would smile so happily. It was a really great time in the pool! I did notice though that Emily seemed to be getting progressively a little sicker and sicker with a runny nose that seemed to become more frequent. I had had some suspicion that maybe she was getting sick the night prior. I hoped it wasn't going to be a big deal.
After the pool time, we brought Emily back to the hotel to wash her and nap her again. Washing her was tough in the shower since she was so slippery. And then this is when the trouble began. I did my usual nap routine and put her down and that's when the hard crying began. Emily wailed at the top of her lungs and was standing up in her crib begging us to take her out. At one point, the hotel staff knocked on our door repeatedly to the point that I answered it. Turns out someone reported us and thought we had left a baby in there unsupervised. It was so embarrassing. We realized that Emily was just not gonna sleep, so we would just have to keep her awake for the rest of the night. We figured eh, no problem. She'll sleep later tonight.
We went to dinner, Emily was again fine during dinner. And finally, around 8pm, we brought her back to the room to get ready for bed. Everything seemed fine. We drank milk, we changed her diaper, we changed her clothes, etc. By the time it was bedtime, it was closer to 9pm. I did the usual night time routine and we snuck off to the bathroom again to wait for her to fall asleep.
Emily cried HARD. She was screaming at the top of her lungs. She was standing and begging for us to come and get her. Sy and I were sitting in the bathroom unsure of what to do. I was mentally freaking out listening to her cry - worrying that she was scared out of her mind - being in a foreign room and her parents are just gone. After about 20 min, I went out to go get her. She was nearly inconsolable. I rocked her for a semi-long time and then put her back down in the crib while she was drowsy. In the past, she would just drift off into sleep. Instead, it became full on wailing again as she freaked out that we abandoned her again. After a short time, I went back to go and get her, and this time, I rocked her until she fell asleep in my arms. Then I waited for her to get into a deep sleep before I put her down in the crib. My arms were KILLING me. Emily is heavy now - at least 18 lbs. It had been at least 20 min of holding her. I was feeling numb and tingly. When I put her down, I ever so gently lowered her into the crib and it was a success. Emily was asleep. By this point, it was nearly 11pm. After we felt that Emily had officially fallen asleep, we crawled into bed exhausted. Unfortunately, about 40 min later, Emily woke up crying hard again and Sy and I couldn't believe our eyes. This has never happened to our little girl! She's usually such a good sleeper! I got up to rock her and my arms were so weak already. I tried to rock her in a sitting position. But Emily just wouldn't fall asleep. She laid in my arms fidgeting and fidgeting for close to 30 min. I was so exhausted - physically in my arms and legs, but also sleepy. Finally, Sy came and tagged me out. He then rocked Emily for another 30 min and then she finally fell asleep. He carefully lowered her into the crib and slept. We thought we were in the clear. But the rest of the night - Emily literally woke up crying every hour. Sy and I got the worst sleep of our lives being woken up by her all night long. But who cares about that - our poor girl must have been so tired and exhausted if she woke up crying all night long.
Finally, morning came. I was more than excited to pack up and go home. And so began Emily being REALLY sick. Her nose was like a faucet. Her nose couldn't stop running. She grew miserable from us constantly rubbing her nose and face. We went to breakfast and luckily, she was good so long as she had bread to munch on. (On a side note, the chef of the restaurant fell in love with Emily and wanted to give her a treat. So he got fresh made donuts for the whole table bc of Emily. That girl is earning her keep by getting us free stuff!) Finally, it was time to go home. We were so scared of the 2.5 hour car ride. Emily was already so sick. She could potentially hate the car and we would be stuck for so long. But instead - Emily performed a miracle! She fell asleep pretty quickly in the car- maybe within 10 min? And then slept for 2 HOURS!!!! It was the best possible scenario! 1. She was exhausted from the worst night of sleep she's ever had. So she really needed the rest. And 2. She didn't have to hate the long car ride! We were so thankful for her miracle sleep!
That was like the craziest 48 hours we've ever been through. We had some big highs and lows, but at least we survived. Since then, Emily is still recovering. Her sleep has been poor for over a week now. She still wakes up several times throughout the night - just crying out in her sleep and then falling back asleep. We don't know what's up with her. Is it teething? Is it still this cold? But either way, Sy and I haven't had good sleep with her for almost 2 weeks now. We're both so tired all the time.
In terms of fun developments, Emily has become a talking machine! She is learning words at such a fast pace, that it's incredible to watch! While she can't pronounce most things, she's getting close to the consonants, syllables and intonation. It's pretty amazing! She pretty much mimics everything we say now, so we have to start being careful around her! The most fun thing has been the ability for us to somewhat communicate with her. She can say bba for bbang (bread); ch for cheese; meh for mool (water). So now when she whines and points, we can just ask her what she wants, and she'll tell us! It's pretty amazing! She can kind of say ddalgee (strawberry), apple, ah chagowuh (oh it's cold); ah ddooguhwuh (oh it's hot); neh (yes). Her clearest words are mama for food/bottle; kkakka for snacks; umma for mom and appa for dad. Yesterday, she learned how to say hamee (grandma) and now she's constantly asking for her grandma. On another side note, Emily now looks for people. When I was at work and Sy was home with her, she would make him walk through the house and look for me and say umma over and over. Emily always asks for appa when I'm watching her. And now I hear she calls out for hamee. It's pretty crazy to see how cognizant she's become. She's so aware of everything and truly understands us. I can't believe what a person she is becoming. But on the flipside, it also kills me that she is now aware of when we leave her and she misses us. I hate that, and it breaks my heart to have to leave her to go to work. I truly worry about when we find a nanny and she feels like we abandoned her with a stranger. Sigh, that's a whole different issue that I just can't get into now.
Emily learned how to do "no no no" by wagging her finger. She's also starting to dance a little - she waves her arm when music plays. Lastly, every once in a while, she'll stand up and stand by herself for like 2 seconds before she grabs ahold of something. While I don't think she's going to start walking soon, it's definitely coming.
Emily's eating has gone back to normal and she seems to be eating fine again. She definitely has learned what she likes and doesn't like. She will spit out what she doesn't want, and point at what she wants. But at least it's not 100% rejection anymore! Furthermore, Emily has finally learned to drink from a sippy cup! After weeks of rejecting all sippy cups and only wanting to drink from open cups (which are SUPER messy), she finally figured it out and drinks plenty of water now. I'm so proud of her!
Tuesday, February 26, 2019
From baby to toddler - 12 months week 1
When I had been preparing for Emily's first birthday, I didn't really give much thought to the fact that she was turning 1 and becoming a toddler. I assumed the transition would be easy, just like all her other transitions were, and it would be just a matter of just giving her whole milk instead of formula and giving her more solids. But boy was I wrong. Emily turned 1 on a Monday, and she suddenly became a toddler monster.
On Tues after her birthday, we took her to the doctor for her 1 year check up. Our pediatrician advised us to stop giving her formula and switch to just whole milk. So when we came home, instead of giving her usual formula, we gave her cold whole milk. She took 1 sip, and then immediately rejected it. She started crying (with tears!) every time I tried to put it to her mouth. It was so shocking! I guess I had just assumed that Emily would transition fine. She always switched formula brands easily with no problems. She switched from breastmilk to formula easily as well. I had thought this would be no different. But I was so wrong. Even her food eating suddenly flipped. She used to eat solids so well! Never had any issues with the food we gave her. She pretty much loved everything we gave her as long as it wasn't too hard to chew. But all of a sudden, she was spitting everything out. She would either let it dribble out of her mouth or she would pull it out of her mouth. Furthermore, she would be crying hysterically (oh so many tears!) because she was just hating everything I gave her. She basically would only eat the foods she liked - banana and cheese. It was just the strangest thing. Even foods she ate just fine a day ago was now horrific to her. This became super worrisome to me. Here she was - refusing to drink milk, refusing to eat her food. I was freaking out that she was going to become a malnourished little girl who would soon die from withering away from lack of food and liquid. On top of this, I was afraid that I was creating a negative association with food with all the crying. What was I supposed to do? Sy and I argued each meal because we just didn't know what the right thing to do was. Do we force her to eat bc she needs the calories and sustenance? Do we just give her food she likes? Does that mean she'll become spoiled or a picky eater? We read that when kids don't like foods, you have them try it 10x. Did that mean 10x in a row? or 10x sporadically? What the heck were we supposed to do? Sy has always been more of a tough love kind of guy, and I have been more like if it doesn't kill you, why not? So we butted heads like crazy for 2 days as we fretted over Emily's sudden change of temperament.
After a few days of hysterical crying, I decided we just needed to feed her stuff she would like. I made Emily her first grilled cheese sandwich, and it was a huge success! She was all smiles and giggles during lunch, and happily feeding herself pieces and begging for more. We had to freeze the soup I had originally made her and just make a new pot of spaghetti for her. I had to sneak in some pureed squash into pieces of toast so she couldn't taste it.
As for her milk, I started over and gave her straight up formula again. After a day of giving her formula, I felt like I had regained her trust, and then began the weaning process. I gave her 4oz of formula and 1 oz of milk for 1 day. She drank it fine. The next day, I gave her 3 oz of formula and 1 oz of milk. She again did fine. Next day, she went 50/50, then 75/25, and then finally 100% all milk. She was totally fine with the milk transition and now she is fully on whole milk alone. It's pretty crazy to me that we no longer need to make formula bottles for her anymore. It seems like a huge step towards toddlerhood.
Eventually, I DID see Emily sprout a new tooth! So it turned out she was crabby bc of her tooth! She started growing her 5th tooth - a sharp little tooth next to her bottom teeth. Now it made sense why she had been so crazy for days.
The sad thing is that over the weekend, Sy got sick, and soon Emily got sick too. She began being fussy and crabby all over again and her poor sleep began again. Sigh. Dealing with a sick baby is SO hard. I was sad because she got sick RIGHT when I needed to go back to work. I have enough guilt about my in-laws watching Emily so many times a week. And now they had to deal with a sick Emily - who is so difficult to be with. She's extra clingy, extra whiny, not a great sleeper, not a good eater, and just not happy. Luckily, it wasn't a terrible cold - not like the last one. But a cold is still a cold.
I'll post again soon to talk about Emily's fun developments. In the meantime, I just wanted to record this crazy week of Emily turning 1. SMH.
On Tues after her birthday, we took her to the doctor for her 1 year check up. Our pediatrician advised us to stop giving her formula and switch to just whole milk. So when we came home, instead of giving her usual formula, we gave her cold whole milk. She took 1 sip, and then immediately rejected it. She started crying (with tears!) every time I tried to put it to her mouth. It was so shocking! I guess I had just assumed that Emily would transition fine. She always switched formula brands easily with no problems. She switched from breastmilk to formula easily as well. I had thought this would be no different. But I was so wrong. Even her food eating suddenly flipped. She used to eat solids so well! Never had any issues with the food we gave her. She pretty much loved everything we gave her as long as it wasn't too hard to chew. But all of a sudden, she was spitting everything out. She would either let it dribble out of her mouth or she would pull it out of her mouth. Furthermore, she would be crying hysterically (oh so many tears!) because she was just hating everything I gave her. She basically would only eat the foods she liked - banana and cheese. It was just the strangest thing. Even foods she ate just fine a day ago was now horrific to her. This became super worrisome to me. Here she was - refusing to drink milk, refusing to eat her food. I was freaking out that she was going to become a malnourished little girl who would soon die from withering away from lack of food and liquid. On top of this, I was afraid that I was creating a negative association with food with all the crying. What was I supposed to do? Sy and I argued each meal because we just didn't know what the right thing to do was. Do we force her to eat bc she needs the calories and sustenance? Do we just give her food she likes? Does that mean she'll become spoiled or a picky eater? We read that when kids don't like foods, you have them try it 10x. Did that mean 10x in a row? or 10x sporadically? What the heck were we supposed to do? Sy has always been more of a tough love kind of guy, and I have been more like if it doesn't kill you, why not? So we butted heads like crazy for 2 days as we fretted over Emily's sudden change of temperament.
After a few days of hysterical crying, I decided we just needed to feed her stuff she would like. I made Emily her first grilled cheese sandwich, and it was a huge success! She was all smiles and giggles during lunch, and happily feeding herself pieces and begging for more. We had to freeze the soup I had originally made her and just make a new pot of spaghetti for her. I had to sneak in some pureed squash into pieces of toast so she couldn't taste it.
As for her milk, I started over and gave her straight up formula again. After a day of giving her formula, I felt like I had regained her trust, and then began the weaning process. I gave her 4oz of formula and 1 oz of milk for 1 day. She drank it fine. The next day, I gave her 3 oz of formula and 1 oz of milk. She again did fine. Next day, she went 50/50, then 75/25, and then finally 100% all milk. She was totally fine with the milk transition and now she is fully on whole milk alone. It's pretty crazy to me that we no longer need to make formula bottles for her anymore. It seems like a huge step towards toddlerhood.
Eventually, I DID see Emily sprout a new tooth! So it turned out she was crabby bc of her tooth! She started growing her 5th tooth - a sharp little tooth next to her bottom teeth. Now it made sense why she had been so crazy for days.
The sad thing is that over the weekend, Sy got sick, and soon Emily got sick too. She began being fussy and crabby all over again and her poor sleep began again. Sigh. Dealing with a sick baby is SO hard. I was sad because she got sick RIGHT when I needed to go back to work. I have enough guilt about my in-laws watching Emily so many times a week. And now they had to deal with a sick Emily - who is so difficult to be with. She's extra clingy, extra whiny, not a great sleeper, not a good eater, and just not happy. Luckily, it wasn't a terrible cold - not like the last one. But a cold is still a cold.
I'll post again soon to talk about Emily's fun developments. In the meantime, I just wanted to record this crazy week of Emily turning 1. SMH.
Tuesday, February 12, 2019
Happy 1st Birthday! Week 48 + 49 Observations
It's been a busy few weeks, and I just haven't had time to sit down to blog. Emily's dohl party was this past Saturday, so it had been a crazy few weeks as we were doing last minute preparations for her party.
Emily is talking a little now! A few weeks ago, we noticed that Emily's normal babbling seemed to be more logical now. We noticed it when I was making her bottle, which I call mama. And when I said, I'm making mama, she would say mama back. And sometimes when I was just standing in the bottle-making area, she would just say mama herself proactively. And that's when we realized that she was learning words! So in addition to learning words, she's also learned how to mimic our words a little better. I'm so proud of her! Here's what she can say: umma, abba, mama, nana, dada, kkakka, and duck. It's pretty fun to test her. I love when she does it all in a row.
Emily has learned how to gesture now. She does this little hand twirl that means pretty much 2 things. It can mean "bring this to me" or "take me there." It's pretty funny because we've essentially become her servants now. We're constantly obeying her every request. But it's nice to see that she's learning new things.
Emily is finally starting to like books now. Her favorite book is "Mama's Pajamas" that has different textured cloths on each page. She likes to touch each page. It's really sweet to see how she has memorized where the textured piece is on each page. But sadly, her attention span is still really small - so we only can get through maybe 2-3 pages before she moves on.
Emily has also started to like lying down on our couch. It's the cutest thing to see. While we're doing bottle time, she'll take a break, crawl around on the sofa, and then just lie down and smile or giggle so hard. She'll lie down and then roll over to lie down in another spot. It's so, so cute to see her roll around and just be so happy. We got a new sofa, and I think she must really like this sofa a lot. Haha!
Emily has begun to hate oatmeal/pureed foods. Feeding Emily has become a HUGE pain. She spits out food, she pulls it out of her mouth, she sometimes legit spits by going pfffff. It's been SUCH an annoying time. I dread feeding her now. So on top of her lack of milk, it's so hard to get the oatmeal down. It's become clear that she has foods that she likes, and for those, she eats it fine. She loves all fruit, gogoma, and cheese. Anything that's too tough to eat, she will spit out. We gave her bad combination of quinoa and chicken breast. It was a disaster. The chicken was too dry and she spit it out. Quinoa was too chewy and she spit it out. What a frustrating time!
Last week, Emily seemed to be going through something. She was waking up a little more at night, and she was very, very irritable. We wonder if she is teething or going through a growth spurt. She has suddenly outgrown her clothes, so we know she's getting taller. But maybe it's also teeth? She still only has 4 teeth, so there's definitely more to come.
2 weeks ago, it was my birthday. It was my first birthday as a mother, and man, it made me realize how much life changes when you're a mom. In years past, I loved my birthday so much. The more outings I had with friends, the better. I wanted to eat good food, have lots of desserts, get lots of presents. This year, I barely went out for my birthday. I went to 1 dinner with friends, and 1 night out with Sy. I even barely got any gifts. But the crazy thing was - there was nothing I really wanted. When Sy would ask me what I wanted for my birthday, I couldn't think of anything. I just didn't care. My birthday is basically any old day now when you have a baby. And because Emily's birthday is so close to mine, I basically was just too busy working on her party to think of anything else. All I wanted was a picture of me and Emily blowing out a candle. And that's what I got! And that was all I needed. Sy and I did get to go out though, which was nice. We went to Peter Luger's steakhouse - my first time. It was delicious and really nice to get out without Emily.
Emily's Dohl Party was this past Saturday, and man, it has been a crazy time preparing for it. I basically was doing something for her dohl every day for the past month. Whether it was going to a different store each day to buy something else, or ordering something online for her party. I pinterest-researched for weeks, designed all the tables, and worked so hard to stay on low budget. I wanted everything to look beautiful without spending a fortune. It was a lot of hard work, but everything turned out great! Emily's dohl table ended up looking beautiful, and all the guests enjoyed the food and venue. The best part though was Emily's doljabi event. She did SUCH a great job! I think because she had been held in people's arms for several hours, it was such a joy for her to finally be put down on the ground to crawl. And then to see a whole bunch of toys in front of her, she was not shy at all to go towards the doljabi items. Emily eagerly crawled to the toys, selected the pen - and victoriously thrust it in the air! Everyone cheered and laughed at how great she was! And then for her second item, she happily selected the money and thrust it in the air with triumph again! Everyone cheered again and she was so fine! She didn't cry from all the attention, she didn't freeze up. She was just her usual self, and it was so wonderful to see her so adorable. I was so proud of my little girl. She's just the best.
Overall, planning and executing Emily's party was quite a lot of work. I wonder how I'll ever do this again if we have a 2nd child. It was manageable to do because I was unemployed and able to go out nearly everyday to buy something. How on earth would I do this with a 2nd child and a job? Who knows? I guess I'll have to cross that bridge when I get there.
In the meantime, I can't believe I have a 1 year old. We did it! We made it to Emily's first birthday! It went by so fast. I can still very vividly remember my contractions, and going to the hospital. I can still vividly remember Emily as a few weeks old and rocking her around the house. How did an entire year go by? The saying is right - the days are long, but the years are short. I can't believe Emily is no longer a baby - but a toddler! She's been such a joy to our lives. I can't imagine life without her. And yes, there are hard days, but we still miss her every night after we put her to bed. She's the best thing that's ever happened to us and I thank God every day for her.
Emily is talking a little now! A few weeks ago, we noticed that Emily's normal babbling seemed to be more logical now. We noticed it when I was making her bottle, which I call mama. And when I said, I'm making mama, she would say mama back. And sometimes when I was just standing in the bottle-making area, she would just say mama herself proactively. And that's when we realized that she was learning words! So in addition to learning words, she's also learned how to mimic our words a little better. I'm so proud of her! Here's what she can say: umma, abba, mama, nana, dada, kkakka, and duck. It's pretty fun to test her. I love when she does it all in a row.
Emily has learned how to gesture now. She does this little hand twirl that means pretty much 2 things. It can mean "bring this to me" or "take me there." It's pretty funny because we've essentially become her servants now. We're constantly obeying her every request. But it's nice to see that she's learning new things.
Emily is finally starting to like books now. Her favorite book is "Mama's Pajamas" that has different textured cloths on each page. She likes to touch each page. It's really sweet to see how she has memorized where the textured piece is on each page. But sadly, her attention span is still really small - so we only can get through maybe 2-3 pages before she moves on.
Emily has also started to like lying down on our couch. It's the cutest thing to see. While we're doing bottle time, she'll take a break, crawl around on the sofa, and then just lie down and smile or giggle so hard. She'll lie down and then roll over to lie down in another spot. It's so, so cute to see her roll around and just be so happy. We got a new sofa, and I think she must really like this sofa a lot. Haha!
Emily has begun to hate oatmeal/pureed foods. Feeding Emily has become a HUGE pain. She spits out food, she pulls it out of her mouth, she sometimes legit spits by going pfffff. It's been SUCH an annoying time. I dread feeding her now. So on top of her lack of milk, it's so hard to get the oatmeal down. It's become clear that she has foods that she likes, and for those, she eats it fine. She loves all fruit, gogoma, and cheese. Anything that's too tough to eat, she will spit out. We gave her bad combination of quinoa and chicken breast. It was a disaster. The chicken was too dry and she spit it out. Quinoa was too chewy and she spit it out. What a frustrating time!
Last week, Emily seemed to be going through something. She was waking up a little more at night, and she was very, very irritable. We wonder if she is teething or going through a growth spurt. She has suddenly outgrown her clothes, so we know she's getting taller. But maybe it's also teeth? She still only has 4 teeth, so there's definitely more to come.
2 weeks ago, it was my birthday. It was my first birthday as a mother, and man, it made me realize how much life changes when you're a mom. In years past, I loved my birthday so much. The more outings I had with friends, the better. I wanted to eat good food, have lots of desserts, get lots of presents. This year, I barely went out for my birthday. I went to 1 dinner with friends, and 1 night out with Sy. I even barely got any gifts. But the crazy thing was - there was nothing I really wanted. When Sy would ask me what I wanted for my birthday, I couldn't think of anything. I just didn't care. My birthday is basically any old day now when you have a baby. And because Emily's birthday is so close to mine, I basically was just too busy working on her party to think of anything else. All I wanted was a picture of me and Emily blowing out a candle. And that's what I got! And that was all I needed. Sy and I did get to go out though, which was nice. We went to Peter Luger's steakhouse - my first time. It was delicious and really nice to get out without Emily.
Emily's Dohl Party was this past Saturday, and man, it has been a crazy time preparing for it. I basically was doing something for her dohl every day for the past month. Whether it was going to a different store each day to buy something else, or ordering something online for her party. I pinterest-researched for weeks, designed all the tables, and worked so hard to stay on low budget. I wanted everything to look beautiful without spending a fortune. It was a lot of hard work, but everything turned out great! Emily's dohl table ended up looking beautiful, and all the guests enjoyed the food and venue. The best part though was Emily's doljabi event. She did SUCH a great job! I think because she had been held in people's arms for several hours, it was such a joy for her to finally be put down on the ground to crawl. And then to see a whole bunch of toys in front of her, she was not shy at all to go towards the doljabi items. Emily eagerly crawled to the toys, selected the pen - and victoriously thrust it in the air! Everyone cheered and laughed at how great she was! And then for her second item, she happily selected the money and thrust it in the air with triumph again! Everyone cheered again and she was so fine! She didn't cry from all the attention, she didn't freeze up. She was just her usual self, and it was so wonderful to see her so adorable. I was so proud of my little girl. She's just the best.
Overall, planning and executing Emily's party was quite a lot of work. I wonder how I'll ever do this again if we have a 2nd child. It was manageable to do because I was unemployed and able to go out nearly everyday to buy something. How on earth would I do this with a 2nd child and a job? Who knows? I guess I'll have to cross that bridge when I get there.
In the meantime, I can't believe I have a 1 year old. We did it! We made it to Emily's first birthday! It went by so fast. I can still very vividly remember my contractions, and going to the hospital. I can still vividly remember Emily as a few weeks old and rocking her around the house. How did an entire year go by? The saying is right - the days are long, but the years are short. I can't believe Emily is no longer a baby - but a toddler! She's been such a joy to our lives. I can't imagine life without her. And yes, there are hard days, but we still miss her every night after we put her to bed. She's the best thing that's ever happened to us and I thank God every day for her.
Thursday, January 24, 2019
Milk Strike - Week 47 Observations
It's been another tough week of Emily's milk intake. She's still not drinking much milk, and it genuinely concerns me. I don't want her to be a small baby, but genetically, I know she's likely to be small since I'm small myself. But it stinks that she won't even drink her milk to help the situation! I am dreading our 1 year doctors appointment because I'm scared the pediatrician will tell us that Emily is very underweight or under-height. But on the other hand, I also can't wait for the doctor to tell us it's okay to start Emily on regular adult food and stop drinking so much milk. The constant figuring out how to get more milk in her is exhausting!
This isn't a new development, but it's something I've noticed for a little while. Emily doesn't have a desire to walk anymore. We had a lot of fun using that big amazon box in the beginning. But for a while now, she hasn't had any desire to walk. She cruises just fine. She even goes from one big piece of furniture to the next all via cruising. But as soon as we try to hold her arms up to help her walk, nada. If we put her in front of the amazon box, she'll sit down. It's so strange how this happened. I had been so sure she would be an early walker. But I guess she's going to be a delayed walker after all. I guess it makes sense - she's been delayed with everything else. Why not this?
Also, another thing I forgot to record was the fact that Emily's 4th tooth finally came in! I think it happened during her cold. So it was a double whammy of being sick and also teething. Emily's teeth have been so delayed (in my opinion). She now finally has her top 2 teeth growing in, and is now finally starting to be able to bite down on things. It really caused us to have to delay the kinds of food we gave her since she was unable to chew for so long. I'm excited to finally be able to make her some more normal foods!
Some random developments: Whenever I go get Emily after she wakes up, she always grabs her duck stuffed animal and holds it up to me. It's as if to say, "look umma! it's duck!" It's so cute how she immediately grabs it to show me. She also grabs her lovey to show me that as well. It's really sweet.
We genuinely think Emily knows the word appa. It's her favorite word to say all day long. But I think she still knows that it means her dad because she says it when she hears him come home and open the door. I hope she does know this word bc it's really cute to hear her call him. But in general, we just think she understands us more now. When Sy says, Emily, I'm going to watch baby shark on my phone, she drops what she's doing and goes to him so she can watch it together. When we mention the word kkakka, she definitely starts looking for her snacks.
Even certain routines, I feel like she's starting to remember more. At night, before I put her to bed, she now knows to always wave goodbye to Sy as we walk down the hallway to her bedroom. For a small window of time, I felt like she started to lie down once I gave her her favorite pen for diaper change. It's like she knew that the pen meant diaper change time.
Although, there are some routines/tasks she is not enjoying anymore. 1. She doesn't like it when I brush her teeth anymore. She purses her lips and won't open her mouth. How on earth did she figure that out!? 2. She won't drink water anymore. Back around the 6 months period, she happily drank from her sippy cup. Then she one day just stopped. I recently bought her a new sippy cup, the kind with a small hole for her to drink water out of. She happily drank from that for a few weeks. And now she's stopped again. I'm so worried that she's dehydrated bc she keeps getting cracked lips that bleed. I feel like with her decreased milk intake, plus no water intake, she's gotta be dehydrated! Oy, this girl. It's always something with her!
Let's hope for some improved eating soon!
This isn't a new development, but it's something I've noticed for a little while. Emily doesn't have a desire to walk anymore. We had a lot of fun using that big amazon box in the beginning. But for a while now, she hasn't had any desire to walk. She cruises just fine. She even goes from one big piece of furniture to the next all via cruising. But as soon as we try to hold her arms up to help her walk, nada. If we put her in front of the amazon box, she'll sit down. It's so strange how this happened. I had been so sure she would be an early walker. But I guess she's going to be a delayed walker after all. I guess it makes sense - she's been delayed with everything else. Why not this?
Also, another thing I forgot to record was the fact that Emily's 4th tooth finally came in! I think it happened during her cold. So it was a double whammy of being sick and also teething. Emily's teeth have been so delayed (in my opinion). She now finally has her top 2 teeth growing in, and is now finally starting to be able to bite down on things. It really caused us to have to delay the kinds of food we gave her since she was unable to chew for so long. I'm excited to finally be able to make her some more normal foods!
Some random developments: Whenever I go get Emily after she wakes up, she always grabs her duck stuffed animal and holds it up to me. It's as if to say, "look umma! it's duck!" It's so cute how she immediately grabs it to show me. She also grabs her lovey to show me that as well. It's really sweet.
We genuinely think Emily knows the word appa. It's her favorite word to say all day long. But I think she still knows that it means her dad because she says it when she hears him come home and open the door. I hope she does know this word bc it's really cute to hear her call him. But in general, we just think she understands us more now. When Sy says, Emily, I'm going to watch baby shark on my phone, she drops what she's doing and goes to him so she can watch it together. When we mention the word kkakka, she definitely starts looking for her snacks.
Even certain routines, I feel like she's starting to remember more. At night, before I put her to bed, she now knows to always wave goodbye to Sy as we walk down the hallway to her bedroom. For a small window of time, I felt like she started to lie down once I gave her her favorite pen for diaper change. It's like she knew that the pen meant diaper change time.
Although, there are some routines/tasks she is not enjoying anymore. 1. She doesn't like it when I brush her teeth anymore. She purses her lips and won't open her mouth. How on earth did she figure that out!? 2. She won't drink water anymore. Back around the 6 months period, she happily drank from her sippy cup. Then she one day just stopped. I recently bought her a new sippy cup, the kind with a small hole for her to drink water out of. She happily drank from that for a few weeks. And now she's stopped again. I'm so worried that she's dehydrated bc she keeps getting cracked lips that bleed. I feel like with her decreased milk intake, plus no water intake, she's gotta be dehydrated! Oy, this girl. It's always something with her!
Let's hope for some improved eating soon!
Monday, January 14, 2019
Sick and tired - literaly - Week 45+46 Observations
It's been another crazy 2 weeks for the family! Emily and I got pretty sick and it's been a long journey back to health. Shortly after New Year's day, Emily had a small runny nose issue. She didn't have any other symptoms, so I thought she was mostly okay. But then her sleep became terrible! Emily had her first runny nose on a Wed. Then on Thurs, she refused to sleep all morning. I had an interview that day, so I was at her grandparents' house. Emily eventually slept at like noon - but only for 40 min. That was the beginning of her poor sleep stretch. For days, Emily had trouble sleeping during naps. At night, Emily would wake up nearly every hour either coughing or just crying. It was the most tiring time for me and Sy as we got poor sleep as a result of her poor sleep.
Then on Sunday, I started feeling pretty sick myself. I had inevitably caught her cold. I ended up sleeping several naps that day while Sy took care of Emily so I could sleep. Emily's mucus was pretty green by this point, and so was mine. On Monday, I lost my voice and it was such a struggle to take care of Emily. While I was physically mostly okay, just fatigued, it was so hard to not talk to her. She needs me to talk to her and play with her, but my voice just hurt so much. On top of that, Sy's sister had suggested that maybe we rock Emily to sleep since she's sick. And I began to rock her to sleep for naps. While it was sweet to be able to rock her to sleep like the old days, and see her drift off into dreamland and breathe so peacefully, it was also really tiring. Emily is like 18 pounds now, so rocking her steadily for 15-20 min at time was hard on my arms. My arms would go numb and ache. I was fatigued myself from being sick, so it was doubly hard. Finally, on Wed, Sy took a sick day and took care of us both of us so we could get better. Emily was still not sleeping well at night, and still needing to be rocked for naps. It was a very long week.
Emily and I are feeling better. We may not be 100% better still, but at least we're no longer with green mucus. Emily is sleeping through the night without crying or waking up to coughs, so that's good. We've been able to get some more rest. I'm trying to retrain her to nap without the rocking. That's a tough one to overcome. It becomes a mental struggle of trying to figure out what's more important - getting more sleep throughout the day by helping her to fall asleep or to train her to sleep on her own.
Oh and on top of all of this, Emily went back to eating SOOO poorly again. We've had to supplement all of her leftover milk with oatmeal and it's been so stressful to make sure she's getting enough milk in her day. She just hates milk now. While she didn't do the screaming she did the last cold, the lack of appetite for milk was tough to deal with. We're still dealing with the aftermath of it. I hope she starts drinking all her milk soon.
In terms of development, Emily has learned how to ask us to do things repetitively. There are 2 crinkle books she has, and she has figured out how to ask us to read it to her over and over again. While the repetition is annoying - it's really sweet to see her want to do something again and to ask us to do it. I also got her a baby shark book that has buttons to play songs. She has learned how to ask us to help her push the buttons. I somewhat regret buying this book bc it's so annoying to listen to the songs. But I also love seeing the joy in her face.
Emily has sadly now realized we put pins her hair and she hates it. She is constantly trying to pull out any hair pin. She even pulls out phantom hair pins and is constantly grabbing her head to make sure nothing is there. This is concerning me a lot bc a) she needs to have the hair out of her face! and b) what are we gonna do when it's her birthday party and I want to put a nice pin in her hair?? I really hope she grows out of this!
Despite being sick, I've been furiously working and prepping for Emily's dohl party. It's been an exhausting time of making dohl towers. The first tower only took 3 days. The 2nd tower took much longer bc I was sick and also bc I was painting the beans and that was a huge time suck. Planning the rest of her party has been a non-stop task. I've been researching everything and it's tedious work. While I'm glad that I am unemployed so that I can party plan, I also wish that this wasn't so much work period! Well, just a month left to plan out all the details!
Okay, time to go and rest up before my little monster wakes up!
Then on Sunday, I started feeling pretty sick myself. I had inevitably caught her cold. I ended up sleeping several naps that day while Sy took care of Emily so I could sleep. Emily's mucus was pretty green by this point, and so was mine. On Monday, I lost my voice and it was such a struggle to take care of Emily. While I was physically mostly okay, just fatigued, it was so hard to not talk to her. She needs me to talk to her and play with her, but my voice just hurt so much. On top of that, Sy's sister had suggested that maybe we rock Emily to sleep since she's sick. And I began to rock her to sleep for naps. While it was sweet to be able to rock her to sleep like the old days, and see her drift off into dreamland and breathe so peacefully, it was also really tiring. Emily is like 18 pounds now, so rocking her steadily for 15-20 min at time was hard on my arms. My arms would go numb and ache. I was fatigued myself from being sick, so it was doubly hard. Finally, on Wed, Sy took a sick day and took care of us both of us so we could get better. Emily was still not sleeping well at night, and still needing to be rocked for naps. It was a very long week.
Emily and I are feeling better. We may not be 100% better still, but at least we're no longer with green mucus. Emily is sleeping through the night without crying or waking up to coughs, so that's good. We've been able to get some more rest. I'm trying to retrain her to nap without the rocking. That's a tough one to overcome. It becomes a mental struggle of trying to figure out what's more important - getting more sleep throughout the day by helping her to fall asleep or to train her to sleep on her own.
Oh and on top of all of this, Emily went back to eating SOOO poorly again. We've had to supplement all of her leftover milk with oatmeal and it's been so stressful to make sure she's getting enough milk in her day. She just hates milk now. While she didn't do the screaming she did the last cold, the lack of appetite for milk was tough to deal with. We're still dealing with the aftermath of it. I hope she starts drinking all her milk soon.
In terms of development, Emily has learned how to ask us to do things repetitively. There are 2 crinkle books she has, and she has figured out how to ask us to read it to her over and over again. While the repetition is annoying - it's really sweet to see her want to do something again and to ask us to do it. I also got her a baby shark book that has buttons to play songs. She has learned how to ask us to help her push the buttons. I somewhat regret buying this book bc it's so annoying to listen to the songs. But I also love seeing the joy in her face.
Emily has sadly now realized we put pins her hair and she hates it. She is constantly trying to pull out any hair pin. She even pulls out phantom hair pins and is constantly grabbing her head to make sure nothing is there. This is concerning me a lot bc a) she needs to have the hair out of her face! and b) what are we gonna do when it's her birthday party and I want to put a nice pin in her hair?? I really hope she grows out of this!
Despite being sick, I've been furiously working and prepping for Emily's dohl party. It's been an exhausting time of making dohl towers. The first tower only took 3 days. The 2nd tower took much longer bc I was sick and also bc I was painting the beans and that was a huge time suck. Planning the rest of her party has been a non-stop task. I've been researching everything and it's tedious work. While I'm glad that I am unemployed so that I can party plan, I also wish that this wasn't so much work period! Well, just a month left to plan out all the details!
Okay, time to go and rest up before my little monster wakes up!
Wednesday, January 2, 2019
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Week 43 + 44 Observations
The past 2 weeks have been busy because it was Christmas and New Years. It's crazy how the holidays have come and gone. They were busy and full of developments for Emily!
1. Emily does this strange but funny thing with her arm these days. She outstretches it like she's reaching for the stars or something. We couldn't understand what it meant for days, and we still don't! Sometimes she holds objects and thrusts her arm in the air with the object in hand. So we wonder, if she presenting the object? Sometimes we wonder if it's her way of pointing? And the funniest part is that sometimes she makes a really "ugly" face when she does this arm thing. She scrunches her face and mouth and we laugh so hard when she does that. We're like, "what's with your face??" It's been super funny. We don't know what it means, but it's cute as heck!
2. Emily has recently figured out how to click her tongue. She does it all the time now. It's so fascinating because how did she learn to do that? We never do that in front of her. So it's not like she's mimicking us. Babies are fascinating!
3. We've discovered that Emily is scared of dogs. For christmas, we were at Sy's cousin's house, and there were 2 small dogs roaming the house. Emily was curious about them and would watch them carefully. But if they got close to her, she would start swatting at them to get away from her and would start whining/crying to beg us to protect her. It was pretty cute to see. I've never seen her afraid of anything. So it was really interesting to see.
4. Emily has become a cruising and climbing machine. For Christmas, Emily got her first little monogrammed arm chair. She has been absolutely loving climbing this chair and climbing onto the shelf next to it. But even without this chair, she spends her day just climbing and cruising one thing after another. She cruises along our dining bench, the sofa, the ottoman, the rocking chair, her walker, any bookshelf, etc. It's been a bit exhausting watching her now bc we move around so much now. But I'm glad she's an active girl and is getting better and better at walking.
5. Emily has become such a giggly girl. She just giggles by herself at nothing. It's so infectious! When she laughs, we can't help but laugh. And vice versa too! If she hears us laughing, she joins in and giggles and laughs along with us! It's been such a sweet and fun 2 weeks of laughing together as a family.
6. We think Emily has figured out how to wave hi and bye now. She's not super skilled at it yet, but I think it's stemmed from her ability to mimic us. So now when we wave hi and bye, she does it back. She doesn't do it every time, but getting better and better!
7. We also think Emily can understand the word "no" now. It's been really funny to see her react when we say No Emily! She immediately stops what she's doing and looks over at us. I would say most of the time, she stops doing what she was doing and moves on to something else. But it's hard when it's something she really wants to do - i.e. eat snacks. But either way, it's SOO crazy to me that she can understand us now. I mean, I know she was always able to understand us this whole time. But the fact that she can react and respond in a more cognizant way is so mind blowing. Watching her turn into a little person is so incredibly fascinating to me.
Overall, it was nice to experience our first Christmas with Emily. Poor girl was put through a lot of tough days and nights bc of the holidays. She basically had her sleep interrupted for like 5 days straight. She got so little sleep for so many days. But she was a great trooper as usual and was in pretty good spirits with family and friends. It was sweet to wake up Christmas morning and have Emily join me and Sy in our usual Christmas morning tradition. She may have third wheeled us, but she was so welcome. It was adorable to watch her open her gifts, rip wrapping paper, smile at us when she tried out her new toys. It made me realize that Christmas truly is a holiday for children - not adults. I've never felt happier than watching Emily play with new toys than any gift I've ever received for myself.
For New Year's day, Emily participated in her very first saebae. And she did great! She was able to somehow do the bow despite not knowing what the heck she was doing. She just kind of did it on her own! Normally, I kind of hate the saebae tradition. I find it really degrading to bow to someone. But I gotta say, when it's small children like babies or even a 5 year old, it's pretty cute. It's more funny than it is traditional.
This holiday season will probably be the most memorable bc it was our first with Emily. She developed so much in the blink of an eye in the past 2 weeks. I wish I could bottle all of this up and remember it forever. Hopefully, this blog entry will keep it alive for me.
1. Emily does this strange but funny thing with her arm these days. She outstretches it like she's reaching for the stars or something. We couldn't understand what it meant for days, and we still don't! Sometimes she holds objects and thrusts her arm in the air with the object in hand. So we wonder, if she presenting the object? Sometimes we wonder if it's her way of pointing? And the funniest part is that sometimes she makes a really "ugly" face when she does this arm thing. She scrunches her face and mouth and we laugh so hard when she does that. We're like, "what's with your face??" It's been super funny. We don't know what it means, but it's cute as heck!
2. Emily has recently figured out how to click her tongue. She does it all the time now. It's so fascinating because how did she learn to do that? We never do that in front of her. So it's not like she's mimicking us. Babies are fascinating!
3. We've discovered that Emily is scared of dogs. For christmas, we were at Sy's cousin's house, and there were 2 small dogs roaming the house. Emily was curious about them and would watch them carefully. But if they got close to her, she would start swatting at them to get away from her and would start whining/crying to beg us to protect her. It was pretty cute to see. I've never seen her afraid of anything. So it was really interesting to see.
4. Emily has become a cruising and climbing machine. For Christmas, Emily got her first little monogrammed arm chair. She has been absolutely loving climbing this chair and climbing onto the shelf next to it. But even without this chair, she spends her day just climbing and cruising one thing after another. She cruises along our dining bench, the sofa, the ottoman, the rocking chair, her walker, any bookshelf, etc. It's been a bit exhausting watching her now bc we move around so much now. But I'm glad she's an active girl and is getting better and better at walking.
5. Emily has become such a giggly girl. She just giggles by herself at nothing. It's so infectious! When she laughs, we can't help but laugh. And vice versa too! If she hears us laughing, she joins in and giggles and laughs along with us! It's been such a sweet and fun 2 weeks of laughing together as a family.
6. We think Emily has figured out how to wave hi and bye now. She's not super skilled at it yet, but I think it's stemmed from her ability to mimic us. So now when we wave hi and bye, she does it back. She doesn't do it every time, but getting better and better!
7. We also think Emily can understand the word "no" now. It's been really funny to see her react when we say No Emily! She immediately stops what she's doing and looks over at us. I would say most of the time, she stops doing what she was doing and moves on to something else. But it's hard when it's something she really wants to do - i.e. eat snacks. But either way, it's SOO crazy to me that she can understand us now. I mean, I know she was always able to understand us this whole time. But the fact that she can react and respond in a more cognizant way is so mind blowing. Watching her turn into a little person is so incredibly fascinating to me.
Overall, it was nice to experience our first Christmas with Emily. Poor girl was put through a lot of tough days and nights bc of the holidays. She basically had her sleep interrupted for like 5 days straight. She got so little sleep for so many days. But she was a great trooper as usual and was in pretty good spirits with family and friends. It was sweet to wake up Christmas morning and have Emily join me and Sy in our usual Christmas morning tradition. She may have third wheeled us, but she was so welcome. It was adorable to watch her open her gifts, rip wrapping paper, smile at us when she tried out her new toys. It made me realize that Christmas truly is a holiday for children - not adults. I've never felt happier than watching Emily play with new toys than any gift I've ever received for myself.
For New Year's day, Emily participated in her very first saebae. And she did great! She was able to somehow do the bow despite not knowing what the heck she was doing. She just kind of did it on her own! Normally, I kind of hate the saebae tradition. I find it really degrading to bow to someone. But I gotta say, when it's small children like babies or even a 5 year old, it's pretty cute. It's more funny than it is traditional.
This holiday season will probably be the most memorable bc it was our first with Emily. She developed so much in the blink of an eye in the past 2 weeks. I wish I could bottle all of this up and remember it forever. Hopefully, this blog entry will keep it alive for me.
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