Categories
advice and tips fun

Youyou’s 1st month at Hope Montessori Toddler program

(Update 10-01-2011) We went to Youyou’s school this morning for “Parents work day”, basically they have some small playground improvement projects (painting, making a new climber), and in the lunch time, we have a BBQ and potluck. The ethnic diversity of the students/parents background surprised me a bit, reminded of Rolla (a lot of Indian and Chinese faculties and graduate students). It took some efforts to pull together such an event, thanks to David and his staffs 🙂

(Original) Youyou is a 18 month and 18 days old. She started the program on Aug 29, and 4 weeks has passed. She has transformed from “crying when mom left her in the school” to today “she no longer cries when mom drop her”.

She can say quite a few Chinese words and some sentences. She has good memory probably due to genetic reason (we are both good at memorizing things). She also can feed herself a bit, and be much more proactive when playing with us. For instance, she came to grab me for dinner when I was on phone last Sunday evening (mom did not ask her). Not to mention grabbing my glasses (she is very fast). When I go to work, she will usually say “Mao Zi” which means “wear a cap”, and say “bye bye” (which she learned a while ago).

I attended a class offered by David (the head of Hope Toddler program) this morning, Dave is quite enthusiastic and I think the No. 1 thing for me is learn, because kid is learning from parents, all the time.

Categories
fun iPhone app

Some update: baby and iPhone app

I am sorry I have not updated this blog as much as I like to.

Baby is definitely getting more active and interesting: her favorite thing these days is flip over as soon as we put her down. And she will smile at us sometimes when we “found out”.

In addition to baby, I spent some time working on myNestEgg, my first iPhone app, a retirement savings calculator. I am wrapping it up and hope to submit it very soon.

Categories
finance fun

Baby is 100 days old

She started the following new tricks recently: eat her own hands; she can raise her head for 10 to 15 seconds during tummy training; she can either smile (with or without stimulation) or giggle (with stimulation).

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fun

Baby is 2 months old

Yesterday we took our baby to pediatrician for 2 month visit. She weighed 11 pounds 14.5 ounces (79%), and 23 inch long (50%). Interestingly, her weight percentage jumped from 50% when newly born, while her length percentage kept the same. It’s almost all my wife’s effort (breast feeding).

Categories
advice and tips fun

Baby becomes more active

Youyang is more active nowadays, she is about 8 weeks old. She smiles more, esp. after waking up in the morning. She has more energy and from time to time I was surprised by her voice and kick (legs). When I tried to lift her up, she struggles as if I am lifting a big fish (so I have to be careful not to let her slip 🙂

Toy
Tiny Love Sweet Island Dreams Mobile
We bought this mobile (music with moving stuff animals) from Amazon (recommended by ToddlerRecipe). But she seems like the black and white pictures her mom printed off the web better. She seems don’t care too much about the music and the stuff animals. It’s interesting the free stuff works better than the $36 toy. I guess love is more important: her mom put a lot effort searching and print the black white pattern pictures. From scientific point of view, the baby of her age is more sensitive to black/white than the colorful stuff animals. The soothing music does calm her down.

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fun

Baby starts smile more

We are seeing more interaction with our baby, who is about 6 weeks old. Recently her mom talk more to her, and sometimes we can see her response, either smile or making noise. Her smile is very much like her mom’s smile when she was little.

Yesterday we took her to St. Louis Botanical Garden, understandably she slept much of the time. Because the weather is a bit chilly, we wrap her around big blankets, and don’t want to expose her to the cold wind. She got a ride on our newly bought Maclaren triumph stroller. We saw quite a few babies at botanical garden, due to nice weather and family friendliness of the place.

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fun

Little face, big face

These days because we paid much attention to our new born baby, both my wife and I did not have much time to look at each other carefully. This leads to an interesting point: both of us felt our faces are so big compared to our baby’s little face. 😀

Guess that’s all relative. When I first met my wife 3.5 years ago, I felt her face is small and lovely at the time. Now of course all the attention are reserved for our baby. But I think it’s would be good we reserve some time for us.

Categories
fun

Youyang starts to feed herself

This evening, when I got back home, my wife was bottle feeding the baby, and the baby started to hold the bottle using both her hands. After a while, my wife let her hand loose, and Serenity (Youyang) continued to hold the bottle, and feeding herself. I will post a picture tomorrow. Her feeding self act made all of us laugh for a while.

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(hosted on Flickr)