Grandparents are fuuun!

Syona is very blessed to have 3 loving and dear grandparents in her life. She loves playing and seeing people, and I can tell will especially be close to all her grandparents. The past mother's day and father's day weekends have been especially wonderful to spend together. You can count on her dadu to always be ready to play and wake up her if he can sneak into her room when she is sleeping. 

She loves seeing her ba and always gives her big smiles and sometimes even a small giggle. Most recently, she gracefully took a bottle from her Nai Nai. Her grandfather on her dad's side is no longer here, but we know, in some way, she is close to him too.

Father's Day

For the first Father’s day weekend with Syona, I unfortunately started off with a nasty stomach flu. I spent the better part of Saturday, sleeping, replenishing fluids, and moping in front of the TV. Good thing Shilpa got some help from Dadu and Ba that day on their way back from Vegas. After a whole day of resting, and sleeping in late into the next morning, I woke up without the nasty fever and stomach aches so that I was finally able to play with Syona. Shilpa picked out the fitting outfits for Syona for the day. The Chinese outfit was brought back from Taiwan by NaiNai and Gou Gou.  For the day, we planned backyard grilling like we did for mother’s day. Dadu made nice bhajias and we also had veg curry and grilled corn. The rest of the day, we just hung out and since I was feeling better, I helped clean Ba's display case while the Mom's made dinner and Shilpa helped Jackie with her application essay. It was just a good family time all around.

Newsflash! Syona rolls over!

Yes folks! Little Synu rolled over today for the first time. I put her on her tummy for tummy time and she stretched out her little arms and started pushing slightly with her left leg. Her right arm haphazardly fell under her little body and it took her a couple tries but then she was able to sucessfully roll over! I was super excited and gave her tons of congratulatory kisses, I think she may have known she did a good job because this is the picture of her I took right after :) Here is also a movie clip of her when I'm trying to see if she will do it again. She doesn't rollover but she demonstrates her spitting which she is now so good at. hahaha

Baby Sign Language

After enjoying a yummy gourmet breakfast at Auntie Kendra and Uncle Jason's house, Paul and I took a class this weekend called Baby Sign Language. We learned 30 different signs to start signing with Syona so she can eventually sign back with us before she can talk. There are various signs for actions such as diaper change, poop, potty, eat, drink, more, please, thank you, go, stop, etc. They say kids can start picking up on signs around 6 months, but the earlier you start signing the better. At around 10 months or later the kids will start signing back. Signing allows kids the ability to express what they want instead of just crying, kicking and screaming. Other exciting Syona news, she has learned to purse her lips and blow which makes her spit and she can suck on her feet now too. She also likes being carried around in the MOBY wrap which makes my life easier because I can cook, make the bed, do laundry, you name it with little Syona strapped to me. Here are some pics from the weekend:

Playdate

Syona and I went to Santana Row today for a playdate with her buddy Penelope. Dawn and I sat and talked mom talk and enjoyed some coffee and the warm day. There were tons of people at Santana Row this afternoon with lots of little kids running around. After Syona pooed in her Juicy Couture Outfit (this is starting to be a bad habit), I changed her into her CAL onesie and she continued to people watch and play with her new friend. Later I walked her over to the fountain and dipped her feet into the cold water. I think she enjoys the water and this makes me want to take her for a swim sometime soon. We took some pics with the girls. Look how good Penelope is and look at little Syona rascal.

4 month shots

Poor baby. We had to take Syona to get shots on Wednesday. Syona for some reason loves being in the doctor's office- always really happy when she is being weighed and examined. She smiles and plays with their badges as the assistant measures the circumference of her head. We are happy to report she is 14.5 pounds and 25.5 inches. She had 3 vaccines today, the Rotavirus Vaccine orally and the DTAP, Flu, Polio shots in each leg. We gave her a paci to try to soothe her during the shots, but as soon as the first needle went in she started to cry. Paul picked her up after and soothed her and then I nursed her and she was smiling again. She slept for a few hours, and woke up really fussy, and calmed down after a while. We thought maybe the worst was over, but when it started to get dark around 6, I think the effects of the vaccines started hurting her. We gave her Tylenol to calm her down and took shifts soothing her. After giving her a warm bath, Paul suggested I go for a run. Just as I was about to leave, I heard a "muma come back we need you!" Paul had failed to put a diaper under her before her nightly massage and she pooed up the wazoo on her Syona Towel. Then we rinsed her off and put her back in her bath and she managed to poo in there too! So we emptied the bath and cleaned it and gave her the third bath of the night. I nursed that night, and afterwards she just wanted to hang out in mommy's lap. Anytime I tried to pick her up and move her she broke out in tears, and then would make her way to comfy up again on my lap. Poor thing, she didn't want to be alone. Paul ended up putting her to sleep. Syona slept well that night and woke up smiley and happy again.  I took the bandaids off her today. (Look at how she grabs both feet now too!)

Syona and the city

This past Sunday was Syona's first trip in the city. She had a packed day where she learned to party hop in style, people watch at the street fairs, and enjoy the pampering of diaper changes along the different sites of SF. Starting her morning with a brunch date at Squat and Gobble (http://www.squatandgobble.com/), she was thoroughly enjoying the ambiance along with the attention from Uncle Bij and Auntie Sej. In fact she got a surprise present of a summer dress made out of Organic Cotton. After the adults finished their large portions of croissants and sweet crepe desert, Syona had to hurry to the next engagement to send off Charlie, one of Dad's college mates, from SF. After throwing a small tantrum from being overly hungry, she finally settled down to meet everyone. Fortunately she is used to all the attention as she was the only little one in the party. From there, the family took a little detour through China town ( not to site see exactly) but to drop off uncle Kintex who also attended the party, but decided to walk 30 minutes to get to the Teatro Zinzanni area (http://love.zinzanni.org/), where the party was held. Afterwards, we headed back to the Marin area to take a stroll down to the union street fair with Sejal and Bijel. This was a fun walk where Syona got resized for her dress. :) This is where we stopped off  at the second coffee shop of the day, not just to get feed, but to take care of a nice diaper change. We also decided to stay the night where the adults got a nice Enchilada dinner made from scratch from Bij. She strutted her stuff again and got another gift for the day from Auntie Toral and Uncle Alok who just came back from Hawaii and sported a nice hula outfit and necklace! What a lucky girl. She feel asleep late after a day of partying and had to take long naps throughout the next day to make up for a wild first day in the city!

Night out without Syona

Paul and I decided to plan a night out for ourselves without Syona. It was a suggestion in my camino mom's group we do this to reconnect and make sure we are still talking to each other and not just interacting around the baby. It was a much needed night out for the both of us and I think we both appreciated having that time together. The 3 and a half hours went by super fast. This was the longest I have been away from Syona and I couldn't help missing her and thinking of her silly little inquisitive face before she breaks out in smiles during dinner. But suffice to say, it was really nice just going dinner and relaxing and being with Paul. We left Syona home with my parents (and a bottle) and went to Merilon Singaporean restaurant in Cupertino. Paul had met the owner on the plane home from his China trip, and apparently they also own the Banana Leaf Restaurant in Milpitas we love. The food was really good, tasty. We caught up on Paul's basketball games he plays (apparently he had a winning shot that Friday so he was in a good mood), work, some Syona talk but kept it to a minimum, amongst other things. After dinner, we went to Santana Row to get some coffee. We walked around, went to Urban Outfitters and I found a cute shirt that I bought. Then we went to Starbucks and sat out near the grass and watched the little kids play. I think we were both thinking of Syona and any future kids we would have and how fun it would be when they could run and play together. 10:00 came around really fast and we decided to head home. My mom reported that Syona cried for a total of 7 min of real fussiness because she didn't want to take her bottle as her last feed of the night. Once they put her on our bed she calmed down and took the bottle as she rested on a pillow. Haha. My dad slept next to her and anytime he would ask my mom if Syona was still awake, she would pull away from the bottle and look at him and then give a big smile, hahaaa. I love when she does that, she always thinks people are talking to her. Paul and I had a nice night and we're looking to try to do that at least once a month from here on out. 

100th Day Celebration

I wanted to do something special on Syona's hundredth day. Since it turned out to be a Saturday, May 23 (which I conveniently confirmed using a handy dandy iPhone App called "9 toolbox"), I decided that it was a good day for me to bring my little one to visit her grandpa's resting place. I figured it would be a good way to remember him and honor the ancestry for the family. The night before I worked on carving out a chinese name stamp. This was a good exercise because it  was one of the things I have found memories of that I learned from my Dad. It was a fruitful night since I felt good that I honored one of my Dad's hobby and preserved part of my heritage and tradition. Considering that it was the second time I worked on this sort of precision wood carving project, I thought I did pretty well since I was able to stamp out Chen Si relatively legible enough.  I planned for Jackie and my Mom to come over my house that day so that we could go as a family. After showing them my stamp and getting Syona ready, we drove up to Half Moon Bay and performed our ritual. Syona seemed pretty peaceful there and happy even though it was a cold and rainy up on the mountains. Before leaving, I stuck the post-it of the name stamp for my dad so that she could be close to him. Afterwards we drove back and had a nice lunch outing at Korean restaurant on corner of El Camino and Lawrence. Syona just learned to start people watching and was only happy being held up and looking around the place. We had a round of passing her around while we each took turns eating. We had a relaxing afternoon that day that involved reliving the American Idol results since Auntie Jacqueline missed the show. Afterwards Mom and Jackie went to buy groceries and got us a HotPot pan. We had a filling dinner after putting Syona to sleep. As a capper for the night, we managed to fit in a few rounds of MahJong before retiring to bed. All in all, I think we all enjoyed Syona's 100th day event.

Safety First

Today was the last class of my el camino mom's group. We discussed child safety. We'll need to child proof our house before Syona starts flipping and crawling, which could happen almost anytime now. Bye-bye wine bar, hello stair gates. We'll also need to earthquake proof the huge mirror in our bathroom and the mirror downstairs as well. The cabinets will need to be secured and the chemicals under the sinks will need to be moved out of baby reach. In fact, it was advised we keep the bathroom doors closed at all times, since the bathroom is the most hazardous place in the house for a small child. We'll also need to start twisting all our plastic bags. I noticed Syona scooched around a lot in her crib this morning from where I had put her last night which means she is getting to be more mobile. Looks like paul has a lot of work to do.

Fine Literature

Syona has developed a taste for the finer books in life. The first being "The Ten Wriggly Wiggly Caterpillars" and the second being "Guess how much I love you?". We read both books every morning after her morning routine which includes big wake up smiles, good morning hug and kisses from mama, morning breakfast feed which is sometimes interrupted by Syona pauses and shy smiles, diaper change (where she plays with her owl penny on the side of her crib), and then off to bed where we wake up dada and give her morning massage. The fun thing about reading the books to her now is that she kicks her legs and flails her arms when we turn the page (esp during the caterpillar book), like she's excited to see more. Sometimes she can even close the book herself. Unfortunately, we have one of Paul's contact lenses dried on the cover of the book, so now I call it "The Ten Wriggly Wiggly Caterpillars and one contact lense." haha.

Fatherhood

No one can really prepare you for the first two weeks after birth. It's a whirlwind of a time- There is no one key piece that really explains why this is so... But my time was spent somewhere between the getting the baby's identity set up - SSN and name set (syona si chen) -, figuring out how to feed, clothe, burp your little one, going to and from the hospital, and sharing this special time with all family members, relatives, and friends. Reading this over, it doesn't sound like too much, but somehow all of it took a lot of adjusting to.
From there on, I have to say the brunt of the work is really on Shilpa's (mom's) plate. I mean feeding looks like good bonding time and all, but it's sure takes a lot of time and energy especially when every hour comes around so quick. Especially in the middle of the night, how can you really be up to feed and then back to sleeping mode in time to be up in other half hour??? I still don't know the answer to this one. I definitely have to give it up to the girls on that.
That said, fatherhood is also not a complete cinch. There is definitely added pressure for needing to take care of the family as a whole and being more decisive about what to do. Somehow, going to work actually becomes the easier piece of life- the piece where you relatively know what to expect. Learning to balance the time is the ever evolving challenge. Syona is up early in the morning, but we really only have a few fleeting minutes before the "getting ready for work" piece. On the other hand, for most nights getting home before the bedtime routine is a challenge considering that this routine starts at 7 PM. This makes the weekdays pretty packed between work and home routine. On the other hand, the weekends are actually more relaxing and longer (since Syona is better than any alarm clock). It's actually okay to play it by ear more now since it is more difficult to have much planned. This is more in tune with my character and just knowing that I'd be spending time at home with the family is enough.
All in all, it is great to see Syona grow bigger and learn new tricks every weekend. Feels like a real accomplishment to see each milestone.

Motherhood

It's been quite a journey. I honestly cannot imagine my life without little Syona monster. She keeps me on my toes, and makes me want to be a better person every single day. I've said this before, but this is by far the hardest job I have ever had. The first few weeks of motherhood took me for a spin, with sleepless nights, learning to breastfeed, gaining confidence in taking care of an infant. But since then, I have seen how much I have grown and accomplished, and know that Syona is getting the best care from me and Paul. I take raising Syona very seriously and want to make sure I am being the best mom for her. The daily tasks itself can become cumbersome, especially when you try to get non-baby things accomplished during the day as well. These tasks often take a backseat to taking care of little Syona, so it's possible to go an entire day and feel like you didn't get much done. But I know taking good care of Syona is getting tons done. As I mark her progress and see how well she is growing, smiling, playing, laughing, talking and loving us back, I know I am doing good as a new mom. I am looking forward to the days when she will be able to communicate with us more, I would love to know what she is thinking in the little head of hers. But at the same time, I want her to stay little forever.