Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Milk, does the body good?

After Naomi's 1yr birthday, we started to introduce whole milk into her diet as I weaned her off of breastfeeding. Unfortunately it seems that Naomi has inherited one of my not so great traits and is having issues with whole milk. When I was a baby, I was allergic to wholemilk and had to drink soymilk formula. Thankfully I outgrew the intolerance (could you imagine life without icecream, or milk in my 16 cups of daily coffee??? oy)
Going in has been no problem, she drinks her bottles as if there was no difference to the content. However, when it comes out...ugh it's a whole different, GROSS, story. I wont get into the details, but lets just say, the doctor has told us to hold off for another month. Thankfully I still have a lot of frozen milk from months and months of pumping at work. So for now, I'm still offering her 2oz of whole milk mixed in with 6oz of breast milk. I guess we'll see how her body takes to it, and if she does ok I'll gradually increase the ratio of whole milk. If not, I'll pull back and check in with our doctor to see if I need to explore formula, or soy milk.

Monday, June 29, 2009

No place like home

We're back home after a long weekend up at Cornell for Joe and Jess' wedding. We made it back in only 3.5 hrs, with no stops! Naomi slept for about an hour and half in the car, then was up and playing for the most part.

When we got home she was so excited to see her ah-ma, she greeted her with a joyful scream and quickly reached out to her. As soon as we got inside, Naomi started bouncing up and down and was screaming in happiness at the sight of her toys, her play area, her books. It was definitely a fun scene to watch as she bounced, screamed, laughed and smiled at everything. I guess even at this age, she's old enough to realize there's no place like home!

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

12 months

Naomi 1 year stats

Weight: 17lbs (2nd percentile)
Height 29 inches (48th percentile)
Head: 46cm (75th percentile)

Naomi turned 1 last week Friday. I’ve been putting off writing this update mainly because I’m still catching my breath after a busy couple of days, but partly because I’m finding it hard to admit she’s already 1. It really does feel like yesterday when brought home this squishy, red faced 6lbs little alien. She’s officially a toddler, and I’m obviously ecstatic, yet I’m sad at the same time. Before we know it she’ll be sneaking out on dates while Austin waits on the patio with a shotgun.

I think rather than try to describe the emotions or thoughts, I”ll just share this slideshow Austin made of her first year.



And of course the regular development updates:
In the last month, Naomi’s gotten more comfortable with crawling, and will follow us from room to room now. (usually while cheerfully screaming at the same time).
She’s learned to climb up steps
All this mobility means we’ve had to install a baby gate, and probably will need to invest in a few more.
Naomi’s turned into a regular miss chatterbox. From the moment she wakes up, she usually starts blabbering a way, with the exception of when we’re around strangers.
Naomi’s becoming shy, every once in awhile, when in new situations or around new faces, she leans into you and sometimes even clings to our arms.
But once she warms up to you, Naomi smiles, screams, waves, shakes your hand, in other words she becomes quite the charmer.
She can comfortably pull herself up on a table, bookshelf, or sofa.
She likes to pull things off of shelves
She likes to put her toys away into baskets
She can drink from a sippy cup on her own
She likes to drink out of big girl cups
She started drinking whole milk
She's starting to throw tantrums
She picks her nose...then sticks her finger in her mouth

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Happy Father's Day

For Father's day, I asked my graphic designer to create this video for me. Enjoy!


Birthday Party success

Phew are we tired. Austin, Naomi and my mom are all napping, so I thought I'd take a second to re-live yesterday. It was crazy from the moment we woke up. After over 48 hours of prep work, the first guests started showing up at 12pm sharp. The house was completely decorated, (thanks Stacey and Chris for helping us setup and decorate!!). Despite the rain, we all had an amazing time. The kids ran amok in the house, Naomi loved seeing everyone, although at times it did seem like she was a bit overwhelmed...(but heck with almost 60 ppl in your house who wouldn't be!) Even Lilo and Stitch who normally cower in their crates when kids come over, got a ton of tlc. What started off as my "laid back bbq" turned out into a massive birthday shindig, and although I'm completely beat, and never want to see another "cupcake pop" again, I had a blast and dont regret all the hard work. (nope not even staying up til 2am to finish decorating all the cupcake pop favors!)

Here are a couple of pics from Naomi's first birthday party. Thank you all for coming, we had a lovely time, and we're so blessed to have so much love from all of our friends and family.




















Saturday, June 20, 2009

Party planning

Party prep is in full force. This is the outcome of last night's
lantern hanging extravaganza. T-minus one hour and 16 minutes!

Friday, June 19, 2009

Rain on my parade....

It's Naomi's birthday!! Her party is scheduled for tomorrow...big bbq party with tons of kids and friends and family. And of course, the weather prediction calls for 80% chance of rain, with thunderstorms and showers all day long.

now what will we do with over 50 ppl in our house??? Rock Band Tourney anyone?

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Cha-ching

I finally got around to opening up a savings account for Naomi as well as her 529 education savings account. With a few checks from her great grandparents and her grandparents, Naomi may be lucky enough to afford college one of these days

Monday, June 15, 2009

Storytime with daddy

I love how Naomi hugs and kisses her blankets and stuffed animals. Tonight before crawling to Daddy for her bedtime story, she grabbed her lambie and held him tight right through story time, prayers, her lullaby, and straight into the crib.

Friday, June 12, 2009

naomi's playground

I'm working from home today and wasn't paying attention to Naomi who was playing on the floor next to me. I was aware of some rustling and thwomping sounds and knew she was probably pulling books out of the bottom of our bookshelf. But when I turned to look, thankfully I had the camera right next to me to capture her guilty little face....(and luckily those are mostly Austin's books, not mine, hah)


Wednesday, June 10, 2009

A girl after my own heart...

On Saturday, afternoon, we arrived at JFK, went to get our car, and drove home, stopping at Priscilla’s house along the way to pick up Lilo and Stitch. After a long day, Naomi decided she had had enough and proceeded to kick up the WORST tantrum in the car. All of my attempts to calm her down were fruitless, even our magic tricks that always work (offer her cheerios “aka the magic snack”, letting her watch videos on Austin’s ipod, letting her flip the pages of her books). Everything that got within her reach was quickly thrown away or batted at. The poor girl was bright red, her eyes were getting puffy, I think she may have even scratched her cheek a little. I have never ever seen her this upset. It was very stressful to say the least, and I wasn’t even driving. I could only imagine how hard it was for Austin to concentrate. Seeing her so upset like that without being able to calm her down certainly does tear at your heart.
In any event, by the time we got home, I thought for sure getting her out of her car seat, feeding her and letting her stretch out, would be the remedy to all of her angst. But even then she was a mess and couldn’t stop crying. At some point, Austin had gone out to get the mail, while I just sat with her, trying to calm her down. Before our trip, I had ordered Naomi two pairs of shoes from See Kai Run. They came in while we were away, so Austin brought the box to me. Since I couldn’t quite console Naomi, I decided to go ahead and open the box to check it out. As I was opening the box, I could see Naomi watching me, but still crying. Then low and behold, as I had her shoes in hand, she suddenly stopped crying and started bouncing her happy bounce...bop bop bop. Then all of a sudden she had the biggest grin on her face, reached out and grabbed one of the shoes, and started placing it on her foot as if she was going to try and put it on. She started babbling away, laughing, screaming her excited “OMG OMG OMG” scream. I could not believe it. I sat back and laughed with her, thinking, “this truly is my daughter”. By the look of dread on Austin’s face, I don’t think he was quite as happy.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, these are the shoes I bought. The blue one’s I’ve been obsessing over for some time, and finally caved in when they were marked down an additional 50% for 3 days. And the white one’s are her fancy birthday shoes, which upsettlingly, even though i bought the smallest size they had (0-6mths) are still too big for the girl with midget feet.





Mommy Brain!!!

A girlfriend of mine asked me for suggestions on how to get her 1month old baby to sleep at night instead of all day. I totally remember Naomi's baby jet lag, I used to tell people she liked to party all night and sleep all day. As I thought of things I did to help her get rid of her baby jet lag, I couldn't really remember all that we did, or even when it really stopped. How quickly we forget. Someone at church told me that God helps mothers to forget all the hard stuff about pregnancy, labor and early infancy, a clear trick to tell you that having a second child is a great idea!

Monday, June 8, 2009

Paradise defined

Turks and Caicos truly was paradise. The beaches consisted of crystal clear blue water, soft white flawless sand. The weather was warm and humid (love it yes yes), yet there was still a strong breeze to cool you off throughout the day. It's hard being back at work after having an amazing week off with Austin and Naomi, but it makes me look forward to our next trip in just two weeks where we'll be going back up to Cornell for a friends wedding...or what I like to call it, the baby fest, since so many of our friends will be bringing their young kids/babies.

There are so many moments from Turks that I want to remember, making it harder for me to blog. Naomi did amazingly well on the flights to and from, especially in comparisons to some of the wild children on our flights. (although the car ride home from JFK is a completely different story, deserving of its own post, lets just say it was and wasn't one of naomi's finer moments). Naomi loved the water, loved the sand, loved all the attention she got from the different hotel staff. She was a nightmare to put to bed since we all shared a room. In retrospect I should have asked some friends who recently went on trips, for advice....some of it sounds very very reasonable...hiding out in a bathroom til she falls asleep sounds like pure genius at this point in time! But alas, we caved and rocked her to sleep for all her nap times and at night...making her a monster child when it came time to put her down to sleep at home. Tonight seems a bit better, she only cried for 12 mins before finally conking out. Ugh I hate sleep training.
What else? Naomi loved rinsing off after the beach in the outdoor showers. She LOVED, let me rephrase that, was OBSESSED with the fountains. She would stand on the edge and hold her hand against the spout so that she sprayed everyone within a 5 ft radius. Everytime we walked by the fountain she would stretch her arms out to it and say, "EHHHH" the way she does when she wants Austin or I to pick her up. She loved fruit and fish, and ate non stop. I was almost certain she'd weigh close to 20lbs when we got home which would help her move up in the % charts for her age group...(i weighed her when we got home....she barely gained an ounce). Most of all, I think she just loved having both Austin and I day and night. I know I certainly loved it.
There are too many pictures to post, but here are a couple, most of which will eventually be repeats on Austin's blog.