Gym Boycott!!!

Having my mom here the past week has been great, I've been able to leave the house without Naomi and go to the gym to go running. I'll admit I hate running, but after over 10 months of being somewhat of a couch potato, it actually feels pretty good to exercise again. I'd rather play swim or play volleyball anyday, but running will have to do. Anyhow, I've been worrying about how I'll get out to the gym once my mom leaves this sunday. I could go when Austin gets back from work, or just wait til the weekend..or I could use the gym's babysitting service (which i've NEVER seen anyone use). But Austin and I decided to forgo the gym completely. I'm going to quit paying my $75 club membership (yes I paid $75/mth for the 10 months that I sat on my couch)....but rather than continuing to sit on the couch, we've decided to buy a treadmill!! I'm super excited and completely determined to NOT let this treadmill become a very expensive clothes hanger. We should get it in two weeks, here's a preview of our new purchase...
Yes, I am determined to be a lean mean running machine....ok, or at least lose the baby weight I gained thanks to my mini-me.

Little Miracles

Naomi turned 6 weeks old today. She's so much more alert these days, and her little smiles can melt my heart. It's crazy how time flies. Just 6 weeks ago my life was completely different, I could go out whenever I wanted, eat whenever I wanted, even shower and go to the bathroom whenever I felt like it. Now I have a little mini-me that dictates my schedule.
I'm finally starting to feel like a mom. Getting used to reading her cues for when she's really hungry, or just wants to suck on her hand or pacifier. Finally recognizing her cues for when she needs to go down for a nap, and how to soothe her when she's just being fussy.
The more I get to know my little girl, the more I realize how blessed I am. Childbirth and children in general truly are little miracles. I'm constantly mesmerized by how tiny her little bones are. That within her little chest is a tiny heart probably no bigger than a couple of inches at most.
This week has been pretty tough with bad news of loss and sadness from friends and family. When you think about it, there really are a million things that have to go right in order for a full term pregnancy to run it's course with no problems. How lucky am I that the worst of my problems was a little morning sickness for the first 3 months of pregnancy? So many times I've taken for granted how miraculous it is that in 9 months Naomi was able to grow and foster and develop into the tiny perfect little person that she is. I can hear her coo-ing in her crib right now, and in 5 minutes the little mini-me will become the dictator that she is, demanding her food and diaper change and attention. But all jokes aside, despite any fussiness, despite all the changes, the lack of freedom, sleep deprivation, raging hormones and crazy emotions, I thank God for the gift and miracle that he's given us in Naomi.

On another note, Naomi can't really fit her Newborn onesies anymore. Although I'm ecstatic she's growing well, it's a bit bittersweet to see her growing so fast.

meeting the wei's

Two weekends ago we went to Harvard, MA to atttend Austin's cousin's wedding. Naomi got to meet some of the extended family on the Wei side, including her great grandparents. Initially we were really nervous about travelling with Naomi since it was our first trip with her. But overall I think she did pretty well. The drive up took a little longer than normal since we had to make two stops to feed her and change her diaper. Austin had to make a makeshift changing table in the front seat of our car since Arby's doesn't have changing tables in their bathrooms. Go figure.

At the wedding, she slept through the entire ceremony and most of the dinner reception. I actually started to get a little worried cause she was going on her 5th hour of sleep during the wedding. (she needs to eat every 3 hours or so). It was pretty loud at the wedding, but as soon as it quieted down and the speeches started, sure enough our little boss decided to wake up and start crying. But Austin was quick enough to whip her up out of her seat and stuff a bottle in her mouth so she didn't have time to make too much noise. Overall though it was a pretty good weekend.

Naomi definitely made out like a bandit that weekend though with tons of gifts and hong bao's from all of Austin's relatives. She even received a handmade rocking horse which her great uncle made specially for her. Pictures to come later, but here are some pics from the weekend.

Family picture!

Naomi likes to wear shades like mommy and daddy

Great Grandpa and grandma Wei

4 generations of Wei

One of the rare moments Naomi was awake

Wei family

naomi speaks

if only she could really speak, i wouldn't spend my days guessing what her shrieks were about.

HEAT

After yesterday's mad rush/fiasco, today has been pretty calm. I think we tired Naomi out so much yesterday, so she pretty much slept the entire day (so far at least). Although with my luck that probably means she'll be up partying all night tonight.

We gave her her first tub bath yesterday, and it must have either been so relaxing or stressful, cause she slept for almost 5 hours straight afterwards! If only we had bathed her later in the evening, I could have had 5 hrs of sleep. Instead we bathed her at 7. OH well.

Oh, and back to the original intent of this post. It's July 15th. I've lived in this house for almost 2 months now. And our airconditioning is STILL NOT FIXED. Might as well move to the Philippines with this much heat.

Here's the picture of the day. Naomi always sleeps and lays in her crib like she's superwoman, or some kung-fu master "HAIIII-YA"

Going at it alone

Today was the first day where I was with Naomi by myself. My mom is in Cleveland for 2 wks, and Austin's mom and sister left on Saturday. Thank goodness it's only a few days on my own so I can ease into this. Today was CRAZY. Talk about murphy's law. The day started off alright, Austin left for work, and after eating, Naomi went down for a nap.

Then at 9:30, the airconditioning men came to try and fix our upstairs unit. After awhile, they left, and one of the guys said he'd be back with more parts in a little bit. So while they were gone i decided to feed Naomi again. In the middle of feeding, I heard her having one of her explosive poops, a normal occurance for her, and usually not a big deal at all. But as I picked her up to switch her for the other half of her feeding, I saw that her diaper had leaked all over the pillow that I was supporting her on, and had run up her shirt as well, and her foot had dragged in it. So i picked her up to try and move the pillow off, and put her head on my shoulder. Then she proceeded to spit up all down my shirt and in front as well. UGH.
I tried to run upstairs to get her and myself cleaned up, but as I was wiping her down, the doorbell rang, great it was the ac guy back to continue the repairs. So i grabbed naomi, dirty diaper and all, not wanting to leave her on the changing table, and ran to open the door.

After getting her all cleaned up, and finished eating, I put Naomi in the swing so I could get something to eat myself. As i walked to the microwave, i stepped in something wet. Lilo had an accident in the kitchen!!! argh. So i had to hop to the sink to clean my foot off, gross. Then I had to clean up Lilo's mess. I decided to put both Lilo and Stitch in their crates for awhile after that, since they were crazy barking at the ac repair men anyway. I had removed their cushions though to wash them, so they had to sit on their plastic mats for a bit. After i was done eating, I looked down at Stitch and saw that he had thrown up in his crate, had stepped in it and was sitting all the way in the corner of his crate to avoid getting any more mess on himself. So I let him out, cleaned him up, and then cleaned up his crate as well.

All of this happened before 1pm!! And so was my day of excrement and spitup. Thank God Ausitn has a half day since we're taking Naomi to the pediatrician today. He can take care of the family for the rest of the day =)

Here's a pic of Naomi we took yesterday, with all the craziness, seeing her makes it all worth it.

Welcome Home Naomi

Naomi is 3 weeks old today. Hard to believe that last month I was waddling around in 100 degree weather wondering when the heck this kid would pop out, and here she is, sound asleep in the other room. So much has changed in Austin and my life over the past 3 weeks. We've gone from being carefree kids with a double income and seemingly limitless spending power to buy toys for ourselves, to a couple of blundering people posing as parents, trying to figure out where to get the cheapest deal on the extra large box of diapers; worrying whether the tiny mini me is really eating enough during each of her feedings, or maybe she's eating too much? a million questions cross my mind at 100 miles a second - is she slepeing enough? too much? how come she's not responding to my voice? how come she isn't running around and talking yet!! When do you start feeling competent as a parent?!
In less than a minute I can go from completely frantic and tired from waking being woken up for the 3rd time that night and it only being 4am, to completely at peace and content holding my little mini me.
In 3 weeks Naomi's already changed so much, it almost makes me sad to see her grow so fast. I'm in love with her tiny toes, fingers, face, her huge eyes and her micro mini body. Whenever I find myself getting frustrated or tired, I just try and remind myself that she's going to be a completely different person before I know it, and I need to cherish all these blissful baby moments. Needless to say I have been a bit camera obsessed> I just want to try and capture every second that I can. Here's a shot from when she was 1 day old, and another from when she was 2 wks and 6 days =)