Playing Nice

Every Sunday we drop Naomi off at the nursery in our Church. Every morning, as I’m leaving I hear her wailing as the poor nursery staff try to calm her down and distract her. When I pick her up after service, her face is usually red and splotchy, and she’s cranky for the rest of the afternoon as payback for me leaving her behind. Yesterday, I’m happy to report that when I dropped her off, she picked up some toys and started playing with them. While I heard her crying when I left, I heard her immediately stop as soon as the nursery staff went over to entertain her. And after service, when I picked her up, she didn’t even notice me at first. She was too busy playing with another little girl and the toys in the nursery. When she finally did look up and see me, she gave me the biggest smile and crawled towards me. Best feeling in the world.

The most annoying sound in the world....

Has to be a woodpecker in your chimney at 5am on a Saturday. Apparently it's mating season for woodpeckers, and they like to hide out in chimneys and peck away making their mating patterns. In the winter, I love having a fireplace in our bedroom. Now that it's warm out? Not so much. We turned on the fireplace this morning, since it's gas burning, we knew it wouldn't smoke the bird out, but I think the warmth did scare it away. Of course by the time we came home from church, it was BACK. grrr

Mother's Day

Our Wei family of 3 kicked off our mother's day weekend with a whirlwind 24 hour roadtrip to Harvard, MA and back. We went up to celebrate Austin's mom's graduation. It was a great weekend for driving, graduation, and a seafood meal on the northshore. Though it was an exhausting trip, Naomi handled it like a champ and charmed everyone on the trip.
On the way back home on Saturday, we we ran into some bad luck, and our car started making some pretty crazy noises. We made it safely home, but a diagnostic from our Honda doctor told us we'd need to put another $1300 into fixing the suspensions. This is after almost 3k just 5 wks ago! Austin and I came to the not too difficult decision that it was time to give up my good old CR-V. She is 12 yrs old afterall. And now the hunt begins for a new car.
Sunday morning, still a little bleary eyed, we started our Mother's day festivities! Austin made the most amazing video and gave me an enlarged, framed print out of my favorite photo of Naomi in the pool. After church Austin, Naomi, my mom and I met up with Chris for yummy tofu stew, and possibly a little too much Kalbi. The company was great, the weather was beautiful and the food was yummy. Not much more you could ask for for a first mother's day!

Happy Mother's Day

Naomi and I wanted to wish a happy mother's day to the best mom/wife that two babies could ask for! Here's a little something we put together to celebrate Amy's first year of Mommyness!

Rocking Chair

Last night Naomi woke up at around 12am a couple hours after I had gone to bed. We normally let her cry it out and she can put herself back to sleep in a couple of minutes. This time she seemed a bit distraught, I figured with the loud storms that she might be having a hard time settling down. So I sent in to check in on her. I figured I’d rock her a little to try and settle her down. Since Naomi was a couple of weeks old, she hated being carried by someone who was sitting down. So to get her to sleep we used to have to stand up and rock her and eventually put her down in her crib. As soon you tried to sit down with her, she’d start screaming her head off. Sometimes she didn’t want to be carried even when you’re standing up. She squirms to get free, and she has the strongest little arms that can jab you right in the neck with a perfectly positioned stiff arm. Austin and I always joke about how we have the most non-cuddly baby ever.
Given I was exhausted and bleary eyed, I figured I’d try to rock her in the rocking chair last night. Within a few minutes Naomi was calm and just content to lay in my arms until she fell back asleep, and even though it was midnight and I was exhausted and had to be back up in a few hours, I was happy. My non-cuddly baby wanted to be cuddled.

Party planning

I'm in full on birthday planning mode. I don't think we'll have anything too crazy (like my baby shower which had over 50 ppl, talk about overwhelming). But since it is Naomi's FIRST birthday, I do want portions to be memorable, like her invites. I plan on framing one as a keepsake. I wanted to do this for my wedding invite and my babyshower invite as well, just haven't gotten around to it. Here's the invite we decided to go with. We should get the final prints early next week. Have I mentioned I love being married to a graphic designer?

Give me more

I never thought I'd teach Naomi baby sign language. But we noticed how much Naomi tries to imitate us, and how easy it's been to teach her tricks, (recent trick - "Flying Kiss"), and my friend Lois told us about how her 1yr old son Caleb can sign for "more", "please", "diaper change"!!!. I figured I'd give it a shot. Within a couple of days Naomi started copying me when I made the gesture for "more", and now a couple weeks later, she knows how to signal "more" for when she wants more food!. She still gets frustrated when we take too long to feed her and grunts/whines, but she's starting to use the sign more often. Each time she signals for "more" we give her another bite of whatever she's eating and praise her....then she claps for herself.