Baby diva

Naomi loves to dance. Even while she's been sick the first thing she asks for when she wakes up is for music to dance to. She does this by making dancing movements with her arms. Last night she picked up a new trick by grabbing one of our rockband mics. This kid is meant for the stage!!

All good things must come to an end.

After 2 weeks and 2 days of vacation, I’m back at work. It’s only been a couple of hours but I’m already exhausted and missing Naomi like crazy. Naomi got sick the last couple of days that we were in Cabo, and never fully got better. On Friday night, she ended up getting a fever of 103. On Saturday we took her to the doctors, confirmed she did not have the flu (thank goodness), but she still had a high fever, and hasn’t been eating well. She’s also been waking up in the middle of the night, coughing, vomiting, screaming for mama and dada. Needless to say, the last couple days of our vacation were exhausting, and I could use a couple of good hours of sleep!
Having a sick baby is difficult because your only sign of the baby’s discomfort is from their cries. Now that Naomi is talking, you have a whole new set of challenges to face. When she wakes up in the middle of the night, she’s not just crying. She’s screaming your name, it’s a lot harder to hear your child screaming for you, “MAMAAAA, DADAAA” as opposed to just random cries. She’s also very demanding, and will ask for juice, water, you name it. But offer her something she doesn’t want and you’ll get a strong, “NO NO NO”
Thankfully my mom is back, and she is taking care of Naomi today, and most likely tomorrow since Naomi woke up with a fever again this morning, and isn’t allowed back at daycare until she’s fever free for 24 hours. Naomi has been more than excited to see her Ah-Ma. If we’re out of Ah-Ma’s sight for even just a few minutes, Naomi starts screaming her name, and runs around trying to find her.
It hasn’t been all difficult though. Despite Naomi being sick, being home with her was just amazing. I really do wish I could be a stay at home mom. I watch how she picks up new words, skills, comprehension every minute each day and think about how much I’ll be missing while I’m at work.
On Friday night, Naomi had woken up in the middle of the night, and threw up all over her bed, her lambie and izzy dolls, and even managed to project some out onto the floor and rug. After a quick clean up, we were ready to put her back to bed, but anytime either Austin or I tried to leave the room so that the other could take care of her, she would start screaming and crying. She wanted both of us to be in her room. Exhausted, we finally tried just lying down on the floor with her on her playmat. With the three of us cuddled up, Naomi turned to me, reached for my head, and pulled me in close to her head. I thought she wanted something, so I asked her, “whats up Naomi?” And she proceeded to kiss me. Then I laughed, and she did it again! Then she turned to Austin and kissed him. She did this back and forth for awhile til I was literally crying about how sweet she was despite her being sick and feeling awful. Then she started asking for Elmo and her Ge Ge (our friend Lois’ son Caleb). Haha. Then we were just laughing. Anyway, only 4 more days til the weekend.

Happy Halloween

Home sweet home and a little chat-a-holic

We got home from Cabo on Friday night. Our suitcases are still lying in the middle of our bedroom floor, our house is utter chaos. But it's so good to be home, sleeping in our own bed. It was an incredible trip and I'll post pictures later. But the best part of the trip by far was having so much time to spend with Naomi. She has really grown up so much over the past 1.5wks! She's saying over 50 words now and picking up more and more each day. It's incredible she'll point things out that we never even really made the effort to teach her yet, she's just so observant she picks so much up. (we definitely need to be more careful with what we say going forward!!) Last night her Nai Nai (Austin's mom) called, and Naomi was quick to grab the phone as always. We were in the middle of skypeing our friends Gene, Jaime and Alli, and Naomi was rudely ignoring the conversation and having one of her own! Here she is on the phone with Nai nai. And yes, Nai Nai was really on the other end...possibly for 10 whole minutes or longer!! Every time we told Naomi it was time to hang up and say bye bye, she'd say, "Noo no no"

Plum turkered out

Naomi has been doing her best to adjust to the three hour time
difference. But we've had to get creative with where she naps. Here
she fell asleep to baby shark on daddy's lap.

And we're off!

We are off to San Francisco today for my cousin's wedding. From there we fly straight to Cabo to join Austin's family for a family reunion. Now if I could just finish all my work, and finish packing.

16 Months

Naomi turned 16 months today. While our baby will always be a baby to us, I have to say, she is definitely a little girl now. She's got her own opinions, desires...she's basically her own little person. Day care has been going incredibly well. This month she really bonded with all of her teachers, two in particular, Miss Irina and Miss Fabiana. She comes home knowing so many new songs, dances and has had the opportunity to finger paint, draw with markers, paint with a roller. While I'm sad that I get to miss out on spending my days with her, i'm so glad we chose a daycare that has provided her with so much stimulation. She's become so social and loves waving and "talking" to people we meet outside, especially at the grocery store. We had a couple of rough days after her finger accident, and with her catching a couple of colds. But she's feeling all better, and back to her usual playful self. My dad has been with us for the past month, and she loves giving him hugs, tickeling him, and giving him high fives. Every night after dinner, once she gets out of her high chair, she has to run to him and give him a high five. Pretty cute.
Her vocabulary is growing at an exponential pace. Each day it seems like she tries to imitate us more and more. She can almost call all of her grandparents by name (ah-ma, nai-nai and yeh-yeh) Ironically, the one grandparent she can't call is my dad (wai-gong). Whenever we ask her to say Wai-gong, she laughs and points to my dad. I guess it is a little harder to say.
Other words new words this month are
Nana (banana)
Wow
Geh geh (Big brother)
Abble (apple)
Cheeeeese
Eyes
Rice
Silly woo (silly goose)
I ooob oop (i love you)
Yea
Bye
Up (coupled with throwing her arms up in the air)
Maooo (for what a cat says)
Baaa (for what a goat says)
eep eep (for what a bird says)

She is incredibly quick, she's starting to run and likes to chase us around the house.
She still loves to dance, her new moves consist of squatting, swaying side to side, spinning around in a circle, and swinging her arms up back and forth.
She's also proving to be a little monkey and loves to climb up on the coffee table, couches, chairs, you name it.
This month, following her accident, we also babyproofed a little more, mainly the drawers/cabinets in the kitchen. Considering she used to have free reign over all the cabinet doors, she's taking things pretty well. Partly because I leave her one cabinet where she can go in and out of and play with all the tupperware and other fun "toys". She's also allowed to play in some of the lower drawers.
One of the negative things I've started to see more of is her jealousy. She gets extremely jealous if Lilo and Stitch go near her toys, shoes, backpack, you name it. One day Stitch tried to take her Izzy doll, (one of her two comfort items), and she lost it. She ran after him, snatched it back and "yelled" at him in baby gibberish. While it was cute, i hope it's not a precursor to her not wanting to share.
But balancing out the negatives, today she finally learned how to pet Lilo and Stitch gently, and was stroking Lilo's fur today. And she gave Stitch a hug several times in the evening when we were skyping with her bff Alli.
She's also gotten good at asking for things. When she wants to sit in a chair, she usually grunts to get our attention, then pats the chair.
When she goes to her toy section, she grunts to get our attention, then points to the toy she wants. It's interesting to see how she never takes her own toy out. she always waits and sits by the toy she wants until austin or I go over to her to "allow" her to play with it. (We'll see how long this one lasts).

This month for almost half of the month we'll be on vacation with various family members. I'm so looking forward to month 16!!


Sorry the picture is blurry, but I love it since it was a typical night of Naomi sillyness, mid swaying side to side