Lily's San Francisco Adventure!

As we mentioned a couple blogs back, Lily took her first trip in an airplane two weekends ago. Aunty Cathy and her family were taking an end-of-summer vacation to San Francisco, and since they were so close it seemed a shame not to take advantage of the opportunity for Lily to see her Aunty again, not to mention meet her Uncle Paul and cousins Tyler and Joshy. We also thought it might be a relatively low-impact way to see how well Lily travels...with the short flight and just a night away from home, we figured we should be able to handle whatever ensued, and we'd have gained some valuable insight!

This is Lily on the plane!

She did really well with the flight...sort of. She spit up before we got on the plane! Lily does this thing where she sucks on her fingers instead of thumb, and SOMETIMES she acciidentally gags herself. Well, sure enough, she did that, thoroughly soaking her footie pajamas in the process. But we had an extra outfit, so no problem. The main bulk of it was great...she pretty much dozed off for most of the flight up, and a bit of the flight back (choosing to flirt with the lady next to her on the return instead of sleep). And we did a pretty good job of making sure to feed her during takeoff and landing to help her ears pop. The only problem is, that flight is pretty short, so her tummy can get pretty full if you're not careful...the upshot of which was she spit up AGAIN as we landed in San Fran, soaking her second outfit! (Thank goodness it was just juice that time!) Anyways, we learned our lesson and paced ourselves on the way home, so she was fine.

We stayed in a very nice hotel called The Argonaut, right on Fisherman's Wharf. As you can see, Mama and Lily were very happy to test out the bed when we checked in. It was a great location for us, because you could just walk out and there was plenty of fun stuff to see, things to eat, etc. And check it out! We could see Alcatraz out our window! (Although I had to photoshop this picture pretty liberally so YOU could see it).

We arrived first, but pretty soon Aunty Cathy and her gang showed up, so we went up to their rooms to see everyone! It was very nice for Lily to finally meet her cousins! The blondie is Tyler, and his brunette brother is Joshua. As you can see, they bought her presents, which she liked quite a bit! So we hung out for a bit, but before too long headed out to dinner, since they were all on East Coast time, and poor Lily was way behind on napping (a recurring theme for the weekend, unfortunately). So we walked to a nearby restaurant for Mexican food, where Lily propptly fell asleep for the first half of the meal. See? Aint she cute? After dinner, we went down to the plaza to window shop and get ice cream, and Aunty Cathy was nice enough to take a rare family picure of the three of us. And then off to bed! Unfortunately, one of the things we discovered is that Lily is not much for sleeping in strange places...she's a champ at home, but we were up and down quite a bit that night. I guess the unfamiliar surroundings, plus mama and dada being in HER room, making NOISE, kept her from really relaxing. SHe did okay, but wanted to be fed every 2-3 hours or so. Sigh. So the learning, we think, is that she really does do best if she can be laid down in a REALLY dark room, by herself, with some white noise. Relatives wanting to be visited, please take note! :-)

The next day, we did something really special...we went to visit Cathy and my nanny from years ago, Pai Feng. What a special, rare treat that was. It's strange to see someone that was a huge part of your childhood years and years later...for example, I remember being able to talk with her as a child, but she only speaks Chinese (which I no longer remember) so we could only barely talk with Aunty Cathy translating. But the love was definitely there, and I think Pai Feng really appreciated the visit. Even now, she has pictures of our family prominently placed in her home. It must have been really nice for her to see how her babies now have babies of their own.

After visiting Pai Feng, we met up with cousin Mei to have Dim Sum. Yummy! Mei (seen here posing with Joshy, who has mysteriously sprouted facial hair) lives in San Francisco, so we were able to get her to take us to an especially tasty restaurant. Mmm, ginger dumplings....oh, sorry, got distracted for a sec there. So Lily got to meet yet another new relative! Such riches!!

This is Aunty Cathy holding her favorite niece. Aunty Cathy figured out that Lily would tolerate being held much longer if held in her preferred position, face out. Aunty Cathy attributed this to Lily not being able to see her, and thus not realizing it wasn't Mama or Dada. But that isn't true! Lily LOVES Aunty Cathy!!

It was also at Dim Sum where the boys realized they REALLY like petting Lily. Guys, I know she was born in the Year of the Dog, but come on! Actually, it was very cute, and I certainly can't blame them, I rather enjoy petting her myself.

Well, that was about it...we actually saw Cousin Caroline and her family briefly as well (sorry, no pictures!), but that about all we have to report. So, to sum up:

1) Lily doesn't sleep that WELL away from home, but she does sleep. So I actually think she'd do fine, especially on a longer trip when she has a chance to adjust, and if she can have a bit more quiet and space than a hotel room affords.

2) drinking during takeoff and landing, good. Drinking too much, not as good. Gagging on own fingers, definitely not advisable.

3) spending time with family, though? Priceless.

Exersaucer!

Po Po and Gung Gung got me an exersaucer last time they visited. I couldn't use it then, but NOW...


In related news, I can also sit in swings (but daddy has to get the pictures from my nanny)

A guest blog from Aunty Cathy

Last weekend, Lily took her first plane ride up to San Francisco to meet up with Aunty Cathy, Uncle Paul, and cousins Tyler and Joshy. I'll do a full blog on this myself, but Aunty Cathy took some pictures of our attempt to have the boys hold Lily, and emailed me the pictures along with her thoughts on what Lily must be thinking. I think she really nailed it, so I'll share her words and pictures without any modification from me, and let you judge for yourself:







"Daddy, you aren't really serious here... are you? are you? you mean you're serious!?! SAVE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

"Don't give me that 'it's okay' soothing look. I wasn't born yesterday, you know! Now I am really mad at you, and I am going to show you my REALLY MAD face."

"Help... is anyone out there? I'm stuck in a loony bin."

"I am just speechless."

Kidding aside, the boys were super cute and affectionate with her, always wanting to hold her hands. And feet. And also lots of petting! Lily is very lucky to have two "big brothers" to look out for her.

Happy Birthday, Po Po!

One of Lilys favorite people, her very own Po Po, is celebrating her birthday today. Yay, Po Po!! This is also a very special day for Lily because exactly one year ago today, on vacation in Austria, we told Po Po and Gung Gung that they had a lovely little grandchild on the way. That was really fun! The way we told them was, that we gave Po Po a picture of her new grandchild as a birthday present. This is what Lily looked like 1 year ago:
Ain't she cute? Looks just like her mama, right? Anyways, we were all so excited about Po Po's brithday we had to go wake up Lily and tell her about it. Lily is becoming such a good sleeper that she was a lazybones this morning. We had to wake her up at 7:10 AM! And she hadn't eaten since half past midnight!

She was still too snoozy to say it, but we're sure what she was thinking was, "happy birthday Po Po. I love you!!"

Chugga chugga choo choo...

Lily's boyfriend Andy laughs hilariously when big sister Molly says "chugga chugga choo choo" to him. Hm, I wonder if it would work on Lily?


A slightly more restrained reaction, but still cute!

a snoozy update

The last two nights, Lily has only gotten up ONCE to eat. Fluke or new trend? We can only hope! Also, this morning she managed to break the 1-hour nap barrier - she woke up and fretted mildly at about the 45 minute mark, but we left her in there and she worked it out after about 15 minutes. She has (as of right now as I type) been in there two hours. Shhh! Don't jinx it!!

Other momentous firsts besides sleeping in the big-girl crib...

As I said in the previous post, this has been a momentous week for Lily and her parents. Most important has been the transition from being a fitful co-sleeper to a deep-sleeping crib baby. Most babies would find that enough of an accomplishment for one week, but not our Pinklet! So lemme tell you about some of the other cool things Lily has done this week.

Well, first of all, as you can see here, we have introduced Lily to shoes. This actually came about because, since Lily has been growing so much, she's starting to outgrow a lot of her stuff, so Tata Rina sent down a care package of a buch of Madi and Mallory's old outfits, and hidden amongst the footie pajamas were these cool kicks. So we couldn't resist! Doesn't she look so fashionable?

Speaking of growing, Lily has also in the past week transitioned from the #1 size Pampers to the #2's. This was at least partly motivated by another first, namely her first diaper blowout. Sorry, folks, no picture on that one! You'll have to use your imagination, I'm afraid.

Now, although we've introduced Lily to shoes, don't expect her to be wearing them all the time, because, as you can see from this video clip, there was another first this week that really requires her to have access to her feet:

By the way, I can't even tell you how happy this made her mama. We've been trying for weeks to stick Lily's toes in her mouth so she'd take the hint!

OK, last but certainly not least...drum roll please...

She may not be able to walk or crawl yet, but the days of being able to put her down and expect her to stay where you left her are now officially over. Yay Lily! I guess mama and dada are really gonna have to get cracking on the baby-proofing thing...

How can it be called sleeping thru the night if I wake up at 2AM?

Last Friday, amidst much trepidation, we finally decided that it was time to give Lily some tough love and have her switch over to sleeping by herself in her own crib full-time. We probably would have kept going with the co-sleeping for a while, but Pinky had a 2-day business trip coming up (which she's currently in the middle of, actually), so we realized that, one way or another, Lily was gonna have to figure out how to go to sleep at night without mama lying next to her and nursing her to sleep.

Well, we are VERY happy to report that, although there are still some tears at bedtimes, Lily has responded VERY well to sleep training. As of this writing, she's typically taking anywhere from about 5 to 25 minutes to soothe herself to sleep from when we put her down. But the big surprise benefit is, she sleps a LOT more soundly! She had been rolling over to "comfort nurse" from her mama every hour or two when we were co-sleeping, but now she gets thru the night only nursing twice!! She's even gone over 5 hours at a stretch on a few occasions, which, technically, is considered "sleeping through the night". This is a bit odd because she does this as her first sleep, so six-seven hours from bedtime still means she's up between 12 and 2AM. But we'll take it!

Nono and Nana came down for the weekend to help us out because we assumed we'd be fighting all night with Lily and would need backup during the day. That turned out to be completely not the case (we were probably better rested than we've been in months!), but we loved the visit. Lily loves going outside with Nana, and she finally let Nono hold her a good long time. I caught this picture thru the window. Nana will probably be mortified, but I think it's cute!!

Many other firsts this week...stay tuned for another blog entry, hopefully shortly! We got some coooool stuff!

I'm so proud of my little baby girl...

Lily just celebrated her 6 month "birthday a few days ago on July 30th. What a half-year it has been! I can't believe how much our little peanut has grown up. As of last Saturday, she finally tipped the scales at slightly over 12 pounds, more than FOUR times her lowest weight when she was in the NICU. If you're a regular reader, you know about the rolling over she can do (both ways!), her appetite has really picked up this week (sometimes four ounces at a sitting) and in the last few nights even her sleeping has really improved. Last night, she slept in her crib by herself for over 2 1/2 hours, and has in generally gotten a lot better about being able to soothe herself back to sleep. She can spin in her Exersaucer, grabs at mobiles, and has even managed to put in her own pacifier once (we'll probably be sorry about that last one in the long run, but for now it's good!). Such a big girl. Makes me cry sometimes!


And so, I thought I'd blog just to brag on her a little bit. But to make it worth your while, here's a few recent, fun pictures.



The Mojica girls, getting silly. By the way, in Pinky's old office, they used to refer to that little leg kick thing as "doing a Mo." Not sure if the current office knows about that (but if they're blog readers, they do now!).







Daddy actually IN a picture for a change. Thanks, Po Po, for taking this one for me.

"Mommy, pictures make me so sleeeeeepy..." (Po Po, with her magical sleep-inducing powers, was also nearby, so that might have contributed)







This one was from good friend and frequent babysitter Jackie's baby shower. "Hey, our hats match! But who turned out the lights?"






Last but certainly not least, one more vignette from Po Po and Gung Gung's recent visit. Lily, in this clip, demonstrates her developing speech skills and overall precociousness by showing filial piety to her honored grandparents by promptly obeying their request of her:



(also viewable at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2006635943698651713&hl=en if the embed is again flaky)

Love to all from Lily and the gang!