Hardware Finally Broke Ground

Lately, I’ve been feeling Katie’s gums almost everyday in anticipation of her first tooth. Her cousins and other baby friends started to get theirs around 5 or 6 months and Katie is 7 and still no signs….until YESTERDAY!! I got home from work and checked her gums like usual and felt two little sharpy points. Woo hoo!! They finally broke ground. This also means, we’ve got to be more diligent about brushing her gums and teeth. We’ve heard one too many horror stories about children with bad teeth. It’s very much preventable and we’re going to take good care of them. We’ll try to catch a picture over this weekend.

Coming up, I have my usual Friday off, and Tuesday is Cesar Chavez (state holiday) so I took Monday off to make it 5 consecutive days off. We’re taking Katie to get her passport on Friday for maybe her first international trip across the north border to Canada this summer. She’ll get to visit cutie cousins and put those teeth to good uses on yummy foods. We hope to spend the rest of the weekend in SF keeping our fingers and toes crossed the weather will stay Spring like :o)

Living and Learning

Katie turned 7 months last Thursday! Woo hoo, thinking back it’s been the looooongest seven months of our lives...thus far!! Do we really want to do it all over again?! We'll continue to ponder it, for now we're ecstatic with our first product.

Our new favorite picture taken over the weekend.

Little by little, she’s growing every day! Her hair is getting longer; she said ‘da’ for the first time yesterday; no teeth yet though; she can stand on her own for a good second before she takes a step and falls off balance.

Hanging out with cousin Tyrus. They started to play tug-a-war with their toys, suppose they're learning early the best prizes are from a good fight :o)

She’s loving attention from live persons and never likes to be alone or play alone. Hence, she gets along well with anybody but if mommy and daddy are near, she will squirm, push and squeal to let you know she rather wants us or she wants the floor not to sit but WALK! This little girl wants to go places! Although, we’re not agreeing with how she’s getting there these days. She’ll try but usually end up screaming for help and the first response team is her Grandparents!

Last week, Yogi and I started to learn sign language from the Internet. Quite a few family and friends have mentioned it to us before. It helps young kids to communicate before they're able to learn verbally. We’ve always thought Katie was too young to pay any attention to us. But, now that she's able to control her actions and giving us the time and day, we decided to start slow and easy. We show her the sign then we give her the product or do the actual move. Most kids get into the act of signing around 12 months old. For now, Katie is tuning into our movements and confirming she’s willing to learn or that she really wants what we have in our other hand…haha... I’m excited to see Katie’s first sign!! The challenge will be teaching the Grandparents to do it as well :o/

Hanging out with Daddy on the baskeball court.

What Sleep

Just as all three of us begin to get comfy in our beds dreaming through a silent house for hours and hours, Katie throws us a curve ball like she’s never done before. Beginning the night is not the challenge for Katie. She’s usually susceptive to our monotone readings and will more often than not fall peacefully to sleep on her own in her own bed. Adorably, some nights it’ll take a few more tosses and turns and a song or two singing to herself. She’s been great waking up once or none throughout the night and even if once, she’ll fall back to sleep in her own bed. Her curve ball for the past four nights is waking up 2-3 times or every hour after 1am. The good news is we’ve figured out how to stop this nonsense and get all three of us back to bed. The bad news is the way to do it is to prop her between us in our bed. Only then will she fall asleep instantly or rather we fall asleep instantly and she follows shortly behind.

It’s another lesson for us rookie parents to never take anything for granted and enjoy what sleep we are able to get. Funny though, Yogi and I will uses to wake up every few hours unconsciously to check on Katie. Now, just when we’re getting uses to skipping that routine, she really wakes us up. It helps a little bit that there’s two of us to take turns waking up but THIS IS NOT FUN ESPECIALLY ON MORNINGS WHEN WE HAVE TO WORK!!

If this continues, our plan is to put her in a full size bed in her room (on the ground if we have to keep her from rolling off and hurting herself). That way, one of us can sleep beside her and help her fall asleep in her own room then move ourselves once she’s asleep. It may not necessarily help her to fall asleep on her own but at the least she’s getting uses to sleeping in her own room. In a perfect baby world, she’ll get uses to sleeping in her own room, on her own, through the night!

In other news, she’s standing very steady holding onto chairs, tables, sofas, etc. sometimes with one hand holding her balance and the other on a toy to her mouth. If seated, she’ll try to pull herself up onto her own two feet but failing since her balancing act needs fine tuning. She’s very willing to walk assisted thus not much of a roller or crawler but we’re making her try keeping her on her belly any chance we get. Fun times…fun times :o)

Spring is Here!

This past weekend was one of the best weather wise considering the amount of wet stuff we’ve been getting lately. We enjoyed sunny blue skies with a few puffy white clouds floating above the spring blossoms all around. We took advantage of the warmer weather and a longer Sunday to play at the park, on the basketball courts and stroll through Historic Folsom for lunch in between the indoors activities: bridal shower, baby shower and birthday!

Unfortunately, the springing forward made us loose more than an hour of sleep! Katie was not happy last night. Her usual bedtime is between 7pm-8pm. Don't know how she knows, but she knows it is that time of the night and she's known since the day she came home from the hospital. More often than not, she falls asleep on the money exactly at 7pm.

She starts to settle down around 6ish except yesterday 6ish was more like 4-5ish and she ended up taking a late nap instead. The sounds of kids playing outside were a bit noisier than usually for her to stay knocked out for the night. So she woke up very cranky wanting to be held and sooth to sleep only to wake up three more times by 7am this morning. It was a tough night for us in a long time. When she woke at 2am, she did not want to go back to sleep alone in her room so daddy made a rare exception propping her between us in our bed which knocked her out instantly.

We’re hoping it is just the time adjustment and that she’ll get uses to it soon…sleeping in her own bed! This little girl is not shy to wake us with her punches, pinches, and grabs. :o/

Baby Ties Family

You guys don't hear from me for a week and now you get three in a row...woo hoo!!

This morning Katie woke at 5:45am around the time I was suppose to leave the house for work. Katie and I stayed over at my parent’s house last night so we wouldn’t have to wake her at the crack of dawn to drop her off at grandma’s house. Anyways, she woke up with a wet diaper and was not happy. Her vocals turned into a human alarm clock on the second floor and right on the money, my dad walks in and takes her downstairs to play. Willingly Katie went to Grandpa and didn’t bother to look back to see where mommy was going. We’ll see how long that’ll last. My dad works during the day too so he doesn’t mind waking up early to spend time with his first and only granddaughter.

There’s usually lots of love for Katie at my parent’s house. With my parents and four siblings living under one roof, they hold and play with her any chance they get. Even, my brother has gotten into the feeding mode once or twice. Last night, while I was at the gym, they had Katie on the family room floor demonstrating her new trick – scooting backwards…haha…her audience loved it!

On the other side of the family, Yogi’s mom has been great at packing up and coming over a couple nights a week to babysit Katie. She preps our dinners and brings over everything she needs. Having Grandma over also gives everyone else, Yogi’s sister, brother, nieces and nephews who lives near us an opportunity to come over and have dinner as well. Monday nights are officially Le Family dinner night at our house! There’s nothing like a good o’family dinner to get everyone together to chat about our kids and catch up on everyone’s day/week.

It's amazing how a baby can improve family relations that nothing else can comparably do; unfortunately at the expense of dirty diapers...darn it :o/

Katie is Mobile!!

I have to document this before I forget…haha…

Reading with Daddy before bedtime last week.

Yesterday, when we got home from work, I took Katie in my arms and will not let go. I asked how her day was with Grandma and we played for a short while as Daddy was vacuuming and Grandma was cooking. I know life doesn’t get any better than this!

Katie hanging out with her Uncle Arnold in a funny kind of way.

The smoke from Grandma’s cooking was a little too much for us to play in the living room and the vacuum was a little too loud roaming through the rest of the house so we ended up on the floor of our master bedroom. Katie started with a few push ups on her belly. Then, on a few occasions, she would bow her head down and extended both arms out in front of her, pushing off the ground and scooting her entire body backwards. The first inch or two was questionable but once her toes reached the books which started two feet away, we definitely have ourselves a toddler!!

Hanging out with Cousin Claudia Valentines weekend in SF.

Oh and once her little toes touched the books, she turned her head around to see what they were and caught sight of all the wires and everything else in the corner. Kid you not, her eyes widened like she had just hit the jacket pot. Within seconds, she overlapped her arms towards one direction turning her entire body around and in complete grasps of her treasures!

No video yet but we’ll definitely try to catch her in action and post some pixs at least.

Hope the rest of you are having a good start to your week. I’m making my debut back at the gym tonight!! Changes these past couple months in going back to work, day care duties between our parents, sleeping patterns etc. prompted some getting uses to. Now that we’re settled into somewhat of a routine, I’m ready to shape up. I’m taking two workout classes (abs and 24 lift for muscle toning and body shaping) at 24hr fitness 5 minutes from our house.

3-Day Weekends Here We Come

Maybe the trick to keeping up with this blog thing is to make it short and sweet :o) Sorry, I know it has been a while for you followers.

Last month, most of us state workers started to get the first and third Fridays off of each month as furlough (no work no pay) to help with our budget crises. I was also able to keep my alternate work schedule of working 9-hour days and every other Friday off. So, with furlough and my work schedule, I'm now getting EVERY Friday off till June of 2010 when the furlough is scheduled to be eliminated. The bad news is two days less pay a month but the good news is I get to spend more time with Katie and Yogi’s exempt from the cuts.

Speaking of the little lady, she’s doing great! She took her 6-month shots last, last Friday and did quite well with the exception of a low fever the days following. We were on high alert just in case. She’s also sleeping very well. She usually wakes once around 2am-ish but the last two nights, she has slept from 8pm to 6am. We thought these nights would never come!!!

We’ve also been trying to get her into solid foods such as rice cereal and grind up vegetables. Unfortunately, her little digestive system needs training and greasing to run smoothly; thus, we’ve been having some pooping challenges as of late. Per docs and nurses, we've been giving her juices and liquids which have been smoothing out those inner engines. You'll never be happy to see poop until you have a child!

Katie’s been really tentative to her surroundings and is starting to recognize each and every one of us. Yogi was playing with her on the playmate Saturday morning when she accidentally fell back and bumped her head. She was more startled than anything. We were both there for her but she had both arms open only to her Daddy. That’s the first time, she showed preference for either of us! She's also really good at following us around the house with her eyes and cries when there’s no one around. Once she gets a hold of us, she’ll do the climbing motion up our arms. When she doesn’t want the bottle, she knows to turn away or spits it back in our faces. It’s amazing how fast she’s learning how to communicate non-verbally.

Her cousin Tyrus has a little walker toy which she’s starting to love. We had her stand up behind the toy, hold the handle and push it forward with us holding her waist for balance. She's able to stand on her own holding onto the handle and will walk faster (assisted) than we can follow. She’s not crawling yet but her new trick when teased to do so is to go from sitting on her butt to all fours and on her belly. It’s the cutest little thing. I tell ya, her restlessness to keep moving is starting to get a bit scary.