Talking and Singing All the Way

The biggest thing about Emily last week was baby talking and singing. Emily showed eagerness of talking when she was about two months old. At that time, Grandma and Grandpa predicted that Emily would be an early talker. But from three months on, she didn't show any sign of an early talker. I began to doubt grandma's prediction. Emily was quiet until last week. She suddenly took off to singing and talking, starting at "Mamamama" and followed by "Dadadada" two days later. Her voice was sooo cute that she made us laugh every time. David and I realized that the prolonged quiet time was a history now. Emily talks whenever she is awake. Luckily she doesn't scream much. Her talk seems to have meanings too. When she dropped her toys or when she was too impatient for the milk, she would look right into our eyes and "Babadadada ...." with various tones, as if saying:"I dropped my toy and I want it back. Could you please pick it up?" or "I'm starving to death. Can you be a little faster?"... We were not used to this yet. When she was in the singing mood at church when everyone else was not singing, we had to take her out. The most enjoyable singing time for mommy and daddy has been in the car. Emily entertained us all the way from church yesterday.

Emily began to have her own will and she will let us know most of the time. She likes chewing on chopsticks, paper, and hair brush these days. If we take any of them away in the middle of her chewing, she will use crying to warn us. So out of sight, out of mind! The best strategy is to hide whatever we don’t want her to put into mouth and distract her with something else. We were thrilled to see two tiny pearl tips popping up from her bottom gum already. From this picture you actually can see a little bit of the white pearl if you can bring the picture to a full size.


We can definitely feel how strong Emily’s leg muscles are becoming. She's apt to lunge forward onto all fours from a sitting position. During the past week, she did lots of "precrawl" exercise, rocking back and forth on hands and knees or shifting directions by moving her upper body on the floor. These pre-mobile days won’t last long. Better enjoy it now and get the house baby-proofed quickly.

Emily went to a play group on Thursday at Nikki’s house. Friday we met Fred and Fang for Fred’s birthday lunch. Saturday we invited several friends from FriendSpeak to our house for lunch and movie. We had some BBQ meat from a Chinese restaurant and baked vegetable. After lunch, we watched the movie “Facing The Giants”. It was the third time for David and I to watch it. But we enjoyed it every time. All our FriendSpeak readers whom we showed the movie before liked it too. The DVD makes a good gift for them.

Sunday we were invited to Gayla’s house for lunch. We had a long and very delicious lunch between the morning service and FriendSpeak. In order for Emily to take her afternoon nap, David and I drove two separate cars to church in the afternoon. Before we knew it, the weekend was gone again!

Here is a video of Emily talking in the exersaucer:


Babies can be obsessed by the new skills that they learned. Here is a recording of Emily singing as soon as she woke up at 5:30am Saturday morning (Her singing made me laugh so it took me a while to go back to zzzz’s again. By the way, the video below is the monitor in our bedroom):

Happy Father's Day

For some reason, I’m more excited about Father’s Day than Mother’s Day. I looked forward to seeing the smiles on David’s face when I sang “Happy Father’s Day”; I anticipated the pride and contentment that rose up as we dedicate one day to him as a father; I dreamt about the joy and happiness that swept away all the tiredness and worries in the early fatherhood; I couldn’t wait to tell him what a wonderful father he is … Emily is lucky to have such a loving dad and I’m blessed to have such a great husband to be my child’s father and our spiritual leader. My sweetheart deserves all the compliment a father could ever receive. Happy Father's Day!

Dad was so kind to offer driving down during the weekend for Father’s Day. After spending a day with Amy and Kendall at Austin, he spent Saturday with us. We went to a BBQ place (Hutchin's) that David wanted to take Dad to experience. It’s in the old town of McKinney. The atmosphere was very unique – barn style arrangement with pans and pots hanging around the lights. Emily was busy looking around while we were mooching in the delicious ribs and sandwiches. I was embarrassed to say that I had two bowls of peach cobbler with icecreams. David joked that we were a perfect match since I ate all the fruit and he liked all the crusts. Here is a picture we took outside the restaurant:

Sunday morning I made blue-berry pancakes with fresh blue-berry jelly for breakfast. David said he wished everyday was a Father’s Day – I realized the area that I definitely needed to improve: making good breakfast on a normal day. I haven’t done that ever since I was pregnant. A delicious breakfast often gave in to the sleep that I craved for. Cereal, fruit, yogurt have been our breakFAST. It’s time to invite other food back to our regular menu. After breakfast, we opened gifts for Dad and David. Since Emily was too young to write, I managed to hold her hand to sign her name on the Father's Day card we made for David. She was so cooperative and her handwriting was much better than I expected. Here is the card:



(Front cover:

F.A.T.H.E.R.S.
"F" aithful.
"A" lways there.
"T" rustworthy.
"H" onoring.
"E" ver-loving.
"R" ighteous.
"S" upportive.

Inside:

God took the strength of a mountain,
The majesty of a tree,
The warmth of a summer sun,
The calm of a quiet sea,
The generous soul of nature,
The comforting arm of night,
The wisdom of the ages,
The power of the eagle's flight,
The joy of a morning in spring,
The faith of a mustard seed,
The patience of eternity,
The depth of a family need,
Then God combined these qualities,
When there was nothing more to add,
He knew His masterpiece was complete,
And so, He called it ... Dad)

Sunday afternoon Owana invited us to lunch at her house with her Chinese reader. It’s been a year since we saw Owana after Bill passed away. We were so glad that she came out of the pain (seemingly) and she is reaching out to others as she and Bill used to do. Occasionally she wiped the corners of her eyes - it's impossible for her not to think of Bill when she saw us. But most of the time we were talking and laughing. Emily took a nap at Owana's back bedroom. Here are pictures of Owana holding Emily:

It’s been very hot these days. But we have so many errands to run during the weekend. Emily did so well getting in and out of the heat several times a day. She sat in the shopping cart or high chair like an elegant princess. She had such a good disposition that wherever she went, people were always attracted to her. She is still having some degree of the stranger anxiety. David takes her for a morning walk on the trail every day. Hopefully she will completely get over the anxiety soon.

Here is a Father's Day prayer for all the fathers:

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all the fathers in the world. Strengthened them as Christian fathers and multiply their influence on this earth. Guide them to be good role models and loving to all their children. Help them to be a father like You are. Let the example of their faith and love shine forth. And help us to honor them always with a spirit of profound respect. I pray in Jesus' name, Amen!

Here is The Strongest Father video (I posted it before but worth reposting): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLUPiAs20i4

http://www.cjcphoto.com/can/

Sippy Cup and First Threw Up

We are still in the blissful parenthood where we brag about our Emily to everyone we talk to. Some people warned us:” She is most likely a fore-runner of a not-so-easy baby …” But let me tell you more about how easy Emily is (sorry:-) ): She is an excellent sleeper; she is a good eater; she tries everything that we give her; she never waggles when we change her diaper; she never wets her bed; she never spit up/out; she seldom (if at all) screams; she is so persistent and focused that she can practice the pincer grasp for 30 minutes if we don’t take her away… whatever she determined to learn, she practices it until she gets it. Below are some things happened in the past week:

She tried the sippy cup for the first time. We took the valve out first and then put it back in. She blowed and spilled out at first but gradually got some water into her mouth:

Emily likes to sleep on her stomach, which surprises me because neither David nor I sleep on the stomach. So when we walk in her room if she is sleeping or just waking up, here is what comes into our eyes:

Emily is so into practicing her vocal skills these days. It was so funny to hear the tiny cute voices that she makes. Her mouth would make different “O” shapes to make those sounds. Sometimes she put her fingers into mouth to help make different sounds too.

Sunday is easier and easier for us. Last Sunday Emily got up at 6:00am and took a morning nap from 8:15am to 10:00am. She almost sat through church except a quick diaper change (I should have changed it before church). In the afternoon she slept from 1:00pm to 3:30pm. Then we went to FriendSpeak and evening service. Many people enjoyed holding her during FriendSpeak and church.

Before we went to FriendSpeak, David fed Emily a small spoon of watermelon. Emily started to cough violently and her face turned red. I thought we were going to have a choking accident. But as soon as David picked her up, she threw up on him and everything was fine again. Apparently she was not ready for the tiny piece yet. Here is a picture of her before her first ever throw-up:


Here are some produce from David’s mini garden in the backyard: peppers, tomatoes, squash, and Okra. We had first jalapeño peppers already. The birds took the first fruit of the cherry tomatoes.

Last week I mentioned that Emily likes to sniff her nose because of her congestion. Some friends thought she was just playing with her nose. She is still doing it today –

As for David and me, our week was uneventful: David got his new glasses but it needs more adjustment. Joey went back to Taiwan for summer vacation on Wednesday so David’s mornings are freed up for the next six weeks. He helped Sue to set up her computers Wednesday night and met with a friend on Thursday night. We went to the hospital to see Todd and Becca’s new baby Marshall Friday night. Saturday David cleaned the house while I spent some time with Emily. We had dinner with Heidi and Hongying Saturday night. Here is a picture of Joey and Emily:

By the way Father’s Day is next Sunday. It's funny that at work, some people spreaded rumors that Father’s Day was last Thursday (by a Morocco mommy) or last Sunday (by a Finland singleton). It was finally straightened up by an American father that it’s NEXT Sunday.

Sleep Trained and First Fall

Recently I came across some articles about baby sleeping. Many said that a 6-month-old should drop the night feeding already. Emily should be able to fast for 12 hours without any problem. But we were still faithfully feeding her if she woke up thinking that she must be hungry. One reason was that she always went back to sleep right away if she ate a little; Another reason was that it's so tempting to quickly put our sweet daughter back to sleep with a satisfying meal.

After reading those articles, I realized that we can't do that anymore. We may be fostering bad habits for her to rely on the bottle to fall asleep and to eat more than what she needs. We’ll have to train her to fall asleep on her own. We tried it before. Sometimes it worked. But most of time it involved cries and guilt. We hadn’t really let her cry out. I secretly wished someday Emily would magically start falling asleep on her own all the time. But from what I read, it won’t happen unless we let her struggle and practice. By being over-protective, we could deprive her of the opportunities to learn a valuable, age appropriate, new skill. Sleep training might be one of the millions difficult situations that we as parents have to discern what is the best for Emily in the future. The best thing we can do is to let her know that we are with her when she struggles to grow - and jump in when she really needs our help.

So Monday was the day that we decided to stop the night feeding and put her down awake every time. Emily went to bed easily before 7:00pm. I rehearsaled many times what I was going to do if she woke up crying: pat her first, then hold her if patting doesn’t work, then 2 oz milk if nothing works (normally we gave her 6 oz at night). No wavering!! … Luckily Emily didn’t wake up until 5:30am. David got up and held Emily until she realized that nothing was going to happen. She went back to sleep. Not bad!!! Tuesday night she wouldn’t settle unless she had 2 oz of milk. I was surprised that she went to sleep contently after only 2 oz without extra holding. Wednesday night she went back to sleep after 2 oz of water instead (which told me that she didn’t need the milk). Thursday night she woke up at around 3:00am. David and I stayed in bed listening what was going on. She talked to herself on and off for about 15 minutes (that kind of cute little girl's whispering voice!). Then she went back to sleep on her own. No cry spills. Yeah!!! By Friday, we were completely confident that she can fall asleep on her own. Emily seemed to have realized that too. She used to cry when we put her down awake. Now she immediately works on putting herself to sleep and she always can within two minutes. She must have mastered the secret of falling asleep. I would asked her what it is if she could speak because I can't fall asleep that fast!!

We are so proud of her for this big milestone! What a joy to see that she gains confidence in herself too! The whole process was so smooth – actually we thought it was too easy because we expected a couple of long crying episodes. There were times that 2 minutes crying seems to be forever. But we were glad that we didn’t jump right up and pick her up. That could be harder on Emily and on us in the future. Now Emily is an even happier baby because she doesn't cry at all when we put her down in bed awake. She cries less and smile more in other situations too (which we suspect the result of her gaining confidence). We are truely blessed with such a calm, contented, smart, sweet, and beautiful daughter!! Here is a picture of Emily - As soon as she rubbed her eyes. I carried her to bed from the play station. When I checked on her two minutes later, she was sound asleep. Go Emily!!!

Emily had her first fall yesterday. I put her at the edge of the bed while I sat on the floor to pick a birthday card for Fang. She normally sat pretty well and she didn't move much. So I was flipping through the cards and asked her:"How is this card? Do you like it?" Suddenly I heard "Peng" and I realized what had happened. She fell off to the ground probably when she leaned over trying to see what was in my hand. She cried with tears. I was scared and picked her up. After much poking and twisting, she seemed to be fine. Little Angels were watching for her! No broken bones or bruises! I held her for extra love and promised her to be very careful in the future. She was as happy as she used to be.

We've been having hot tiles in the master bathroom and hearing the Siii water sound for a while. It turned out that our hot water pipe broke. We hired a plumber and it costed $1500 to fix it.

Joey has been studying with David every weekday morning except Wednesday. We are constantly encouraged by how far he comes each day. Last week he asked David to teach him how to pray since he wanted to make wise life decisions. This week he told David that he talked to his girlfriend in Taiwan about Christinality and God. He is going back to Taiwan for the summer vacation. But before he leaves, he planned to read a couple of Christian books during the vacation. Yesterday he took a CFA test. He emailed us that he was much more confident after he said a prayer. He is such a nice guy with a tender heart. We know that God has special purpose for his life. We are glad that David's reader Hongyu and his wife Sandy came to church today. I wished we could go out for lunch together. But Emily looked sleepy and it was her nap time. We hurried home and she took a good two hour nap.

Summer officially starts this weekend for many families who have school kids. Several of my co-workers already mapped out the vacation plans. My boss is going to take vacation next week. Below is a picture of what happened in our group a few years ago when she took a vacation (we took a group picture and added a Miami resort background then sent it to her :-)) … I wonder what will happen this year.

Emily has been having stuffed nose for the past several days. She was so cute to sniff her little nose trying to clear the congestion ...

Here are Emily reading the Chinese-English picture book




This is a video of Emily working on her arms. She hasn't crawled yet. But it seems that she's trying.

Mary's party and Missionaries fellowship

Wednesday night Mary Biggers invited us to her house for her reader Lucy’s birthday party. Upon entering her house, Mary’s son Andrew informed me that “It’s Lucy’s birthday. Lucy doesn’t have many friends here. So we want to make her feel loved…” What a little outreaching fellow he is! We had a delicious dinner, a wonderful time of fellowship, and a birthday song in both English and Chinese. More pictures at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Prestoncrest-FriendSpeak/171452815022

Saturday we spent the whole day running errands. We went to 1st Eye Care to shop for David’s eye glasses in the morning. On the way out, we got flat tire. David tried to change the tire at a neighborhood street. His tool was broken. Luckily we had AAA. After we put on the temporary tire, we had lunch at Steak N Shake, where we had one free coke and one free milk shake besides two coupons we had. We loved its banana and strawberry milk shake. It was so light and refreshing! After that, we changed the tire, did grocery shopping, and visited BabyrUS.

Flat Tire

First Time Using Highchair in the Restaurant

Grab Sandwich from Mom's tray and Reach for Daddy's milk shake

Sunday we went to the early service to meet our friends from ACU. They are going to move back to China in a few days. Emily was so cooperative. She woke up at the right time so that I wouldn’t feel guilty messing up her Sunday schedule. After she took a long nap in the afternoon, Gary and Danita got to see Emily for the first time during FriendSpeak. Leslie joined us for evening church and all church fellowship for missionaries. Isobell Vicks met Emily for the first time. We wished we could have chance to watch the videos that our missionaries prepared.

With Leslie, Mark, and Gary

Amy McAfee said she has been dying to hold Emily. So she got to hold her and feed her during the all church fellowship time. Emily almost fell asleep ...

Here's Emily with our preacher Gordon (she's teething and drooling now so one of her fingers will end up being in her mouth)

Gordon played with Emily (she didn't laugh in this picture. But when I tried to take pictures when she laughed hard, my camera battery died)

Here are some other pictures of this week: