June Update

Andy is 2 months old today! We sang Happy Birthday song to him as soon as he woke up in the morning. David is off today so we are having a long happy July 4th weekend! Andy has pretty much a regular schedule now: sleeping at 9:30pm- 8:30am with three feedings in between (1:30am, 4:30am, and 6:30am), napping at 10:30am, 1:30pm, 4:30pm and any other cat naps here and there. He doesn't sleep long during the day. So that keeps me occupied almost all through the day. I can't believe that he had his first fall accident already! He fell off the sofa while I was in the kitchen. I felt terrible afterwards. I wished my hugs and kisses would wipe off all the fears and tears that came with the fall. I asked Andy's forgiveness. To my surprise, he started to coo back with a pleasant smile as if he was carrying a real conversation. He has smiled to people for a while. But that was the first time when he intentionally cooed back. He is such a sweet boy and it just made my day! Like his sister, he liked the book Good Night Moon and talked to it when he is read to.

Andy usually is happy after his naps. But he has to go back to sleep within one hour. It has been challenging for me to put him back to sleep. What worked yesterday may not work today. I'm constantly looking for a new way to sooth him. Recently he had crying spells almost every night between 6:00 and 9:00. But no matter how difficult it was, the ultimate reward of holding a sweet sleeping child against my chest was priceless. When our missionary friend Eileen stayed with us, I told her how much work it takes to raise a child. She said to me "You are raising a man!" She was right: I am raising a MAN, a mighty man of God, a future adopted son whom God loves dearly. Every time when I thought about this, I thought about Mary. How did she raise Jesus when she knew that she was raising the only Son of God? Did she have difficulties putting baby Jesus down for a nap? Without the modern soothers like swings, swaddling blankets, car seats, bouncers, disposable diapers, etc., I bet she had to come up many creative ways to soothe babies. Bible didn't give me much clue except saying that she "treasured all these things in her heart". Wouldn't it be nice if God gave us a step by step parenting menu on how to raise babies? It was precious to see our Andy's sweet sleeping face; it was precious to hear his rhythmatic breathing and tiny sleeping sounds; it was precious to meet his smiling eyes; ... it was precious to mother him. There are some things that a mother can not share with others, that can not be captured by cameras. I'll treasure all these things in my heart also!

We learned a lot in the process of taking care of Andy. We learned the baby's sleeping cycle and the twenty minutes rule; we learned to alternate positions in feeding, holding, sleeping, etc. to prevent the flat spot; we learned to practice rocker, pacifier, and swaddling since Emily never got to use any of these. Andy developed a severe flat spot on the right side of his head during the first couple of weeks. We started aggressive correction remedy. Every time after putting him to sleep, I would wait for at least 15 minutes to make sure his head stays at the left side. He woke up many times because of that, but it's better to have inconvenience now than regret later.

Visit with Grandpa (Happy Father's Day Grandpa!!!)

First bath

In order to relieve some of my stress and provide Emily a better environment, my sweet husband decided to hire some helpers to come over to play with Emily every day. Cindy, Ziyun, and Weiting (They are all UTD students, two are FriendSpeak readers) became Emily's best buddies. Besides our regular helpers, Jerry's mom brought over lots of food for us one day. Joey brought us some Japanese desert. Dawn brought us lunch and took care of Andy. When Eileen stayed with us, she cleaned and organized the kitchen for us and cooked meals. All these help made Andy's second month much easier. We went out to the Great Wall Chinese buffet for dinner one night. Andy did exceptionally well. We also took the new family photo at Portrait Innovation. Can you tell that these two are siblings?

(Emily Dec. 2008)

(Andy June 2010)

Here is a quick summary on Emily:

Emily really enjoys playing with her adult friends every day. Her vocabulary expanded so quickly that we had difficulty catching up with her. She says two words sentences now, such as "Andy's crying" or "Andy kup (Andy woke up)", "Go outside", "Get down", "Thank you", "I love you", "Good girl", "Dirty ball", "Dad's home", "More rice", etc. She calls Andy's monitor "Andy's phone". Emily says "Andy crying" hundreds of times a day even when Andy is not crying. David said she must think Andy's last name is "Crying".

Emily and Cindy

Emily and Ziyun

Emily and Weiting (playing soccer)

Emily still loves balls and her blanket. We had some cherry tomatos in the vegetable garden. Unfortunately the birds ate the first batch of red tomatos. The rabbit ate the second batch. David tried to get the third batch. One day after a brief walk with Emily in the backyard, Emily ran to David with excitement:" Daddy, see! Balls, balls ..." She had picked the green cherry tomatos.


Emily loves reading now. She would gather all her books around her and sit down to read on her own. Her attention span has increased a lot. She can sit and finish reading five or six books at a time. She can also build the 10-cup block tower by herself and know the majority of the alphabet. I'm so proud of her!

Well, I can't say enough how much Emily loves her brother. She thinks about Andy all the time. She gives Andy hugs and kisses dozens of time a day. And I am so glad that she is very sweet to him.





Emily did have some regression after she had a baby brother. She began to show interest in the milk bottle, pacifier, baby swing, baby car seat, etc.


Sundays are always the busiest day of the week. When we got home late one Sunday, Emily was so hungry. As soon as David put her on the chair and I put the dinner on the table, Emily yelled out "Amen, Amen!" before we even sat down to say the prayer. She got it right that she can't start eating without saying "Amen".


Emily is more and more independant. She likes to wear her pink sunglasses. But she always puts it up side down. She prefers feeding herself with spoons. She can also put on her shoes - often backwards.

Emily got lots of compliment on her curly hair. They are so long when they are wet. She loves water (which she calls wa-ta-ta). David took her to the community pool to play. She smiled from ear to ear every second when she was there. David also took her to the mall play area a couple of times. She loved those daddy-daughter dates. Mosquitos love Emily. She constantly got red bumps all over her body. Now whenever she heard mosquitos, she would say "zzzz, bug!" and clap her hands as if she was killing the mosquitos.

For Father's Day, we made the chocolate chip cookies for David and served them on the red "You Are Special" plate with the milk. We love you sweetheart! You are the best father for our kids!!!

Dance with Daddy

Happy July 4th!!! (Emily and Daddy made this cake)

Here are a couple of videos:

Life with two kids

In one sense, time flies! Today is Andy's one month birthday. In the other sense, as someone said, "the days are long and the years are short". For the parents who are in the middle of taking care of a new born and a 18 months old at the same time, it's so easy to lose perspective.

People remember the hard time and challenges the most. If I tell you that it's not hard to take care of two babies - I'm lying. Although I was prepared mentally before Andy was born, the reality still hit me when Emily cried almost to vomiting because I refused to hold her while I was feeding Andy. Emily had her "Big Sister" t-shirt on but she didn't know what it truly meant for her. Since Emily had cold and diarhea for almost two weeks right after Andy was born, even she was so gentle and sweet to Andy, I still tried to isolate her in order to protect Andy. The pain of rejection was real to our 18 months old princess, just as the pain of not being able to pick her up and love on her like I did before was real to me. I didn't care that I couldn't get a nap because Emily and Andy had different schedules. I didn't care that I was still recovering physically. But I care that my sweet daughter couldn't get the love she deserves. When both babies cried, all I could do was to hold Andy and let Emily hold my legs. One night, Emily jumped out of her crib and cried to our bedroom! I wished I had more hands to meet both babies' needs at the same time, Luckily things are getting better every day. Now Emily is recovered from the sickness and she is well adjusted. She has grown so much in one month! When I fed Andy, she just sat at my feet. When I told her not to wake up Andy, she would tip-toe around Andy's bed. She thought about Andy all the time and she is very gentle to him.

"It takes a village to raise a child". That's certainly true for me. I couldn't have made the one month mark without the "village" around me. Gayla was the most helpful person who took care of Emily whenever she could. She played with Emily, took her out and watch over her while we were gone. Dad took care of Emily for two days while we were in the hospital. Nadia came to cook, clean, and play with Emily as soon as she came back from the vacation. That was such a big help that I couldn't imagine what it would be without her. Until now every time when the door bell rings, Emily would say "Nadia!" Fang, Dawn, Kathy, Angela, Lori, Kyri, Nikki, Louella, Sandy, and Jean Ann brought meals to us when we couldn't even find a time to eat a family meal. We literally lived on these meals each every day. Our friendspeak readers Cindy and Michelle came to play with Emily whenever they can so that I could take care of Andy and other thing without too much stress. Thank you everyone for blessing our family with your love, time, service and thoughtfulness! We will remember this forever!

Emily and Gayla

Emily and Nadia

Andy is a sweet boy - really! I can already see the easy going personality in him. By now, he is in 75 percentile by weight and height. He is such a clean eater that we hardly used any bibs or burping cloth. He has charming sleep grins that can melt anybody's heart. Just recently he gave me two big open mouth, whole face smiles! I wish I caught them in the video. His crying is like a talking that he tried to use his eyes and crying voice to tell us something. That made me wanting to be a good student to decode his language. David and I have learned so much from him on how to be a better parent. He likes to be held tightly and danced to sleep (David couldn't believe this: after we tried swaddling, swinging, holding, rocking, sucking and all failed, I invented the dance for "Jesus Loves Me" and it worked 99 percent of time to calm him and put him to sleep in two minutes! When it worked the first time, Andy let out a big sigh and gave me a beautiful grin. That brought tears in my eyes.) David used to sing "Jesus loves me" to him and say "You are in Daddy's arms, safe and secure" over and over during the sleepless nights. Needless to say, our hearts were stolen by this helpless and beautiful child. We are certainly growing with him!

There are so much to write about. But I'll wait till when I have time. Most people are more interested in the pictures than the words. So for now, here are some pictures of the month:

Emily took her baby for a walk

Emily helped Daddy to plant the grass

Emily was so tired that she fell asleep in the middle of lunch

My friend Kathy bought us a car toy when she came over to see Andy. Emily loved it!

Emily also got the water table to play with. See how happy she was!

Shopping girl

Emily fed her baby

When I couldn't lift Emily unto the highchair, she climbed onto it with a stool.

David's reader Joey and his mom and his brother (from Taiwan) came to visit us. Joey told David that he wanted to be baptized. It brought tears in David's eyes.

Andy is here!

(It takes all the time and energy to take care of two little ones. Hopefully I will catch up and return to the blog land soon ... )

Our son Andy Austin Woodward was born at 5:48pm, Sunday May 2nd, 2010, in Centennial Hospital in Frisco TX. He weighed 6 pounds and 13 oz and was 21 inches long.

We are so excited and thankful for this blessing from God. We look forward to raising our two kids with our family and friends to love and serve the Lord!

Here is a re-cap of the birth experience:

12:00am Sunday I began to feel little stream of water but not sure whether the water broke or not. We called Gayla to watch Emily and headed to the hospital.

Saturday midnight/before going to the hospital

The nurse wasn't sure whether the water broke or not. She did a half-hour test and it was positive. So we stayed in the hospital and waited for the labor to start. The labor didn't progress much until the doctor came at 9:30am in the morning to break the water from the bottom. It turned out my water broke from the top.

The nurse who attended the birth Jennifer Conway was very encouraging and kind. David was the best labor coach. The whole birthing experience was so much better than the first time around. Andy arrived safe and healthy. We were so glad that he was able to room in with us. That was the experience we missed when Emily was born.

The next day, the hospital gave us a celebration meal. David had lobster and steak, baked potato, grilled asparagus, 6-inch tall cheesecake, imported fruit juice; and I had chicken and shrimp, vegetable, fruit salad, chocolate milk. The meal was delivered on a round table covered with white table cloth with fresh flowers and candles. That was the best hospital meal we've ever had although we liked every meal there. When the staff came to pickup the table, we told her how nice it was. She said she wished the hospital would do that for them on their birthday ...

We came home on May 4th. We had a lot better experience at Centennial hospital than at Presbyterian in Plano. Everyone and everthing were beyond our expectations.

Dad has been taking care of Emily while we were in the hospital. He did such a great job and I'm not sure we could have done better than him. Amy and Kendall came in on Thursday. David made two cakes for Amy and Dad for their birthdays (Did I mention that Andy was born on Amy's birthday?). We were so glad that we could spend some family time together to celebrate Andy's birth.

Welcome home from Emily and Grandpa

Family picture

By the way, Happy Mother's Day!