Ashley Is 13 Month Old Today

No doubt this month is the toughest month for Ashley & Mommy since she was born. Ashley got sick for the first time soon after her first year vaccines. Then she got some side effects (stuffy running nose, sneezing, fever) after the flu shot she got this Monday. She was perfectly fine before all of those shots, it makes me wonder if it's all worth it getting the flu shot. Poor baby! Mommy has been all alone taking care of Ashley, and Mommy is getting sick as well.

Here are some highlights and milestones of this month.

1. She finally got her first 2 upper teeth at the same time!

2. She understands a lot nowadays. She knows to fetch the ball, get the duck, press the music bottom when you ask her to do it.

3. She is more talkative, sometimes for a pretty long sentence as if she is starting a conversation with you. She knows to say "Ya Ya", Chinese for duck, except she says, "Yaaaaaaaaa Daaaaa". She can also say "Nai Nai", Chinese for milk milk.

4. She knows to turn on the TV by pressing the bottom on the front of the TV.

5. She loves to dance and can dance by standing up holding onto some furniture.

6. She can stand without support for 10 seconds or so.

7. If you put her against the door, let go and put your arms out, she can walk towards you in a couple of steps.

8. She loves to lay around Mommy on the floor whenever she sees Mommy laying around. She lays around by Mommy's head, Mommy's arms, Mommy's legs, twisting her body and laughs. Sometimes she decides to kiss Mommy's face, arms, legs, and stinky toes for no reasons. She is such a sweetie.

9. She loves to go behind Mommy, plays peek-a-boo, grabs Mommy's hair, Mommy's hair clip and bursts out giggling.

10. She loves to listen to Mommy reading books to her and she can points out the little bunny, little chick, little duck on the book.







At Logan's birthday party.



















Hanging out by the pool.



















Dancing by the coffee table. OK, OK, OK, I know it doesn't look like she was dancing, but believe me, she was.

Brave Girl

Ashley got her very first flu shot today. It was very quick, in a couple of seconds it was done. Ashley originally didn't know what was happening until couple of seconds after it was done, she then started to cry with a delay. But she is a brave girl, the crying only lasted a few seconds, and by the time Mommy carried Ashley to look at the mirror, she already stopped crying. I hope she doesn't develop any side effects this time.

This reminds me that 3 days after she was born, she was supposed to get Hepatitis B vaccine. Mommy couldn't bear seeing little baby Ashley crying, and decided to wait anxiously inside the patient room. All the sudden, I heard a loud crying that lasted only a couple of seconds, and it stopped. The nurse pushed Ashley back and praised, "She is such a brave girl!"

Yes, Ashley is a brave little baby and Mommy knows she'll grow up a very brave girl one day!

Home Alone With Ashley 4 - Part 2

Over the weekend, Ashley recovered completely from her first sickness. She is back to her usual happy, funny self. Not sure if spoon feeding her the milk while she was sick made her didn't want to drink much from the bottle or not. But over the weekend, I found myself spooning feeding Ashley milk after she didn't drink much from the bottle at most of the feedings. I didn't want her to get used to the idea, so I told the nanny not to spoon feed her any milk any more.

So, what did Daddy miss over these couple weeks?

1. Of course, he missed Ashley being sick. It was very tough looking after a baby let alone looking after a sick baby.

2. After almost 3 months since her first tooth appeared, her long-waited upper teeth are finally coming in! YEEAAAAH! I think there are two coming in at the same time. When I tried to touch her upper gum the last time, she bit down pretty hard. She can bite now!

3. Whenever I have dinner, I put Ashley on her high chair and every now and then when she gets bored, I go behind her chair and play peek-a-boo with her. She loves the game and giggles so much. She learns to play this fun game. A couple of times, I would sit on a little chair, Ashley would crawl over behind me and starts to giggling. And if I turn my head to catch her, she giggles even more. It's pretty funny just listening to her giggling out loud.

4. Ashley learned to drink from the straw! We had been giving her the cup that comes with a straw, but every time she either chewed on it, played with it or threw it away. The other day when I came home, the nanny told me that Ashley can drink from the straw! Ever since then, she gets the straw cup filled with water and she has been drinking a lot of water.

5. For some reasons, Ashley loves Mommy's hair clip. Every time she sees me with the hair clip, she would push my face aside so that she can grab the hair clip. Of course sometimes she just pulls it along with some hair and of course it hurts. She also loves to go behind my back while I'm sitting on the little chair, and tries to grab the hair clip and she would just burst out laughing. It must be funny to her, but at the same it's fun to Mommy to see Ashley giggling so hard.

6. Ashley recognizes duck! Last weekend, when I was at a store with her, there were some rubber ducks sitting on the counter. They look a bit different than her rubber ducks at home, but Ashley recognized them right aways. Her face lighted up, and she pointed to them and started babbling. The salesperson gave her one duck and she loves it.

7. Ashley loves to go out and is a social butterfly. She now knows to request to go out. She often points to outside or to the door and babbles, I think it means she wants to go out. And if you take out then, she is all happy. When she grows up, it won't surprise me that she becomes a party animal!

Home Alone With Ashley 4 - Part 1 / Ashley Is Sick

After being home for 4 days from his last trip, Daddy is away again for business trip since last Thursday. YES! AGAIN!!!!

The long weekend started smoothly. Ashley was her usual self, happy and playful. Untie Susan came and visited us. It gave Mommy a chance to slip out to do grocery shopping while Ashley was taking her nap. After her nap, we went for a walk around the neighborhood where Ashley saw lots of ducks swimming in the pond.

Sunday afternoon, Mommy took Ashley to Logan's first birthday party. Logan is one of the babies in Ashley's play group. All babies in the play group were born around the same time. Ashley had a lot of fun playing here.

Things started going to the opposite direction Sunday evening. For some reason, Ashley refused to eat any solid food for dinner on Sunday evening. Mommy tried to give her different types of food, she refused all of them even her favorite Beef Carrot and Corn. Running out of ideas, Mommy decided to give Ashley some avocados. Ashley took some of them but she then threw up on the some piece of avocado. Mommy then smashed the avocado, again Ashley took some and then threw up again and she still refused to eat or drink anything. With no choice, Mommy put Ashley to sleep. It was about 9 PM.

Soon after Ashley went to sleep Sunday night, she woke up crying at 12 midnight, then at 2AM, 4AM and 6AM. She had high fever. Mommy tried to rock her to sleep for 20 minutes each time, but she was still crying. At the end, Mommy just sat with her in the rocking chair until she felt asleep.

Labor Day Monday was probably the toughest. Ashley had high fever the whole day despite the Tylenol Mommy gave her. She refused any baby food, just took some milk. She was uncomfortable, fuzzy, cranky and in pain, and was crying all the time. Mommy had to hold her and hug her constantly. At the moment I put her down, she would start crying. Mommy even had to go to the bathroom holding Ashley. Ashley normally crawls so fast, but she must feel so bad that she crawled in slow motion, like a little snail.

Monday night, Ashley woke up again every two hours crying with high fever. Even her hands and feet were so hot. I gave her some more Tylenol and tried to put a cold towel on her head but she pushed away. I tried to feed her some liquid, but she hardly had any. She was obviously in pain, but I couldn't do much except holding her, hugging her, comforting her, giving her a lot of love, and singing to her in the rocking chair until she felt asleep.

Mommy was so exhausted Tuesday. It was so difficult for one person to look after a sick baby, so Mommy decided to take a day off looking after Ashley with the nanny. The nanny and I took turn holding Ashley, feeding her and comforting her. she still had high fever and was still cranky and fuzzy. It was very painfully to see Ashley so uncomfortably in pain yet she couldn't tell you what was wrong with her. Poor baby! Mommy just wished that I was the one who was sick instead of her, and that I could just give her the immunity she needed to fight off the sickness.

She still refused to eat any baby food and by Tuesday afternoon, she only had less than 12 oz of milk. Worrying about her, Mommy decided to take Ashley to see the doctor with the help of the nanny. The doctor checked her out and said there were 3 possibilities. One, she got the fever from her 1 year vaccines. Two, her upper teeth are coming in and that might causes fever. Three, she might have stomach flu. The doctor said that a healthy baby's immune system will fight it off the virus, and in a couple more days she should be better. She asked us to make sure she has enough fluid intake and at least has 2 wet diapers, and that we might have to force feeding her liquid so that she won't be dehydrated. If she is dehydrated, we have to take her back to the doctor and they can do IV to her. But of course that's the last choice.

After we got home, both the nanny and I spoon fed Ashley some more milk, but the whole day she had around 17 oz of milk only. Tuesday night, she was still waking up every couple of hours but her fever seemed to be better.

Wednesday, Mommy took another day off. Ashley's fever seemed to be gone by the end of the day, but she was still hardly eating any baby food, just some milk. But she seemed to have a bit more energy. Wednesday night, she still woke up every now and then, but she didn't cry and didn't have fever any more.

Thursday morning, Ashley's fever was gone and she seemed to be better although Mommy noticed that she had some rash on her forehead. So Mommy decided to go back to work. In the afternoon, after calling the nanny, I found out that Ashley had rash breaking out all over her body. So I decided to call the doctor again. After some discussion, the advised nurse told me that what Ashley had is the childhood virus, Roseola. It happens to most babies between 6 months to 2 year old. The rash comes in after the high fever is gone, and the rash should disappear in 1 to 2 days.

Thursday night, Ashley was better and was able to have a little bit solid food. On Friday, she started to eat more baby food. So, after about almost 1 week, Ashley is recovered from her first sickness. Mommy is so exhausted and burned out, but at the same time is so relieved to see Ashley back to her happy self. Her energy level started to come back slowly and she is starting to crawl faster and faster.

What a week!