Change My Diaper Please / I Want To GO Out / TV Is On / I Want To Listen To Music or Watch This Show / Get Up Mommy! / Weight Lifting

Ashley is getting cuter and smarter each day. Every now and then when she poops, she points to her butt and says, "poooo pooooo". Most of times it means that she poops, and of course sometimes it just means she pees or farts.

While we were visiting my parents last month, one evening we were all having dinner and all the sudden Ashley just walked over to the living room, crabbed her changing mat from the sofa, put it down on the floor and lay herself down with her legs up. She was basically telling us, "Change my diaper please!"

It was so funny and cute.

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Ashley loves to go outside and she was especially so when we were in Philadelphia. Everyday, Mommy, Daddy and PoPo took turn to take her out for a walk. She quickly recognized she needed her shoes, her jacket to go outside. So she would grab her shoes and jacket to you indicating that she wanted to go outside.

What a smart baby! :-)

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After many experiments, Ashley figured out how to turn on the TV. When she turns on TV and there is no picture since the cable box is not on, she would come to your side, points to the TV and makes baby sounds, saying, "Hey, the TV this on!"

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Ashley loves to listen to the music and watches baby video. Every time she wants to listen to the music or watch her show, she grabs the CD or the video, gives them to you and babbling, "eee, eee, oh", she's saying, "I want to listen to this CD/watch this show!" And if you still don't know what she's talking about, she grabs your hand and put it on the CD/Video case, and points to the computer. Now, you got what she's trying to say?

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Every morning, after feeding Ashley, I often just lay around on the floor and play with her. Lately, when she doesn't want me to be laying down, she would grab my hair and pulls it up while babbling. If I still don't move, she would start pushing my shoulder until I get up. "Get up Mommy!" that's what she's trying say.

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Although Ashley is a tiny girl, she got big muscle and loves to lift weigh (she must got that from Mommy!). The other day, she was playing around the dining area where are some several 1-gallon bottles of water laying around. She started picking those half emptied bottles and moving them to the chair. After she was done with those, she started trying to pick up those full bottles, and of course she can't lift them yet, so she started babbling and pointing to the bottles. Well, Ashley, if you eat more, you might be able to lift those bottles!

First Step Of Freedom

For a longest time, Ashley had been cruising around holding onto furniture and was able to walk for a couple of steps without any support. But the magic moment of the walking never came. I for one, was never worrying about her not walking yet. Deep inside, I still wanted my little baby to be a little baby who just lays around in Mommy's arm.

Little did I know, the magic moment can come at any time when you least expected. The day Ashley turned 14 month on Friday, October 30th, 2009 while we were visiting my parents in Philadelphia, I was chatting with my Mom in the kitchen, all the sudden, I saw Ashley somehow pushed herself up on her legs in the middle of living room and started walking towards us, and then happily walked into my arms. It was at least like 10 steps! Later on that night, she walked again by herself. She finally reached one of the most important milestones. She's free!

Ever since then, she has been walking everywhere. Although she still walks like she's a bit drunk and falls here and there, but she walks faster and faster, and with more confident each time. You hardly see her crawls at all. Amazingly, she walks and then sits on her butt, but she can somehow push herself up right away on a single leg, How does she do that?

I'm very happy that Ashley is officially a toddler now and finally reached her first step of freedom, she is no longer a 4-legged "animal". Yet at the same time, I'm already yearned for the little tiny baby that I once had. How does she grow up so fast???!!

The Journey Of A Milk Cow

One of the most amazing moments of Ashley's birth that often strikes out in my mind is that soon after Ashley was born, the nurse brought Ashley to my recovery room and the minute Ashley and Mommy had skin-to-skin contact, she latched right away to be breast fed. It's one of those most intimate feelings that is hard to describe with words.

During the next 3 days in the hospital, little Ashley and the new mom worked together trying to figure out how to do breast feeding. At those 3 days, milk didn't come in and all we got was colostrum and the latching wasn't working correctly for the most of the time. The first night, the nurse started hand expressed the milk after Ashley finished sucking and then gave her the rest of expressed milk. Often little Ashley would fall asleep after sucking so hard for while and Mommy ended with bruised and crapped nipples. By the 3rd day in the hospital, Ashley's weight dropped from 7 lb 3 oz to 6 lbs and 12 oz. Worrying about her weight, the doctor suggested Mommy to start pumping after each feeding and gave Ashley the pumped milk using a syringe. Those initial pumping was very painful. By the time we checked out of the hospital, the milk still hadn't come in fully and Ashley's weight dropped to 6 lbs and 8 oz.

I still vividly remembered the first day we got home from the hospital both Mommy and Daddy were so worried about Ashley not getting enough food. Daddy went and bought a can of formula and gave Ashley 1 oz of formula. Mommy continued to pump after each feeding. Miracle happened right away, Mommy's milk came in and Ashley had plenty of milk supply and never needed the formula again. Since then Mommy became a highly productive milk cow. Not only did Mommy have enough milk for Ashley, Mommy also had plenty of leftover milk after each feeding to save up. We never had to worry about not having enough milk.

For her first month of life, Mommy breastfed Ashley for the most of times and only a couple of times we fed her the breast milk with a bottle. By the 2nd month of her life, we started to try using bottle to feed Ashley. But Ashley was so used to be breastfed, she refused the bottle every single time (Really, who wouldn't? Human nipple is so much better than a rubber nipple and besides, it felt so warm to be cuddling next to Mommy!) During her meal time in the afternoon and evening, Mommy would go out so that Ashley wouldn't smell Mommy and PoPo or Daddy would try to feed her with a bottle. An hour or so after, Mommy would receive a phone call from PoPo and Daddy with Ashley crying on the background. The milk cow was asked to return to work. By the time I got home, I could hear Ashley's crying from parking lot, the minute I got home, Ashley saw her dearest milk cow and stopped crying immediately. She knew her milk cow was home and she had food again!

The bottle training went on for more than 2 months and Ashley still wouldn't drink from the bottle. By the end of 3 months, Mommy had to go back to work, and somehow, Ashley would need to and have to drink from the bottle. So we decided to do cold turkey on her and only offered her the bottle. The first day, the last time Ashley was breastfed was at 3AM, and every time we gave her the bottle, she would cry and fuzz, and then stopped and played, but still refused the bottle. For 18 hours, she refused to drink from the bottle. By 8 PM at night, she started to drink from the bottle. Thank God! What a relief! The 2nd day, she would fuzz and cry at each feeding session, but by the end, she would drink from the bottle each time. The 3rd day, she drunk from the bottle without any problem. YEAAAHHH!!!!

Although Mommy enjoyed and missed the closeness and the bonding from breastfeeding, and the most rewarding satisfied smile Ashley gave to Mommy at each feeding, we were concerned that if we alternated between breastfeeding and bottle feeding, Ashley might get confused or she might just refuse the bottle again. It was very difficult to get her to drink from the bottle finally, so we didn't really want to risk it despite how much Mommy enjoyed the breastfeeding. We decided to feed Ashley breast milk in a bottle and Mommy would continue to pump.

So the milk cow started her pumping journey since November 2008 and continued to provide plentiful of milk and save up lots of frozen milk in the freezer. The milk cow would pump out 29 oz to 27 oz of milk each day. Ashley was exclusively on breast milk the whole time. By 9 months, we decided to introduce formula. And of course stubborn Ashley refused to drink any formula. She could even taste the 2 oz of formula mixed with 2 oz of breast milk, and completely refused it. So we persistently offered her the formula at her first feed thinking that she might hungry enough to accept the formula. Slowly, Ashley accepted the formula. Since then, the highly productive milk cow got to slow down the milk production. The milk cow started to pump 6 times a day and slowly cut down to 2 pumps each month and milk production started from 29 oz, to 25 oz, to 21 oz and so on to 11 oz for 2 pumps. Meanwhile, we slowly increased the number of formula bottles from 1, to 2 and then to 3. Finally Ashley accepted the formula without any hesitation and she drunk both formula and breast milk alternatively.

At the end of last month, we planned to visit my parents in East Coast for a week, and Mommy and Daddy would go for a cruise for 5 days without Ashley. Since Ashley was turning 14 month old, it was time to for the milk cow to retire. No one had ever told me that weaning off the breast milk is as hard as getting breast milk. Mommy started to just pump once, and then every other day. Mommy was so engorged and painful for 4 days and finally thanks to the Chinese herbs, the milk production finally went away. After 11 months of pumping, the milk cow is officially retired!

Ashley now drinks formula and frozen breast milk alternatively (Yes, the milk cow actually had enough leftover milk to last Ashley maybe for another 2 months!) and probably completely forgot the taste of fresh breast milk. Mommy can no longer eat big meal, shovel spoons of ice cream directly from the box, have excuse for eating so much, and not worry about gaining weight. Instead, Mommy starts the calories counting days and mesmerizes those good old days.

Really, at the end, it's the milk cow who truly misses breastfeeding instead of little Ashley.

Scratch My Back Please! / Stinky Mommy! / New Words

Ashley loves to have her back scratched and her ears cleaned. She is so mobile and active nowadays that it's very hard to keep her still. However, every time her back gets scratched or her ears get cleaned, she just sits there quietly without any movement enjoying being pampered. So the other day after Daddy scratched Ashley's back, she immediately pointed her fingers to her back and babbled, "hmmmmm! hmmm!!" as if she was saying, "More! More!" and ordered Daddy to scratch her back more.

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Ashley says, "chuuu, chuuu" indicating stinky, and shakes her hands when we change her diapers. She knows the meaning of stinky and the other day Mommy came out of bathroom and saw Ashley looking at me and shaking her hands, and babbling, "chuuuuuu". I can't help to burst out laughing. She's so cute!


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Ashley's new words:

1. 'aaaaappoo" for apple and she points to the picture of an apple.
2. "aaaaashhhh" for Ashley. She can't say Ashley yet.
3. "baooobaooo" for bao bao (chinese for baby)
4. She blows a kiss if I asks her to blow me a kiss in Chinese.

Walking / Ashley's vacabulary / Bib / Hair Clip

Ashley has been cruising around holding on furniture for a while. One morning last week, I was sitting on a chair not far from her toy piano, She first held on to the coffee table, and shifted over to the toy piano. I opened my arms, and she walked 4 steps towards to me without any support. She's going to be able to walk very soon.

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Ashley understands a lot of new words. She loves to read and Mommy always reads The Hare and the Tortoise, and The Very Hungry Caterpillar to Ashley every morning. She now can point to the little duck and the little cat, and says, "Ya Ya" (Chinese for duck), "Mao Mao" (Chinese for cat). She flips the book and points to the hare on every page although she can't say Tu Tu (Chinese for hare/rabbit) yet. She loves to flip through The Very Hungry Caterpillar book. She says, poooouuu, I think it means Apple.

Every time Mommy and the nanny changed her diapers, we used to swing our hands in front of our noses and said, "Chou Chou" (Chinese for stinky). So now a days, when we change her diapers, Ashley swings her hands in front of her nose, and says, "chuuuuu". It's so funny.

Ashley also understands, Gou Gou (Chinese for dog), Qiu Qiu (Chinese for ball), Niu Niu (Chinese for cow) although she can't pronounce them yet.

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Ashley loves to pull her bibs off her neck, sometimes she just plays with them. Recently, after she pulls her bib off, she would try to put them back on and of course she can't work it out exactly yet, so she would just wrap it around her neck in all sort of ways and babbling at the same time. I think she's trying to put the bib on by herself.

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Ashley loves to pull off Mommy's hair clip, plays with it and sucks on it. The other day, after she pulled my hair clip and played with it for a while, she crawls over to my back again, and held the chair clip on my hair clip to my head, and started to babble, I think it means she wanted me to put it back on. So I did, and she crawled away and then crawled back, and repeated the process again. It's very cute.

Learning to Let Go

As a parent, one of the hardest thing to face is probably the fact your child is getting more and more independent. One of hardest thing to learn as a parent is probably learning to let go and realize that your child is an individual person who eventual will grow his/her own wing, fly their own path, make their own mistakes, learn from them, and live their own life.

Since Ashley was born, she had been sleeping in her crib in our room. Initially was because it was easier to take care of her as she woke up every couple hours and we didn't want little baby Ashley to be alone. Secondly, we live in a two bedroom condo, which doesn't give us much room. We basically need a spare bedroom to accommodate visitors. It worked out pretty well and I for sure definitely enjoyed the closeness. However, every now and then at night Ashley often kicks her legs, makes noises, sometime screams here and there, It often wakes Mommy and Daddy. On the other hand, whenever we get up in the middle of night or early morning to use the bathroom, we often wakes up Ashley. We thought of moving Ashley to her own room a while back, but for some reason never actually did it. Maybe subconsciously we didn't want to let go?

Things are getting worse and worse as Daddy travels so frequently lately and often has jet lag to battle with. He often goes to sleep at 2AM, or wakes up at 3 or 4 AM at night, and that just wakes both Ashley and Mommy up. So this Friday night, Daddy woke up at 3AM, and Ashley got woken up, it took her a long time to fall asleep and then she woke up again at 6AM. It was totally a nightmare. Everyone was tired and exhausted. It's time to move her to the other room.

After lunch Saturday, we got rid off the second bed, moved her crib to the other room. Everything happened so fast, it only took a couple of hours. So for the first time, Ashley got to sleep in her own room Saturday afternoon for her nap. We were a bit worried that Ashley might not be able to sleep in the new environment and it might take a couple of days for her to get used to her own room. Surprisingly, she took her nap without any problem. Saturday night she went to sleep within 10 minutes as usual after we put her to sleep. In fact, she slept so well that she woke up at 7:15 AM on Sunday. Sunday she took her naps in her own room without any hiccups. As usual last night, she went straight to sleep in 10 minutes. This morning around 7:20 AM, I heard her making some noise, I jumped up in a conditioned reflex, got her milk ready, went to her room, but she was still sound to sleep. So I just laid quietly on the floor next to her crib waiting for her to wake up. She didn't wake up until 8AM!

I'm surprised but at the same time glad that Ashley made the transition so well. She is truly an amazingly great baby. Honestly, Mommy feels a bit uneasy and lost that my little sweet baby is moving away and making her new step towards independence. Perhaps the same feeling that many Moms feel when their children go away for school or move away to live. But truly, children often do so well without the constant protection of their parents. Parents are usually the ones who couldn't let go and couldn't face the fact that their babies are finally grown up and have to live their own lives. Somehow, children have to take those initial steps, just like babies learning to walk and birds learning to fly. They'll never learn to do it unless actually doing it.

So as a parent, I can only give my child love, support and protection unconditionally when she needs it and learn to let go when the time comes. And this weekend, I learned to let go for the first time.

Home Alone With Ashley 5

Once again, Mommy is home alone with Ashley.

As usual, Ashley and Mommy played, read together in the mornings. After her morning nap and her lunch, Ashley accompanied Mommy to do grocery shopping and run some errands. We went to Ranch 99, Macys on Saturday, and Costco, Whole Foods on Sunday. After her afternoon naps, Mommy and Ashley walked to the pond at the neighbor complex, played and watched duckies On Saturday. And on Sunday, we went to the park. Ashley was all happy and silly. It was a lot of fun.

Then Monday came, Mommy took Ashley to get her first flu shot. By Monday night, Mommy started feeling sick. I just simply burned out of energy by looking after Ashley by myself, and running around all over the places for the last one and half months. Tuesday morning, Ashley started feeling sick too. She has some side effects from the flu shot, sneezing, coughing, stuffy nose, running nose, etc. Although her symptoms seem to be getting better, but she is still not quite 100%. I'm not sure if Mommy has infected Ashley or not. Meanwhile, Mommy is still sick with flu like symptoms.

Concern about the possibility of getting swine flu, Mommy went to the doctor yesterday. Luckily, the doctor said it was not swine flu, just upper respiratory infection.

Poor baby and poor Mommy. Hopefully Ashley gets better soon and hopefully Mommy recovers soon as well. It definitely has been tough with Ashley getting sick twice and Mommy being sick and being alone. What a month!

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!