Where Is Your Tummy?

Ashley has been learning about her body features. Last night, while I was reading her books, the book mentions about mouth, ears and hands. So I decided to quiz Ashley a bit.

"Where is your zui ba (mouth)?"
Ashley pointed to her mouth, and said, "ba, ba, ba..."
"Good job!"

"Where are your er duo (ears)?
Ashley grabbed one of her ears, and I said "great!", then she switched her hands to the other ear.
"That's right! You got two ears! Smart girl!"

"So, where is your bi zi (nose)?
Ashley looked at me a bit confused, hesitated a bit, and pointed to her nose.
"YEAH! That's right! That's your bi zi!"
"bi, bi, bi..." Ashley repeated in excitement.

"Where are your yan jing (eyes)?"
Ashley closed one of her eyes and pointed to it.
"YEEAAH! " I started clapping, and Ashley was so happy and she started jumping up and down.

So I decided to ask her something I haven't taught her.
"Ashley, where is your Du Zi (Tummy)?"
Ashley looked at me very confused and probably was thinking, "What is Du Zi? " But for some reason, she squatted down, and pointed to her butt, "Du, du..."
"Hahahaa, Ashley, that's not your Du Zi, that's your Pi Gu!"

Aaaaarrrrrdooo

Ashley is at the age where she loves to imitate anything we do and anything we say. She is like a little copy machine that surprises and cracks us all the time.

When I came home this evening, the power just went out. I was busy looking for candles, but for some reasons I couldn't light up those candles using a BBQ lighter. Daddy was sleeping in the bedroom, and I said "Andrew, can you come and help me?" No answer. So I raised my voice, "AAAAANNDREEEEW...." At that moment, Ashley screamed, "Aaaaarrrrdooooo....." The nanny and I looked at each other, and burst out laughing.

Well, Daddy, don't be surprised that one day your daughter calls you, "Andrew, come over!"

Tiusse 4-Way

What's "tissue 4-way"? Well, it's like fish 2-way or duck 3-way you might have seen in the restaurant. That's right, Ashley can play with a tissue in 4 different ways!

The other night, Ashley pulled a tissue off her changing table, squatted down on the floor, and pretended to wipe her butt! Hahaha, she saw that we use tissue to wipe her butt all the time and she knows you can use a tissue to wipe your butt!

Afterwards, she ran over to the TV stand, and started wiping and cleaning the TV stand with the same tissue. She looked at me and pointed to the TV stand, "%^*&#)@*)%^@%". That's right Ashley, please make sure you clean the dirt off the TV stand. You're such a good cleaner!

After she was done with her cleaning, she used the same tissue again to wipe her mouth. Well, Ashley, yeah we use the tissue to wipe our mouth, but using the same tissue after you wiped your butt and the TV stand, it's a bit disgusting though.

Last but not the least, you think she's done with that tissue? Noooo. Ashley knows to utilize her resource to the very last bit. She decided to tear the tissue into small pieces on the coffee table, and started giggling out loud.

Well, Mommy doesn't quite understand what's so funny, but I'm glad Ashley can entertain herself so well with a single tissue. Maybe we don't need to buy her any more toys??!! :-)

"Bu Yao! Bu Yao! Bu Yao!"

As Ashley's vocabulary increases, her all time favorite word is "Bu Yao" (No in Chinese). Everything you asks of her, her first response is "Bu Yao".

One night, Ashley woke up and vomited, and after clean up. Mommy tried hard to put her back to sleep.

"Ashley, do you want to go to sleep?"
"Bu Yao!"

"Well, do you want to eat some rice then?"
"Bu Yao!"

"How about some milk"
"ooooh, nai nai...." Ashley pointed to the bottle warmer, but without a definite answer.

"Do you want some oranges or grapes then" Mommy continued to try.
Ashley looked at Mommy, and you could see her little brain was working hard trying to figure out what oranges and grapes are. After a few seconds, "Bu Yao!"

"hmmm, do you want to go to the park and play?"
"oooooooh....." without any hesitations, Ashley walked to the front door, and pointed to the door, "#%^&*($&^)$#&$" I guessed that's a "Yes".

"Well, Ashley, look, it's very dark outside. We don't go outside to play in the dark. When it gets dark, it's time to sleep." Ashley looked at me and seemed to understand what I was saying. I picked her up and carried her to her bedroom and put her to sleep. She didn't even fight it.

Ashley's 18 Month Checkup

Ashley's measurements at 18 months:

Head circumference: 46 1/4 inches, 22 percentile
Height: 32 inches, 61 percentile
Weight: 22 pounds 6 ounces, 42 percentile

I have some doubts on the accuracy on these measurements, especially on the head circumference and height. At her 15 month check up, her head percentile was pretty high, around 60 percentile and her height was low in 19 percentile. How can within 3 months, her head percentile dropped so much and her height percentile went up so much? It's probably human measurement errors. I'm also very surprised that her weight percentile is 42! She used to be at 17 percentile at 15 months. Ashley is a fuzzy and slower eater, I'm extremely surprised that her weight percentile has gone up so much within 3 months. Is it possible that other kids don't grow much within these 3 months except Ashley???? In any cases, I'm just happy that Ashley is very healthy.

Ashley's doctor also appraised her of her language skills and her cooperation during the checkup. "Most of one and half year old won't allow me to do all these examinations without a fight at this age. She is such a good baby!"

Indeed, she is!

Ashley's Little Stories

Here are some little cute stories about Ashley in the last couple of weeks

Teasing

Ashley loves cheerios. The other day, she was eating her cheerios and Daddy asked her to feed him some cheerios with his mouth wide open. Smartie Ashley ran over with her fist full of cheerios, pretended to put some cheerios in Daddy's mouth, then pulled back her hand, and started laughing out loud! Hahaha, she was teasing Daddy! Where did she get that from?

Tunnel

Ashley loves crawling through tunnels. We have a coffee table that has 2 shelfs. Creative Ashley decided to make a tunnel out of the coffee table. She cleared her toys sitting on the 2nd shelf, and crawled over from one side to the other, and fell off the shelf and landed on top of stuffed animals. She then started giggling, got up and went to the opposite side and started this game over and over again. She is so funny.

Undress

Every time we come home from outside, Ashley knows to take off her shoes and always tries to unzip her jacket. The other day, the nanny took Ashley to play in the park. It was pretty sunny. After a round of playing and running around, Ashley got hot. She pulled off her hat,unzipped her sweet shirt and took it off! All other
grand parents and Mommies at the park was pretty impressed.

Little Good Girl

The nanny takes Ashley to the park to play every morning and Ashley has met some little friends to play with at the park. In general, Ashley is a very calm and un-fuzzy baby. Ashley often goes around her business in the park and plays herself. She often would play with other kids' toys when she sees them left unattended, and once other kids run over and grab their toys, Ashley just let go. She never cries or fuzzes over the toys. According to the nanny, all grandparents and Mommies love Ashley and often praise what a good little girl she is. Well, what can I say? She's Mommy's little good girl.

Bu Yao

"Bu Yao" means "no, I don't want it" in Chinese. Ashley has mastered in saying it in the last couple of weeks. Every time I ask, "Ashley, do you want grapes/banana/cheerios/yogurt/water?" She automatically starts shaking her head nonstop and says "bu yao, bu yao, bu yao, bu yao....." Well, like most of women, we don't aways say what we mean, Mommy still puts grapes/banana/cheerios/yogurt/water in front of her mouth, and most of time, Ashley takes them.

Mama & Baba

Ashley has been able to say "mama" and "baba" for a longest time, but half the time it seemed she was just saying it. In the last couple days of or so, Ashley seems to all the sudden knows what "mama" and "baba" are. She runs to me, saying "mama", or brings a toy to me saying "mama, xxxxxxx". Perhaps she knows to mama is me, and baba is Daddy?

Ashley's Update at 17 months

I know, I know, I have been lazy with keeping up the blog lately. It's about time for me to update the blog before I forgot all of those fun cute little moments.

In the last couple of months, Ashley went for her 15 months check up. She is still on the tiny side, but she's all happy and health.

Weight at 15 months: 20 lbs 13 ounces, 17 percentile
Height at 15 months: 29.5 inches, 18 percentile
Head Circumference: 46 cm, 51 percentile


Ashley is over 17 months old now. She is no longer a crawler, not only she walks everywhere, she also runs everywhere. Over the last couple of months, her language skill has developed amazingly. She's quite a chatterbox now. Here is a list of Ashley's vocabulary.

1. mama: She says this randomly, sometimes it seems she knows whom she is calling, sometimes it just seems like she says for fun.
2. yaya (Chinese for duckie)
3. hua hua (Chinese for flower): not only she recognizes all so kinds of real flowers, she also recognizes flowers on the books, on the plates, flower pots, on her cloths and even tiny little flowers on her pants.
4. mao mao (Chinese for cat)
5. ji ji (Chinese for chick): although sometimes she still confuses chicks with ducks.
6. xie zi (Chinese for shoes): she also can say shoes in English as well
7. shoes
8. mao zi (Chinese for hat): if you asks her, "Ashley, where is your mao zi?" She goes and fetches her hat and puts it on.
9. wa zi (Chinese for socks)
10. apple: she thinks all fruits are apples until you correct her.
11. ji zi (Chinese for oranges): well, she'll say apple first, and then when you say, no it's not apple, it's ii zi. She'll repeat, "jeee zi".
12. bao bao (pronounces with 3rd accent, Chinese for baby)
13. bao bao (pronounces with 4th accent, Chinese for hold me): lately she loves to follow Mommy around and when she can't get to the place she wants, she holds up her hands and orders Mommy, "bao bao!"
14. nai nai (Chinese for milk milk)
15. quan quan (Chinese for circles, in this case, it means Cheerios): Ashley loves cheerios and she's never tired of eating them even after her meals.
16. che che (Chinese for car): every time she sees a car or when we stops at the stop light, she always points out the car and says, "che che".
17. xie xie (Chinese for thank you): she doesn't say this often, I often have to say it first, and she might repeat after me.
18. ai ni (Chinese for love you): well, Mommy decided to teach her to say, "wo ai ni", which means "I love you" in Chinese. After 1 night of coaching, Ashley can't say 3 words, but she says, "ai ni" now every time I say "Wo ai ni" to her. It's so sweet and it just simplify melts my heart.
19. ma (Chinese for horse): she recognizes horses in the book and says"ma" when you ask what that is.
20. bye bye: she says this randomly depending on her mood.
21. shu shu (Chinese for trees): she sometimes thinks all trees are flowers, until you correct her, and she'll repeat it after you. Although lately she's able to says "shu shu" lately when she sees trees in the book.
22. aaaaasssshhhhhh: Ashley
23: yao (Chinese for the phase "yes, I want it"): she answers "yao" when I ask her if she wanted some cheerios/meat/veggies etc. She can't quite say "bu yao" which means, "no, I don't want it". When she doesn't want it, she just shakes her head.
24: ma ma de (Chinese for Mommy's): she points to Mommy's backpack, clothes, etc, and says "ma ma de".
25: bubble: She learned this from watching Baby Einstein.
26: mouse: She also learned this from watching Baby Einstein. Ashley pronounces as mooouussse and of course she thinks all of those fury little creatures are all mouse.
27: uh oh: Not only she can say it perfectly, she knows exactly when to use it such as her pants gets pulled up, the ipod video stops playing. When she runs and falls, she says, "uh oh" and then gets up and continues to run without crying. What a brave girl!
28: ai ya (Chinese, simlilar to uh oh): Similar to uh oh, she knows exactly when and where to use it. When she drops something on the floor, makes a big mess, or when mommy drops some of her food on the tray, she says "AI YA" loudly and points to the mess. It's so funny!
29: more: when she wants more certain type of food, she'll point and says "more, more?" She also says "more" when she wants you to play with her.
30: no more: she uses this when we try to get her to eat more, she shakes her head and says, no more.
31. peeeaasse: this is latest word Mommy is trying to teach her. Ashley almost got it, but she says as peeeaaassse.

Well, what else? There were so many cute moments during the last couple months. I'm trying to remember some of them.

Feeding Kangaroo
Ashley has a kangaroo that has a baby kangaroo in the front. One day Ashley was drinking the water from a straw, she sipped, and then pointed the straw to the big kangaroo's mouth and then she took another sip. Well, she didn't forget the baby kangaroo, this time she pointed the straw to the baby kangaroo's mouth. What a sweet girl!

Sharing Cheerios
Ashley loves her cheerios and always wants to eat cheerios in the morning, at lunch, in afternoon and after dinner. But she's such an unselfish girl, she also loves to share her cheerios. If I open my mouth while she's eating her cheerios, she'll put some cheerios in Mommy's mouth. Of course she gives me 1 cheerios at a time. She also trys to feed the animals in her book or in the ipod video some cheerios by putting the cheerios in the animals mouth. The other day, she ate 1 cheerios, then gave a cheerios to her teddy bear's month, then moved on to her kangaroo, and to her koala bear, and finally she picked up her 3-ducks-in-a-row toy, and fed each duck 1 by 1. It was so cute!

Mommy's Little Shadow
Daddy's been traveling again and Ashley has become more clingy to Mommy. She follows Mommy around everywhere and always wants Mommy to hold her all the time. If Mommy walks away from her, she runs to Mommy immediately and clings to Mommy's legs until I pick her up. Mommy enjoys it. It's nice to feel you are needed.

Books
Ashley loves books. Every morning after her breakfast, she runs over to the bookshelf and points to her books, and says "oooooooo" until you get her a book. After flipping through one book, she points and asks for another book. She also enjoys the story time before her bedtime with Mommy. Sometimes while she's reading her books, she starts babbling a bunch of sounds I don't understand as if she's telling the story.

Balls
Ashley loves to play with balls, She is often walking around with a ball in her hand. At the play ground, if she sees a ball, she automatically starting running towards the ball, picks it and plays with it. At the play dates, she loves any toy with balls. At Cerisa's house, there is a toy that shoots out 4 balls, Ashley tried to grab all the balls, but of course she only has 2 hands, so smart girl like her used her neck to hold on some balls so she freed her hand to get even more balls. It was very funny. Ashley also loves to share the balls, and often picks up a ball and gives it to you or her playmates. What a good girl!

Phone
Ashley has 2 phone toys and often she plays with them pushing the buttons playing the music. She eventually figured out they are the "phones" so she started using them as phones pretending making phone calls and having conversations. Ashley often sees Mommy and Daddy talking on the iphone. She has an ipod video in which she watches Baby Einstein. Well, ipod video and iphone look the same, so Ashley sometimes puts ipod video near to her ears and starts talking up a conversation. It was pretty funny.

I love you
I can't help but to brag that my little girl can say "love you" in Chinese. She probably doesn't know what it means yet, but regardless, Mommy is so happy to hear her saying "ai ni", and it means so much to Mommy.

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.