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.

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!

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!

Ashley's 1 Year Checkup

Head: 44.9 CM, 45 Percentile
Height: 28 3/4 inches, 39 Percentile
Weight: 19 lb 3 oz, 20 Percentile


Ashley is on the tiny side, but we're very happy that she's very healthy.

Highlights of this month.

1. She understands words

2. She can stand without support for a few seconds.

3. She can walk while holding onto any furniture.

4. She points to everything.

5. She babbles a lot, mostly just baby talk.


A picture is worth of thousand words. Here are some photo of Ashley this month.






Little ballerina in practice.
























Hanging out with Mommy by the swimming pool.















Sharing my toys with Cerisa.


















Got caught emptying baskets.























Having fun bouncing up and down in the door jumper.























Yeah, I found my bear!
























With Mommy at Cerisa's birthday party.

















Bonding with Daddy.
























Family photo at Cerisa's birthday party























In my pretty dress for my birthday.
























Another shot in the birthday dress.























In the birthday crown.
























Family photo at my birthday.
























My first birthday cake!

























Look at all these gifts I got!

A Year In Memory

In a blink of eyes, a year of time slips through the fingers just like running water does.

It wasn't long ago, little Ashley barely fitted in her car seat that we had to use 3 extra towels as padding, nowadays her legs just dangling from the car seat. It wasn't long ago, she couldn't do much besides laying there spending her time looking around, and then she was able to lay on her tummy, to pull herself up from lying position, to roll around, to sit up, to crawl around, and then to cruise around. It wasn't long ago, it was safe to just lay her down on the sofa, and walked away to do your own stuff, and nowadays she is so active that you have to keep your eyes on her constantly and changing diapers becoming fighting a battle.

What strikes me the most about Ashley is that she is so calm, happy, joyful, and sweet. She is a baby born with a smile imprinted on her face.

In the first week after she was born, Mommy and PoPo swore that she could already smile while we held her. Although Daddy insisted that was involuntary muscle movements, yet Mommy believed that her little angel was just as happy to be surrounded and held by her loved ones.

She puts on the brightest sunshine smile every time you go to pick her up from her crib after she wakes up as if she hasn't seen you for ages. She had this most satisfied smile every time after she was breastfed; Mommy knew she was content with a full happy stomach.

The very first time she burst out laughing, swinging her arms and kicking her legs, was at the silly chicken and duck sounds Mommy and Daddy made. From that moment on, we knew she loves to laugh and whether she realizes or not she has brought so many laughter and joys to Mommy and Daddy.

As she grows bigger and bigger, she laughs and smiles at everything. She laughs when you play peek-a-boo with her; she laughs when you tickle her underarms and her body; she laughs when you kiss her; she laughs when you put her on the swing and push her up and down; she laughs when you toss her high in the air; she laughs when she crawls so fast that you can't keep up with her; she laughs when she gets to splash water in her bath, in the swimming pool and on her tray.

She smiles at you when she gets anything she isn't supposed to; she sometimes smiles after she is fed; she smiles and waves at strangers although that depends on her mood; she smiles and shakes her body automatically every time her toys play music; she smiles when you give her the teddy bears and her blanket; she smiles after she fetches her ball, finds the cat and the dog hidden beyond the doors on her toy; she smiles after you let her bang on the computer keyboard; she smiles when she kisses her teddy bears, her blanket, her ball; she smiles every time she sees herself at mirror.

Often, Ashley he is just as happy to play by herself on the playmat, in the exersaucer, on the bouncy chair, in her stroller. She is content to just sit and lay there and observes all those new things and new people. She never fuzzes every time we go out. She waves and smiles at the cashier, at the waiters, at the doctors and nurses, and at some random people sometime. She loves little babies and kids, and smiles at them whenever she sees them. She instantly spreads the happiness to everyone and captures everyone's heart.

Ashley's heart is filled with bountiful happiness and joy. To her, everything is brushed with honey and smelled like a bright red rose. Every person is like her dearest friend although she might have stranger anxiety at the beginning, just give her 10 minutes and she will love you as if she has known you for a long time. Every action she does, or you do with/to her is like shooting to the moon; it makes her so happy and excited that she often screams in joy, swings her arms and kicks her legs.

What is Ashley to Mommy then?

She is a ray of sunshine through the darkest thickest cloud.
She is a cup of hot chocolate in the chilly rainy day.
She is the purest morning dew on a blooming flower petal.
She is the first bud of spring leaf after a long cold winter season.
She is a breath of fresh air in the hot humid summer heat.
She is the fire in the freezing snowy winter night.
She is the wind beneath my wings.

She truly has brought 365 days each filled with happiness and joy to Mommy, and there are many many more to come.

With that said, my little sweet angel turns 1 year old today. She is no longer an infant, she is now a big toddler.






Ashley at birth.




















Ashley at 1 year old




















Happy Birthday to my little angel!