Lydia and her tunes

Lydia loves dancing (AKA crazily waving her arms in the air) to the little tunes programmed on her baby piano.

I wish she was always this happy, but it seems that nowadays she complains and cries a lot. She's entered that 9 month old zone of stranger anxiety and keen awareness, so right now she's too smart for her own good. Oh, and as for the nursing, I think that I'll just keep feeding Lydia twice a day until she is one and giving her a "bottle" once in the morning. She really does seem so much happier and peaceful this way...gotta do what's best for the baby. :)

Frustration

This weaning process is not so great. Not only do I get engorged from not nursing as much, but Lydia refuses to take a bottle or sippy cup or anything before her afternoon nap. Okay, so I'm only nursing twice a day and it was prefered that it would be during the morning and night. Well, little miss priss will only take milk in any container in the morning when she's happiest, so rather than struggle with her like I have been these last two days, I've just spaced out her feedings to accomodate her naps.

I feel that I shouldn't be doing this because it might spoil her even more, but will "forcing" her to take the "bottle" mess with her emotionally? I know it's messing with me...all this milk that I'd pumped every day for the last two months is now going to waste. Why? Lydia won't take it when I've prepared it and it goes bad in an hour. Why won't she take it? Because over time, the frozen, stored milk starts tasting sour due to the fat content; not that it's spoiled, but it just doesn't taste like fresh milk. WAHHH!! I was so proud that I was able to breastfeed Lydia this long and now it's nipping me in the bud because I didn't get her accustomed to the "bottle" enough. :( All you preggers out there, please learn from my mistakes!

Wheezing and Weaning

Lydia has been kinda wheezy lately. I don't know if it's because she's nice and chubby or because she's having a hard time breathing. Lydia's pediatrician's nurse said that since she only wheezes when she's happy, she's probably just catching her breathe. I mean, she's still very happy and has no fever or cough or anything; maybe I'm just being paranoid.

So, I've also been weaning Lydia from me these last couple weeks and it has been going pretty well, despite some engorgement at the beginning. I currently nurse her three times and day, which will be reduced to two times a day tomorrow. Lydia will still be taking breastmilk that I had pumped and stored a couple months back just for this occasion. The whole process is kinda sad; I'm losing one of the main connections I have with my baby. "sigh" Well, there's always the next one.

Lydia takes her first steps

After several weeks of being able to stand by herself, Lydia has finally taken her first steps. Last night Trung experimented by feeding her cherries, but she soon progressed...

BFF

Listen carefully to the beginning of the clip as Lydia says her first official word (where she actually knows what she's saying)...

Lydia is on the prowl for a Sasha...

I am truly more than grateful that we decided to keep Sasha because Lydia loves her so much and Sasha is so patient (aka tolerant) with her.

Happy 1st Father's Day!

Happy father's day to the best father any child of mine could ever have! :) And also to all you fathers out there, new and expecting; I hope you got that tool or tie that you've been eyeing!

Baby Boom

I dedicate today's post to all my friends that have had babies: Monica, Christina, Angie, and Joy; and to those that are expecting (and are all so far having boys): Suzanna, Connie, Sheri, Kristen, Grace, and Wendy. Congratulations and welcome to motherhood; it's a blast and you're in for the ride of your life!

Bound to Happen

The way we've got Lydia's play yard set up and being as clumsy as I am, a fall was bound to happen. Today I was walking "over" or more like "into" the play yard and it collapsed, knocking over one of Trung's beloved speakers. Fortunately, the speaker fell in slow motion, so I was able to catch it as it fell off of the stand. Some small pieces attached to the speaker did break, but Trung thinks he's already got the spare parts. I'm okay, despite a small cut to the left hand. Just yesterday, Lydia was standing against the play yard and it fell backwards and she landed on her back; needless to say, she was not a happy camper. Hmmm, maybe it's time to put it away because after all, she gets into everything anyways. We'll ponder about it.

Hi, Lydia, Hi

We didn't do much this weekend, which was kinda nice after being pretty busy these past few weekends. Friday night, Trung's college friend Henry was in town, so we met up with him and some other RPI college friends for dinner at Chez Zee. Later that night, we went to Luis', another college friend, new house in Cedar Park. Right now we are very happy with the size of our house, but after visiting his house, it kinda gives me incentive to go back to work. Don't get me wrong, I'm in no hurry, but having a double income sure is nice. :P

Saturday, we had a big breakfast at home and just relaxed. We took a dip at the community pool around 5, and then Wendy came over to hang out with us the rest of the night. She and I watched "Dreamgirls", which was good enough; Jennifer Hudson did deserve that Oscar though.

Sunday, we had dim-sum for brunch and invited our friends over for Carne Asada for dinner. I've got to give my man Trung props though, because it was quite tasty. He's got quite a nack for cooking; maybe he should cook more often since it always tastes so good. (wink, wink) Our friends also got to see Lydia's progress; here's a clip shot today of her waving "hi" back at me.

Surprise Hit

Wednesday night my friend Kristen and I went to watch the movie "Knocked Up". The previews hadn't looked that good, so I never had any intentions to watch it at first, but after my brother told me how good his friend said it was, I thought I'd give it a try. Well, come to find out, it was pretty darn entertaining. So, go watch it and tell them Grace sent ya!

Lactose Intolerance

My mom and dad have it, and now it appears that I have it too. And might I add, it truly sucks. I don't know what happened, but after I came home from Vegas, my stomach started feeling uncomfortable soon after I had anything with dairy in it. I thought maybe it was a post pregnancy thing, but after reading up on it, nothing is supposed to really happen...actually the tolerance might even get better. So, genetics has apparently kicked in and now I am lactose intolerate. I haven't figured out the right balance yet, but it seems my stomach acts up at the slightest hint of lactose right now. Argh! I, who could eat anything, now have my limitations. "I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream"! :(

Nine Months Old

Today Lydia had her nine month old check-up. She is still in the 50%tile for her weight and 75%tile for her head circumference, but has dropped to the 75%tile for her height. That's okay though, we weren't expecting a female Yao-Ming or anything. :P We also discovered during our appointment that Lydia has toddler's heart mur mur, which is supposedly nothing to be worried about, and we found out that Lydia is a little anemic. I wasn't surprised about the latter of the two since Trung has low iron and I was anemic during my pregnancy. It just sucks that we're going to have to give her nasty ole Poly-vi-sol again. Blah!

Here's Lydia's latest funny facial expressions. Notice the two front bottom teeth on this first one. We still haven't got a name for this face, so feel free to pitch some names.

This next expression I like to call "Pale Man" after the character in "Pan's Labyrinth".

Lydia Eats It

We borrowed Jocelyn and Jason's push toy hippo/rhino, whatever it is, and Lydia had a ball with it.




I know it's not that clear (the ground looks yellow for crying out loud), but at least I don't have to wait for Trung to edit anything for me. :)

The Three Lee Sisters

Back at Baylor, I had the pleasure of being the honorary "third" Lee sister, that is, until the third real Lee sister came to school. Through time and distance, we lost touch, but found each other again right around this time last year. The second oldest Lee sister Christine had just gotten married and the oldest Lee sister Stephanie had just gotten engaged. Well, Steph got married on Saturday and it was great seeing them and other Baylor friends after seven years. (has it really been that long?) Congratulations to Steph and "Paul" (hee hee, Phillip, I mean)!