Bonus

Had a couple more photos from yesterday (Sunday) that I thought I'd put up. Not too much to report, really.

Or should I say, nothing different to report. As usual, Margaret seems to look different every time we wake up. This morning, I could swear she looked different from yesterday, with seemingly more intelligence and intent behind those eyes of hers.



She continues to be drooling a ton but there are no signs of teeth. She continues to grab at things with her little hands with more strength and more deliberateness.

We're living the old saw that "the only constant is change." It's odd, but as much as one day seems like the last, the changes are many from one day to the next.

Of course, the real constant is Margaret in our lives. With each new development, we learn more and more about her and who she is inside. It is enormously gratifying and each night, SAM and I both marvel at where she is now and what we're going to learn next.

Exhilarating. Exhausting, but exhilarating.

Babies change your life

Mom and Margaret in Matching blue Polo shirts

Modern diapers are a technical wonder to me. They're light, they're disposable, they're fairly cheap, they come with magic polymer to absorb liquids and they have a little gauge to let you know when they needs to be changed. Diapers now seem as feature laden as a Mercedes.

This morning, while feeding Margaret, I noticed that her diaper felt like a half melted memory-foam pillow. Fearing the worst, I broke off the feeding and immediately went to change her.

There was no need to be worried. The diaper was completely full of both poop and pee, but a couple of swipes from a wet wipe and a new one was on with no fuss and no muss.

Later on, at lunch, Margaret had another monster number 2. Same story.

I don't know what they put in those things, but those engineers at Huggies and Pampers should get on that whole global warming thing.

Yes, they are an environmental problem and while at home, during the day, we use Bambino Mio cloth diapers, but while out and in the middle of the night, I don't doubt that these things are saving us from some serious messes.

Thinking back to a few of our early newborn experiences, I'm appreciative of that.

As an aside, I now wonder about the accuracy of Margaret's weigh-in from yesterday.



It came to my attention today that I've become one of "those" parents. You know the type, one of those parents who is sickeningly gaga over their own child, thinks they're the cutest and is tickled at everything their child does. That actually wouldn't be half bad except that "those parents" have to share every smallest detail with a public who isn't nearly as interested as they are.

I used to disdain people like me. I used to lump them in the same category as couples who dress the same on purpose, dog owners who shave their poodles, people who collect porcelain figurines from the Hallmark store and readers of Cat Fancy.

Now I'm blogging about how Margaret can turn onto her side (a horse can gallop when it's born) and putting her in clothes that match her mom's so I can take photos and post them on the blog.

*sigh*

The crazy thing is that I don't really care. I have a blast doing all these things.

I think that Margaret is the coolest thing since sliced bread and I'm into her.

I think she's helping me to *gasp* grow a bit.

Wow, dude.

Babies change your life.

Finally, some numbers!

Age: 3 months / 15 weeks.
Head Circumference: 42 cm / 16.5 inches
Length: 59.5 cm / 23.4 inches, or, as I prefer 1'11"
Weight (with dry diaper, onesie and sopping wet bib): 6.6 kg / 14.5 pounds

This puts her weight and head circumference in the 75th - 90th percentiles and her length in the 25th - 50th percentiles.

If I'm interpreting the data correctly, that would put her in some high percentile for "Stockiness."

We can't tell and love her anyways.



From whence these measurements, you may ask?

We took Margaret to the doctor this morning for her inoculations and prior to the jabs (there were two) the nurses took her measurements for the record.

I was carrying Margaret during the morning and wanted to just keep kissing her and hugging her close because I knew what was coming and knew that she had no clue. As far as she was concerned, until the moment it happened, we were just on a cruise out on the town.

Luckily, she cried only during the actual jabs and was quickly settled thereafter by feeding off of mommy.

Poor Margaret, though. She came out of there with two round band-aids, one on each thigh. She looked like a race-car with numbers painted on the doors.

Thank goodness.



Besides putting on weight, Margaret continues to develop and impress her captivated parents. Last night, she managed to kick off her swaddling completely, leading us to a new regime of sleep sack usage at night.

Also, her manual dexterity continues to improve. Here you see her grabbing at Freddy the Firefly this afternoon.



Her love of Freddy is what led to the real excitement of the day, however. Margaret is now able to get herself almost completely on her side. We figure that it won't be too long before she can turn herself over onto her stomach.

We spent a lot of time trying to catch video of this but never managed to get a complete cycle of her going from flat on her back to on her side and back again. I think the surest way to get a baby to stop doing something is to break out the camera.



Parenthood continues to be a learning, growing experience full of questions and the thrill of discovery.

Just this morning, I was wondering to myself how babies can survive when the overwhelming temptation is to hug and squeeze them tighter than their little bodies can withstand.



Ain't love grand?

Ear-lai in the Morning!

Here are some of the little munchkin at 6:30 in the AM.

I have to get to work early for a meeting this morning, but Margaret was so awake and chatty this morning that I couldn't resist sneaking a couple of the pics onto the blog before I left.




She's now pretty much awake from when SAM feeds her at around 6:00 AM (this morning, M was up at 5:30) until about quarter after 7:00, so it was a pleasure to have our whole family together for breakfast this morning.

She then feeds at around 9:00 AM, again at school with SAM at noon, then again at 3:00 PM, 6:00 PM and 9:00 PM.

It's a schedule! Now, to follow mine...

Home from work

There's no feeling like coming home from work and finding Margaret and SAM hanging out in the bedroom, still awake and chatty.

Having my own family is the best thing ever.

These all from tonight before dinner.

Cheating, a bit as these are pics from last week.

However, didn't want to leave you guys without some new morsels to chew on!

Reading with mom. She will actually look at the pages, sometimes.

This past Sunday. Happy to be with family.

As I write this, it is 10:23 PM and SAM has been asleep since about 9:15. Prior to that, she was mostly asleep on the couch after dinner. While I think the adjustment back to work has been mostly good for her, the days have been exhausting. Hopefully, as we fall into a schedule and the stress of going back to work drops a bit, her evenings will be more restful.

One high point is that SAM has been enjoying her first couple of days back with the students.

More good news is that Margaret's feeding and sleep schedule seems to be relatively stable (except for the getting up at 5:30 AM to feed, bit) and she seems to be in good spirits.

Margaret continues to grow and change though neither of us have been snapping photos these past few days. By the time I get home from work, she's already sleeping or almost sleeping. Likewise, when SAM is home, she either has to be feeding Margaret or putting her down to sleep. I think I'm going to try and wake earlier, now, so I can spend some time with my girls when they're awake.

Lately, M's burps have been simply stupendous. It's harder and harder to burp her, now as she gets bigger. I find I'm spending more and more time at meals patting her back in all sorts of positions and issuing all sorts of vague, empty threats about what might happen if she doesn't burp.

"Margaret, if you don't burp, the doctor will have to use tubes down your throat to get them out."

It makes me feel better to have a laugh, anyways. I have to remember to stop as soon as she can start understanding me or I'm afraid I might give her nightmares.

When the payoff comes, however, it's simply incredible. It sounds like some of the raunchier post keg-stand belches I've heard.

Fun stuff.

Anyways, there likely won't be another update until this weekend. Hope everyone has a great week!

Back In The Real World

We've been back from Cebu for less than a week yet it already seems so long ago. I feel like I'm ready for another vacation already!

Sarah goes back to work tomorrow morning and so big changes are in store for the family. Perhaps that's why the weekend seemed to pass so quickly - the waning days of our current life with one parent working and one at home.

The busy-ness of being back and trying to settle back in hasn't deterred us from taking photos, however! Here are a selection from this week.



Above and below you see Margaret and SAM on my day off this past Monday. I just hope the readjustment to Hong Kong's cold weather wasn't too jarring for Margaret!



Lately, she's been more and more able to sit up on her own. BabyCenter calls this stage the, "Pre-sitter" stage. At the same time, she has begun to be very interested in watching us eat grown-up food. As a result, we've been taking the opportunity to actually sit her with us in her high chair (strapped in, of course) while we eat meals. This way, not only do we get to see her and be with her during family meals but she gets to figure out what we're doing, too. Hopefully, this will have some sort of effect when she starts eating solids in a few months.

She seems to be enjoying it!


Samantha's Birthday party was this past Saturday and we managed to get ourselves "invited." That's what happens when you call up your sister and you ask her if you can go to the party.

The Koo clan, our family and some of Samantha's friends went and saw "Enchanted" with Amy Adams which we all enjoyed very much. Afterwards, we all went for snacks at Dan Ryan's. Below, you see Margaret actually sitting on the table. I guess since she's the oldest sibling, she gets to make these decisions.

I can't help but feel like she's being served up like a dish when I see this photo. It's funny because sometimes, I just want to gobble her up!


Of course, Samantha got to hold her as well. Margaret got passed around like a hot potato that day and she was a great sport about it, hardly uttering a peep.

She was likewise very good at the movie, as well. She got fussy only once, and so we changed her outside, but other than that, her parents got to watch almost the entire film without interruption.


Today, we had dim sum with many of our friends. Lindsay, Graham, Graham's mom, Patsy and Freddy, Dickson, Lucy, Oscar and Andrew and us. Tons of food and fun. Below, you see a shot from lunch today.


And of course, the last shot should be a smiley one. This one also from today.



Keeping up with all the activity this week(end), Margaret seems to be developing apace as well. Just this week, Sarah informs us that Margaret is now able to put her hands down to lever herself up when placed on her tummy and I've noticed that she's now more and more able to grasp things with her hands. On Saturday, she was clearly holding on to her pacifier handle. She's still got a ways to go before the grip is firm, but it certainly seems deliberate.

Also, Margaret has been increasingly vocal and she's able to make noises more clearly. Today, while changing her, she made the, "mmmuh mmmuh" sound clearly on three separate occasions. We're just waiting for her to associate that sound with the person and then we'll be over the moon.

Finally, we did a bit of home improvement today. This weekend, we managed to get to the lighting store and have now changed the wall mounted lamps next to our bed to ones which aren't so hideous. We've also installed dimmers as well so now we can feed Margaret at night in the bedroom and not have her come completely awake. I just wired them up this afternoon and we can't wait to try them at her 10:00 PM feeding in less than an hour.

Now, we're just trying to decide if it's worthwhile to change the bulbs to the dimmable compact fluorescents from the incandescent ones we have now. Sure, we'd love to save electricity, but are they worth the equivalent of $25 US dollars apiece? Not sure.

Finally, the post about Cebu

In the process of trying to put off making one long post about our Cebu trip, I've wound up putting so many photos online in an effort to placate you all that I finally decided just to go ahead and do it and make a post. I will still put the photos up on Flickr, however, later on.

First, the back story.

It is Tsien family tradition to get together for Chinese New Year going back as far as I can remember. CNY is the biggest holiday for Chinese people and would be like if you combined Thanksgiving and Christmas (food, presents and family) with Fourth of July (fireworks, family and more food).

It's a big deal.

In the past few years, we've celebrated without my sister Joy's family because they had developed a tradition of going skiing with a group of their own friends in Japan during the CNY holiday. My mom and other sisters don't do skiing.

Unfortunately for Joy, the group that they usually go with decided that skiing was getting expensive and that they were going to go somewhere warm, now, instead, and chose Cebu, which is an island in the south of the Philippines. This opened up the possibility of the rest of us crashing her party. :) So fun.

Cebu has interesting history, actually. It's where Magellan was killed during his effort to circumnavigate the globe. In fact, our resort was located in a town named after the man who commanded the local forces during the battle in which Magellan was killed, Lapu-Lapu. Lapu-Lapu is widely considered the Philippines first national hero. Score one for the natives. Fun stuff.

In fact, there are historical sites scattered around that would interest the historically minded traveler.

We, however, simply stayed at the resort and didn't go out.

Day 1

The trip over was easy. Just over two hours, direct to Cebu, and from the airport, 20 minutes or so to the resort. It was Margaret's first trip and we were very concerned. As it turns out, our concerns were misplaced.

Below, you see her on the plane, in her bassinet, happy as a clam. Usually, the lay flat seats are in First Class and cost tons more. Too bad for her, she's going to grow out of the bassinets in no time.



What you see above her is her pacifier hanging from the shade of the bassinet in place of a hanging toy. It worked.

Due to scheduling vagaries, the Taipei Tsiens arrived the day before us and were already settled in. My mom, Philip and Nicky met us in the lobby and hung out with us for awhile before letting us get settled in and feed and bathe Margaret. In this photo from the sneak preview, you can see us bathing her in the rather deep hotel sink which did not work as well as we would have liked.



You can't tell from the photo, but there was a lot of screaming. We resolved to use the tub next time.

We had dinner that night at the hotel coffee shop which was just an easy way to unwind after the travel. There were many burgers ordered as Sarah discovered during her lunch that they were very delicious at the coffee shop.




In the corner of the top photo, you can see our new stroller which was Margaret's RV during this trip. It was a primo hand me down from Joannie who had brought a veritable treasure trove of baby things ranging from the stroller, to breast milk bags to toys that she must have been storing for the past five years. Thanks, Joannie!

Day 2

On Day 2, I went for a dive in the morning while Joy, Gayle, Philip and Joey took a brief orientation on SCUBA diving to prepare for a dive that afternoon.

During the afternoon lunch break, we actually tried to get Margaret wet.

Here you see the result from Margaret's first swim ever.



Only the Bush administration could have possibly considered categorizing it as a success.

There was, however, an opportunity for some cute, "not amused" shots of Margaret as a result.





The dive in the afternoon with Gayle, Joy, Joey and Philip went well. The kids had a blast. The hotel is on a strip of protected water and reef, so there were tons of fish which we fed with leftover rolls from the hotel. Here you see the intrepid divers post DSD - or "Discover Scuba Dive" for those in the know.



After that, it was time to hit the beach!




Margaret didn't so much enjoy the beach. But we still did. We're sure (we hope) she'll grow to love crystal clear waters, blue sky and soft sand once she's older.

Margaret's day ended with a bath, which she enjoyed much more while sitting in the bathtub with daddy, rather than the sink.



The big kids spent the rest of the evening having dinner and playing cards where Uncle John, despite doing his best to lose money to the kids during traditional Chinese New Year gambling, ended the evening up. If only it were like that in 'Vegas.

Day 3 - Chinese New Year

Day 3 started with some of us sleeping in and enjoying the big, fluffy hotel bed even though she had her own hotel crib complete with fluffy pillow and meticulously made sateen hotel sheets.



Then, it was off for a morning dive with Philip and Joey while Andrew did a separate SCUBA training class for younger kids.



Lunch with the family was followed by a swim with Margaret during which she responded much better than on the first day.



You can see video footage from the below pool session in yesterdays video blog post.






Pool time was followed by a family dinner, then an evening of gambling in my mom's room. The kids had a great time and with Auntie Gayle dealing, they earned some more money as well.







Day 4

This was our second to last day, but my mom's last day due to their wish to catch a direct flight back to Taipei.



Mom and Margaret shared a quiet moment in the room before breakfast. The coffee shop was completely swamped, and so we were glad for the quiet moment. That didn't stop Margaret from attracting the attention of the whole family, however!




We spent the rest of the morning before the Taipei crew left together in my mother's room.






We were all sad to part company, and did so with great reluctance.

The one consolation was that that is the mark of a truly successful vacation.



Of course, I took the afternoon to go diving again (guilt free, now, as my mom was all gone), after which I definitely felt like I was a bit tingly from all that nitrogen.

Then, after a decadent room service lunch of hamburgers with my wife (room service was always strictly off limits as a child - it was something only rich people did), we took Margaret on her last swim of the holiday.



Some of you may remember this picture from yesterday.



What you don't see is that I spent most of the "swim" holding Margaret, with Sarah admonishing me every thirty seconds to, "be careful, her mouth is almost in the water!"

HA!



Success!

She stayed in the water for a long time and we even went up and down the pool a few times. Waterboarding our daughter aside, I would consider this a successful introduction of our daughter to a life of leisure in and around the pool.

Dinner was a date night (sorry, no photos) with just the three of us at "Cowrie Cove," the hotel's hip, swinging seafood bar / restaurant. Very romantic.

Day 5

The final few hours of our stay in Cebu went quickly. We had breakfast not at the hotel coffee shop, but at the Italian restaurant, Aqua which was less crowded because fewer people knew it actually served breakfast.

Here you see Margaret in her stroller at breakfast.



They didn't have the honey ham I loved at the coffee shop, but beggars can't be choosers at five star resort hotels, I suppose.

Then, it was back to the room to pack and we were off to the airport.






Now we're back in Hong Kong. Cold, smoggy Hong Kong with only the memories of Cebu to keep us warm.

The good news is that it looks like the whole family wants to go back next year. The quality of the resort and the fact that it's only a couple of hours away both recommend the place.

That's good for us! We can continue with Margaret's education on how to love the beach and I can get some more diving in.

But I think it'll only be fun if Joy and her friends are here as well. It definitely wouldn't be as much fun if it were our own vacation!