My First Mommy Day!

Imagine my surprise when I arrived home yesterday and found a box from 1-800-FLOWERS lying by the front door. My first instinct was that it was delivered to the wrong house, but after careful inspection, I saw that the label was clearly addressed to me. Along with the half a dozen roses came a card that read "Happy Mommy Day, From Cutie Pie."

Yes, this will be my first year celebrating Mother's Day as a mommy, instead of my usual role as a daughter or daughter-in-law. Baby K is too young to know what this holiday is, but her mere existence has brought such joy into my life that nothing else even comes close to making this day special for me.

Thanks for the flowers, daddy (isn't he wonderful?). Now this just means I have to start thinking of something to get M when Father's Day comes around next month! Does anyone have any ideas?

A Week in Turmoil

I can't believe it's Thursday already! This week has just flown by... unfortunately not in a good way. Baby K came down with a fever Monday afternoon, so I had to leave work early and pick her up from daycare. My poor baby looked so miserable -- she had a fever, runny nose, watery eyes, and her face was a disturbing shade of pale yellow... I felt like crying just looking at her. I called the doctor's office; they just told me to give her Tylenol if the fever is over 101 degrees and to call back in the morning if it hasn't subsided by then.

On Tuesday, she wasn't getting any better, so we brought her to the pediatrician, who told us she had an ear infection. M was suppose to be working from home that day, but ended up having to take the day off because he couldn't do any work (and not because baby K was sick). We had the sprinkler people come turn on our sprinkler system that morning, and they accidentally cut the cable wire underneath our grass, so we had no Internet, phone, or cable service for a couple of hours. Good thing Comcast responds fairly quickly to service calls -- we were up and running again by mid-afternoon.

Baby K's fever was gone by Tuesday night, but I still had to stay home with her on Wednesday, since she has to be fever-free for 24 hours before she returns to daycare. It felt nice to be able to lounge in my PJs all day. In fact, I felt like I was on maternity/family leave all over again... I only wish it was under better circumstances. Baby K slept most of the day, during which I was able to respond to some work e-mails, get on a conference call, and do two loads of her laundry. Daddy came home just in time to give baby K her dose of antibiotics.

It appears as though the week has resumed its normalcy, with baby K back at daycare and me back at work today. She's still sneezing every now and then, but she's in good spirits (except when you try to clean her nose... then all hell breaks loose!). Now mommy is coming down with something. I've been drowning myself in water with honey all day to try to get rid of this sore throat and runny nose, but have had little success. It sucks to be sick, but I'd rather it be me than baby K.

A Stroll with Baby K

The trees on my block have blossomed into a beautiful shade of pink (just as it did last year), so I took baby K out for a walk when we got home on Tuesday to admire the wonders of nature. Admire I did, but Baby K spent more time staring at me than looking at her surroundings. I guess she's gotten used to being outside since they take her out to play pretty much on a daily basis at daycare (weather permitting).

It's only been about a week since they've bloomed, but I've already noticed the flowers falling from the trees this morning. Soon they will be replaced with leaves that will stay until the end of summer. The picture above really doesn't do it justice... the scenery is much nicer when seen in person.

Of course, mommy can't resist snapping some shots of the cutie pie. Here are some pics of her serious look while she's stretching out her leg, as well as her playful look when mommy made her smile:

Baby's Hot!

Now that spring is here (although it felt more like summer this past weekend), the garage sales have started up again. I found a bunch of them on craigslist, so that's what we ended up doing on Saturday morning. I picked up another Precious Moments figurine to add to my collection, as well as a safety gate in preparation for the days when baby K learns to walk.

I am usually a fan of the warm weather (key word being warm, not hot!), but the jump in temperature was a bit too much for me this past weekend. Baby K got so hot that we ended up stripping her down to a short-sleeve onesie even though she was still sneezing every so often. We'd also take her temperature every few hours, afraid that she'd come down with a fever. Despite being all sweaty while fighting a cold, she was in good spirits. Look how rosy her cheeks are!
We didn't drive out to NY on Sunday. It was too hot to be pushing the stroller through the stinky streets of Chinatown, so we went to church near home. Here's our cutie pie dressed in her watermelon outfit, all ready to go.

Baby K's Latest...

Baby K's latest hobby is grabbing her foot, but since it's always covered, she ends up just pulling on her socks most of the times. The odd thing is, she only does this with her right hand (I have yet to see her try it with her left):Now our little munchkin knows better than to leave her left hand idle. She hasn't quite gotten over her previous favorite pastime of sucking on her hand, so why not do both at the same time? Who needs toys when our cutie pie can be self-entertained?

Ducks Crossing

I take the back-roads to work every day to avoid getting stuck in traffic on Rt. 1. This morning was no different. Along the way, I pass through a lot of open fields, farms, and signs for deer crossings, but I've never really encountered anything of interest before. In the past two and a half years I've taken this route, today was the first time I've ever seen ducks on the road! There were four of them, nicely groomed and all white (not those wild mallard ducks you see in an open pond), and they weren't just crossing the road to get from one side to the other... they were actually waddling down the one-lane road like they owned it, oblivious to the fact that they could get hit by oncoming traffic at any moment. Good thing they were on the other side of the road from where I driving (although I had slowed down dramatically by that point), and no other cars were approaching. It was such a funny sight that I actually laughed out loud in the car! If I had a camera, I would've been tempted to stop and take a picture. Too bad M wasn't with me... he would've appreciated seeing this, being the nature buff that he is. I don't know where those ducks came from, but maybe they should put up signs for drivers to share the road with their fellow web-footed friends if they're here to stay.

Pooped!

Mondays are always tough for me, being the start of a new work-week, but this morning was particularly hard. Baby K didn't sleep well at all last night (which means mommy doesn't get to sleep well either). She woke up and started crying several times during the night, almost once every hour. The first time she did, M and I left her alone hoping she would go back to sleep by herself. When that didn't happen, we both got up to tend to her. I carried her back to bed with us, thinking I'd have to stay up with her for a while, but she was fast asleep within a few minutes, so I brought her back into her own crib. Less than an hour later, she woke up and started crying again. This time, I didn't pick her up, but instead turned on the musical soother by her bed and started massaging her chest to calm her down. That seemed to do the trick, as she quieted down fairly quickly. I was able to climb back to bed, only to be woken up by the same cry an hour later. Again, I got up to turn on the soother and massage her chest until she fell asleep. This process repeated itself a few more times throughout the night. Where was daddy in all this? Fast asleep! At one point, I stayed in bed hoping he would go tend to our crying daughter, or that baby K would quiet down by herself, whichever came first. Unfortunately, neither of those happened, so I had to drag myself out of bed again. Sigh! What I wouldn't give to take a nice nap right now...

I'm normally okay with letting baby K cry it out if she's just being fussy and wants attention, but waking up in the middle of the night is out of the norm for her, so something must've been wrong. I'm hoping it's because she's teething now and her gums are bothering her. I'm just a bit more concerned because when I changed her this morning, I saw tiny streaks of black in her poop. It was similar in size and shape to the blood we saw months ago before her dairy allergy was diagnosed, only instead of being bright red, it was black. I rubbed it against the diaper to see what the texture was like, and it turned into powder... almost like it disintegrated. I'm just afraid it's blood that's coming from further up her GI tract. In any case, I have to call the pediatrician's office later today to see what they say (haven't been able to reach them all morning). We also called up the GI specialist she saw back in February, but the doctor said he can't tell us anything over the phone, and that he'd have to see her in person. As much as we appreciate him accommodating us at the last minute, the drive to Ocean, NJ is a bit much, and unless baby K's poop has that same black substance when we bring her to see him, the visit would be useless. Hopefully baby K's regular pediatrician will be more helpful this time... as soon as I can get a hold of them.

Baby Dedication

We will be driving out to Chinatown again this upcoming weekend. I'm actually very excited because baby K will be participating in a baby dedication during service this Easter Sunday. What's even more exciting -- my parents will be there! It took a bit of convincing to get my dad to come, but he finally agreed to it (well, he said maybe but that's as good as a yes in my eyes!). For the past several years, I've invited them to come to service with us whenever there was a combined Easter or Christmas service with the Chinese and English congregations, but they've declined every time. The only reason why they said yes this time was because of their granddaughter. I didn't know how to say "baby dedication" in Chinese, and when I asked the pastor, he said that I should just tell my parents there will be a prayer for baby K so that they don't misunderstand its purpose since they are not Christians. I could see why because the literal Chinese translation could be interpreted as giving the baby away. My dad actually asked me if this was to initiate baby K into the church (I'm assuming he meant to become a Christian), but I told him no... baby K would make that decision on her own when she is old enough. I'm just really psyched that they will be there! Hopefully we can use that opportunity to witness to my parents.