Earth Day

One is never too young to participate in Earth Day activities.  Here's baby M decorating a rock at daycare with finger paint.  He seemed more interested in the bottle of paint than anything else though.

 

Trenton Thunder

We went to watch a Trenton Thunder minor league baseball game last night with the Y family.  I am very thankful the weather held up (this was our third attempt to make it to the game after it got rained out the first two times), and it turned out to be quite nice.  Of course, the kids' attention span was nil, so little focus was placed on the actual game.  Big sister K had her eyes on the mascot the whole time and kept following it around the stadium (but got scared when the mascot came close to her).  Baby M did pretty well in the beginning, but started getting cranky after two hours.  We tried to leave early, but by the time big sister K finished going to potty, the game had ended so everyone else was leaving at the same time.  It must've taken us half an hour just to get out of the parking lot.  Baby M was so overtired that he couldn't sleep and cried the whole car ride home.  It was an exhausting day for all of us, but we had a good time.  Tickets are so inexpensive; we'll probably do this again when baby M gets a little older.

Showing Some Skin

The "decent" before photo:

After some impressive self-induced arm maneuvers:

Mid-April Update

My baby boy will be five months old tomorrow! How fast he grows! It seems like he is getting more and more active each day (tends to make diaper-changing a bit difficult at times). He rolls over to his stomach with ease and often prefers to sleep in that position, which means the bald spot in the back of his head is filling in. He can also hold the bottle with his own hands. Of course, he gets tired after a minute or two and will let go of it, only to start crying as he wonders why he is no longer able to drink. Here he is holding his bottle:

April marked the month of Easter. Big sister K attended her first Easter egg dye at the NJ First Chinese Baptist Church of Edison. Her favorite part was probably putting stickers on the eggs. Below is a picture of her masterpiece. One major breakthrough this morning: we actually got her to eat an egg (one of the ones she dyed). This is quite an accomplishment, considering she's never even tried it before (has always refused ever since she's been old enough to eat).
We had baby M's baby dedication on Easter Sunday. He cooperated and didn't cry as we stood in front of the congregation to receive the pastor's prayer. Big sister K didn't want to go up with us; I was surprised she was willing to sit in the back of the sanctuary by herself. Baby M got fussy right after the baby dedication, so we went upstairs where big sister K attended Sunday school. She practiced with the other kids while they rehearsed for their Easter Sunday performance, but she didn't want to put on the robe and was too shy to sing with them in front of the congregation. Still, I'm proud of my little girl at how quickly she picked up the hand motions and words to the song (this was only her second week singing the song and she was able to follow what everyone else was doing).

Baby M at Daycare

Here are some pictures that the daycare took of baby M last Tuesday (his second day there):

Rollover

Baby M rolled over for the first time yesterday, and we all missed it! I put him in his crib last night lying on his back, and this morning I found him on his stomach. He's been shifting his whole body to one side for the past week, so I knew that any day now, he'd be able to flip over; I just didn't think he'd do it in the middle of the night. In addition to rolling over to his stomach, he also turned 180 degrees around in the crib, facing the other way when I went to pick him up. Baby M is so active... no doubt we will have our hands full once he gets mobile!

First Day

Today was my first day back at work, which meant it was also baby M's first day at daycare. He did really well (or so I was told), and I am quite proud of myself for only calling once to check on him (and I didn't even go visit him in person!). Of course, it helped that they called to tell me how he was doing and also e-mailed me a few pictures they took of him. As long as he's fed, burped, and changed, he's good to go, so mentally I know this transition is harder on me than it is on him. Nothing much has changed from three years ago when big sister K started her stint in the infant wing of this daycare center, so it's just a matter of me getting to know baby M's new caregivers (he's in a different class than his big sister was in). Maybe I'll stop in during lunch one of these days to see how he's really doing.

Baby M's first day of daycare:

First Fever

I brought baby M to the doctor for his four-month visit yesterday. He's grown three pounds in two months, now weighing 14 lbs. 5 oz. His weight and height (24.5 inches) are at the 45 percentile while the circumference of his head is slightly bigger at 70% (though call me biased, but baby M looks perfectly proportional to me).

Baby M got the same vaccinations he did at his two month visit (Pentacel, Prevnar, and the rotovirus vaccine which is taken orally). He showed no adverse reaction the first time around, but last night he developed a fever. I took his axillary temperature (under the arm) and it came up to 100.6 (this method tends to give a lower and less accurate reading, so the recommendation is to add one degree to it). I gave baby M some acetaminophen, but he was still very fussy and cried nonstop for a few hours. He finally fell asleep after taking his last bottle for the night (probably exhausted from all the crying). Surprisingly, baby M was able to sleep through the night, and fortunately his fever was gone by the morning.