Everything about the baby
Unha contacted me via Friendster today. She heard from Moto about Bryan and said she’s also expecting one herself.
hey!
how’s is it!
i heard about the baby from moto.
congratulations!i have a little one coming soon myself.
one more month! 🙂
She also started baby blogging. Babies and blogs are in!
Unha worked with me when I was still in New York at my last job. She’s one awesome programmer with a very high spirit. Unfortunately the company didn’t have the foresight to keep her around though. 🙁
Diaper changes for Bryan haven’t been too terrible. His poops don’t stink all that much and he’s fairly easy to change diapers with. But I was warned as babies move on to solid food, the stink level on their crap will go off the chart. Yeah, like I don’t have enough to look forward to already, jerks!
One thing I think is really funny (though I should be annoyed) is how Bryan ALWAYS picks the worst times to pee during diaper changes. Here are a couple of scenarios:
1. Completely wiped his butt clean, ready to put on the new diaper and off it goes with the power fountain. A few more dimes down the drain on a pee pad.
2. As the new diaper is ready to be fastened, he decides that was the best time to “let go”. That’s a completely brand new diaper plus a peed pad down the drain.
So far I haven’t been surprised with any in-th-face splashes yet. But I have heard crazy stories about them; and I don’t like it. I have learned that Bryan gets particularly quite, as if he’s contemplating the best time to do his deeds, before he pulls those tricks on me. So I have been able to catch a couple of sneak attacks before the old diaper was completely removed.
Got any interesting diaper change stories to share? I have a feeling it’s not too hard to make a sleep-deprived man laugh out loud in front of his laptop. Go ahead. Make me laugh.
UPDATE: No less than 10 minutes after I posted this entry. a routine diaper change again turned into a circus. I got hit again with #1. He’s rapidly perfecting his art.
My brother, Mark, came by for a few days to see Bryan (as well as mom). While he was here, I suppose he’s learned a few things about having a baby — mostly that they are noisy, don’t sleep at night and poop a lot. Hah hah… Since Bryan’s birth, there’s been a slew of people visiting (or attempting to visit). But it’s no fun seeing the baby now since Bryan spends most of his time sleeping (or going in and out of his sleep mode with eyes half open).
I didn’t even realize it’s been a couple of days since I last blogged. Time flies when there’s a baby around.
Murdza, now I understand why it took you so long to install that bad ass new PowerBook hard drive around the time when Savannah was born. I can’t imagine adding house renovation projects to the mix….
Bryan has been having hiccups since he was in Grace’s tummy. It’s really funny to feel the tummy tremor in an interval. And now that he’s here, almost every other meal he hiccups for a few minutes (despite gentle pats on his back). Sometimes I give him some water, and that seemed to have helped. But other times it doesn’t.
It’s worthy to note that scientists still don’t know exactly why hiccups happen though there are some interesting theories involving the diaphragm.
I do have a couple of home remedies that usually stop the hiccups immediately.
1. Take a deep breathe and hold it. Wait 30 seconds and exhale. (Usually this takes care of the hiccups.
2. Take a deep breathe and hold it. Drink a big glass of water while holding the breathe. Usually it is followed by a slight burp and the hiccup stops.
Bryan is one of those babies one might consider a sleeper. He only wakes up for certain things, specifically food, diaper change and sometimes some affection. I continue to be amazed how precise this little wakes up right on the dot. His daily rituals are almost identical — and that’s a good thing; it’s comforting and reassuring for newborns, infants and babies to have repetitive, consistent and predictable patterns in their daily routine. But instead of us imposing that onto Bryan, he’s actually teaching us on how it’s done…
Since I am on this topic, I’d like to demystify this — that most people “think” parents of newborns get 2-3 hours of sleep between feeding at night. Try cutting that down to hour between waking moments.
Here’s my logic from personal experience:
1. Baby wakes at 12AM for food.
2. Takes about 20 minutes for him to consume 2 oz of milk. Takes the clock to 12:20AM.
3. Takes about 10 minutes to pat his back to make sure he burps to get all that air out of his tummy. 12:30Am now.
4. Takes about 10 minutes to actually get the little one to completely fall asleep (sometimes not necessary; but sometimes longer). It’s now 12:40AM.
5. Baby sleeps for an hour; wakes up for diaper change. 1:40AM.
6. Takes about 5 minutes to get him back to sleep. 1:45AM.
7. Baby wakes up for food 1 1/2 hour later. 3:15AM.
8. Repeat steps 2 through 7.
That’s my routine on a daily basis. Sometimes he’s extra playful and won’t go back to sleep for an hour or two. So on some days I miss out the entire “break” time in between. Running purely on adrenaline for a week straight is a strange feeling. I am thankful that men don’t have to give birth though, or else the entire species of mankind would have been wiped out millions of years ago…
The upside is Grace has been getting plenty of sleep at the hospital (more than I can say for myself). But she does get woken up every four hours or so by the hospital staff to take her vitals. But she gets out of the hospital today. Hopefully she won’t have anymore fevers.
I can’t help but to think Americans seriously need to use their resources on more important things after reading this article.
Excerpt:
The father and his wife, Teresa, dropped off some photos for processing at a local Eckerd. The role included a shot of Charbel kissing his baby on the tummy. Next thing the parents know, they’re being charged for sexual assault, and their children are wards of the state. It took six months for an investigation to conclude that there was zero abuse in the household, and for custody of their two kids to be restored.
Relax, America…
And to add to this, I’d like to say that corporal punishment shouldn’t be a crime. It has its place in families, especially that of Asian origin. It’s silly to argue that kids who were punished with some spanking will grow up to be abusive and a burden to the society… I mean, crime rate in the United States is among the highest in all of developed countries, isn’t it? Taiwan, Japan and Korea, where corporal punishment has been consistently used as a discipline method, are incredibly safe countries. No “Columbine” there! Maybe gun control (or lack there of) is the problem?
via [BloggingBaby]
Kyung said it’s only a matter of time before I get this
But this is what I prefer for Bryan. Geek power.
Or more preferably, a “Hello World” shirt…
The hospital gave us enough Pampers diapers for a couple of days. And we sure used them up fast. So we switched to the Huggies diapers we got at a discount from Costco. What a mistake.
Those Huggies, how do I put this delicately… um, they are pieces of crap. Not only does the texture inferior to the free diapers given to us by the hospital, they leak easily. Apparently I am not the only person complaining. A quick Google will result in many complaints about the same thing.
Good thing Costco has great return policies. On the shelf is where this product belongs. God damn pieces of crap!
Speaking of Costco, I had to get a huge 38 oz can of Enfamil baby formula from Costco (this one). Grace has been in the hospital since Saturday night and has been receiving antibiotics to treat her infection. Her breast milk, naturally, is not usable for the baby. So formula it is for now. The damn thing cost me $28! Yikes! I wonder how long the can is going to last.
While researching on the Huggies issue, I discovered this dad blogging about everything baby. Cool! Given the amount of coverage given to family matters, my blog may soon turn into one of those daddy blogs too…
UPDATE: I ran out to the supermarket and got Pampers right after I posted this. And 10 diapers later, no problemo. Huggies is definitely going back to Costco.
Bryan has been a delight since he came home. Lack of sleep aside, it’s been fun taking care of him and just looking at him sleep in his crib or in my arms. He smiled for the first time in the hospital the other day. Even though infants at this stage have no cognitive ability to truly smile (it’s just a muscle reflex), it’s still nice to think otherwise.
Brian used to tell me how it’s fascinating to see how the babies see the world for the first time. In a way, we are also seeing the world for the first time through their eyes. I experienced that with Bryan for the first time the day he was born. When I held him, his eyes were wide open. Though he couldn’t see a damn thing (new-borns are practically blind), the way he rolled his eyes was as if he was scanning the room, studying everything that was in it; fascinated.
Lack of sleep can get to people sometimes. They become cranky. But I felt alright waking up every two hours feeding him or changing his diapers. I don’t even feel indifferent; I feel almost happy to do it for him. Is this what parenthood is like? Mysterious joy that just creeps up my spine when I go out of my way to do things for my own child? Damn it feels good. Or… maybe next week I will take these words back. Hah!
This morning was a happy morning. It was the morning when Grace and Bryan were coming home. But it took a hospital a few hours to process paperwork, to book Bryan’s next pediatric appointment and just to make sure everything else was done.
Bryan almost had to stay for additional observation because of his increasing level of jaundice. Damn Asian babies with their yellow skins… The doc said Asian babies typically have higher levels of jaundice, but it’s nothing to worry about (yet). He also suggested to expose him to some sunlight to help reduce the level of jaundice. Another thing was to feed him plenty of milk, which in turn will help reduce the level of jaundice as well.
Tomorrow is Bryan’s first pediatric appointment… We’ll see.
Tonight will be my first physical endurance test with Bryan at home. It won’t be long until I get the Panda eyes myself.
A side note: Grace is finally starting to produce some foremilk. It contains highly saturated nutrients and antibodies for the baby. The exact composition of the foremilk is not perfectly understood yet. But virtually everyone agrees that it’s crucial stuff for the baby’s health and immune system, even as s/he grows beyond infancy.
Bryan pooped and peepeed a few times. Good signs that his body is working the way it ought to be. But let me tell ya, his poops are weird! They are black like a black bean paste… Yuck!
He still has baby acne all over his tiny little nose. It’s supposed to get worse before it gets better. The cause is still unknown, but some “experts” believe that it’s the mother’s hormones reacting with the baby’s. The acne goes away in a couple of weeks though.
Both Grace and Bryan and doing very well. Bryan’s still trying to learn to latch on to Grace’s nipples for feeding. It’s really a learning process for both of them. But it’s really amazing to see little new borns with this sucking instinct without anyone teaching them. It may take a few days for Grace’s breast to be able to produce enough milk for Bryan. But in the meantime, both parties have to keep trying. It’s the baby’s sucking motion that helps the mother’s breast to produce milk.
While Grace’s body is still trying to adjust its postpartum hormone levels, we are tricking Bryan with formula milk the hospital provided when he does his sucking motion. He will learn that’s how he gets his food….
They will be out of the hospital tomorrow if both of their vitals are ok. We look forward to having them back at home finally.
For your inquisitive minds, Bryan has been given a Chinese name as of this morning: Yong-si.
For the Chinese-literate folks, it looks like this: 
Let me explain…
reads Yong = reading or singing poetically
reads Si (or Xi, thanks to lack of spelling standards in Taiwan) = peaceful, happy, bright, prosperous; this was also part of the name of a Qing Dynasty emperor, Kangxi, in the 1600s. He is considered to be one of the greatest emperors in Chinese history by historians. One of his achievements was the compilation of the great Chinese Dictionary, Kanxi Dictionary, which was the most complete reference to all Chinese characters at the time. It is still being frequently referenced to even today.
That’s a lot of meanings packed into two little words. I suppose all parents go through something like this — complex feelings for the child to succeed and be happy in life, but at the same time can’t help but feel worried for him.
So with the name, we completed Bryan’s birth certificate as well as a social security number today. He’s become citizen of a country where Grace and I have worked so hard, but failed, to become.
When we travel internationally, things might get a little bit complicated. We have something like a mini-U.N. right in our household.
Me = Taiwan
Grace = Malaysia
Bryan = United States