Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Some More Pictures!

Here are some more pictures of Lola over the last two weeks.  She keeps growing every day!  She's recently become interested in her own reflection, but nothing can surpass her fascination with the TV.  She will turn her head at all kinds of crazy angles in order to maintain an unfixed lock on the big screen - it's a bit scary, actually, to see how transfixed she is on the thing.  We have started to turn the TV off whenever she's in front of it.

She was enamored with pacifiers for a little while, but that interest was quickly outpaced by her fascination with her fist and thumb.  Here she is, back before she outgrew this phase, enjoying her elephant Wubbanubba for a quick self-soothe before bed.
 I managed to catch the sweetest expression on her face after a particularly satisfying feed, when she was completely milk drunk and then clearly having some sweet dreams - maybe about having more milk!




















Sometimes, she can be playing by herself, and fall asleep...ah, the sleep of babes. 
 

 
Dad and daughter making eye contact
 Lola continues to baffle and awe us with her Houdini-like skills as she breaks out of her swaddle on nearly every occasion.  This is how I find her sometimes - both hands out! 
Don't let her look of innocence fool you.  She is a wily one!
What are you talking about?
Who, me?


















Monday, January 29, 2018

An Overdue Update as We Come Upon Two Months

I didn't mean to go so long between posts, but time has had a funny way of sneaking up on me and completely blowing by while I've been otherwise preoccupied.

Things are going well here - we are slowly, to the extent possible with a newborn, learning Lola's cues and signals and habits and getting into a routine.  Our guesses aren't always right, and Lord knows Lola cannot be cajoled into doing anything she doesn't want to do, so our attempts at routine or schedules don't always work, but then she has been so cute and adorable each and every day that it's hard to be too frustrated or upset even when we're battling exhaustion.  And as scary as it is to say, I'm kind of getting inured to the whole not sleeping for more than 2.5 hours at a time.

As we come up on 2 months, Lola has been cooing and gurgling and steadily making a lot of noises, as if she wants to communicate with us.  She has discovered her hands and loves (LOVES) to shove her fingers (preferably her whole fist) into her mouth and can happily entertain herself this way for quite some time.  She continues to love her bouncer and her playmat and adamantly detests being worn, although we recently made some inroads with the Ergobaby.  Her eyesight has noticeably improved because she is for the first time fixated on the toys on her mobile, and she really enjoys flashing lights, particularly on her baby Einstein music maker.  She is generally a really smiley, happy baby, and will react to our smiles by smiling back.  Her gummy smiles totally warm our hearts!

She has gotten five vaccines to date and has been to the doctor a few times for routine check ups.  She is progressing steadily in all categories and is on the standard growth chart curves.

I've been to the park with her and we've gone on a few walks with her, but we haven't started to bring her out to social events or meals yet.  So far it's just been the occasional fun, short excursion, and then the doctor's office.

We have also been busy amassing her various documents.  For being such a little person, Lola sure has had a lot of applications already!  She has her Hong Kong birth certificate, which we applied for and received in December.  Her U.S. passport is currently being processed and once we receive that, we can apply for her social security card.  Because she was born abroad, we also needed to get a "consular report of birth abroad."

In addition, Lola is eligible for a Hong Kong passport and is a permanent resident of Hong Kong by virtue of her being a "Chinese citizen" and being born here, so we are in the process of applying for that passport and her HKID card. 

Finally, because schools in Hong Kong are so competitive, we've already lodged applications for her kindergarten at a few schools that accept applications as soon as the baby has a birth certificate, and she's already on the waitlist for a few popular bilingual playgroups that accept applications at birth because there is such demand.

I'm slowly amassing a library of both English and Chinese picture books to read to her, and this has been such a fun project and a lovely trip down memory lane.  I love books and I hope I pass on my love to her.  I can't wait until she's old enough to enjoy some of the books I adored as a child, like Mrs. Piggly-Wiggly, Amelia Bedelia, Frog and Toad, Cam Jansen, Nate the Great, Encyclopedia Brown, Caddie Woodlawn, Little House on the Prairie...

Friday, January 19, 2018

A Photo Comparison

There have been lots of differing opinions as to whether Lola looks like me or Michael.  My mom dug up some old pictures of me from when I was a baby.  What do you guys think?  Does Lola currently take after her mom or her dad?  Of course, babies change so rapidly that who she looks like now has no bearing on who she will resemble throughout the ages!



 And where I'm a little older:

And one snap from present day!  She was side eyeing me like nobody's business last weekend...

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

BabyBjorn Bouncer Photo Series

Lola continues to change every day!  She's clearly the most popular attraction on the blog thus far so I will put aside my boring ramblings and other life updates (just kidding, there aren't any other life happenings) and just keep posting pictures of her.  She is growing so fast and every day brings about a new occurrence or development.

We've brought out the Skiphop playmat (Lola's takeover of our living room space continues without mercy!) and she loves staring at all of the little objects while she plays/exercises and does tummy time.

She loves her babybjorn bouncer (this thing has been a godsend), and can often be found chilling in it during the day or in the evening.  As you will note, Lola has so many expressions!







 



 

Wednesday, January 10, 2018

Pictures of the Little One

Here are some more pictures of Lola!  She is growing quickly every day. 

In the past couple of weeks, she smiled while dreaming, then this week she started to smiled with her eyes wide open.  You can tell she is getting a better sense of her hands and arms, and she is making a lot of eye contact now when she's not cranky/hungry/tired. 

It's really true that babies come out with a lot of their personalities and preferences already developed.

She likes music, my voice, her dad's neck/shoulder, being around people, and loooooves bath time (though not so much the getting in and out of her clothes, or the getting out of the water part).  Here is a picture of her enjoying her first bath at home.  She always seems to be in bliss when she is in the water.
This is from a more recent bath time - the very picture of contentment!
When my dad was here, he took a particularly colorful set of punchy pictures that I love.  It captures Lola's spunky and energetic personality very well!



I forgot to post these pictures in my Christmas post.  Here is one particularly poignant moment between my mom and her granddaughter - sizing each other up and gazing into each other's eyes!

Here are some pictures from when Lola was smaller - she's much bigger now.  She measured nearly 9 pounds at her last checkup, meaning she has gained over 2 pounds since birth.  Now she barely fits in this swaddle and has already outgrown all of her newborn outfits.

 Lola likes tummy time and does a very good job (for the most part) of hoisting herself up on her arms and legs.  She is really strong!  Soon we will break out the Skiphop playmat for her to entertain herself.
 She had her first non-doctor-related excursion outdoors in the New Year.  Here she is outside our building.

 We've also recently gotten her into the baby bjorn bouncer, which she loves.  She has acid reflux (poor thing) and we have found that this helps calm her, or at least makes her feel better.  Here she is with her favorite toy, a little lamb we have named "Simone," who rattles and crinkles.
 Lola says hello!

Thursday, January 4, 2018

A Belated Merry Christmas and Happy 2018

Here are some rather belated pictures from our Christmas celebration.  My sister brought us a chocolate tree from her layover in Zurich.
We spent the morning opening presents - I got Michael a pair of Bose noise canceling headphones and various skin products, he got me a ski hat and an electric hot plate for hotpot, we got my sister Eberjey pajamas (I continue to spread the word about these fantastic sets and barely restrained myself from buying two more sets for myself when I bought hers, ha!) and a Smythson passport cover, her fiance a Leatherman Wave multi-tool, my dad a travel bag which he promptly put to use, and my mom a light pink Burberry cashmere scarf.  Michael also got lots of different kinds of coffee to try out, and new kicks from Adidas and cool Peruvian cufflinks.  I also got essential oils and a Peruvian necklace.  Lola got the most out of the present exchange, with a huge haul of clothes and gifts, including a Sophie the giraffe, and the cutest little lamb socks.

This is a picture after the presents were opened.   Whoops.
As you can see, to make it all even better, we finally got the bookshelves from Taobao that we had struggled to ship from Guangzhou for about a month.  Due to the sheer hassle and headache and pain of the experience, I'm probably never going to use Taobao to ship huge furniture again - but at least we got the shelves and they look great.  Unrelated to Christmas but just to include for the sake of completeness, these are the dining room chairs that we got which I had mentioned in passing in another post.
They continue to hold up well, are supremely comfortable, and I really love them.

Here's the whole clan on Christmas day!
Christmas was also my parents' 40th wedding anniversary, so we sat down to a celebratory dinner of prossecco, Peking duck (two ducks!) and some vegetables (but those were more for show).  
Happy anniversary mom and dad!
 Lola was very cooperative and slept like a little champ as everyone ate around her.  She seems to really like the buzz of company.  My dad celebrated his 40th wedding anniversary with a glass of champers and a little baby in each hand.  Not bad!
Lola was very content, though you'll note our little Houdini consistently manages to lose if not one mitten, then two.
 She got lots of snuggles over Christmas, including with my mom and sister.  She loves a certain sweet spot on our shoulders and chests and knows how to lift her head and squirm around until she finds the exact place that she's comfortable.  If she's unhappy with her position, she has no compunctions and will scrunch up her face and howl to let you know it.

During these days she was also using her hands more, making eye contact, and sticking out her tongue. 
Here's one of us hanging out on the couch after Christmas, on one of the last days when everyone was still in Hong Kong. 
From our family to yours, hope you had a wonderful holidays and happy new year!  Here's to a 2018 filled with firsts, and our biggest adventure yet.