10/11/2009

Surprise Party

Yesterday Ellie attended her very first surprise party, for Teresa, the nice lady across the street. Her husband Jim was trying to set it up a few weeks ago but she got the flu so everything had to be postponed. There were at least 30 people hiding quietly in the club house when Teresa innocently walked in with her husband and family, we all screamed "surprise", she looked genuinely surprised. Ellie was not too startled, she was busy soaking up all the information around her, the balloons, kids noise, adults chit chatting, swimming pool, everyone walked by giving her big smiling faces...

Ellie is trying to lift her head up more, we would hold her body and give her chances to practice her neck muscles, she seems to enjoy this exercise, her head would turn around and around non-stop, as if amazed at all the stuff around and trying to interpret what's what.

She slept 5 hours last night, a huge milestone. Dan and I are happy.

10/03/2009

Sign Language

Today Dan and I watched a videotape that teaches parents sign language. Contrary to my belief, it was in fact quite easy to learn, we learned very quickly the signs for words like more, milk, eat, help, love...we will try this out when Ellie is ready, perhaps around 6-8 months old. We took Ellie with us to the Los Altos clinic for flu shots. There were a ton of people in the line, even though they said today was for high risk people. I wonder what low risk people will do, perhaps self selection bias is at work therefore they are not showing up at the first place.

It is Chinese Moon festival today, we have already celebrated it 3 weeks ago with my parents and Dan's parents. We bought a few moon cakes so that everyone can have a taste of the different flavor, my favorite was the one with lotus filling. Ellie will like it next year when she can eat with us.

My friend Pei has told me, raising a child one will feel that each day is long but each year is short. It seems to be overwhelming every morning when you get up, things seem to repeat itself, the relentless cycle of feeding, diaper changing, soothing, playing with the baby...repeats it self every three hours. Remind me of the movie "Ground hog day". Dan and I are working better and better together in terms of understanding Ellie's needs, her sleeping patterns, and best of all, when she smiles back at us whole heartedly, all the agony and tiredness seems to be melting away. I don't quite know if or how I have begun to have the joy of a parent, everyday life will teach me.