Week of May 14 - New Week...New Adventures

Photo of the Week

Emily continues to be a very happy and good natured little girl. Unless she is hungry or sleepy.....then it's smiles, giggles, and lots of baby talk (no clue what she says of course) for normal events in her day-to-day activities.

Daddy has graduated from the Jeff Trapnell (one of my fellow dad's in our travel group, and prolific photo snapper) school of child photography now. Last week was something over a hundred photos snapped at various days and times. Jeff would be proud of me! :)

Emily has this very deliberate style of making cutie-cutie until dad grabs the camera and has the shot set, then she quickly changes pose and gives me top of the head, back, dangling leg out of focus, toy raised quickly to hide face, etc. etc. But I got her! Maybe one in 15 shots is a keeper, but the keepers are real keepers indeed :-P

Mother's Day was a big hit yesterday. Emily bought mommy a nice bouquet of yellow roses, and cute card that said "Thank you for being my Mommy, Love and Kisses, Emily....... well, OK, Emily actually subcontracted Dad to do all that...but ssshhhh.... our secret! Mom was impressed none the less! We went to the local park for Mother's day to see the ducks at the lake, and walk around and visit all the trees and enjoy the shade trees by the lake.e Silly daddy forgot the camera too! Oh well... Emily just rolled her little eyes (it's sooo hard to get good help these days, she pondered) and proceeded to investigate every single leaf within reach of the blanket edge.

Regarding More Mundane Matters:

We finally collected the last of the stool samples for the Doctor yesterday and ran them over to the lab. We can finally be done with that exercise! Emily could really care less of course, but Doctor and parents seemed overly interested in seeing lab results come in.

There are signs of a second lower tooth starting to peek over the weekend. Naturally, I am still seeking the successful photo-opp on that first one as it continues to grow. No luck so far as Emily has a strict policy of poking the tongue out over top of the lower gums whenever possible.

Emily can, and does, roll over and over on the play blanket now to get to where she wants to go. She is comfortable on her tummy now and will lay there and reach out for the nearest desireable toy. When that fails, she will jostle to change her prone position so she can roll to the object of her desire. Still unwilling to get up on all fours and crawl, even though she will get the little legs chugging with ease now. On a different note, when seated and a toy is out of reach, she will wiggle her little bunns left and right and is able to chug forward as much as two feet to get to what she is seeking. She will stand, and actually likes to stand, for longer periods of time now with just assistance of mom or dad for balance. The legs have pretty much taken on a life of their own now and will bounce and kick and stomp at any random moment as well.

On the dietary front, we continue to expand Emily's diet successfully. Happily we have seen no allergy reactions. She has very good tolerance for lactose (in the Similac) and wheat (in the cereal). Today we will begin to expand into the "green zone" with some baby peas (wish us luck on this one as this is new territory). Emily continues to be a very enthusiastic eater, having added squash, carrots, dad's special home made congee, and mixed fruits to the diet. Multi-grain ceral, cooked egg-yolk with Similac, applesauce, banana, and sweet potatoes remain favorites. After a rocky start with carrots, she now gobbles em down. She will on average consume 2 containers of baby food, one large feeding of mixed grain cereal, one and a half egg yokes mixed with a scoop of Similac and some warm water, and Similac through the day. Emily's Similac consumption is down a bit with the higher intake of other foods, with an average intake of 26 oz a day (spread over 3 to 4 bottle feeds a day). Most often she will end the day with 4 oz of Similac about 30 minutes before bed time.

Emily has very fine skin and we have noticed that as the weather has warmed (and it has been dry weather) her skin will tend to "rash-up" a bit at random. We were able to correct this pretty easy with liberal application of baby lotion right after bath time and selected re-application when she gets dry spots (like face cheeks, for example, need multiple re-applications through the day). So we pretty much have this nipped in the bud and under control now. We also make a point to double rince all her laundry and use scent free products.

Emily has grown very acustomed to playing with her toys now for as long as a half-hour without external need for parental contact and interaction. She no longer needs to check for us every 5 minutes to make sure we are still there. When she needs something or needs interaction though, she is not at all shy about making needs known. She will play and have solo fun in her crib with a handful of toys in the morning after breakfast. This is terrific as it keeps her safe and secure while mom and dad get ready for work.

Emily spends part of the week during the day with her grandparents. She is fully aclimated with their home now and loves to see grandpa and to be held by him. We will continue to phase in more day time with grandparents over the next month and Emily will evenutally spend 4 days a week with them while mom and dad are at work. I plan to continue to work from home on Mondays so I can have one extra day a week of time with her. Emily's grandparents (this is their 4th grandchild) have expressed how pleased they are with how low maintenance she is (naps well by herself, follows a very predictable sleep-eat-play schedule, no need to be rocked to sleep, eats easily, not fussy, loves to play) And of course, grandpapa thinks she is sooo pretty.

We have started our readoption paperwork this week for Emily. For those NOT "in the know" on this topic, readoption is simply the process of formally re-adopting Emily in California. While she is legally adopted in China, we want to also re-adopt in California. This has valuable advantages for Emily later in life. She will have a California Birth Certificate, she will have no remaining legal document ties to China, all legal documents she will ever need in her life will be domestic. This also insures that her adoption is recognized commonly by all 50 states in the US without question. She will get a formal name change completed in the process as well. Given everything else we have processed over the last year, re-adoption is pretty straight forward, and simple. [I will post updates on this as we progress over the coming months.]

And That's all the news to report for now .....

'til next time..... keeeeeeep smiling folks!