Hands On

Mei Xi is getting more interested in using her hands to touch things now. While she doesn't reach out for things, she is willing to grab or pull things near her hands - pillowcases, her bib, clothes, toys, books. And often, whatever is in her hands is put straight into her mouth =p

See her thumbing her book:


See her with her new rattler:


Mei Xi seems to like new things. She gets bored with the same toys and the same views and the same games after a while, so we've to introduce lots of variety else she gets bored and starts sucking her fingers instead. What she gets to do each day includes a mix of physical exercise (trying to stand, sit, crawl, lie on her tummy), physical games (rolling around, swaying, tick-tocking like a clock), naming games (naming things and body parts), outdoor walks, songs, cooking demonstrations (by me - when I'm preparing meals), watching TV/DVD, and she now joins us at the table when we're eating. She's so cute when she's enjoying herself and 'talking away' or smiling or laughing. (She goes 'her her' when she laughs.)

When we brought her to the library, and then to Olgethrope Mall in the Snugli carrier today, the curious little girl was really excited because she could see so many new things in a new environment. She's so amused that she happily waved her hands around and kicked her legs a lot. And, as usual, she attracted the attention of many admirers who couldn't resist her cutesy pie looks. Hee. Anyway, using the Snugli was certainly a less physically taxing way of carrying her around while keeping her close to me. She's weighing approximately 13 pounds (6kg) now, so carrying her by the arms for extended periods of time is no mean feat, even though I'm sure my muscles are getting stronger every day.

Me and the big baby:

Myrtle Beach - Day 3

Mei Xi charmed a few ladies in the restaurant simply by looking at them with her innocent expression. She always attracts all these admirers when we go out, and people give such compliments as 'She's a doll!', 'She's so cute!', 'She's adorable!', 'She has beautiful eyes!' and 'Look at that hair!' (erm.. not sure if this last remark is a compliment...)

Myrtle Beach - Day 2

Reveille - Climbed out of bed to watch sunrise at Myrtle Beach. (We didn't plan to wake up so early, but Mei Xi - or at least her tummy - was our little alarm clock.)

This is our first family photo if I am not wrong. Notice Mei Xi's little OshKosh hat we bought from Tanger Outlet. We had a couple of other family photos, but those were taken when Mei Xi was really little. Doesn't Mei Xi look like a little safari explorer in her new hat? She's all covered in long sleeves and long pants to protect her delicate skin from the strong UV rays. And that's the Atlantic Ocean in the background, with its crashing waves. We have seen 'The Pond' from Hilton Head Island and from Miami too - I still think I prefer the sight from Miami, as the beach was alive with people exercising, meditating etc.

Here we are at Broadway By The Beach. One of the main attractions in Myrtle Beach. It is quite a unique shopping experience as the shops are built around a lake. Here you can see wifey crossing the bridge to reach the other end of the mall. No words can describe the blistering heat that morning....argh. With temperatures hovering around 100 degrees Fahrenheit, it was truly scorching and the glare from the sun was headache-inducing. Umbrella (hidden away for the photo shoot) and sunblock were de rigeur.

Mei Xi joining us at our lunch table. We had lunch at this upmarket deli called Market Place.

'What are little girls made of?
What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice, and all that is nice.
That's what little girls are made of.'

To end of the day, we had a dip in the pool to cool off. Look at Mei Xi in her lady bug float.

Myrtle Beach - Day 1

It has been some time since I go on leave for a holiday, especially not in the last few months with the arrival of Mei Xi. So finally, me and Ee Wan thought it would be an appropriate time to start travelling as a family, if only to get an idea of how to handle baby on subsequent long trips.

Nuff of the preamble. We decided to drive down to Myrtle Beach, S Carolina for the weekend. I managed to get a decent hotel deal at Hampton Inn via Priceline.com. After a long 5-hour drive, baby must have been really excited at her new surroundings and big bed that she was cooing and gooing loudly nonstop. Imagine her in the queen sized bed below cooing and kicking excitedly. One tiny baby in a big bed all by herself!

As the name suggest, Myrtle Beach is a seaside resort (similar to Santa Barbara, Ca as I was told). So the first thing we did was to head towards the beach. Here is wifey and baby pram on the seaside boulevard.
This is another view of Myrtle Beach from Pier 14. Notice the highrise seaside resort housing.



And here's baby, tired out after the day's adventure. See how her hair stands almost perpendicular to her head.

Cute Moments

Mei Xi has laughed out loud on a few occasions when I'm playing with her. Those rare laughs are still very precious =) And it's always so heartwarming when she gives me a bright smile.

A day with Baby passes very quickly, and there are tender or funny moments every day.
For instance, she looked so cute sleeping on our big bed this morning - one small baby in a big, big bed. There's also this time when we put her in the laundry basket and she looked really puzzled:
And here's Mei Xi sitting on her 'throne' (her new highchair):
Actually, Mei Xi is such a miniature human being - one who yawns, sneezes, burps, coughs, smiles - just like any of us! It's certainly more interesting taking care of her now since she's more responsive. No wonder that she has charmed her daddy and he's very attached to her now (he wasn't so involved in the initial weeks!)

Baby MIAed

Baby went missing in action today. Luckily not for long. Cos we managed to find her almost immediately. But for the moment we "lost" her, our heart nearly missed a beat.

This was what happened.

Baby and mummy were taking their morning nap. Mei Xi was sleeping on her rocker next to our bed and Ee Wan was sleeping on our bed. I was cooking lunch. Suddenly, I heard Ee Wan shouting from the Bedroom *WHERE'S BABY?*. When I rushed in, baby was missing from her rocker. After a second of frantic search, we found her underneath the bed, with just her head sticking out in view. Of course we burst into laughter after finding baby cos she didnt even cry when she wriggled out of her rocker and landed on the floor. She probably found her position under her bed quite interesting cos she has never been there before. Hee.

This is the re-enactment.

First she was happily sleeping.
The first sign of her slipping

She falls further....helplessly
And she went MIAed. That's how we found her.
Wondering what she was looking for underneath the bed....

Hairstyling

Mei Xi has been shedding lots of her fine baby hair lately, so there is hair on her bedsheet, hair on her clothes, hair on our bedsheet where she's been lying. Her hair looks longer and thicker now, but the strands of hair still stand on their end, and she often looks like she has a cock's comb. The only time when her lies flat is after a shampoo, when her wet hair is nicely combed down. But then the neat look only lasts till her hair dries, by which time everything is sticking out again. Sigh*

Anyway, here's Mei Xi with side-parted fringe (like her dad when his hair grows long):

Mei Xi with side-parted hair nicely smoothed down so her head looks like a bao1 (bun):

Mei Xi with her fringe combed down so she looks more girly:

Baby Kingdom

Here are Mei Xi's loyal subjects cum playmates (from left to right): Hazelnut, Tino, Woodstock, Snoopy, Quackles, Walnut. She looks so tiny in their midst!

Anyway, it seems that our little apartment is cluttered with Mei Xi's things. She has a lot of space-occupying things for such a little person - her bed, rocker, playmat, stroller and car seat, and today, we've added a high chair to all these =p But she can join us at the dinner table now (as a spectator) and it'll also be useful when she starts solid foods. In the mean time, it's also her seat when watching cooking demonstrations in the kitchen (i.e. when we are cooking and have to watch over her at the same time).


We were thrilled to receive Mei Xi's American passport in the mail at last, having waited a few weeks since we sent in the application. She looks really cute and alert in her passport photo =) And, more importantly, she can now travel out of the country.

Water Baby

Happy National Day!
To celebrate the anniversary of Mei Xi's conception, we brought her for a dip in the swimming pool this evening - to let her re-experience the watery environment she's used to ;p Clad in her new swimsuit, she bobbed up and down in the water. She wasn't smiling or laughing, but neither did she look distressed. Guess it felt rather comfortable to be in the cool waters on a hot day. And she has so much fat that she floats easily in the water!

In any case, she's usually in a better mood early in the day, when she's had a good night's sleep and had a hearty breakfast. This morning, she even laughed while having fun clapping her hands (actually, it's more like I was trying to get her to clap to the tune of 'If You're Happy and You know It', but she only managed to bang her fists together). Later in the day and closer to bedtime, she tends to be grouchier and it takes more to make her smile.

These days, Mei Xi is following a more regular and predictable schedule - in part because of her internal clock seems more regular now, and also because we are putting more effort to impose some regularity on her daily schedule. So she's awake around 5-6am and in bed around 8pm, with short naps throughout the days. We also give her a 'tanking up' session aroudn 11pm, before sleeping, to help her (and, therefore, me too) sleep through the night. It feels like such a luxury now to be able to sleep 5-6 hours at a stretch =)

Shopping Spree

We went factory outlet shopping at the Tanger Outlet in Hilton Head, South Carolina today. The trip coincided with a tax-free weekend in SC, so that made the already good discounts (e.g. 70% off, buy one get one free) even more attractive. I bought 2 basic singlets - one in dusty red and one in fuschia - since much of my wardrobe now is unwearable, being either too big (maternity wear) or too small (pre-maternity wear). Minhui got a Timberland polo shirt and casual short-sleeved shirt, as well as a pair of Nike sandals. In the end, I bought a pair too since the shoe store was offering a 2nd pair of shoes at 1/2 price. And little Mei Xi got a cute, little cotton hat to protect her little face from the big, big sun. It's been some time since we did any major shopping, so it's credit card damage time today =p Still, the deals are really worth it. Hee.

Jabs!

Can you see my image in the picture? Yelp the black streak on the silvery thing is my hair. I didn't know plasters these days are so flashy, literally.

Anyway, Meixi went for her 2nd immunization schedule and these were her 2 (of 4) souvenirs from her paeditrician at Curtis V Cooper Clinic. For those pharmacologically inclined, she had 4 vaccination shots for
1. Polio Vaccine
2. Diptheria, Tetanus, & Pertusis
3. Pneumococcal Conjugate
4. Hepatitis B 2nd Booster
5. Haemophilus Influenzae Type B
Each plaster was for each needle that poked into our poor little baby. To be honest, Mei Xi was braver than we thought. She cried helplessly each time she was injected but after the last shot, she fell asleep, and quite soundly too. (She was taking a nap before that, so she noiselessly returned to sleep after that.)

As instructed by the doctor, we monitored her for fever and gave her some infant panadol drops. Her body temperature was higher than her normal at 38.2 degrees C and we took no chances to prevent her temperature from going even higher. (If you stare hard enough, you can see her plasters on each side of her thigh.) And we also placed a wet towel on her forehead to cool her down. That's the picture of our patient (adjective) little patient (noun). Bad joke... ahem...

Embarrassingly, she pooped again while we were at the paediatrician. Actually, she probably pooped before we got there, but we only unwrapped her 'precious diaper package' there. But she was getting tired and she didn't like the toilet, so she shrieked and shrieked and shrieked while I struggled to get her nice and clean in the yucky clinic toilet =( Luckily, that was pure breast milk poop, so it wasn't too smelly. She has different kinds of poop - the pure formula kind, the formula/breast milk kind (which varies according to the proportion of each type of milk), and the pupre breast milk kind. A bit gross, but quite interesting to note the variation in consistency and smell of her poop.

Astronautilla

To celebrate the successful launch of Discovery to remove 13 tons of rubbish and the soon-to-be successful launch of Shenzhou-6 with two taikonauts, I shall christian baby "Astronautilla" whenever she wears her "Popeye Suit" (cos the white romper makes her look like Eileen Collins doing a space walk to repair the shuttle's bottom...hmmm...not sure whether she was the one who space walked but does it matter?)

Baby Sleeping

Look at her in all her sleep poses.

That's her sleeping on me.
I personally think this the most well taken picture of her sleeing.
That's how she take her afternoon naps.
Sleeping and deep in thoughts.

3 Months Old!

Mei Xi turns 3 months old today! This means she has done about one whole year of amazing growing from being an unfertilised ova to her current chubby self. Wow! Getting pregnant is a blessing, and having a cute and healthy baby is no less a blessing.

Despite all the growing Mei Xi has done, she has only outgrown 2 of her newborn clothes so far - what we call the bunny suit (a onesie with bunny prints) and a white, frilly top she never got to wear (because her head was too big for the top by the time we tried it on her). But she is fitting into more clothes, and she gets to go out in her pretty dresses sometimes. She has a grand total of 3 hand-me-down pretty dresses for going out (her 'gai2 gai3' wear) - a green checked dress with embroidered flowers from Mothercare, a white cotton dress with pretty flowers at the bottom, and a blue denim dress from Baby Guess.

These constitute her girly wardrobe. Other than that, she has some long-sleeved rompers, tops and pants for pajamas, and some admittedly rather old short-sleeved tops for homewear. We have even given nicknames for some of her clothes. For instance, her white long-sleeved romper is her 'Little Popeye suit', because she looks like Popeye's baby when she's dressed in it; and there's her 'Mary suit' because the long-sleeved onesie has a little lamb embroidered on it; and she has a Pigeon top, so named after the brand of the top. I try to take pictures of her in each of her outfits, especially when she's particularly cute =p She still has more clothes, but these are of a larger size, so she's got more growing to do still (and that also translates to stronger arm muscles for me since I carry her around so much). I still have my hair accessories from my childhood days, so she will get to inherit all those when her hair grows long enough.