sleep - the bane of my current existence..

spencer - you had one of your worst nights.. so bad i had to wake daddy up in the middle of the night on a work night! you fall asleep... i put you down.. you wake up.. i pick you up.. you fall asleep.. i put you down.. you wake up.. that happened like 10 times... from 11:30 til about 4am.. when you slept for an hour and woke up again at 5am. grr. the night before was so good too. hrmph.

audrey on the other hand.. you slept beautifully from 7:30pm til 7:15am.. and then you play quietly in your crib until i come in to get you at 7:30.. beautiful.. you toss and turn and whimper sometimes in the middle of the night.. but we pretty much leave you alone until morning. naps on the other hand.. bad.. you sleep only a half hour! and wake up wailing!! you are napping now.. been down about 20 minutes.. we'll see how it goes! ;-)

a new baby brother!

ok.. it's been a loooong time.. so long, that a new baby brother has been born - spencer tsai! he's actually 5 weeks old already! audrey's blog posts were largely about sleep issues... well.. spencer is not the *best* sleeper.. but he seems to be better than audrey so far...! your stretches at night are about 2 hours.. i think i got almost 3.5 last night.. you cluster feed in the evening.. usually from about 7pm to 9pm... then daddy holds you while mommy gets an hour of so of sleep... then i feed you around 11/11:30.. it takes like an hour to get you back down... you're up again at 2:30/3:30... then again at like 6:30... that's the routine..! you actually should be sleeping more... at your one month doctor appointment, you weighed in at 11 pounds, 10 ounces.. that's how big a 3 month old is! i still can't believe that the 0-3 month old clothes i have are for babies up to 12 pounds! you are wearing 3-6 month clothes at 2 months.. while audrey is still wearing 6-12 month clothes at 19 months old! guess this is better than the other way around!

and speaking of audrey... you're so cute... yet can be quite whiney, often throwing little tantrums.. crying and we don't know why. you're not speaking quite as many words as other kids your age.. but you've got about 15-20 words.. let's see... here's what you're saying right now..

ba-ba (daddy - and your favorite phrase)
ma-ma (mommy - but it sounds like ba-ba)
di-di (little brother)
bay-bay (blanket - but it sounds like ba-ba)
bow-bow (pick me up - but it sounds like ba-ba)
bubbles
go-go (dog)
wa-wa (water)
wa-wa (socks)
ya-ya (duck)
puff-puff
moo
bye-bye
hi
night-night
row-row (row your boat)

okay.. gotta go for now.. spencer is on his feeding frenzy... i gotta go nurse him!

sleep.. wow! preggers? yea!

what did audrey give me for mother's day? the ability to fall asleep on her own! wow. daddy agrees to be on baby duty for mother's day.. and what do yo do? you sleep for 10 hours straight.. and then didn't get up until 7:30! you didn't make daddy work at all! and then all of a sudden, i'm putting you down after your bottle awake.. and you manage to fall asleep all on your very own! i'm still shocked. it's so nice to watch you fall asleep.. many times without even a whimper! you wiggle a bit.. toss and turn a bit.. suck on your blankie.. and then.. asleep!

of course, naps are still a challenge. i'm still rocking you to sleep for the most part.

and guess what.. i took a pregnancy test and it was positive! i'm gonna have to take another one tonight just to make sure.. but a little brother or sister could be on the way in 9 months!

time away from mommy and daddy, crawling study, and more...

april 19th.. you're finally crawling.. yay!! i've been waiting for this day.. you were always so frustrated that you weren't mobile.. and i was right.. you're so much happier now! and i was waiting for you to crawl so that i could take you to a crawling study conducted by the UCBerkeley Infant Studies Center. they created a visual dropoff covered in plexiglass, and see how babies react when mommies call babies from the other side. what did you do? you crawled right over the dropoff to mommy :-). if the glass wasn't there, you'd have dropped four feet... but i think you were smart enough to know that hey - there's a piece of glass here.. i won't fall!

and in the last week, mommy and daddy have finally gone out of the house without you! wai-gong and wai-po came to watch you one night while we went to see a movie - harold and kumar escape guantanamo. we snuck out while you were napping.. and came back right before bedtime.. you did so well.. didn't even cry! and then yesterday, mommy wanted to take daddy out to a nice dinner in mill valley for his birthday, so we left you with uncle james and aunt maya for a couple of hours. you had dinner with them, and played with your cousins colby and kai, while we were gone - you had such a good time.. i don't think you even missed mommy and daddy ;-).

a couple of days ago, we went to your friend kaelie's 1st birthday party. you had a good time.. you enjoy playing with other little babies. we met a 4 month old baby boy who was bigger than you.. and you're 9 months old! yes, you are a little one. in fact, the doctor wants us to go back in 6 weeks to get you weighed. you're only in the 45% percentile for height, and the 7th percentile for weight! but it's ok.. your cousin colby is little too.. :-)

next week, we get to go to colby's first birthday party.. and we're hoping that it will get warm enough to go swimming in the pool next weekend!

umm.. still napping?

it's been 2 hours and 45 minutes! longest nap ever... wake up... wake up little baby... it's time to play.. and keep trying to get that crawl down!

sleeping through the night!

finally - at 8.5 months..! daddy kicked mommy into the guest house 2 nights ago... after a night of crying for an hour and a half whenever mommy put you back in the crib. daddy was gonna do cry it out again.. he got all set up.. turned up the monitor full blast, kept all the lights on in the bedroom.. slept propped with tons of pillows.. set his alarm to go off every hour... just so he wouldn't sleep through your crying (daddy's quite a heavy sleeper). but lo and behold what happens? you sleep from 8pm to 6pm without hardly a peep.

we all thought it was a fluke.. so daddy kicked mommy out to the guest house again last night. you woke up and cried for about 10 minutes at 3am.. but fell right back asleep until 6am. and now you're napping in your crib as i blog... going on past 2 hours already! let's hope this becomes the norm!

No More Nursing.. and Crib Napping!

Little Audrey.. I stopped nursing you completely about 2 weeks ago.. and you're doing just fine! Kinda sad 'cause it seems like you could care less if it was boob or bottle.. :-) I just gave you a bottle one day and you took it! And you're fattening up with the formula! Let's hope you are not any lower than the 25th percentile in weight at your 9 month appt. And now mommy can drink wine all the time again! :-)

Up until now, mommy had been holding or carrying you for all your naps. But yesterday, I tried putting you in the crib.. and again, you were a champ. Went down beautifully... just turned over on your left side (your favorite sleeping position), grabbed your blankie and dozed off. Alas, you only nap for 30 minutes in the crib.. but hey... it's probably better sleep than the 2 hours you get on my back as I wash dishes and run around the house with the tv blaring. Today is day 2.. and you are on nap #2 of the day... so far so goo.. it's been 25 minutes.. you typically wake up at 30 minutes on the dot... we'll see.... tune in tomorrow...!