She first started to make more than one step when my aunt from Taiwan came into town. She took 3 steps total. Soon after that, I watched her walk from our shoe rack to the door. The yesterday we went to Northbrook Mall to play by the treehouse and she was walking around everywhere! She's still a little unsteady, but she does it!
We are getting ready for our next trip which is to Austin, Texas next Thursday. I'm even more nervous because this is a longer flight than NY and I'm praying that she won't cry like she did on that flight home. I'm dreading it!! It's going to sunny and 90 degrees there next weekend! For those of you that know me, I'm not a super fan of extremely hot weather. We'll definitely go swimming, but I think it might be too hot to Cady. We'll just have to bring lots of sunscreen.
September 26, 2008 - Cadence is walking!
September 18, 2008 - We love NY!
We just got back from our trip to NY and I can say that at least I can call this one a vacation. Cady did very well on the flight to there. She fell asleep in the Ergo as we were boarding the plane and slept most of the way. We kept her out a little late the first two nights since we were staying in NJ and it was about an hour bus ride to and from Manhattan. But Cadence had a great time at Auntie Angela's place in NJ because of all the toys!! The minute we arrived, she started to play with everything and believe me there were a lot of toys there. :) I knew she wouldn't want to go to sleep. We ended up packing the playyard and checking it in so she can sleep in it. NOT! She ended up sleeping in between us on our bed and of course kicking me off. Let's just say I ended up sleeping on the crib mattress both nights in NJ. And of course she woke up a few times so you can imagine me and Julian got no sleep at all.
Can you tell we teach Cady the proper way of sitting in the stroller....
Monday - Julian had to work, so I went with Cady to Soho. We actually took the subway. I found that a little easier than a cab because then I didn't have to collapse the stroller while holding Cady. We only stayed for there a little bit because I realized that I didn't bring any diapers for her. Darn! So we went back to the hotel then walked up and down 5th Ave and Madison Ave for like 4 hours. Good thing Cady was able to nap in the stroller. We later met up with Dou-Yih and family for dinner. After dinner, Cady was exhausted, so she ended up sleeping early of course in our bed. Since we had a king size bed, I wasn't forced to sleep on the floor at least.
On Tuesday - Our flight was at 3:30, so I decided to go back to Soho to see what I didn't get to see. I wish I had gone to Chinatown instead. The cheap and old side of me kicked in, so there wasn't anything I wanted to buy in Soho.
September 10, 2008 - First Step!!
Today, Cadence took her first step! It was an unsteady one, but at least it was a step! I was just so happy that I had a chance to see it. She also said mama to me without relating it to food. :p
We're getting ready to go on our trip to NY this weekend. So far, both Cadence and I are sick with colds. Thankfully we have no fevers, just very congested. Hopefully Julian won't get sick.
The sniffles
Today, Cadence woke up with a cold. Sneezing, runny nose, but thankfully no fever. J But she’s been miserable. Her eyes are watery and she just looks miserable. On top of that she’s been teething, therefore, waking up every 2-3 hours for the past 2 nights. Tomorrow was suppose to be her first day at daycare, but now that’s not going to happen. Hopefully she’ll get over this cold by Friday in time for our trip to NY. I’m having low expectations because it says that it’s going to rain.
Today I realized that I LOVE being a mom and I LOVE Cadence as any mother would love their daughter. BUT….I don’t like (almost hate) the politics of being a mom. I feel like it’s only the beginning too and there are more surprises to come. I don’t get many comments on how to raise my daughter, only a few here and there, but nothing that has pulled my hair out. I’ve gotten a lot of “opinions” though on how I raise my daughter and that probably bugs me the most. I can tell it in someone’s tone of voice if they disagree with something that I’m doing or how I’m caring for Cadence. I think it really upsets me because I work full time and I’m not the primary care taker which means that to some extent, I don’t have full control of raising my daughter. And to have someone make a comment on how I raise my own daughter just makes it worse….
August 5, 2008 - Cadence turns 1!
Well, her party was on July 26th. What was originally a party of 35 people became a party of 65 people!! Yikes! Praise God that the weather was perfect and most of the guests and kids were able to play outside. What a perfect party! Happy Birthday Cub!
June 8, 2008
Gone are the days of Cady’s afternoon naps. :( For the past week, she has not napped in the afternoon. Instead she cries really really hard with tears and everything. I end up picking her up because I think she’s just not tired. But she needs a nap or else she’s up from 10am to 7pm which is a really long time. She has been crawling around like crazy! We can’t get any work done. So we are going to ask someone to come over every day to play with Cadence. It’ll be a big help so we can get some work done at home.
May 29, 2008 - Food...
Cady can now say the words, dada, nana/mama, baba, jaja. Of course, mama only comes out when we’re eating and when she can’t stand any longer to eat mommy’s food. I’ve upgraded her to organic free range chicken, organic broccoli and organic brown rice. I thought it was really good!! She liked it for a bit, but didn’t eat it all. I don’t get it. To be honest, I think it’s kind of cute when she starts crying/pouting when she doesn’t want anymore food. She literally fights and turns her head. Almost like she’s going to die if she ate another bite. Right now, Cady loves fruit, bananas especially and she can now eat cheerios on her own. Yay! She can take a few sips out of the sippy cup. Another yay! Also, she can now crawl….well sort of….she uses her left knee and her right foot. So she looks like she’s limping. But enough to move from one place to another. She loves to get into everything. Some of her favorite toys right now are paper, flipping the garbage can and getting into her book shelf and throwing everything off. So pretty much making a mess is her favorite thing to do
I am still working full time with part time working from home. These are the days that I wish I could take Cady to a bunch of classes and to the library for storytime. I think she’s really bored at home with just me and playing with the same old things. I think she needs some kind interaction. I feel guilty for working but thankful that I can at least work at home and see her going through all these milestones. We have half day Fridays now, so hopefully I’ll make good use of them to spend time with Cadence.
May 15, 2008 - San Francisco
Wow, one month since I’ve updated this. A lot went on this past month. Cady is still not crawling yet, but she’s getting there. I can now leave her on the floor and she can play by herself just as long as she doesn’t get into anything that will hurt her.
We recently went on a trip to SanFrancisco for two reasons. One, was Julian’s uncle of 95 years old passed away. He lived a great life and was a Christian. The other was to take a mini vacation for Mother’s day. Needless to say, this was far from being a vacation. Bringing a baby is such a different story. The flight to there, Cady slept on Julian for about 10 minutes. For the rest of the flight, Julian had to stand in the aisle holding her most of the time. That night, she didn’t sleep very well. She woke up crying because she got diarrhea!! Poor Cady. Her poo was a bright neon yellow. The doctor said to give her Pedialyte, but she hated it. But I don’t blame her. So she couldn’t eat anything except Pedialyte or breast milk. The entire time there, she didn’t take any naps because we were always out seeing family and doing stuff. So for 3 days, she was up for 8-10 hours. On Sunday, we went to Yosemite National Park and stayed in a heated tent. This was my idea since the hotel we originally booked was an hour away from the park and it wasn’t all that. The stay at the tent would have been fine if Cady slept through. She woke up a few times at night so we barely got any sleep. The park was beautiful and Julian got me a sweet little card from Cadence for Mother’s day. It was all I could ask for. :)
April 14, 2008 - Sleep training
Just when I thought I got the sleep training down packed, Cadence is starting to cry again. L I got her to the point where for her naps, I can just lay her down and she can put herself to sleep without me being there and without too much crying. Maybe it was because I traumatized her by making her nap at my moms house (which was unsuccessful). But now, it’s like I’m starting all over. She’s crying herself to sleep for her naps and the cries are sounding more sad. She’s starting to hold her arms up and lean towards me when she wants to be picked up and when I don’t, she just cries and leans towards my chest. It’s SO sad!!! I want to cry! Wahhhhh! L I just want to pick her up and hold her all day long, but I have to get back to work and she needs her nap.
April 7, 2008 - First cold
Cady has her first cold. L She’s been coughing and sneezing with snot coming out. Poor baby…..she’s also scratching everywhere on her body so she must be miserable
April 3, 2008 - Work.....
It’s year end close at work and I’ve been at the office all week. My in-laws slept over to help with Cadence. I didn’t know how it would be like going back to the office for the entire week until now. I’m so thankful that I can work from home. I realized that if I didn’t, I’d only be able to see Cady at most 2 hours a day and on the weekends which can get eventful at times. It’s pretty sad, I’m always thinking about her at work and I’ve been noticing that she doesn’t want me as much anymore. She use to start crying when I would leave the room. Now she doesn’t. About two days ago, she started to cry when I put her down to sleep. Before that she got really good at going to sleep on her own. I would feed her, then lay her down and she would be pretty happy and then eventually fall asleep. Her naps were getting better also with little crying. But now everything has changed. I can’t wait until tomorrow is over so I can go back to working at home.
I noticed that Cadence loves playing with everyday things. Some of her favorite toys are: my employee id card, the lid of the Aquaphor container, paper!, etc…. basically anything that isn’t a toy for kids! I can give her a set of toy keys and she would just hold it, but when she sees some real keys, she grabs it and shakes it and won’t let it go. It’s funny how babies are……..
As for Cady’s skin, it’s acting up again. I did eat a little egg by accident. It turns out that egg is used to glaze the Calzone that I ate at work. At the time, the lady probably didn’t know. So now I’m wondering if it’s the egg that’s making it better. But she’s still scratching like crazy on her body, especially at night. L
March 21, 2008 - Our engagement
Today is our engagement anniversary. I think we both forgot. We’ve got so much going on in our lives that we just forget. Kind of sad considering that we’ve only been married for 2 years. We got 6-8 inches of snow today!! I hope this is the last one. What a crazy winter we’ve been having. Today is also Good Friday. Julian went to CCFC service. I’m still wondering why Easter came so early this year. I always remember it being in April. My company is going through a lot of changes also. To make a long story short, I may lose my job. We’ll see what happens in the next 3 months. If so, stay at home mom here I come!
As for Cadybear, she has another tooth! And her skin is getting much better!! I think it’s the weather. It’s been getting warmer the past few days (except for today). But I can finally kiss her on the cheek without worrying about infecting it. Praise God!!! I’m trying to keep it up by still moisturizing it.
March 18, 2008 - 7 months
Cadence is 7 months now. 21 pounds!! At Kanade’s wedding we saw a 10 month old boy and an almost 1 year old boy. Cadence was so much bigger than the both of them. I love chubby babies though! Yesterday, Cadence’s poo officially became solid. Well not completely solid since it gets all smashed in there. But it’s definitely not the liquidy substance that it always is. :p This morning she was crying like crazy and I just knew she poo’ed. She kept arching her back because she didn’t want her butt on a flat surface because it’s solid now. She’s become more fussy these days. Not wanting to sit and play or eat solids. Always wanting me to hold her. I’m not sure what’s going on. Could be the teething. She’s gotten one tooth and another one on it’s way! I have yet to feel the pain of her biting while nursing. But sometimes I do feel pain so I assume it’s her biting, but maybe I’ve become numb to it that it doesn’t hurt as bad.
Cady’s skin is still the same. I’ve been hesitant going back to any sort of doctor. I think it’s because I know what they’ll say. But Julian reminded me that we need to go back to get her 6 month shots. So we will probably do that soon. But we’ve just been keeping up the lotions and moisturizing. Some days are better than others, but she’s still scratching and it’s starting to affect her sleep now. It’s taking her longer to cry herself to sleep because she’s really uncomfortable. The Benedryl and Zyrtec just doesn’t work too well on her. I don’t want to give her anything stronger but maybe we’ll have to.
Cady’s friend was just born. :D Madison Audrey Tu was born on 3/16. We’ll give it two months when Madison builds up an immune system before they meet.
Yesterday to my surprise, I saw Cady hold a bottle and stick it in her mouth all by herself. I sat her down in the high chair. She was fussy the whole time. I put a bottle of water in front of her thinking she would play with it to calm her down. She picked it up with two hands and put the nipple in her mouth and started sucking. It was the cutest thing!! Of course she wasn’t too happy when she realized it was water and not mommy’s milk. But at least she drank a little bit. She hasn’t been liking water too much and definitely not liking the sippy cup. :p
February 10, 2008 - The blood test
I took the bumper off of Cadence’s crib yesterday. I put her in the crib and I went to the bathroom to fill up the humidifier and when I came back, I found her sideways, with her head underneath the bumper. That’s when I thought that it’s time to take the bumper off. When I took it off, the crib looked very bare and more like she’s sleeping in a cage.
Cadence is becoming more and more active these days. She’s touching her toes and can eat them. When you say that about an adult, it’s gross, but it’s adorable when a baby does it. She has also almost flipped over from her back. She can roll over to her side, but not entirely to her tummy. We haven’t been that good at giving her tummy time mainly because she hates it and because of her cheeks. She tends to put her face down and rub her cheeks when she’s angry and crying. We went to the allergist last Friday and he suggested to get a blood test to see what she’s allergic to. They couldn’t do it on her back because it was already red from the eczema, so the blood test would have been better. We went to the hospital to get her blood drawn and it took longer than expected. They couldn’t find a vein in her arm to take blood from, so they tried the top of her hand. The blood started coming out, but stopped. Might I add that she cried a little bit, but was distracted by Julians singing which was awesome!! They poked her other hand to get blood out and the same thing happened. Some came out, but stopped. Poor girl!! L We gave her some milk and calmed her down a bit. So they called in an older nurse probably because she’s had more experience with this. They found a tiny vein in her arm, but you can tell she was very hesitant to poke her. She was speaking another language to the other nurse, but I can tell they were very unsure about this. After checking both arms, they went with the original one they found which was barely there. Cady was already very tired, so when we laid her down, she started crying like crazy. They finally poked her and she was crying even more. I felt so bad…..the needle was like half way into her arm, but praise God that they were able to get a good amount of blood out. I didn’t want her to be poked so much, but at the same time looking at her eczema, I really wanted to get these tests done so we can possibly control these breakouts. Cady took a long nap after that.
This past Sunday, Cadence has finally adjusted to my sister and my mom. Yay! Well, thanks for my sis. She’s great with kids and the whole time she was there, she was very playful and didn’t cry very much. Let’s just hope that she stays that way…..
February 8, 2008 - Food Allergies...
So I’ve been going dairy/egg/soy/nut free for a few days now. More dairy/egg than the others. Cady’s skin has gotten better today than two days ago. Two days ago, her cheeks were super red and pussy!! Me and Julian nearly cried because it looked so painful. I would try to put lotion on, but it was so wet that it wouldn’t stick. I would pat it dry with a tissue and it would be really wet. It was keeping her awake. She would rub her eyes and rub all the puss on her face. Her entire face started to turn red and spotty. We didn’t know what to do. She slept with us that night, but woke up a few times crying. Thank God her cheeks dried up a bit so I was able to put cream on it. We took her the next day to see an allergist. She has to take a blood test to see what or if she’s allergic to any foods. I wonder if it has to do with the weather. Today was a little warmer and her skin feels a lot better. But we also have been using hydrocortisone. So I’m not sure which one is making it better. We’ll probably have the blood drawn tomorrow.
It’s been hard going dairy free. I’m noticing that A LOT of things have dairy in it. Like chicken broth. Who would have thought that chicken broth would have milk in it. Also, this one bread that I like to get a Costco has milk in it also. I’ve been eating plain bagels for breakfast and no coffee since I can’t use milk or soy. Oh well, whatever works to make Cady’s skin better.
So far in the past hour, we’ve killed about 5 ants. This is getting out of control. Where are they coming from and why are they coming?? This is the result of not cleaning the house. They’re the big ants too. We use to get them in the summer, but we would see maybe one every other day. But we’ve seen 5 in one hour!!! And last week, there was one in my soy milk!! Yuck! Hopefully it crawled in there after I drank out of it and not originally in there. I say we spray the place, but Julian doesn’t like the toxic fumes. So we’re going to get ant traps. I hope we find where they’re coming from or maybe we should just clean the house…….
January 31, 2008
I could not have picked a better two days to take off of work. Yesterday it was like 15 degrees outside and today is a snow storm. The good thing was that yesterday was sunny, so Cady and I were still able to go visit Julie and Eleanor. I realized how good it is to visit friends and to have Cady be exposed to children her age. I think she needs some interaction even though it’s not much since she’s still sleeping or tired most of the time. We spent the entire day there just chatting, feeding, trying to get the kids to sleep and making handmade stuff. Cady definitely had fun. Last night I realized that I’ve been ignoring Cadence in the middle of the night. I actually heard her crying at 5am and I decided to pick her up and feed her and change her. She was a little too awake, so I just laid her in her crib and left. It was heartbreaking because she was crying, but I need to start somewhere in sleep training her. I watched the monitor until I dozed off and when I woke up she wasn’t crying anymore. I think I’m going to do the same thing tonight. So today was the snow storm. 2-6 inches. Just shows how much I’m out of the news. I had no idea. I was planning on running all these errands with Cadence, but only got to doing 2 errands. Driving was really slow. I attempted to go to Northbrook court. When I got there, I thought to myself “what am I doing? Bringing a baby out in this storm”. So I just started driving home. The only good thing is that she got a great nap out of all of this.
I started to go dairy free as of yesterday. Cady’s skin is getting bad again and she keeps scratching it so it’s making it worse. I have to try something. All the creams, antibiotics, lotions are not working, so I decided to go dairy free and see if that works. Next will be gluten free if dairy free doesn’t work. I’m also changing her sheets and my breast pads more often. I just hope this doesn’t scar her face.
I was thinking today how everything that I thought I would do being a mom, I’ve been doing the opposite. I always thought that I was going to let my child cry themselves to sleep. When I hear her cry, it kills me sometimes. I just want to go and pick her up. Hence, I am still nursing/rocking Cady to sleep. I never wanted Cady to just sit in front of the TV. Right now, I am watching the Simpsons while Cady is in the Megasaucer staring at the TV. I definitely don’t want to make this a habit.
Slept through the night!
Last night was the first night in a long time that I slept 8 hours straight!! I woke up and it was 7:40am. Cady normally will wake up at around 1am, then around 4am, then at 7am. I think because I didn’t have the monitor volume up very high, I didn’t hear her crying because when I went in to check on her, she was sleeping sideways with the covers off. She had to have been crying to end up sideways…. Well, she survived! I think I’m going to try the same thing tonight and see if I hear her. This will be good for her sleep training. J
Today, Julian didn’t have to work too long, so to make up for last night, we were able to go to the Lincoln Park conservatory. It was beautiful and warm inside. And best part about it, it was free. J one of the few places that are free these days. I still can’t get use to the fact that we have to get into the museums. We spent about an hour there. Cadence was curiously looking around. The good thing was that it’s warm inside. We later went to Chinatown to eat all you can eat hot pot. It began as a disappointment, but ended up to be really good. The food was food that I could have bought, but the meat was better than what I get so it was somewhat worth it. To make a long story short, we spent 2 hours in the restaurant, Cady had one explosive diaper which leaked onto her clothes where we had to change her on the chairs of the restaurant. So we had a fun time at the restaurant….but it makes for a great story….. We later got bubble tea drinks and went home. Cady went to sleep pretty well today. No crying. I used the daddy technique which is laying her down and singing to her and playing with her. She was occupied by eating the teether also, so that probably helped.
6 Months!
Cadence is almost 6 months old. Time is just flying by. Today she missed her afternoon nap. I’m afraid her awesome nap schedule is going away. It took her a while to fall asleep at night. I let her cry for 30 minutes. When I went back in the room after 30 minutes, she knew I was in there, so she stopped crying for a second. That’s when I realized that she won this battle….. I have problems with being consistent with putting her to sleep. I need to stop nursing her to sleep or it’s going to get harder and harder. I bought some organic rice cereal. Julian tried giving it to her. She later spit it all up. For some reason, she spit up a few times today which is not like her. Today is also the first time Cadence drank out of a sippy cup. She did pretty well. She started to suck, but maybe wasn’t use to the taste of water.
I saw an episode of the Simpsons today and I actually teared up. It was really sweet. It was family time at the Simpson household and Homer was telling the story of why they didn’t have any baby pictures of Maggie. Before she was born, Homer quit his job and got his dream job at the bowling alley. He later found out that Marge was pregnant and freaked out. He was so sad that he had to quit his bowling job and go back to the plant and work. His life was miserable. His boss put a sign in Homers work station that said something like ‘you are here forever’. When Maggie was born, he instantly loved her so much. He thought she was the greatest thing in the world. So Bart asks why no pictures of Maggie. Homer says that he has pictures, they’re put in a special place. They were pasted all over his walls at work and that sign was rearranged to say “do it for her”. Awwww…sniff sniff. I thought that was so sweet. I never thought I’d tear up watching the Simpsons. Having my own baby definitely makes me love babies even more. Today I felt like I was dreaming. I couldn’t believe that Cadence is my beautiful baby and that I have this little life that I have to take care of. Thank you Lord!!
