Heal thyself

Dear Natty,

Nowadays you are getting up in the middle of the night and coming into my room wanting to sleep in my bed. Most of the time I tell you that you need to sleep in your own bed but you make excuses like, "But I don't like my bed," or "I need to go pee-pee" but you really don't need to go. You ask me if it is safe in your room and I always reassure you that it is. I tell you that I'm right outside if you need me. But I also tell you that you need to sleep in your own room, in your own bed. It's not that I don't care about you or that I don't want to be with you. I love you and I want to be with you as much as I can. I don't even think it's necessarily a bad thing if you sleep in the same bed as your parents, which is why I sometimes let you.

Letting you sleep with me is the easy thing to do. I lift you onto the bed, make sure you're comfortable, and then I can drift back to sleep. The hard part is getting you back to your own bed as you make up excuses for your anxiety. But I know that putting the extra effort in making you sleep in your own bed can go a long way in showing you that your bed is fine, your room is safe, and there is nothing you need to fear, not even the dark.

In a similar way, my Father in heaven is teaching me that same lesson. I approached God this morning and I begged for Him to let me be with Him. You see, I do not like this world and I do not feel safe in this world. The same people are ripping open wounds that were healing and complete strangers are threatening to make new wounds. I'm anxious. I'm stressed. I'm scared. So I ran to my Father and I asked Him to take me. His answer was to remind me of you and of your sleepless nights. He assured me that I am safe and that there really is nothing to fear, even in the darkness of this world. He wants me to be reassured that He is with me, no matter where I am, and no matter what situation I'm in. But I have to hang on and I have to have faith. Just like you, I'm learning.

Love,
Daddy

Sorry Natty!

Dear Natty,

I'm sorry for not posting in so long. I wanted this blog to be something that you could look back on when you're much much older and hopefully it would be a special blessing to you. I know that I would have loved something like this if it existed back in my childhood and my parents were the sentimental type.

I think what brought me back to this blog is the feeling that I have so much that I want to say to you and so much that I want you to understand... but the circumstances are not right and you don't need to know right now. After all, you're just 3 years old. But you're growing up quickly, and it looks like you'll need to grow up faster than I want you to. I'm sorry for that too.

In the 2 years since I last posted, a lot of things have happened. You have been to a lot of parties, most hosted by our friends, the Ongs and Kimotos. You went to your first UCLA football and basketball games. You saw your first Dodger game. You went to Korea and saw your Korean Grandma for the first time. You went to Washington and saw your Korean aunties. You traveled to Vancouver, Orlando (DisneyWorld!), and Las Vegas. You've spent lots of time at the beach and the park. You have been to Disneyland, oh, about a zillion times it seems (and you still love it).

You have developed a love for Disney princesses, Curious George, SuperWHY, dancing, singing, arts and crafts, McDonalds, and doggies and kitties. You have gotten over your fascination with Blues Clues and various Disney movies. You survived a car accident that totaled our Toyota Highlander. You started ballet lessons and nursery school.

We've had a lot of fun. But you won't remember any of this.

I wish you could. It saddens me that the one thing I wish you could remember, the one thing you should have experienced all your life, the one thing you should have in your life right now as you read this, is the one thing you had and lost, out of no fault of your own. I'm sorry, Natty.

Love,
Daddy

One year later

Blogging is tiring.

Trip to San Diego

We took Natty to the San Diego Zoo. Natty can't hold back her excitement.

In case you are confused, the real elephants are in the background.


Surprisingly enormous hippo butts.


Surprisingly dirty panda butt.


A panda tree bearing panda fruit.


Our new Ergo baby carrier gets a workout.


The most popular chrome polar bear in the world. About 20 people cut in front of us to take a picture just like this one.


Humprey's Half Moon Inn & Suites. Highly recommended.


On the balcony overlooking the marina.

Eating brunch at the Hash House A Go Go with Rhon and Esther. We miss you guys!


Sunny's biscuits and gravy. My hand is there for scale.

Dancing Queen

davy will be very surprised that I'm writing a post. it will be very short unlike davy's witty and humorous ones with links to obscure and somewhat disturbing images.

so, our little girl definitely has rhythm. these days you can find Natty groovin soon as music is playing. she sometimes move from side to side to start then she moves forward and back while moving her head. it is the funniest thing. she sure is like her mama in lot of ways. she LOVES food, LOVES parties and LOVES to dance. here's a video of her dancing. she was being modest since the tape was rollin. maybe y'll can come see for yourself when she really turns it on. watch out kristi yamaguchi.

Perfect 10

Natty is going to hit the big one-oh. 10 months. It seemed like yesterday that she was just a tiny little baby who could only sit and say gibberish. Oh right, that was yesterday, and the last 2 months for that matter. She is still under 14 pounds and just a little over 2 feet in length. She is trying to compensate for those meager measurements by having an enormous head in proportion to her body. Just kidding, Natty... you're perfect in our eyes.

Mother's and Father's Day have come and gone. As first time parents, we took special pride in these two holidays although we didn't go over the top in celebrating. It will be nice when Natty is old enough to genuflect before our parental majesty but until that day comes, we are in total servitude to her. For now, she is a pretty low-maintenance infant. She cries only when she is tired or left in a room alone. She's not very discriminant about who is in the room with her as long as someone is there. Little by little, she is becoming more forceful about the things she wants but those who have spent some time with her often remark about how "easy" she is. It won't last, we know. But it's wonderful in the meantime.

In other developmental news, she does NOT:

• crawl


• stand with help


• sit herself up


• have teeth

She does:

• stay in a seated position
  
• laugh at our silliness


• like to splash in the tub


• eat lots of fruit


• babble like a Pentecostal
  
• scratch at everything and everybody near her

We introduced Natty to our friends' dog, Piper. Piper is a female pug and when she got up in Natty's grill, Natty freaked like Julia Stiles did when Matt Damon put a gun up to her noggin in the Bourne Supremacy. Piper could have been on fire and sprouted tentacles and I don't think Natty could have been more scared. Since then, though, we've been trying to get her comfortable being around our friends' dogs. She felt pretty comfortable with this one:


Maybe it's because all pugs look like they've been victims of those exploding cigars you see in cartoons.

We've begun preparations for Natty's 1st birthday party. It will be on the afternoon of Saturday, Sept. 13, at a park in Temple City. Hopefully the temperature will be below 110 degrees.

Enjoy your summer!

9 months

Just checking in. I'm losing the battle with bloggers-block...

Day Trip #2: San Diego

I took a week off from work last month and on one of those days we decided to visit the 2nd largest city in California. We learned a lot from our first day trip to Santa Barbara on how to manage a road trip with a baby. In Santa Barbara we were paranoid about trying to stick to Natty's feeding and sleeping schedule so we cut the trip shorter than we had liked. In San Diego we enjoyed ourselves a lot more by just going with the flow. It helped to have good friends down there who absolutely love Natty.

In fact, visiting friends was the main part of the trip. We didn't do any sightseeing or go to the beach or "get our drink on" in Tijuana. We met up with our friends Rhon and Esther who recently moved down to SD for Rhon's work.

They're food people just like Sunny is. They have a passion for good food that I, as a person with very unrefined tastes, can't get on board with. You would think I was a food person if you got a look at my waistline and puffy face but I usually eat only to stave off the stomach growls that so often embarrassed me in my classroom days. Sure I enjoy the occasional steakhouse now and then, especially when I'm with my brother (another notorious foodie), but I'm just as content with a frozen burrito as I am with a Chipotle barbacoa burrito with guacamole. Sometimes.

Rhon and Esther took us to the Cottage in La Jolla for lunch. Characteristically, I don't remember what I had but I remember that it was pretty good. Sunny could tell you what everyone had like Rain Man could recall phone book entries. She'll often remind me if I liked or disliked a menu selection when we go out to eat.

"Hmmm... I think I'll try the sesame chicken," I'll say.
"No, you didn't like it cuz it had bones in it."
"Oh."
"You liked the mochiko chicken when you had it 2 months, 12 days, and 7 hours ago though."
"Oh."

If Sunny could harness her food memory into say, Jeopardy memory, she would be the next Ken Jennings.

I digress. After lunch (and dessert) the girls went to visit Joanie and her daughter Cyan while Rhon and I watched Live Free or Die Hard on Rhon's Blu-ray. There's no better time in San Diego than watching a really good movie from the year before. After all, it's not like Natty is going to appreciate LegoLand or SeaWorld at her age.

It was a fun trip and it was just what Sunny, Natty, and I needed.

I'm still here.

Your eyes do not deceive you. This is a new post. Actually I don't know why I'm even bothering anymore since my lack of posting has driven both my regular readers away. But I'll soldier on in the hopes that one day Natty will read and appreciate these sporadic posts.

All in NatalieLand is fine and good. There may be a painful experience ahead but these last two months have been marked by developmental milestones and lots of smiles and laughs. Since my last post Natalie is now:

1) Sitting up. She finally has the neck muscles to prop up that big 'ol head of hers. She can't sit up by herself but when we put her on her tush, she can stay there for a long time. It's entertaining to see her sway from one side to the other as she instinctively tries to compensate for her big 'ol head pushing her center of gravity up her tiny body. It's like balancing a baseball bat vertically on your palm. With a bowling ball crazy-glued to the top of the bat.
Viewer note: Prepare to turn your head to the side in 8...7...6...

2) Rolling over. She can roll over from her tummy to her back. I'm fairly confident that she can roll from her back to her tummy but she refuses to do so because she absolutely detests being on her tummy. I have no idea how she is going to learn to crawl if she can't stand to be on that side of her body. The fact that she hates that position didn't stop us from putting her on her stomach over and over and over again just to watch her roll over. Trauma for her, good fun for us.

3) Eating solid foods. Or should I say, "solid-er" foods. Sweet potatoes, carrots, and bananas are probably her favorites. She had a bad reaction to single-grain rice cereal (ostensibly the food least likely to make a baby throw up). We are going to see an allergist to find out if she has a food allergy and we're praying that the vomiting episode was just a freak coincidence. The other extreme is that she may have celiac disease. I'm dreading the blood test that she will have to take because the doctor warned that finding a vein in a baby's arm can take a while and it can involve some poking around. It makes me sad just thinking about it.

But Natty is oblivious to all of that. She's been a joy, laughing and smiling with more regularity. It's hard to express in words how blessed we feel for being entrusted with her. Thank You God!

5 month progress report

This picture was completely staged.

This isn't an excuse for not posting as regularly as Sunny probably wishes I would, but Natty appears to be in a state of suspended animation. I don't get to spend as much time with Natty as I want to (because of this whole job thing I have going on during the weekdays) so I may not pick up on the subtleties of her growth and development. She appears the same to me at 5 months as she did at 4 months. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about that. On the contrary, while I look forward to her walking and talking, I want to soak up all her immobile and mostly silent cuteness for as long as possible.

Unlike me, Sunny spends ALL her time with Natty and she raves about the changes in her. So here is a progress report for Natty at 5 months:

• She weighs over 10 pounds


• She is getting a lot more snug in her clothes
  
• But she ranks under 10% (and usually less than 5%) in weight/length
  
• She babbles and squeals especially when left alone
  
• She sleeps 11 hours (from 8pm to 7am) regularly (YAY!)
  
• She hasn't learned to roll over
  
• She doesn't crawl
  
• She can grab objects
  
• She can raise her head when on her tummy
  
• She smiles and giggles more
  

That last item is a tough one for me. Natty makes me WORK to get a laugh from her. I think she is like me in that aspect: I don't laugh very easily. (Sunny is really the only person that can make Natty laugh with any consistency but even then, Sunny still has to put in a lot of work.) But it gives me tremendous joy every time she smiles when she sees me for the first time in the morning or when I come home from that job thing.

Here are a couple of pictures of Natty kickin' it on her boppy:

***

One of her favorite toys is the talking Cookie Monster given to her for Christmas by her Uncle Wei. Actually it is hard to tell if she really likes it or not because she doesn't really smile or laugh at it; she just wants to eat Cookie Monster's eyes.

This next picture is when I dangled a doggie treat in front of her and asked her to beg.

Just kidding. That never happened.

Speaking of doggies, this picture is from our day trip to Santa Barbara last month:

We went to Santa Barbara to eat at one of our favorite breakfast spots, Sambos, and to catch up with my old friend, Eli. That's NOT Eli in the picture with the dog.

Eli was my first boss, back when I used to work at a monthly comic book convention. Yes I used to be a comic book geek. I don't read or collect them anymore but I still have a soft spot for them. I enjoyed panned movies like Daredevil and The League of Extraordinary Gentleman even though I can't think of anyone else who did. I'm hoping the new Iron Man movie won't disappoint...

It was a beautiful day to go to SB. It was such a nice day that I simply stuck the camera out the car window and took this picture:

This was our first trip with Natty and we had to get used to being parents on the road. Sunny nursed Natty in the car (parked of course) and we forgot to bring any sunblock whatsoever. We'll get better at this but we had to cut our trip a little short. It was still refreshing to get out of the house and out to the beach.

On a final and totally unrelated note, Natty is really excited that the Lakers got Pau Gasol and dumped that Kwame guy.

I [heart] New Years

I think Natty received more Christmas gifts on her first Christmas than Sunny and I have received in the last 3 Christmases. I guess she's pretty easy to shop for and she always reacts to every present in the same way: stoic indifference. But it was still fun for Mama and I to wrap her presents and unwrap them in front of her. It was also fun to buy our first Christmas tree (first since we've been married). It was actually kind of a sad tree, fake, cheap, and adorned with two strings of lights and a single ornament. Our own Charlie Brown Christmas.

Natty must be thinking, "Man, I can't get over how ghetto this tree is..."

FUNGUS UPDATE!

Several weeks of Prescribed Medicine #1 did nothing. A couple more weeks of Prescribed Medicine #2 tasted better, but still did nothing. Then a friend turned us on to Over-the-counter Medicine #1 and the fungus had met its match in a few days. The trade off was that Natty's mouth turned purple and some clothing and sheets got stained.

We had our usual late lunch with Sunny's family on New Years. We took Natalie out for a walk after lunch and when we came back, Sunny's grandma scolded Sunny for letting Natty get so cold, her lips turned purple. True story.

Anyway, the thrush is gradually going away and Natty's mouth will continue to be Laker colored until all the fungus is gone.



Oh yeah, this past Christmas marked the first time in forever that we sent Christmas cards out. Because we weren't too experienced with this, we didn't order nearly enough so if you didn't get a card from us, here it is. Please print it out, magnetize it to your fridge, and then throw it out next Christmas. Natty is now 9 pounds, 8 ounces of Sanrio-like cuteness. If you enjoy the sight of chubby baby legs as much as I do, you'll appreciate the next photo more if you look at the photo from a previous post. We hope you will have a blessed 2008!




Giggles!