Christmas 2008

Olivia had a great Christmas in San Jose. She got lots of presents from Santa and both sets of grandparents. Spencer and Joyce got great stuff as well. We got to meet the captain of an Alaskan fishing boat (just like the Deadliest Catch) and eat delicious Alaskan King Crab legs (from the Wizard.) We had a delicious dinner, and most fun of all, we had a Yankee gift swap. Sadly, I lost the commuter coffee mug to Sydney, deforestation will need to support my caffeine addiction.

Pics from Olivia's School Break

Christmas Memories

I have great memories of Christmas. My parents always decorated the house (indoors AND outdoors,) bought and sent presents to our relatives, made lots of cookies, wrote Christmas cards to everyone we knew, bought and dressed us in cute clothes for family photos, roasted chestnuts in the fireplace, and still managed to buy us all presents (including filling large stockings that we suckered them into buying one year.) We always got great gifts from Santa, and we had all of our favorite things to eat for the entire week we had off from school.

Being a parent gives me a whole new level of respect and appreciation for the things that your parents did.

Contrast that with our house -- no tree, no Christmas cards, two batches of cookies (which we ate before we could share with friends and family,) no presents for Olivia, and no food in the refrigerator.

Luckily for Olivia, she has amazing grandparents on both sides of the family. We drove to San Jose to spend Christmas Day with the Knights. I'll post pictures and stories from our day soon.

Olivia's Upcoming Trip to the Pediatrician

Olivia's next trip to the pediatrician is scheduled for January 15.

At Olivia's last doctor visit, the doctor noted that she was a little slow in cognitive and communication development. I've wondered if the conclusion would have been different if the doctor had interviewed Spencer instead of me.

"Is your daughter identifying objects like 'ball' and 'doll' and with discernable sounds?"

My response was, "Not as far as I can tell" I wonder if Spencer's response might have been something like: "Not only that, but she's identifying them in 3 languages."

Hmm... Maybe I was too humble about Olivia. No one wants to be the egotistical parent who thinks their kid is a genius each time they hit another development milestone. Babies are supposed to develop, to learn how to speak, read, and think. In addition to being annoying to other parents, it's probably unfair to the child to be labelled as smarter than they actually are.

On the other hand, it would be equally unfair if Olivia was labelled a slow learner because her mom was unobservant or trying to be humble.

I attribute the 'slow' assessment to the doctor asking the 12 month well visit questions while Olivia was only 11 months old. (Here I am, already making excuses for our daughter's underachieving ways.) Spencer and I both think Olivia is pretty normal.

Join the fun by emailing us questions that competent parents should ask when visiting the doctor.

Guest Blogger: Margaret

K - It's me again, since joyce seems a little busy to be updating her blog.

1) At the start of the trip, Olivia would open her mouth wide, and say "MMMMMM!" as she took a bite if she liked something. If she didn't like something, she would turn her head and shake it. Here is a video of her saying "MMMMM!". I am hoping Joyce posts a better video later because she normally says "MMMM!" louder and with more enthusiasm. Here, she might just be saying it to entertain Spencer.

THE SOUND HAS TO BE TURNED WAY UP TO HEAR OLIVIA

2) And oh, Spencer and Joyce, I forgot to tell you that you owe me a new computer. Your daughter broke mine - - - -

Nomination: Most Boring Blog Ever

I was reading about blogs over at Edamames in a Pod.  (That's one of those things that cool bloggers do, cross reference other bloggers.)    This led me to discover that there is a Parenting blog at the New York Times.  It's buried, because I suspect that none of the reporters want their articles appearing next to musings about poopy diapers.

The Motherlode blog reports that there are lot of other parenting blogs out there.  And there are a lot of people out there reading and following other people's blogs.   

Some blogs out there get pretty personal.  It does feel a little weird to read intimate details about a complete stranger.  I guess that's what blogging is all about though, being open enough to share your thoughts with whomever randomly found your blog that day. 

Certainly many people have developed friendships and relationships through blogging, discussion boards, and other social media.  And perhaps people who write and post openly are seeking friendship and community.  

Even though I have the luxury that no one reads this blog except friends and family, being a private person I do wonder how personal I should be on a page that's essentially open to the outside world.

Wow, that was a long tangent.... Back to the point.  For those of you still there, I apologize for the lack of pictures of Olivia lately.  I acknowledge that this blog is boring even to members of my immediate family.  Who wants to read about my incompetence with baby carrying devices?  Didn't we just take a trip to Asia?  As Spencer will affirm, I am a horrible storyteller.  Maybe he will guest post.  I should also note that we've been lax in dressing Olivia in cute clothes and keeping her hair out of her face.  Combine that with her drooling and she looks pretty haggard in most of our recent pictures.   We are hoping to get her dolled up for Christmas.  I hope to be back with some better posts.

Product Review: Ergo Carrier

First, a tangent on the Chinese Mei Tai, illustrated in the pics below.



I saw many women in Chinatown carrying their babies in these carriers, and our daycare provider had loaned me hers when I forgot the Bjorn one day. When you forget your baby carrier as often as I do, the idea of a cheap, portable carrier to keep at the bottom of your 'purse' is very attractive. I saw a few online for as much as $90 plus tax and shipping. Assuming that the Chinatown women were not paying over $100 for their simple cotton Mei Tais, I searched the shops on Stockton Street.

My search was pretty futile and I lost interest until a couple days before the Asia trip. After reading several reviews which made it sound like the Ergo was the best innovation since sliced bread, I decided to buy one.

The Ergo is based on the Mei Tai concept. In place of the straps are wide and heavily padded backpack straps at the waist and for the shoulders. The concept is that the wide straps help distribute the baby's weight to your hips and trunk (rather than your back, as on a Bjorn)

The Ergo did work out pretty well.
1) Olivia enjoyed being close to me,

2) it was much easier for me to carry her in the Ergo that with our framed backpack carrier.

3) It was reasonably portable, much easier to bring into a restaurant than our large framed backpack carrier.

But for me, it didn't live up to it's hype. Maybe all those mothers out there raised my expectations too high. There were a few things that were funky about it.

1) It feels a little challenging getting the baby in the back position. You need to hold the baby on your back (like your giving her a piggyback ride) while simutaneously slipping your arms through the straps.

2) When front carrying the baby, there's a fastener is in approximately the same location as the spot you miss when applying sunscreen to your back. Maybe this is the real reason why pregnant women should do pre-natal yoga. It was a pain to fasten the straps, so I just left them unfastened most of the time. But this requires having your hands free to pull the straps back up when they start slipping. Not very easy when carrying 2 grocery bags.

3) The padding probably does help distribute the weight, but it compromises the portability of the product (it's about the size of a shoebox when rolled up.)

4) The design is a little hippie dippy. I'm not exactly a fashion plate, but I imagine that the design would not appeal to more stylish women.

Someone else must have had the same issues I had with the Ergo and come up with something they call the 'Beco' carrier:

http://www.theportablebaby.com/beco_vs_ergo.html

Although I can't speak from personal experience, hypothetically the Ergo or Beco carrier seems to be a better choice from day one than spending tons of money buying multiple carriers (sling, a Bjorn, backpack...) It also goes to show that you should never take baby gear advice from a guy who had his last kid 11 years ago. Innovation is a continuous process. And kids are different -- some kids love the sling, others hate it. And parents are different too.

Olivia is 13 months old

When Olivia was born, I heard "Enjoy it, it goes fast." It sounded pretty trite at the time, but I've found myself saying it to everyone I know who has had a baby in the past 6 months. I held a friend's 3 week old baby this week which reinforced how fast it has gone by.

I also figure I should probably start tracking development milestones and general observations about Olivia each month. This is probably totally boring even to the Knight and Luh families, but I figure I should probably document these milestones somewhere.

So, here's a list of things that I've noticed about Olivia lately.

Olivia loves playing with her toothbrush. Olivia will grab the toothbrush from us, dip it into the water glass, swish it up and down in the glass, then put it in her mouth and suck the water off. She'll repeat this until we take the brush away from her.

Olivia loves closing doors. If I open a door and she's nearby, she'll run over so that she can help close it. I think she might have learned this from the other kid at daycare, who also likes closing doors.

I believe that Olivia has transitioned from babbling nonsensically to actually saying 'Bye bye.' I don't remember exactly when this started, maybe when we got back from the Asia trip?

Olivia doesn't seem to have a favorite toy or blanket, which is a good thing given that Mom is a bit disorganized and can never find her car keys, let alone her child's favorite toy. I wonder if she will start bonding with a toy later in her childhood. Or I wonder if we are depriving her of security and comfort by not giving her consistency in her toy selection?

During the Asia trip, Olivia started feeding us crackers. Spencer would give her a cracker, she'd take a few bites, then hold the cracker up to Dad's mouth for him to take a bite.

Olivia is able to bend over at the waist to pick a toy off the floor.

Olivia walked out on her first bar tab. She had a few beers, then left Uncle Chris with the tab. She made some lame excuse about being exhausted from jet lag, a long week at day care, and tending to her parents.

More posts from the Parenting Bulletin Board

In this week's parenting newsletter ...

"Electronic envy: Last night by 6 yr old son burst out in complaints about the ''lame'' gifts he gets, and how it isn't fair all his friends have DS, Wii's, PlayStations, etc. and he doesn't. ... My husband and I were pretty hurt, and told him so, saying he has more toys than we ever did, we both work hard and don't have endless money, and that we prefer to play with him (outside, board games) than have him play video games."

My first thought was, "Man, I'm glad these luddites aren't my parents. These are probably the same people who hand out carrot sticks on Halloween." Then I remembered a conversation I had with Spencer a few months ago where I told him I didn't want a video game box at home when Olivia got older. It sounds a lot more lame coming out of someone else's mouth than my own. I suppose that video games are pretty much an essential component of a kids life and that if Olivia is interested, we should use it as an opportunity to teach the child to negotiate (don't ask for things by whining), help her understand compromise, use video games as an incentive for getting homework done, and set boundaries.

On the other hand, it does sound fun to exercise parental authoritah and tell the stories about walking to school in 5 foot snowdrifts and eating rats for lunch because I forgot my lunch money.

Back from Asia

We've been back from Asia for a week. We had a great time on our trip, we visited 3 cities in Taiwan, Kobe and Kyoto in Japan, and Hong Kong and treated with first class hospitality in all three countries. As I get my photos sorted out, I'll post more pics from the trip.

Guest Blogger: Margaret

Hey - I'm back! I have some videos of Olivia from vacation that I wanted to show. I still don't know how to format in Blogger, so bear with the poor design of this post. - - - You will note that when Olivia likes something, she says "AAAAAYYYYY, AYYYYY!!!"

OLIVIA'S VACATION EXPLOITS, CHAPTER 1

FUN WITH COUSIN TOMO
Olivia playing with her cousin Tomo - We are in Taiwan at a banquet at the best hotel in Tainan - - one of the best meals we had while in Asia. All our Tainan relatives were there; it was an incredible time and will always be an amazing memory:



Tomo's mom is saying - "gently, not so hard . . ." of course, Tomo ignores that, and Olivia doesn't seem to mind!

NOGGIN
And here is Olivia dancing to her favorite new web channel - - Noggin - - a channel that neither Joyce nor Spencer had ever heard of (What kind of parent hasn't heard of Noggin????).

By the way, I have an answer to "What kind of parent hasn't heard of Noggin???"

The answer is: The same kind of parent who would forget to pack shoes for their kid, and who would feed their kid blowfish.

More dancing:

Note to Joyce: This is the link to Noggin (Noggin, Jack's big music show). The channel that Olivia likes is "Jacks's Big Music Show" - the blue dog icon at the top, next to Dora. Your child LOVES music - she would also listen to music on my iPod and coo over it, so if you don't have video access, an iPod is enough.


PEEK-A-BOO BUNNY
And here is Olivia with a book I purchased for her. This book is one of those "lift the flap" books, but has a puppet on the last page. When Olivia saw the puppet on the last page, she said "Baby!". The classic quote from my mother was "Oh my gosh, this book cost $8???"

After she saw how much Olivia loved it, my mother said "wow, this book is worth $80!"

She was so cute that I have a 3rd video (actually, I have about 10 videos of her and the book, but I thought I would spare you):

Here is a link to the book:
Peek-Boo-Bunny-Lift-Flap



PROJECT FOR JOYCE
And here is a message for Joyce - - your project this weekend is to film Olivia saying "UMMM" after she eats, which basically means you need to cook her something yummy!