E's first contest

Cute baby contest!

please go and vote for my sweet E to win this cute baby contest.  you can vote everyday!
http://photos.parents.com/photos/parents-cover-contest-2013/2013-04-22/x4cv

E at 4 months

Is it the 15th already?  Oops! Between mommy being sick and the baby being fussy we missed singing to E again this month.  We also didn't take the penguin picture or make her footprints.  We shall do most of these things tomorrow!  Good thing E has no concept of dates yet.  It will still be special tomorrow!


three generations of beautiful, smart
talented ladies!

This month has seen some great firsts for E!
She had her first...
...trip to the zoo
...time on the swings and slide
...day at home with Oma
...time in the stroller the "big kid" way
...time in her exersaucer
(she loved it the first time, even though she's still too short to reach the floor.  but now she fusses each time we put her in.  I think she's afraid of the chameleon toy)


bluebonnet baby!

...time to roll over
 (though not for mommy and daddy yet)
...finger painting session
(at day care...next time I'm asking them to strip her to her diaper as the fingerpaint stains don't come out of white onsies!)
...pictures in the bluebonnets. 
(for those of you not from Texas this is a big deal, yearly tradition, right of passage kind of thing)
..."kiss" from a boy - and didn't like it

zoo!

(one of the boys at day care "kisses" people by headbutting them.  He crawled over to E on her boppy and gave her a "kiss" and she started to cry)
...birthday party invite - Happy Birthday Gian!
...Easter and Easter egg hunt
...puppy kiss
and so many more that mommy's sick and tired brain can't think of.

Family picture!

E can now...
...hold weight on her legs.  She LOVES standing up, though has zero balance while doing so.  She especially loves to stand up while on mommy, daddy or Oma's lap on the porch swing, while it is in motion.  Aunt Krista says this is a sign of a gymnast in the making.

puppy!

...babble.  She will "talk" to her grandparents and her oma (hopefully her ojisan too once we get him on skype again).  She talks more to them than at any other time.  We think it's because Skype makes  people's voices a little higher pitched and she likes high pitched noises.

...bring things to her mouth.  If she grabs it, it's going into the mouth.  This includes but is not limited to: toys, mom's fingers, bluebonnets, clothes, bibs, and watches.

 ...manipulate toys a little bit.  She's trying to figure out how to.  She can  shake her rattles and her sensory octopus.



swings are awesome!

...recognize songs.  When Oma tried to sing her bedtime song in the middle of the day she looked at her with a "what are you doing, it's not bed time and you're not mommy!" expression.  Twice.

...play peek-a-boo.  She always looks super startled when you reveal yourself!  She usually smiles after looking startled

...sit up when propped up, without slumping to either side.  She can even hold her balance for a few microseconds without propping...microseconds.

especially with mommy!

...do a "mini pushup" that all the baby books describe.  Not a fitness kind of push up but the kind where she gets her head up at 90 degrees and puts some weight on her hands.  It's supposedly a precursor to rolling over.

...roll over from tummy to back - yet to be seen by mom and dad
...laugh.  They are rare and so, so, so precious and never caused by the same thing twice.  But utterly adorable when get them!  Usually she's laughing at mommy.

...recognize mommy, daddy, grandma, grandpa, auntie Krista, oma and her daycare friends.  She "talks" to these people and smiles a different kind of smile than the one she gives strangers.

...snuggle.  She tucks her head to the side, burrows it under your chin and throws her arms open.  She doesn't hug or anything yet but it is most definitely a snuggle and she loves to be snuggled back!

Invisible firsts - a working mother's lament

E rolled over for the first time today!  This brings me great joy, terrible sadness and a little guilt. 

She's great at tummy time!

Chief among these feelings is the joy.  My baby girl is developing, growing and doing the things normally developing babies do!  She is on track to being developmentally on target. All the fun playing and exercises we've been doing with her have finally paid off! We can advance to exercising the next recommended set of activities with her to prep her for sitting.  She'll be crawling soon, then walking.  So many fun things we can do once she is mobile!  She has reached another huge milestone.  (Ken and I are near-constantly babbling mama and dada at her respectively of course hoping for her next milestone)

I'll probably save this for her scrapbook

But there is a terrible sadness to this joy because I didn't witness the moment.  It wasn't even that I walked in to her flipped over on her playmat and concluded she'd rolled.  I was told.  I love my daycare.  love love love them.  They are kind, caring, they don't put the kids in swings or bouncers.  They make sure they are getting lots of floor and tummy time.  They even had my 3 month old finger painting (and the made sure she didn't eat it...)  Almost every day they give you a little snippet sentence of something your child did that day.  And that snippet sentence is how I found out she'd reached her milestone.  To me, it's an invisible first.  It's there, she did it but since I didn't see it, it's not really her first.  It won't count as her first until I see it. 

And then there's the guilt.  It's very small but it's there.  I feel guilty because I feel like I should have been there to see it.  There are no pictures of her post roll as I imagine there would have been if she'd rolled at home in the presence of her father or me.  I should have been the one who applauded and cheered her on but I wasn't.  I should have been there to celebrate this first.  But I wasn't.  She had her first but no one around her was family.  And that makes me feel guilty. 

E at day care.  they may not be family
but that doesn't mean she's not loved.

But then I remind myself that where there is a first, there will be a second, and a third and we will celebrate those with her.  The first time she rolls over for me her invisible first will become a tangible one, and oh how we will cheer.  And hopefully the cheering will chase away the terrible sadness of an invisible first and the nagging guilt of the working mother's conscience. Because in the end it's all about love.  E may not be with family for all her firsts but she will always be surrounded by people who love her and care for her and that's what's important.

New Discoveries!

hands together and rollin...trying to

E has been making lots of new discoveries lately.  She's growing and changing so fast it's fascinating to watch.  She's constantly staring at her hands.  She loves to play with her fingers and just move them around against each other.  Apparently bringing hands together is a milestone.


She's discovering mobility.  She's starting to wriggle her little body around to get herself into better positions to play with toys and she's so very very close to rolling over back to front.  She can get about 3/4 of the way there and then gets stuck, though I don't think she minds because in this position she can easily suck her thumb.  She shows little progress in rolling over front to back, but this is mostly because when she gets tired of holding her head up in this position she simply leans down, sucks her thumb and is happy.



thumb is yummmmm

She has very obviously re-discovered her thumb.  She's a champion at finding it now, though not always at keeping it in her mouth.  Despite our best efforts to have her prefer a pacifier, she's starting to spit out the paci in favor of the thumb. 

first egg hunt!

She's also starting to discover things with her ears.  When she hears birdsong she gets very quiet.  We think this means she likes the birds, either that or she's waiting for them to attack.  She turns her head towards noises occasionally.  At her first egg hunt she seemed to take some noticed of the other kids.  Though mostly she just stared around at everything.

With her new found fingers she's really starting to explore textures.  She loves the sensory balls she got for Easter and immediately tried to eat them, then satisfied herself with rubbing her face on them.



everyday a new surprise!

We also think she may be starting to teeth, the drool, it's incessant!  She's great at making spit bubbles.  She also chews on her hands, a lot.  This hand chewing led to yet another discovery this morning...her gag reflex.  She was chewing on her hands as Mommy was saying goodbye to her and as mommy snuggled her close E's hands went a bit too far into her mouth and then her breakfast came rushing out...all over mommy's work clothes. 

Joy

E has been in daycare for over a month now and every time I go to pick her up I always see the older babies show joy when their parents walk in. E's responses thus far have been lackluster compared to the others. Usually she is just stone faced or if she is hungry she cries. Of course this is probably developmentally normal but it bothered me. I wanted the happy squeaks and big smiles that told those other parents how much their children missed them. It also made me think silly things like"is she happier at daycare than at home?" 'Does she not have an attachment to me anymore?" I guess I just wanted to know E missed me. Not that I wanted her to be sad without me, just to be happy to see me.
Today she granted my wish. When I came in to pick her up she gave me a smile and a full body flailing shimmy of joy. And it made all those silly doubt's go away and repaved then all with pure joy.
Tonight she also almost laughed for the first time awake too. We were bouncing and she was smiling and cooing and then said "ha" and then stopped.  The joy a syllable can bring!

Heirlooms

Recently E's Ojisan brought me his mother's china.  The pieces are not very old, younger than Ojisan himself but they have so much value to our family.  The little green ringed rose printed dishes mean so much to the Imai family because they are one of the only heirlooms we have.

E loves her granddaddy
and grandma!

Someday E will ask about heirlooms and old pictures.  The Matthews/Reeves side is full of all sorts of fascinating old trinkets and pictures.  A rich history of life in the south.  So we will be able to show her lots of information and pictures about her history on that side.  We can even take her to see the old country home her grandparents reminisce about.  We can roll biscuits on the Hoosier her great-great grandmother used.  Eat off of china that has been in the family for generations.  Hold her great-great grandfathers baby shoe.  How fun that will be to show her her roots.  To look at old photos with her Grandma, to go hiking through history with her Granddaddy.  To be able to see and know where she comes from.

And then she will ask about the Imai/Hohn side.  For the Hohn side we have some pictures of her German ancestors beyond her great-Oma's, only a scant handful but some.  We can take her to Germany and show her her Oma's child hood house and the bomb crater that she swam in as a child.  ...and then we will have to explain the bombs.  We will have to explain that the Imai's and the Hohn's were in different countries but that the courses of their lives were totally changed by events that occurred from 1939-1945, things that started before her Oma and Ojisan were even born.  We will explain how lucky she is to live in a country that has never been bombed in such a way.

Can't wait to see you again Oma!

We will tell her about Hitler and what a powerful, malevolent man he was.  About how her great-Oma was exposed to the Hitler youth, and probably a member, because at that time you were either in or you were ostracized and possibly killed.  About how we don't really know because she never talked about it and there are no pictures from that time because she didn't want any.  We will talk about the Holocaust death camps and about how good people can do very bad things because of hate, fear and ignorance.  We will talk to her about how this is a part of her history just as much as the Old Mill house in the south.  We will talk about how a country's actions can make the past something that people don't want to remember but the should never be forgotten.

And when she asks about why there are no pictures or memorabilia beyond her great-grandma on the Imai side we will talk about Internment.  About how her great grandfather, her pregnant great grandmother and their three children were told they had to leave their cabbage farm.  To sell or store all their belongings.  They had to sell their land for far less than it was worth.  They were only able to bring what they could carry.  They had to do this all because they were "dirty Japs"  Perhaps we will go to Santa Ana and talk about the stables.  How her family ate, slept and lived in a horse stable with some linoleum slapped down over the muck of the stable.


We miss you Ojisan!  Come visit
again soon!

We may go hiking in Utah, not for the beautiful canyons or great camping (though we'll do that too) but in the north, on a grassy field where we might see a few stone blocks.  Maybe by the time she's old enough to hike, the museum will be there.  The museum to Topaz, the internment camp where her family lived in roughly thrown together buildings along with thousands of other Americans.  All put there because of their heritage.  We will talk about the similarities and differences between Internment and Holocaust.    About how both wiped out the heirlooms of two cultures.  About how both are sore and sad things that the American and German people try not to think about.  About how we can't let them be forgotten but also can't let them breed more hate.
We will talk about hate and fear and propaganda.  About how people who gave into their hate and fear on one side of her family hurt others and caused a mass genocide of an entire religion.  And how that same hate and fear on a different continent hurt her family and how all her heirlooms burned in the storage facility where her ancestors had stored their things.    We will talk about forgiveness.  We will talk about making sure these kinds of things never happen again.

And then we will build new traditions and new heirlooms for her to pass on to her future generations.


Maybe we will go to the beach house where her uncle and I spent our summers with our Imai family.  Hopefully we can get her first cousins to join us since their parents were our playmates at the beach house.  Hopefully we will travel to Germany to meet and bond with her first cousin, to show them both the castles and magic of the old history.  And we will travel the southern US and explore her roots there.  And when she is older and has a family of her own, if she wants them the green ringed rose printed dishes will be my heirloom to pass onto her.

Happy 3 months! (and our first road trip!)

the penguin keeps shrinking!

Today is E's 3 month-day.  We've unfortunately started a streak of going places on her month-days so there was no song and candle.  We may have to make up for this when we get back home on Sunday.  As of today E can:
-smile - especially at mommy and daddy
-coo - especially if daddy is nuzzling her
-laugh in her sleep
-swat at objects
-hold her head up 90 degrees during tummy time
-drool incessantly
-cry very loudly

She's starting to:
-develop a pincher grip
-work her hands.  It takes a lot of concentration but she can move her hand to objects and open her fingers, sometime she can close them sucessfully around the desired object
-roll over - she's done it on accident a few times

She really enjoys:
-wrestling with her stuffed hedgehog
-playing with her sensory octopus (we named him Oso for over sensory octopus)
-nuzzling with daddy
-snuggling with mommy
-listening to mommy and daddy sing
-doing "exercises" with daddy, where daddy works her legs for her
-watching the fan...fans are facinating

She really dislikes:
-socks
-pants
-getting her nose cleaned out

having a great time with Grandma and Samantha cat

Today was also her first road trip!  She decided to prep for it by taking a 2.5 hour nap right before we left!  She woke up about 20 minutes into the drive and was super hungry so she got her first on the road bottle.  Then we had to stop to change her diaper about 45 minutes after we left.  We used a conviently McDonald's bathroom.  On her way in she managed to make an entire table of 50somethings squeal over her "cute fluffyness".  She was very content to be in her car seat as long as mommy was entertaining her.   She loved her first trip to Woody's  - our midway stopping point to get to Granddaddy and Grandma's house.  She flirted with everyone she saw there and wanted to ride up on the shoulder so she could look around.  About 45 minutes before getting to the grandparents she got pretty fussy, ate part of her second road bottle and kept right on fussing.  

loving the attention from
Granddaddy

As soon we got to Granddaddy and Grandma's house she was happy as a clam, enjoying all the attention they lavished on her and cooing up a storm.