I Love Daddy

Let me tell you, Maiya loves her daddy. When he smiles at her, she giggles. When he says, "wha, wha, wha," like Chachi, or maybe it's "whoa, whoa, whoa," like Joey Lawrence, she goes wild, laughing crazily. Every day, she makes a new sound. Today, she squealed when I was about to feed her. In the photo above, it looks like Maiya can sit up on her own, but she was really propped up against the back of the couch like a little stuffed animal.

Tony really is an awesome daddy. He plays with her, changes her, talks and sings to her, holds and rocks her at night. Speaking of the night, Maiya is sleeping more, she has been sleeping 7-9 hours, which began this week. She doesn't go to sleep till 1:30 or 2:30 am, but still, she's slept in until 10am at least 3 times this week. Even though I'm still waking up cause I need to pump, it's making life easier these days. We're not trying to get her to "sleep through the night" as everyone asks us, because we're feeding on demand and going by her schedule, but it is nice that she's setting a generous schedule for mommy and daddy.

Anyways, Maiya loves her Daddy, and I love him too.

PS. Happy 42nd wedding anniversary to my mom & dad.

Blah, blah, blah

The picture above is from over a month ago, but I was going through organizing the hundreds of pictures we've taken, and thought it was so cute. Don't have much to say today. I feel kind of blah. I'm wondering if I should go back to my regular website and quit updating here on blogger. Anyone have a preference? My manual main website is more work, but I miss it! I also fear what would happen if I ever lost the blogger stuff and there's no backup.

The dishes are done. The house is fairly clean. I took a shower. Maiya is sleeping and has slept a lot today, so much so that I have barely changed or fed her today. I had planned to go to the Tuesday Farmer's Market and Trader Joe's about an hour ago, but I didn't want to wake her, which I often do. But then if I wait till she wakes up, then I need to feed and change her first, which means that by the time I get her bundled into the car seat, I will hit the traffic. Ahh, always trying to figure out the timing when taking Maiya to public places. Then figuring out if we're going to do stroller, car seat, Baby Bjorn, Maya Wrap, or go alone and leave Maiya with Tony, or take Tony with me. The last two require me waiting for Tony to get home from work.

I feel somewhat annoyed with myself that there's so many things lingering on my To Do List, but here I sit, reading blogs and wasting time. Which reminds me, I still want to write up Maiya's birth story and how she got her name. Blah, blah, blah.

This week with Maiya G.

Maiya with Mama

Today, Maiya is 2 1/2 months old. At her 2 month appointment last week, she was 12 lbs, 3 oz, and 24 1/4 inches long. We have settled into somewhat of a groove. She nurses about every 3 hours during the day, give or take an hour. This week, she has started sleeping a little bit longer, going from an average of 3 hours of sleep a night to maybe 5-7 hours. We think it's because we started swaddling her again at night. I'm still waking up every 3 hours, but last night, she slept from 3am till almost 9am, skipping the 6:30 feeding.

Some days, we are out and about, and other days, we stay home all day. When we're home, we do baths, have tummy time, and air time (no diaper).

--Monday night, Tony had a J-townvoice meeting, so Maiya & I went to have Thai food with Monica and the very adorable 2 1/2 year old Dyami.
--Tuesday night, we went to The Talpa for dinner, then went to visit Grandpa Larry and Uncle Bill.
--On Wednesday morning, we went to visit my cousins, Cherie & Roxane. Cherie is visiting with her husband Didier and two boys from France, so it was great to see them. Then, we went from there to Great Leap, where we visited phloe, Luke & Harry. Lily stopped by too.
--Yesterday, we stayed home all day, and I went grocery shopping after Tony came home from work, then we had a visit from Arvin last night.
--Today, after her bath and filing the tax extension, we're going to go run some errands.

When Maiya's awake, she's much more alert now. She "talks" with Max the Monkey, when you put him up on the mobile above her pack n' play. When you put her to the mirror, she will flirt with herself and laughs at herself. She smiles widely and will follow a picture of Bert & Ernie when you move it from side-to-side. Last night, Tony put "Lamb-y," a soft fuzzy white lamb rattle in her right hand, and she brought her left hand up to hold it in both hands. Tony said that she's a genius. I think he's right.

BIG LA

Los Angeles County:  10,179,716 (July 1, 2004 estimate)
City of Los Angeles:    3,912,200 (January 1, 2004 estimate)

Did You Know? If Los Angeles County were an independent nation, it would have the 14th largest economy in the world, larger than that of either Australia, Netherlands, Russia, Taiwan, or Switzerland.

Source: California Dept. of Finance; Demographic Research Unit

Ma(i)ya Wrap

Maiya Hanging with Daddy, 2 months old

I am reading a great book about Attachment Parenting, a nurturing style that encourages parents to trust and follow their instincts for child-rearing based on the baby's needs that responds attentively to baby's cries, minimizes the parent-child separation, avoids "sleep training" (scheduled feedings), etc. We have found that it supports and validates a lot of the things we are doing to bond with Maiya such as breastfeeding on demand, co-sleeping, cloth diapering, no pacifiers, etc. They also encourage "wearing" your baby as much as possible in cloth carriers, and limiting use of plastic infant carrier buckets, strollers, swings and bouncers.

So, yesterday morning, Maiya was fussing and just inconsolable. So, I put her in the Baby Bjorn. No sooner had I strapped her in, she fell asleep. I "wore" her on my chest for 2 hours, going for a walk, working on the computer, folding laundry, while she slept happily snuggled close to me. In the evening, she was crying, actually I would say she was screaming. I told Tony about what I had done earlier in the day, and we decided to put her in the Maya Wrap Sling, or what we call the Ma(i)ya Wrap (haha). Tony put on the sling, we adjusted it for him, and put her in it (photo above), and went for a leisurely walk in the neighborhood. She stopped crying, fell asleep, and was calm the rest of the evening. It was a beautiful thing.

(Source: Attachment Parenting: Instinctive Care for Your Baby and Young Child by Katie Allison Granju)