Grandfather and son

Daddy misses Wei Yang after 3 days of being apart.

Steam meat with salted fish

Such a home cook dish that I managed to order in a Chinese restaurant in Mt View... :)

Lots of attention or what?

Santana Row

Wei Yang is out from noon till 9pm that day. His longest day out ever!

Grandparents walk around the neighborhood.

Friends dropping by...

We've been blessed with good friends that are dropping by to help taking care of Wei Yang while Choon Ping is on his business trip to Asia. Arif and Tahera dropped by last Friday night. They brought dinner over, and later were having fun carrying Wei Yang. He enjoyed having them around. hmm... good babysitter candidate :P

Wei Yang's sleeping schedule has improved quite a bit recently. He hits a few 3-hour straight of sleeping at night. The longest hour he had so far was 5 hours 55 minutes. This was when Xin and Shwe came to look after him that night. After they left, I kept checking on him at the door just to make sure that I hear his breathing sound. It seemed unbelievable... However, his sleeping schedule for the following day was horrible! Back to square one... waking up every 1-1.5 hours for the whole night! Guess I need Xin and Shwe to drop by more often. ;P

Wei Yang's day time nap is still bad; each session lasts no more than an hour. I can't really do much or sleep. On top of that, he just loves to see faces when he's awake. The minute I walk away from him... he starts making noises, and eventually progresses to a full blown screaming/crying if I don't attend him. He loves being held constantly indeed!

Yesterday was a great day for Wei Yang, I did get some good rest. Plus I had 4 placenta pills the day before and another 2 capsules in the morning! mmm... the power of the pills! I ended up having lots of energy, thus bringing Wei Yang to San Mateo visiting Hasnain, Zainab, and 5-month old Khalil. Khalil smiles a lot and is really cute! He's skinny and long... which makes Wei Yang quite chunky when compare with him. They were sooo cute when both of them were placed on the play mat! Wei Yang tried out Khalil's swinger. He loves it! Guess it's time to shop one from Craigslist!

Being a mom is indeed hard work; especially if it's only one person taking care of the baby. Imagine those single mom out there... plus they need to work. I salute! While Choon Ping is away, my average cumulative sleeping hours per day has been between 4-6 hours. Unfortunately they are all interrupted. I wish they're not. Else, think I won't be that sleep deprived. I can totally see my accelerated aging complexion! My wrinkles formation is increasing exponentially everyday!! My panda eyes are so obvious... *sigh* me sooo sad! :( On certain days, I do wish I could be like Toro the cat, just flop on anywhere, anytime and go to sleep. Ok, maybe not anywhere, but flopping on the bed sounds good to me.

Two more days, Choon Ping will be back... along with his parents. :D Yay! I can't wait to have a 4-hour straight of uninterrupted sleep. It's been a while since I had that.

hm... think I'm done unloading my brain for now... thanks to Jocelyn & Albert again for bringing me dinner... and bagels too! Signing off now... Zzz

Peking Duck

Yummy Peking Duck in Xindalu @ Hyatt

Like father like son

Eating out :)

After having Wei Yang, eating out has somehow become a little luxury for us. No more fancy restaurants at regular hours, no more hanging out late. 'Da pao' the food back home and eat has become our usual chore nowadays just because it's easier. Funny that now we always say, "we're like Ah P'ng liao...." We rarely have meals together at the same time, as one of us usually has to entertain the little one or keep him occupied. Else he will fuss and fuss and fuss... unless he's in a good mood or already dozed off. We go to the restaurant early; preferably a family-friendly place.

However, this past weekend we decided to indulge ourselves with loads of yummy sushi at Sushi Tomi at Mountain View. We went there early. (Hmmm.... sounds like P'ng and Judy again... :P ) It takes a little forethought to dine out at 5 o'clock. So 6pm is good. The worst thing one can do is to take a tired, and cranky baby to a restaurant around his bedtime. We did it before past bedtime... at home, having dinner late; obviously passed Wei Yang's bedtime. One minute he's happily laying on the bouncer entertaining himself, and the next he's screaming like a banshee. It then took us slightly more than 2 hours to put him to bed. *ouch!* Imagine dining out.... it would be like dining with a ticking time bomb! Don't even want to go there! So for the time being, we're stuck eating the early bird specials.

So there we went to our 6pm reservation at Sushi Tomi. To our surprise, it was crowded at that hour too! They just renovated the whole place. It's nice. I think now it can fit slightly more people. We got a good seating place; where Wei Yang were actually placed at a corner. This seems obvious. Nobody wants to sit next to a potential screaming baby in a fancy restaurant.

We ordered quite a bit: salmon, amaebi, hotate, and hamachi nigiri, spicy tekka donburi, tempura, soft shell crab roll, and beef tataki. I freaking love the beef! Haven't had it ever since I got pregnant. We finished all the raw food stuff, with some left over of tempura and soft shell crab roll. Breastfeeding exclusively does get me hungry all the time. I don't think I get THAT hungry during pregnancy. I'm usually sleepy and hungry in the middle of the night. So cold sushi is fine with me at 3 or 4am after feeding Wei Yang. It's yummy still!

We were very happy that Wei Yang behaved quite well at the restaurant. Snoozing most of the time. guess he loves the wide noise then. :) By the end of our meal, he started to make noises, and we knew... it was about time to go. He did end up having a small bottle of milk before we headed home. I guess he decided to save some stomach for some sushi milk later from mama. :P

More Videos - 5 weeks 5 days old

The day we left the hospital

TGIF @ Google

TGIF at Google this week allows the employees to bring guests. So, Pei-Sun brought Wei Yang to socialize. :) As usual, lots of food. But this time round, they have the flowrider/surf simulator setup! It is a surf simulator that shoots water across a cushioned surface so that it simulates real surfing. Lots of people lined up for it. Frank did it. And we watched him did it from the office 3rd floor to have a good bird's eye view.

Frank carried Wei Yang, so light compares to Anabel. Look she is trying to stand-up. She is 9 months old now. I carried her when she was 2 weeks old.

Visit Lydia @ Rich and Carol

Lydia is 5 weeks old. 2 weeks younger than Wei Yang. She eats twice as much as Wei Yang at each feeding. Maybe that why his sleep is still so bad at night.

Both are communicating in baby gesture.

Just the three of us

Well, wai po left last Thursday night, it is now just three of us. Choon Ping took last Friday off so that we could ease off our schedule with just two adults taking care of Wei Yang. He behaved very well the night wai po left. He actually gave wai po a smile during sleep at the airport... which left her a good impression. It was a bit sad, it's been great having her around taking care of Wei Yang.

I am now taking over the night shift until 5am, and Choon Ping will take over wai po's 5am shift until he goes to work... like around 10am. Then I will take over. Wei Yang smiles a lot in the morning, which is great! This gives a good opportunity to video conference with gong gong and po po before they go to bed. :) So, this Monday was my first day taking care of him alone during the day time. Turned out that it wasn't that bad... survived. But I do look forward to weekends, even though I'm at home all the time. It's nice to have Choon Ping home, and some time with just the three of us. It was my first time bathing him as well on Monday. It used to be wai po doing it. :P Just as he did when wai po was here.... he did get nervous and would grab my clothes tightly before putting him into the tub.

Wei Yang is doing great, growing like a weed, and getting heavier! ...just wish that he sleeps longer stretch. He's 7 weeks 1 day now, but somehow he still has a very short sleeping cycle; now average at 1 hour 40mins per sleeping/feeding cycle. This past weekend, he had one 3-hour sleep, and we were sooo happy! During the day time, it's less than an hour, thus my time gets interrupted very often. Often times, I need to keep the bouncer bouncing (with my foot) when he's about to start fussing. This practically imprisons me. However, he sleeps longer if we go out, especially during the car ride. I guess he is very 'hong soo' lah... just like his dad, gong gong, and po po ? ;P In fact, we went to Lynn and Jack's house for a BBQ party this past Saturday... of course we brought the little guy along to meet their parents and relatives. Another baby boy who's 2 days older was there as well. Wei Yang behaved quite well! Didn't scream his head off, but slept most of the time during the party. I guess he likes the wide noises. Of course he pooped, peed, and fussed a little. We ended up being at their place from 1pm until 7pm; finshed all the diapers that we brought along... it's time to go home....

Our cats begin to get reaallly comfortable with Wei Yang's presence... except when he cries, weeee.... off they run! Winston loves to cuddle on his bed! ... somewhere close to his sleeping spot. This morning, Choon Ping said Toro wanted to snuggle on top of him... but of course, was stopped by him.

Here's a picture of Wei Yang taken yesterday while he was snoozing during the day time. He's 7 weeks exactly; roughly about 12 lbs in weight, ~23 inches in length.

Ooo... gotta go attend the baby now. Winston just stood beside him, then "meoW...meoOWW...", next thing i hear... "wuaaAAHHH...!!"

Ang ku

All done. The steamed purple ang ku!

Red one!

Of course, red eggs!

Night before Wei Yang's full moon party July 8th 2011

Making ang ku!

Pei-Sun's mom wants to take over because she thinks Pei-Sun made it too soft. I am staying out of this...

The red version is made by Pei-Sun's mom.

Pei-Sun is making the purple kind. Purple color came from purple yam.

We go for the peanut filling instead of traditional mung bean.

Toro is bored that night!

New 'night' life...

Alas, it has been a while, as usual. I started to write a post about my birth story last week, but never finished it... Choon Ping posted a short version of the story instead, and a feeding experience already.

So Wei Yang is now 4 weeks old. It’s quite funny and surprising to me that now I am still reminiscing about the whole labor thingy once in a while. I wouldn’t say that I enjoyed it... but it was quite an experience. :) Boy, I am GLAD that it was a super fast delivery; about 2.5 hours of labor, but only less than 30 minutes of active labor! Not long after the water broke, it was time to push. I couldn’t believe it... it DID feel like pooping. To me, that pooping feeling is worst than the contraction! I cursed the process and the pain, desperately wanted a way out. But I lived through it, and to be honest, it wasn’t that bad. In hindsight, it was an absolutely amazing experience, and I wouldn’t have done it any other way. Luckily, after 2 pushes he was out. It’s just too bad that Choon Ping and Merbie missed out the whole thing.

I just nursed Wei Yang about an hour ago. Choon Ping and Merbie are now sleeping. For some reason, Wei Yang has been having 1 ½ hour stretch of sleep when it is my shift taking care of him; either in the middle of the night or during day time. He had only one 3-hour stretch of sleeping since the past week. He can be very fussy, eats a lot, put on some weight (which is good!), and he has acne!! He’s very demanding indeed! Definitely cries a lot more, and louDER if he doesn’t get his food right away! With the frequency that he demands to be fed, all I can say is that my poor boobs has been ‘suffering’. Thanks to an extra help of Merbie and the rented hospital grade milk pumping machine, Wei Yang get to be feed via bottle by his dad and wai4 po2, so that my ‘assets’ could get some rest! :). ...as long as the milk supply is enough to be expressed.

Anyway, even with all the fuss, he is quite cute indeed, especially when he's sound asleep. :) It's late... I better go Zzz before the little one wakes up again soon.

Feeding at night

Wei Yang is 3 weeks + 5 days old now. I am back at work, we are still trying to adjust our lives to the lifestyle. We sort of have a routine now, when I work I don't take care of Wei Yang in the day time. I usually take care of him in the middle of the night. I am starting to like the shift from 1-5am.

So far Wei Yang's sleep schedule goes like this, he will sleep sometime between 9-10:30pm. Then wakes up around 12:30am. Depending how tired I am, I might go to bed when Wei Yang goes to bed too. But when it is a holiday like this weekend, I usually don't. Contrary to what most people say, I find waking up in the middle of the night more rewarding part of being a dad.
For a mom, she has the ultimate weapon of the breast. When the baby cries, she just have to pull this out, and the baby stops crying. Whereas for the dad, when the baby cries, you have to look for the mom so that he can have his milk.

For the night, it is different. Pei-Sun pumps her milk and stores them in the bottle. When Wei Yang wakes up, he is usually hungry. And he wants milk immediately. The trick is to heat up the milk for him in the shortest amount of time. So we usually store the milk in a small and big bottle. Small bottle contains 20ml of milk, and the large bottle contains 2oz(60ml) of milk. It takes only 1-2 min to heat up the small container, whereas takes about 5min to heat up the big one. For all the dad out there knows that 5min is eternity to a hungry baby. So when I start to hear Wei Yang making noise before he gets up, I will start the routine of heating up the small bottle. Usually before he has a chance to cry too loud, I am ready with the milk. I take the small bottle and feed him, meanwhile heat up the big bottle. Usually he finishes the small bottle in 2-3min, I have to distract after that for a bit like try to burp him. At night, he tends to be sleepy. So he will sleep after finishing the small bottle. But dad, don't be tricked! He is not done yet. When the 2oz bottle is ready, I feed him that. Even if he is sleeping, I will tease his mouth, and he will wake up and start drinking the big bottle. This feeding will take a while, like 15-min to finish. Usually he will fall asleep during feeding. No problem. Burp him when he is half way through, then check/change his diaper. During this process, he will wake up and remembered that he is still hungry. so I continue to feed him after changing diapers. By the time he is almost done with the 2oz bottle, he is so full and also sleepy that he is sound asleep! Wow! Success! Go back to bed, and be ready in 2.5 hours.

Not exactly sure what it is. Maybe I feel like we can communicate during this time. Or his innocence and the way he sleeps is so tranquil. Newborn don't really interact much yet, but I find feeding him at night the most fulfilling experience of being a new dad... :)

New addition to Toro family - Wei Yang 莊偉揚

On June 6th 2011 8pm, Pei-Sun checked in to Sequoia Hospital. She was prep for her induction that night. At 1:57am June 7th, Wei Yang was born. Pei-Sun had a 2 hour labor before water broke. After the water broke, 30min before Wei Yang pops out! He literally pops out as you can see in the picture below where his face is bruised by popping out so quickly! He couldn't wait to see the new world! 5lb 15.4oz and 20in length.
That night, Wei Yang slept soundly with mom checking on him occasionally.
Pei-Sun has been requesting for spicy tuna hand roll all throughout the pregnancy. She resisted it, so once the pregnancy is over, she had spicy tuna donburi for dinner... :) (From sushitomi of course!)
The guests started to visit Wei Yang. Even Dr. Thein checked him out once more to make sure everything is all right!
Wei Yang slept soundly on me! Enjoying a bit of father-son bonding...
The big long sleep after delivery. I wished he still sleeps like that.
He is a bit yellow from the billirubin. So poor Wei Yang needs to be wrapped in the bili-blanket. It is basically LED as UV source, and bunch of fiber optic cable connected to a "blanket". Blanket is a misnomer, it is more like a foldable piece of plastic material. Extremely uncomfortable! Wei Yang hated it, we hated it because he could not sleep properly on the 2nd night. His eyes are protected from the UV light with the little mask which he hated too.
Well, on day 3, we are ready to go! Packing things up, and everyone is happy to bring the newborn home.
Wei Yang likes the car seat!