Ruby's new ride

By far the largest present this Christmas was our new car, a Lexus Rx450h. I claimed the present was for Ruby, but Shuyi has her doubts. To be fair, only I've driven the car so far. However, Shuyi has not driven it only because she's worried about her ability to get the car in and out of our garage (about 1-2" inches of clearance on either side), and Ruby has not driven it cause, well, she can't reach the petals or see over the dashboard. Plus, Shuyi did get to pick out the interior and exterior colors.

I got the hybrid since we do the vast majority of our driving in the city. All that starting and stopping results in my getting around 14-15mpg in my G35. The Lexus is EPA rated for 30 in the city and 28 on the highway. However, the G was rated 19 or 20 in the city and I don't see how that's possible without driving like a grandma (or a hypermiler). I'll be happy if we end getting at least 24-25 mpg. At that rate, I think it will be more than 10 years before I recoup the extra hybrid costs from gas saving. Oh well. I ended up purchasing through Cartelligent http://www.cartelligent.com/, a car buying service. I got about the same price I would have gotten directly through the dealer, but without having the annoyance of dealing with car salesmen.

I must say that out of all of the Ruby's presents, this one is my favorite (although I believe Ruby's favorite was the wrapping paper). I'm quite impressed with the new Remote Touch control for the GPS, which is a joystick-like pointer device with haptic response. However, I was disappointed with the size of the bow. Apparently, Lexus dealerships don't actually have bows as big as those shown in their December to Remember commercials. Classic Bait-and-Switch!

My first Christmas

Yesterday was a very special day. I got to get all dressed up, and there were a lot of people who came to see me. My Nai-nai, Ye-ye, and Lao-lao were all there, and they kept on fighting over who got to hold me.



My Uncle Hao was also there, and he liked to pinch my cheeks.



I got tired of posing for pictures. When do we get to the presents???



When I got my first present, I thought that I was just supposed to chew on the outside, but then Mommy and Daddy showed me how to unwrap it first.



I got a lot of really neat stuff! I got some very pretty foot-coverings that felt like extra hard socks, but darnit, I couldn't figure out how to tie the strings on them!



I also got a few nice and furry things, but I don't understand why Daddy kept on taking the best part of the present away and throwing it in the trash.



I even got presents out of the gigantic sock that Mommy hung up by the fireplace.



I really enjoyed my day. All the presents were great, but the best part was having all those extra people around to entertain me. Now that I know how the whole thing works, next year I'm going to start my Christmas shopping early.

Sleep training

A couple of weeks ago, Steve and I were confronted for the first time with the question, "What kind of parents do we want to be?" Up until now, parenting Ruby has been very easy and straight-forward. As they say, there is no way to spoil a newborn because they only have needs, not wants. Crying = bad, and our job = stop the crying. However, at some point, shielding your child from every hardship and giving her everything that she wants becomes more of a disservice. The hard part is figuring out when we've reached that point.

Back when Ruby was a newborn and our greatest concern was trying to get her to wake up, I never would have imagined that one day our concern would be how to get her to go to sleep. Even after Ruby emerged from her Sleepy Period of never once waking up on her own, she was still a very avid sleeper. She started sleeping through the night in 8-10 hour stretches starting around 3 months, something that inspires envy from other parents. Even though she had a hard time going to sleep at night unless she was nursed to sleep, she slept so well at night and was such a happy baby, that I never really worried about it. Plus, I didn't mind nursing her to sleep. I probably wouldn't have minded if she were permanently glued onto my chest and I could carry her around all day like a mommy kangaroo.

However, when Ruby turned 6 months old, her sleeping habits also changed. It became much more difficult for her to fall asleep, and she slept much more lightly. She would often get to the point of being over-tired but not be able to fall asleep, which would set off The Loud Crying. When this would happen the only sure-fire fix was nursing her, because that was they way she had become accustomed to falling asleep. Related to this, Ruby also became extremely attached to me at night. From the time the sun went down until she went to bed, she stuck to me like a little monkey. No one else could hold her, nor could I leave her sights for fear of inciting The Loud Crying. In fact, each of the nights that my mom babysat for us while we were on vacation, I came back to find Ruby red-faced and bleary-eyed from crying, making me feel so horrible that I planned to stop going out at night for the forseeable future.

Even though this behavior was not ideal, it was something I felt like I could deal with because she was fine at night as long as I was holding her, and once she fell asleep, she would still sleep through the night. However, a few days after we returned from Hawaii, Ruby's sleep habits took a turn for the worse. Even though she was nursed to sleep like always, as soon as I would try to put her down in her crib, she would wake up and cry until I picked her up. I could tell that she was very tired and sleepy, but she wouldn't sleep unless I was holding her. It was taking till around midnight or later before she was really going down in her crib, and even then, she would wake up in the middle of the night, realize that she was no longer being held, and cry. Several nights in a row I fell asleep on top of the covers, holding Ruby, in all of my clothes because I could not put her down for a moment to get myself ready for bed without setting off The Crying. I could tell that the issue had to do with attachment rather than hunger because as soon as I picked her up, she would be fine. Unfortunately, Steve picking her often made it even worse, like she was saying, "No no no, I wanted the one with the boobs!"

A few days after all this started, we went in for Ruby's 6 month checkup. When the pediatrician heard about Ruby's bedtime difficulties, she immediately recommended that we begin sleep training. The issue of SLEEP is one of the most heated and controversial topics in baby care. There are dozens of books you can read on the subject, and they span the philosophical spectrum from Crying It Out (Ferber's method) to Attachment Parenting (espoused by Dr. Sears). The standard Crying It Out method of sleep training involves establishing a bedtime routine, putting the baby down at a set beditme, leaving the room, letting her cry for 10 min., checking in on her for 1 min., then letting her cry for 15 min., etc. until she learns to fall asleep on her own. On the other hand Attachment Parenting sleep books encourage parents to continue to respond to their baby's cries and to bring the baby into bed with them if necessary. If my desire to attach Ruby to my chest is any indication, I clearly identified more with the Attachment Parenting philosophy, and the concept of leaving my baby to cry alone in the dark for 10 min. was horrifying to me.

It surprised me when our pediatrician was so matter-of-fact in her recommendation of the Crying It Out method, and so emphatic that we start right away. Even though I was clearly uneasy about the idea, it seemed like her position was that this was what was best for the baby, and any uneasiness I had was a weakness on my part that I needed to overcome.

I left the appointment anxious and confused, so I immediately delved deeper into sleep training research. I learned that there is a lot of logic to the Crying It Out philosophy, in the sense that the goal is to teach the baby how to fall asleep on her own, a skill that will be valuable for the rest of her life. Due to the nautre of human sleep cycles, we all wake up several times in the middle of the night, but most of the time we're not even aware of it because we know how to fall right back to sleep. However, this ability is learned and not innate, so a little baby who has always relied on nursing to fall asleep will not know how to fall asleep on her own unless she is trained. On the other hand, I don't think I agree with the parenting technique of leaving your child to cry by herself in the dark. I discussed it with other member of my playgroup, and it seemed like many of us were in the same boat. We had all been pressured by our pediatricians to sleep train, but nobody had the stomach to leave their child to cry.

I knew that what we were doing at the time clearly wasn't working, and my main fear was that Ruby's attachment issues at bedtime would only get worse. Although I wouldn't necessarily have minded moving Ruby to our bed on a permanent basis, I was concerned that if we put off sleep training until she was a toddler or older, that the process would be exponentially more difficult. Therefore, we decided to try a modified version of Crying It Out called the "Sleep Lady Shuffle," based on a book by The Sleep Lady. Under this technique, the parents do not leave the room, but the baby is still supposed to be put down in the crib and allowed to fall asleep on her own. Although this resolved my misgivings about leaving a child to cry alone in the dark, in many ways this method was much harder than the stardard Crying It Out because in this case, I had to sit by the crib and watch the baby cry.

We tried this method for two nights. By the end of the second night, I was a wreck. I was crying along with the baby, desperate to pick her up, but afraid that if I did, all the crying she already did would have been a waste. Before bedtime the third night, I told Steve that I wasn't going to follow the method anymore; I was just going to wing it. So I put Ruby down in her crib, and miraculously, she fell asleep without fussing at all.

I wish I could say if it was letting her cry that made it work or if it was the decision to no longer let her cry that made it work, but I really have no idea. I do believe that the one thing that has definitely helped was setting a bedtime routine. Nowadays, every night around 8pm, I nurse Ruby, Steve changes her diaper, then I read her a story, put her down in her crib, turn on her sound machine, and sing to her until she falls asleep. In the past couple of weeks, Ruby has been falling asleep on her own, in her crib, with minimal or no fussing.

Although it is always a little sad when your baby doesn't need you as much anymore, I am mostly relieved that, at least for now, we have conquered Bedtime.

Introducing solids

Far more momentus than my 26th birthday on Sunday was Ruby's 0.5th birthday last Monday. The 6th month marks a number of milestones, one of which is the introduction of solid foods. Starting solids does not mean that Ruby is transitioning from an all-milk diet to all meat and potatoes. For the next few months, she will still be getting almost all of her nutrients from breastmilk. However, it's important to introduce solids in order for Ruby to learn that food can come from a spoon and not just a bottle or a boob, and in order to diversify her palate by experiencing new flavors.

Although the concept of experiencing every single food for the first time is very exciting, it also adds a level of complexity to the whole feeding situation. We now need a whole new set of gear for feeding, as well as the equipment to make the food. (Perhaps making your own baby food is another "San Francisco thing," but I never really considered giving Ruby baby food from a jar, especially after playing the baby shower game. Steve and I don't eat our meals out of a can, so I don't see why we would feed Ruby out of a jar.)

The recommended protocol for starting solids is to introduce a new food every three days, so that if there is any bad reaction, you will know which food caused it. Almost everyone starts with rice cereal because it is exceptionally bland and non-allergenic. Mixed with breastmilk, the concoction is no more than slightly viscous breastmilk. This was Ruby's first taste of solid food, an experience she embarked on with great trepidation.



Although much of the rice cereal ended up on Ruby's face, hands, bib, and chair, I don't think any of it was actually consumed. She seemed far more interested in grabbing and chewing on the spoon than the cereal itself. We tried rice cereal for 2 more days without much more luck, so we figured she didn't have a taste for rice cereal. Since then, we've introduced Ruby to butternut squash, carrots, and sweet potato. Unfortunately, she has approached each one of these foods with the same amount of reluctance, despite the fact that each one was made from fresh, organic ingredients and pureed till velvety smooth and (in my opinion) quite delicious. I have actually eaten considerably more baby food than Ruby because I keep eating what she doesn't finish.

It seems like Ruby is just taking a long time to warm up to the idea of swallowing something that's not milk. By the third day of each food she would actually be forcefully closing her mouth, turning away, and crying. I was getting a bit concerned that Ruby was determined to sustain herself on breastmilk for the rest of her life. There did seem to be some improvement tonight when Ruby took down most of her serving of sweet potatoes, although her serving was just the size of one cube from an ice cube tray (my method of baby food storage). Hopefully the little foodie inside her will emerge soon.

Christmas tree

Today we put up our first family Christmas tree. Ruby helped.



Steve and I have never spent the holidays at home as we usually go east to my parents' place, so we've never done any real Christmas decoration. We do have a small, pitiful, table-top tree that I was going to set out, but then I realized that this is Ruby's first Christmas and time to start our family holiday traditions. So yesterday we went to Target and bought all of the basics in tree decoration. As is expected, our tree currently looks like a smaller version of a department store Christmas tree, as we have yet to accumulate the various knick-knacks, widgets, and whatsits that adorn most family Christmas trees. (For example, many of the ornaments on my parents' tree are not meant to be ornaments at all but are instead key chains, car air freshners, or several-decade-old candy.) But I guess we have to start somewhere!

Here is the finished product:

Maui

Ruby has had a number of firsts recently. She had her first Thanksgiving, which was fairly uneventful. I was way too busy with work this year to do my regular 48-hour cook-a-thon Thanksgiving meal, and even if I had the time, it would have been much harder with a baby attached to me the whole time. Plus we were leaving for vacation right afterwards, so we couldn't have leftovers. We decided to try the pre-cooked Thanksgiving dinner from Whole Foods, and even though I've heard lots of good things about it, it just didn't measure up to home-cooked Thanksgiving. Ruby wasn't able to partake in the dinner either because I didn't want to start her on solids right before we went on our trip. We are hoping by Christmas Ruby will be able to eat her own pureed version of Christmas dinner.

My parents flew in for Thanksgiving from the East Coast, and we all left for Maui together on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. For weeks now I had been preparing all the necessary baby materials for this trip, most of which involved some form of defense against the sun (baby sunscreen, hats, UV-resistant swimsuits/rashguards, baby sunglasses, and a pop-up tent for the beach, all of which was packed along with more clothes, diapers, and toys than we ever ended up needing). As our luggage exceeded the capacity of our car, my dad drew the short straw and had to take the Super Shuttle to the airport.

Navigating the airport with the baby was pretty simple. We ended up taking Ruby's carseat and a Snap 'N Go stroller, which we gate checked, and we got to go through the special Families and Special Needs line at security. Here's Ruby excited to board a plane for the first time:



One of my concerns about air travel was possible exposure to communicable disease, so I armed both my parents and I with spray bottles of 70% ethanol from the lab to spray down our entire airplane seat and its vicinity. Fortunately, our flight was fairly empty, and we had a spare seat for Ruby next to us, as well as an entire empty row of seats next to and behind us. We brought Ruby's carseat on board, but we didn't end up using it because she was much happier being held the whole time.



It was a 5 hour flight to Maui, so two naps, two feedings, and two diaper changes later, we arrived. We stayed at my parents' timeshare at the Ka'anapali Beach Club on the western side of the island. The impetus of this whole trip was actually an attempt to use up their remaining timeshare points for the year before they expired, as my parents are workaholics and never go on vacation (yes, they were the ones checking work email on the beach). The best part of the accomodations were the sweeping ocean views in every room, as we discovered when we woke up the next morning.



The first day Steve and I rented some snorkels and tested them out on the beach. Steve was somewhat apprehensive about snorkelling because he is not buoyant. We decked Ruby out in all of her sungear, and she hung out on the beach with my parents.



The weather that day was somewhat inclement, by Hawaii's standards, with winds and intermittent showers, so we eventually had to take refuge in a nearby hotel. The following day, we took a boat out on a snorkelling trip in the morning.



The intended destination was Molikini crater, a very popular snorkel spot off the southwest coast of Maui, but due to high winds, we were redirected to a more protected cove closer to shore. Steve, my dad, and I all tried out snorkelling while my mom stayed with Ruby on the boat. Although initially Steve did not dare to enter the water without a floatation device, he got the hang of it quickly and actually took to snorkelling quite well.



I really enjoyed swimming with the all the fishies, although I discovered that snorkelling for too long made me feel a bit seasick. Since my mom didn't get to snorkel on the boat, that afternoon we took her to a popular snorkel location by the beach called the Black Rock.



There were also a ton of fish to see, but the visibility was not as good as where the boat took us. My mom had a bit of trouble with snorkelling because she had a tendency to panic and then stop breathing through her mouth. She is also not used to swimming in water deeper than what she can stand in, so she had to stay very close to shore. The one time she drifted slighly further out, she had to enlist the help of a nearby elderly gentleman to pull her back in. After all that, she claims she was only able to see one fish. :-\

The following day, we drove up to the summit of Haleakala Mountain. At an elevation of over 10,000 ft, we were far above the clouds.





We were able to enjoy some interesting moon-like topography.



Ruby was really exhausted after all that hiking.



That evening, Steve and I decided to take advantage of the free babysitting and go out to a nice restaurant, so we had our first date night in more than 6 months. Of course we just talked about the baby the whole time.

The next day we went to the northern part of the island to visit the Nakalele Blowhole. Ruby was quite pleased.



We were a bit confused because the trail to the blowhole was not clearly marked, but Steve thought it was thataway.



After a treacherous hike in flip flops and a dress, we made it to the blowhole.



Ruby was unimpressed.



Later that day we took Ruby to the pool for her first swim, which she seemed to mildly enjoy.



As that evening was our last night in Hawaii, Steve and I went to a luau called The Feast at Lele while my parents watched Ruby for us. This was sort of a more sophisticated version of a traditional luau, so there was no pig on a spick. We were all seated at individual tables and served our food course by course. Each of the courses represented the cuisine from a different island: Hawaii, New Zealand, Tahiti, and Samoa. Everything was super good! The dinner included an unlimited number of yummy tropical cocktails, which we would have taken advantage of even more if I didn't have to worry about getting the baby drunk by proxy. Along with each course there was also a performance that represented that particular region. I thought it was one of the best parts of the whole trip. Next time we will take Ruby to see it.



In the end, we all had a lot of fun on our Hawaiian vacation. It's definitely somewhere we would like to return to, and we've already talked about all the things Ruby could do the next time. At Ruby's age, going on vacation is always more for the adults, so I think we will have even more fun next time because we will get to see Ruby enjoy it for herself.

Back from vacation

Aloha! We have returned from our Hawaiian getaway! 10 hours roundtrip on the plane, 5 days of fun in the sun, no major injuries or illnesses.



I'll post details and more pics when I get some free time ...