sue's blog

we had our first real choking incident today and called 911.  alison ate something, later we found out it was a piece of candy the size of a quarter.  i was laying on the bed and she came over to me and pulled me and i saw that she was gagging.  i whacked her on the back, held her upside down, stuck my finger down her throat and it wasn't coming out.  i yelled for hubby, who was thankfully home, and he did the same whacking then yelled at me to call 911.  she just kept gagging and then white curdled stuff tinged with blood started coming out of her nose but she was still gagging.  he ran with her outside so that he could meet the parademics but just when they arrived she threw up the candy in the courtyard.  this all took 7 minutes. 

i'm still shaking.  it's been 4 hours since the incident.  time to babyproof.  and we always comment how she never puts anything in her mouth.  the candy was on the kitchen table.  i don't even want to think about other outcomes.  i'm going to take a baby CPR class now... who wants to take one with me?  today i learned that the heimlich maneuver or sticking your finger down a babies throat is a big no-no, oh that and leaving candy out while trying to sneak in a little rest while baby plays.

alison is now 15 months old.

milestones this month:

• starting to say some real words and asks for what she wants rather that "eh eh" or "mmmMMM"
• new words this month:  shoes, book, juice, "ba" meaning bottle or cup, "boo" meaning ghost, "choo-choo" meaning train, and ball.
• says "night night" when she's tired or going to bed
  
• snaps her fingers to music or on command
• stomps her feet to music or on command
• talks/babbles to stuffed animals playing pretend
• works the tantrums when she doesn't get her way
• pretends to talk on the phone
• knows how to point out ears, eyes, nose, and mouth

one of my good friends delivered twin boys this week, each weighing 6.5 lbs and 19 in.  they were both head down and laying on the same side.  she got PUPPS in the last week and that was the only time she complained during the entire pregnancy. oh, and she's only 5'1".

she reminds me to not complain about being sick, tired, and sore.  i've gotta really enjoy this pregnancy - my last!!!

my sister and i went to panera yesterday because we're hungry and we both order a 1/2 Turkey Artichoke Hot Panini with soup and salad.

sis: i heard one of panera's sandwiches is on a "worst foods to eat" list  i wonder if this is it.

me: i don't want to know.

sis: (looks at the nutritional pamphlet)  OMG, this 1/2 sandwich has 1170 calories in it!!

both of us immediately deconstruct our sandwiches and frantically scrape off all the spread

me: lemme see the menu...
...
...??!!!!!!!!
damnit!!  that's the sodium content!  this sandwich only has like 350 calories.

very very sad that my dinner was ruined.

why do all restaurants have to list the calorie count now?  i'd much rather not know and just enjoy going out to eat. 

alison's 14 month birthday has come and gone and so much has happened.  she's a full time walker now.  her hands still have a slight gay hand cock going on with them but the hands are slowly migrating down.  she's learning a few words and hand signals: apple, up, moo, arf (dog sound), night night, and signing all done.  i think she knows how to say "cheese" too, but not 100% sure.  she tries to imitate everything we do and every sound we make.  when someone farts (NOT ME), she blows a raspberry, when someone yawns, she'll pretend to yawn too.  she plays itsy bitsy spider with her fingers, dances to music, and she also tries to get us to do everything for her.  yesterday husband fed her a few tastes of ice cream then after that, she would take the spoon, dig it into the ice cream, grab husband's hands and place it on the spoon.  i've changed her sleep schedule so that she sleeps in later and goes to bed later... so nice to sleep in and to go out to eat dinner without a meltdown.  her 2nd nap has gotten so long that i have to wake her up.

it's been really too hot in LA so we're getting a bit of cabin fever from trying to stay in air conditioning all the time.  we bought her a splash pool to play with that keeps her entertained for a while and out of the Tupperware and utensil drawers.

we tried going to the LA County Fair and i totally regretted it the second we got there.  it was so much hotter in pomona than in LA and with 2 pregnant women and a baby to deal with, it was really hot.  we were all so lethargic and sweaty plus we couldn't enjoy all the fried foods the fair had to offer.  but this one thing made the whole trip worth it:
this past weekend, we took a train trip up to san luis obispo.  much cooler up there.  alison hasn't worn anything long-sleeved in like half her life and she kept trying to pull her sleeves off of every outfit.  the trip was mostly for the experience of riding the 40 mph train.  it was actually nicer than i thought it would be.  our cabin was a family cabin that sleeps 5 and spans the width of the train.  we had a personal attendant and reservations for meals, which were included.  the meal car was on the 2nd floor and had panoramic views of the coast line and the vineyards.  and the food was surprisingly good... husband even took away alison's food claiming she was finished, but he ate it for himself.  one day, i want to take the train all the way up to seattle... it takes 2 days.  i think i have something about trains.

pictures added to the previous post

another long post combining what should've been a bunch of shorter ones, shall i call this a monthly update?  it's been a month!!!  if you can see by the date of this post, i had intended on posting before i left for china, but i never finished writing the post until much later (today is august 16).  to top it off, i can't find any of our USB cords for our cameras so i can't even upload and post pictures or videos.

pregnancy update

i gained 10 pounds last month!  ugh!  but i looked back at my weight gain last pregnancy and i had gained 9 lbs in the same month so hopefully i'm on the same weight gain pattern.  my appetite is voracious!  i cannot satiate myself.
and i'm having contractions like crazy.  one night (22 weeks), i was so tempted to go to labor and delivery because i think i had like 10 in an hour, but i was also thinking about the embarrassment factor that could ensue should my contractions magically stop once i'm hooked up to the monitor.  i just tried to drink water and sleep them off and the contractions calmed by the morning.  i am now 25 weeks-ish?  i keep forgetting i'm pregnant, it's just been too busy.

i know all the pregnant women out there might understand this but last time i had an anterior placenta (in the front) and i didn't feel movements until 18.5 weeks.  this time, i have a posterior placenta (in the back) and i felt movements starting 15 weeks.  but the movements are so much more pronounced this time.  it's like i can constant feel movements and sometimes i can even make out body parts, which i hadn't been able to do with alison until i was in my 3rd trimester.  gross, huh?

thursday date nights

husband and i have been allowed awesome thursday night date nights because we've hired a nanny/housekeeper once a week.  she comes and plays with alison for an hour, puts her to sleep then cleans for 2 hours.  she doesn't always finish (laundry, dishes, vacuum, pick up dog hair, etc.) but she comes every week, which is more frequent than any cleaning help that we've hired in the past.  i feel like weekly date night has helped us reconnect as a couple and relax.  we were getting such cabin fever from staying in all the time. 

china trip

i was so excited to be going to china and w/o baby! but i was so nervous about alison as we have never left her overnight anywhere without us.  i'm totally fine with the separation part of it but i'm scared that something will happen to her. before we left, i dreamed my MIL forgot to install alison's carseat and told me she was just going to drive around while alison sat in a big wicker basket.  strangely, it sounds like something she would do.  she thinks 6-year-olds can baby sit alison and i keep on telling her that she needs to watch alison because that 6-year-old has dropped my 20 lbs. baby before.  i was so nervous about leaving alison, that i rented an international cell phone and when i told husband, i got a long lecture about how we're on vacation and we need to cut ourselves off from our daily lives and alison is not going to die and if something happens to anyone, they'll get a hold of us yadadadaa.... so there is my botched cell phone attempt.  basically, we're calling no-one and no-one should be calling us.

overall, china was one HOT SWEATY trip.  i don't think husband ever stopped sweating.  he had to pay to get his laundry done and it cost us close to $100.  had i had known 1 million chinese people were also on vacation and wanted to tour the major landmarks of china, i might have chosen to go to greece instead.  however, i'm glad we went because china is one place i felt like i should go to at least once in my life and it's not travel-friendly for the retired folks or families with young kids. first of all, i'd like to get my complaining out of the way then write about what i enjoyed.
 
complaints:

• chinese people don't understand the concept of a line. i had to pee so bad one time i was standing in the middle of a 4-stall bathroom and 3 people cut in front of me.  you literally have to be the 1st to touch the door that opens to get that stall.
• when people say china is overpopulated, they aren't kidding!  on top of that, it was so hot and every sun-hating asian had an umbrella.  so try navigating through doorways and structures with a million asians with their umbrellas with no concept of a line and you can see how hard it was to see a landmark.

 

• no one speaks a word of english unless they are a tour guide or work in a hotel.  i know i'm ignorant when i assume most people can understand basic english, but we literally had to point out where we wanted to go on the map to each taxi driver.  one taxi driver couldn't understand "westin hotel" and another couldn't understand "airport."  it's funny, when each taxi driver realized we were not chinese speakers, they would yell stuff and be very obvious in their frustration.  then they would talk louder as if we could magically understand chinese if we just heard it being yelled to us instead.  luckily we still got everywhere we needed through hand signals and our map.
  

enjoyed (no real surprises here):

• food.  i was pleasantly surprised at how delicious the food was.  we asked some of our private tour guides where they like to eat and we were able to taste authentic chinese food.  2 of our tour guides each to us to restaurants that were so local, they had to order for us. some of the touristy food places that we enjoyed were soup dumplings in shanghai in yu yuan gardens, peking duck in beijing at da dong duck restaurant, and some totally tourist-only stop in xi'an right near the terracota warriors where they had the best noodles that simply tasted like cooked wonton wrappers stir-fried in oil with a little bit of salt.  so simple, yet so tasty.
  

 

• forbidden city.  i never thought it was so big!  when our guide was telling us there was an outer court and and inner court.  we kept on walking around and at one point i was for sure we were in the inner court, but we were still in the outer court.  it was so fascinating to imagine ceremonies and traditions that occurred inside the forbidden city.

• beijing hotel.  we stayed at the opposite house, a boutique hotel in beijing and the customer service was top notch.  like they bent over backwards for us, arranging drivers, reservations, providing us with water, free laptop use, free minibar, and allowing us a 6pm late checkout.

• train travel.  even though we could've flown from city to city, i wanted to take the train for the "experience."  although husband could talk about how crazy i was for making him take overnight trains rather than fly an hour from city to city, he just doesn't appreciate the experience.  on one train, we had a private room with it's own bathroom and we each slept a nice 10 hours and the bedding was nice, not westin heavenly bed nice, but very comfy.  and although husband won't admit it, he had one of his best meals on the train... a $0.60 breakfast of rice porridge and 4 cold side dishes of marinated bean sprouts, seaweed with tofu, some pickled brown root, and marinated cucumbers with carrots.  he went searching for it our first morning back in los angeles.    

4-berth train cabin

you know, it seems like there are no pregnant women in china?  i know there is a 1 child policy there but i would think with 18+ million people or so in beijing and shanghai each, i thought i would have seen several.  i saw 2 the whole week we were in china.  i was so paranoid that maybe pregnant woman aren't allowed outside the house then i got worried so i never left the hotel by myself.  they also potty train babies really young there, like around 1.  most babies wear pants with slits from front to back and their parents just squat them on the side of the street to pee/poo.  it got me thinking that maybe i could potty train alison before baby #2 arrives.  babies are also really fascinating to everyone.  we would see all these people posing and taking pictures with other people's babies.

once we got back to L.A., alison didn't recognize me!  she cried every time i held her.  she only recognized husband when he said his secret phrase to her, then she was all smiles.  damnit!  why didn't i think of having a secret phrase with her?  i just thought it was so juvenile at the time, but i guess she is a baby.  the next morning, she was back to knowing me but she just became really whiny because she was so spoiled while we were gone.  my parents and husband's parents each told me she might have drank 2 oz of formula every day at most and the rest was adult food.  she came back fat so she must've eaten a lot.  i heard a partial list of what my mother fed her and i'm just glad that alison is fine (crab, cupcakes, chocolate, nuts, you name every forbidden food plus some healthy ones). i'll have to work on de-spoiling her now.  good thing is she slept well and gave no-one nap or nighttime troubles. 

i also missed her learning to walk!  =(  she learned how to walk while we were gone.  i knew there was a big possibility we would miss this milestone since she had taken a few steps here and there on her own before we left.  but now she can walk like 10-20 steps on her own although she would still prefer to hold on to our finger.  she is always is pulling our fingers to go outside and take a walk and she gets so mad when we don't oblige.

13 month milestones overdue by a couple weeks

(taken by the cardiologist)
weight    21 lbs even (35th percentile)
height    30 inches even (60th percentile)

• this first month i felt like she understood what i was saying to her.  examples: i ask her to say bye to daddy and she turns around, looks at her dad, then waves bye.  another time, i told her to get elmo and she went and got him off the carpet (i was trying to clean up and too lazy to pick elmo up).  
• she plays fetch with the dogs, although it's more like she picks the object up and drops it a couple inches in front of her.  the dog is a good sport and still plays.
  
• when i say "i love you," she mumbles something that resembles i love you then comes and gives me hugs. 
  
• walks a few steps here and there.  she's now walking more, but it was after the 13 month birthday so it'll have to fall into the 14 month milestones.
  
• says mommy and daddy for real, although she said daddy first =(  i don't know why she likes him so much.
  
• says "doggie" when she sees a dog and she points to every one.  it's so funny, i'll be out strolling her on the streets of L.A. and even though i can't see her face, i can see her finger constantly pointing out from under the sunshade and hear her calling out "doggie"

baby girl #2 is completely healthy!  no extra chromosomes!  and another piece of good news.  as of last year, california pays for all genetic counseling and testing once someone qualifies.  so i didn't even have to use my crappy insurance for the detailed ultrasound and amniocentesis.. it was paid for by the state.  i guess california is trying to budget how much social work needs to be done after baby arrives?  that's my guess.

warning: long and picture heavy post

thanks to everyone who helped out and came out to celebrate alison's 1st birthday!  i have to admit i'm glad it's over because our apartment was becoming birthday party central.  the night before the party, i heard one of our dogs playing with the balloons and popping a few but overall the preparations weren't nearly as stressful as i thought and i didn't have to sleep late since i had help from my sister and my husband.  i felt so busy during the event so i didn't really get to socialize much. we had 55 adults, 13 kids, and 8 babies show up!  more people than i expected considering it was a holiday weekend and a friday.  since husband and i paid for this party ourselves, i tried to save money where it didn't count.

CENTERPIECES
the day before the party, i went to the L.A. Flower Mart and bought 10 bunches of 25 purple cezanne roses for centerpieces and round glass vases to go along.  the 1st centerpiece took me an hour to strip the leaves and thorns, cut the stems, and arrange but after the 1st one, i was able to finish the remaining 9 centerpieces in 3 hours.  total price for 10 centerpieces = $150!!  savings of $850 rather than buying centerpieces. 

VIDEO
i made a video slideshow using animoto (animoto.com) and my own videos.  using animoto was awesome because all i had to do was upload the pictures and the program animates the photos to music and renders it for you.  i paid $5 for the DVD quality AVI video download... bargain!  i used our own video editing software to add in the small captions and splice in our home videos. the song is "all mine" by sarah vondehaar.

DOL TABLE
the fake rice cake towers are made of colored m&m's.  total cost of the styrofoam and M&M's = $75.  the korean letters say "1st birthday" and "alison."  the 4'x6' banner was designed by my sister's friend and i printed it out at kinko's for $160.  my husband blew up 75 balloons the day before and we tied them together to make flowers but if you can see, we only ended up using like 12 balloons.  but over hiring balloon people, i think we saved several hundred $. 

CAKE
donated by my cousin who is a professional wedding cake designer. top layer is chocolate and served as the smash cake.  alison needed a little help with the smash. cost = $0
KOREAN TRADITIONS
here is alison in a hanbok.  she hated changing clothes but once the hanbok was on, she didn't let it stop her from crawling to grab her fortune which was string = long life. it was both cute and funny to see her try to crawl with the hanbok on.
ENTERTAINMENT
we hired a face painter and balloon twister to keep the kids occupied.  they were awesome!  the company was called party face magic.

THE LOOT
we received a lot of much needed clothes!  she even got her first true religion jeans.  we received a ton of new toys too, she's going to be busy.

12 MONTH MILESTONES!

• said "mama" on her 1st birthday... i love it!
  
• clicks her tongue
• has 8 teeth (4 on top and 4 on bottom)
  
• first hospitalization =(  for kawasaki disease but she's healthier now
• drinks through a straw

 

GIRL!!

and i got an amniocentesis this morning so a bit of cramping but overall feel good.

we've had a hectic month and i've gotten seriously behind on these grand plans to try to DIY alison's birthday decor.  her birthday is in less than 1 week... ahhhhh!  OMG --- she is 1 already!!

i'm trying to have a mostly westernized birthday with the korean tradition kind of mixed in.  i'm probably the whitest korean so my attempts might be poor.  on the korean side of things, i'm going to set up the dol table (birthday table with various fruits, cake, and rice cakes, but no real rice cakes for me) and going to have alison play the grab game where she has to pick from the following to indicate her future:

string: she will live a long life
pencil: she will be a good student
money: she will be wealthy
rice: she will not go hungry... in this day and age, she will be overweight
scissors: she will be crafty and creative
knife: she will be a chef

i don't have a han bok (traditional korean dress) for alison but my mom is insistent that she put one on some time during the party so i'm going to ask my SIL if i can borrow her daughters hanbok.

i ordered invitations from tinyprints even though i very briefly entertained the idea of making them myself. 

the DIY stuff

banner:  i had a banner designed by my sister's friend then had it printed at kinkos. there is this really huge mirror behind where the dol table goes that would create a nightmare for picture taking so it has to be covered.

balloons: i'm going to enlist in people to help me make balloon decorations in the shape of flowers.  here's an example:

Balloon flowers

centerpieces:  i need to buy vases and flowers.  i think i may be crazy for thinking that i can make 10 centerpieces myself.  i just couldn't justify hiring a florist to deliver flowers to the venue for just 10 smallish centerpieces, but now i'm seriously contemplating it.
 
dol table decor: i made these fake rice cake towers out of pink, red, and brown M&M's.  i just hope i spelled alison's name out in korean phonetically correct.  pictures to come later.

slideshow: i just finished the birthday slideshow tonight and in making the slideshow, i realized that i cut off the top of alison's head in  so many pictures. i'm so focused on capturing the moment that i forget that i need to take the whole picture. a couple examples:

cake:  of course, cheesecake!  how can we not serve cheesecake at cheesecake factory?  i'm also having my cousin (Filigree Cakes) make a smaller cake for alison to have for herself.  

my current problem is finding something to wear.  i'm in that stage where maternity clothes make me look way more pregnant than i am but real clothes, even bigger sizes don't fit right.  i feel very fat these days.