AB's 7th Month Photos

AB turned 7 months on Sunday. I take a photo of her each month with her Boppy and the Thai Silk Elephant that her daddy gave her to gage her progress. This month she was more concerned with eating the elephant's ribbon than staying still. It was a challenge.

AB Sitting

I mentioned last week that my little girl was crawling but not sitting. She is sitting now...sort of. If I "sit" her down she will stay that way until she ultimately folds herself in half after a couple minutes of reaching too far. However, when crawling she cannot put herself into a sitting position. Instead when she gets tired she just lays on her tummy.

This is her "rarrr" face. I call it that because that is the exact sound she was making when I took some of these photos. Rarrr!

AB and Daddy

Carport

Mommy Woes

As are all first time moms, I am new to being a mommy. Things happen with my daughter that I think I understand, that I have read about, that I am pretty sure I know about, but not really. I have the disadvantage of not living around anyone I can communicate with in my first language about mommy stuff. My friends and family are just one international phone call away, but somehow it is not the same. I often think back to our gathering in Arlington and with all the people who had kids before us, how I feel all my questions would be answered if I was there. I also wish I could be around my sister and her kids, so I could see what was "normal," so I did not assume that AB was either a genius or behind all of the time. I read every book I was sent on pregnancy and motherhood, but in the end they are just references to me. They do not replace the interactions that we are missing out on.

Anyways, to my point. AB has been crying a lot. Since she was about 2 months old, AB has been such a trooper when it came to nap time. I just swaddled her in her blanket, turned on the AC, turned on the air purifier, closed the curtains, and kissed her on the cheek. She was usually out cold in a couple of minutes. Not recently though. She has been crawling all over her bed, crying big tears. In the beginning it was so strange for her to cry that I felt something must be wrong. I just picked her up and she immediately feel a sleep. She was wanting to be held. As we traveled with my parents I thought she was crying because she was in a strange place. Holding her was the only way to get her to sleep. When we came back home I decided that I was going to start mommy bootcamp and work to get AB back to the wonderful sleep pattern we were in before. It did not work. After the exhaustion of the trip wore off AB refused to sleep. Once again the only way my daughter would sleep was in my arms.

On Saturday I noticed that two little teeth were starting to poke through her gums. I thought, "oh those must hurt a little." I gave her a cold teething ring and did not think about it anymore. Last night, after AB did not sleep even one wink the entire day, I called my sister. I told her the situation, and the first thing she asked was, "is she teething?" I immediately felt stupid and mean. My little girl was in pain. That is why she could not sleep. This morning I gave her some Tylenol about 20 minutes before her nap. When I put her down, she did not make a peep. I thought there was no way that her teeth could hurt that bad. I gave her a little more before her next nap, not a peep. I skipped giving her more for her third nap to see if she actually needed it that often, not a peep. Then tonight when she when down for the evening I gave her some more, not a peep. Oh the guilt I have had today! My baby was in pain, and since I had not given her Tylenol, the only source of comfort was me holding her...and I withheld that from her too! No wonder she did not take a nap for an entire day.

I wish I was around mothers all of the time. I also wish I had not waited so many days to ask someone what to do.

Our Favorites

This one is KB's favorite.

This one is my favorite. Since I have brown eyes I am amazed by her deep blue eyes.

AB Playing Around

This first picture totally explains why AB has a nasty blister on her right big toe that just won't heal.

Brazil?

Newsletter

We have sent out our summer newsletter. If for some reason you have not received it and would like to, please e-mail me at eastasiabrowns@pobox.com. Just in case I cannot tell by your e-mail address, please tell me who you are and how we know you. Our newsletter contains a bit more personal information than on our blog, and we have to be aware of who is receiving it.

Toby and Christina, congratulations on your little baby boy, and can you please send me your e-mail address again for the 5th time? You guys are great!

AB Playing

We really enjoy having our new rug. I think AB is getting to spend the most time on it, and that makes us happy.

Crawling!!!

We knew she was trying. All the signs were there. However on Saturday we were pretty surprised and beside ourselves to see that our little AB is crawling. After about half a day of crawling around our apartment, I noticed that her knees were red and that she had developed and popped a blister on her big toe. I dug through the pile of clothes that my mom brought and found her Baby Legs. She has worn them ever sense. I also had to put a precious Barbie Bandaid on her little battle wound.

Later that day our three boxes of stuff that we bought from Ikea arrived. We bought a rug for our living room so that AB would have room to crawl. Unfortunately now we see that we need 2 rugs, but we are really enjoying and are grateful for even one.

KB's legs look kind of girlie in this picture. Also he asked I point out that even though it looks like he is not wearing any, he is wearing athletic shorts.

What a Trooper!

Towards the end of my family's visit we all traveled to vacation together in a large city. As usual AB did wonderfully on the flight. However...

...she was zonked the rest of the day, sleeping in the strange and very hard hotel baby bed. By the way, AB has NEVER slept on her tummy before. I found her like this when I went to wake her up. She turned herself sideways, flipped over, and laid her head on the pillow they provided. She hated this bed. When we brought her back home she relaxed into her baby bed and slept for almost an entire day.

Trying to Crawl

This is my determined little baby try to crawl last week at just 6 1/2 months old. She was making grunting sounds and everything. She finally did get it down about a week later (that would be two days ago), and she is already becoming a challenge to keep out of trouble.

Tea House

These are more photos from when my parents came with us to a local tea house.

AB loves this nursing wrap. She usually prefers to play with the it rather than nurse though.

A Little Messy

The week before my parents arrived I started feeding AB cereal. She did not like it and did not cooperate. One of her meals abruptly ended with her kicking the bowl out of my hand. As you can see from the picture it landed on her before it made it to my pants and then the floor. Although I realize that it was unintentional, in my mind I imagined her thinking "that's what you get for trying to feed me nasty junk."

A Night on the Town

One night while my family was here we took them to some local weekend "hotspots" so they could people watch. Now that we have AB we typically avoid these places since we are easily mobbed by people wanting to take pictures of and touch a foreign baby. Nevertheless, it is something every foreigner coming here should do at least once.

The girls here are typically really plain, so I was really surprised to see this group of girls so dolled up. They were in a place that anywhere from 5,000-20,000 people gather each weekend night. They were wanting to be seen but were embarrassed when my dad took a photo of them.

Mop water