Baby Waffles

Mini waffles for a mini person. Too bad for him he didn't get to eat any day-after-Christmas waffles. Maybe next year!

Baby's First Citrus

Not sure he'd like it so much if he got that grapefruit open, but it makes a good toy.

5 Months Old!

5 months! Definitely not a little baby anymore. He still pretty much refuses to go to sleep or stay asleep so my life kind of revolves around reading about sleep and worrying about sleep. But he is doing lots of others things, since he has so much awake time to do them in! Forrest started eating solid foods this month and he's already very good and stuffing things in his mouth so he took to it right away. He started rolling over, sort of. He does it occasionally, and I'm pretty sure only by accident. This is most likely because he doesn't get much chance to practice since he's being held 90% of the day. He has also really started noticing Lotus, for better or worse. It's entertaining for him, but not so much for her since all he can do so far is try to grab her fur. But Lotus is of course reaping the benefits of the aforementioned start of solid foods, so she's still coming out ahead.

Science!

Forrest's first visit to a museum! We had a night out at the MIT museum thanks to a department holiday party. Lots to look at and a great chance to snap a selfie with Kismet!

First Snow

Sister Lotus

Nice shot of the kids. Lotus is a little unsure of Forrest these days since he's learned how to grab. But she has quickly discovered the benefits of a brother who eats solid foods too!

Playground!

Forrest has started playing on the playground with Yeye and Nainai. Winter is a good time to play because it's too cold for the big kids but not for grandparents from Harbin!

Curious George

A little young to understand the momentous occasion of meeting a celebrity, but here we are with Curious George. In person he's just as curious as you would think!

Nibbling My Toes

Just wanted to see what they taste like! Truthfully his feet are probably the cleanest part of his little baby body, since they are always covered up. Yum!

Piano Prodigy

Babies love baby grands! He's almost ready for kinderhythms.

Happy Thanksgivukkah

Yeye, Nainai, and Forrest enjoying their first Thanksgiving and their first Channukah, on the same day! Forrest took a nap in the middle but did experience the rest of the festivities.

Forrest had a little lamb...

...and some mashed potatoes. Here he is eating his second food- lamb! Just kidding, though he did get to try some more foods at his first Thanksgiving, like persimmon and pumpkin!

First Food!

Yesterday I gave Forrest his first taste of solid food. It was bananas! Literally and figuratively. Of course it wasn't that solid since I mashed it up. The reason I chose bananas was that I was making banana bread. But regardless of the circumstances, he seemed to really like it. So I see lots more food in his future!

Best Time of the Day

Morning is a good time to be a baby. It's a good time to be a mom too, in fact it's my favorite time of day. When he's just woken up for the day is about the only time he's content to lay still, so we get about 15 minutes to snuggle, play, and look out the window before it's time to get up.

Little Landlord

Nainai's latest nickname for Forrest is little landlord, and you can see him here surveying his territory. Although it's true that we do whatever he wants, the actual reason she calls him that is because he's fat. Back in feudal China, the peasants were poor and had no food while the landowners had plenty to eat and grew fat. So, our little chub has been dubbed the little landlord.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Are caterpillars nocturnal? This one seems to do most of his eating at night.

4 Months Old!

Another month under his belt, Forrest is now 4 months old and 17.5 pounds. In the past few weeks both his body and his brain have definitely been going through a growth spurt. That said, I don't think there's been any time in his life so far that he wasn't going through a growth spurt. When he was 0-3 months old he pretty much wore 0-3 month clothes, but now at 4 months he's already outgrown the 3-6 clothes. Cognitively he is in a whole new league too. It's like suddenly he got real eyes and now he just can't get enough of looking at stuff! And shoving it in his mouth too, because he's probably started teething as well. His legs are strong and he loves practicing standing. He can roll from his back to his tummy but only by accident so far. The main struggle of this month has been his sleep. People talk about the 4 month regression but I'm not worried about it because it's hard to regress if you've never progressed to begin with. Forrest won't go to sleep unless he's being held and regardless he wakes up every two hours, sometimes like clockwork. I've got a pile of sleep training books but I haven't had time to read any of them and even when I do, I'm not sure sleep training is for us because he still seems so little - and so hungry! So that's the news at 4 months!

Apples

How do you like them apples? Forrest likes them a lot. He especially likes to drool on them.

Hell in a Handbasket

Forrest's first Halloween! Not only a costume, but also a comment on new motherhood. Next year we'll put roller skates on Lotus and have hell on wheels too.

Go Sox

Forrest showing off his Red Sox pride, and his actual red socks that nainai knitted for him. I have to admit I didn't watch even one minute of the series because that was my main chance to sleep, but Forrest spent many nights with daddy watching the games while he should have been sleeping too.

Dumplings

Forrest's first dumpling? No he's got a while to wait for that. But daddy likes to pretend feed him and Lotus is all too ready to seize the moment!

Cloth Diapers

Here's Forrest sporting one of his cutest cloth diapers! After testing out a variety of styles I didn't really settle on one kind. We use pockets because they're easier for Nainai, covers and inserts because I like that they're more reusable, plus fitteds as the nighttime heavy hitter. But no matter what he's wearing, it makes less waste, saves us money, and makes his bum super fluffy and cute!

100 Days!

Yesterday Forrest turned 100 days old! This is an important milestone in Chinese culture, but Yeye and Nainai didn't seem to want to do anything to celebrate beyond dressing him up in his red bib and silver pendant and taking some pictures. So that's what we did. Congratulations Forrest, you're in triple digits now!

Yeye Nainai

Forrest's other set of grandparents arrived a few weeks ago to take care of him when I went back to work. They've had a very hard time accepting the fact that sometimes (more often than we'd like) babies cry for no discernible reason. In fact they insist that Li Zhuang never cried as a baby. A likely story! But, I've been impressed at how well they adjusted and how independent they can be, getting to know the neighborhood and grocery stores on their own. While living with them can be pretty annoying at times, they are also a huge help!

Nainai sings Xiao Yanzi, a Chinese song from her childhood, to Forrest to put him to sleep for naps. It seems to work! Except when it doesn't.

Yeye jumps right in and tries out the crazy contraptions we have in our arsenal  in the hopes of stopping the baby from crying. He's a brave grandpa!

3 Months Old!

It's official, we can now stop measuring his age in weeks and just refer to him in months. He hasn't been formally weighed in a while but he's definitely over 15 pounds. This was a big month for us since Forrests's Yeye and Nainai (grandparents) arrived and I went back to work. It's an adjustment for sure, and pretty overwhelming at times, but we're lucky to have all the help at home and logistically things are going fine. The worst thing at this point is his sleeping - I had hoped he would at least be trending in the right direction, sleeping longer stretches at a time, but no in fact he's waking up more than ever. So yeah, nights are pretty fun for me, and you can imagine I'm totally on the ball at work. But, Forrest can also see much farther now - he'll smile at Nainai from across the room - and he's starting to play with toys which is good because it gives us another tool to use to distract him from crying. He's definitely getting more fun, I just wish I had more time and more brain cells to enjoy it!

Out to Lunch

Out to lunch on my last full day off. Forrest sat on the bench and let me eat - so grown up!

Grab Bag

In the last week or two Forrest has learned to grab things. Such as hair, and glasses, oh joy! He also grabs his zebra toy and studies it carefully before drooling all over it.

Baby Zumba

This was a regular Zumba class but my friend and I turned it into baby Zumba, which is a class someone should start for real - my million dollar idea! Forrest slept through most of it but once I took him out he could watch the neon workout outfits and bop along to the music!

Family Resemblance

Li Zhuang's baby picture next to Forrest. See any similarities?

Family Time

Tummy Time

Forrest has never loved tummy time but lately he's tolerating it more than he used to. Here he is working out his upper body!

Snoozing

Their favorite activity.

2 Months Old!

Forrest is 2 months and weighs 13.5 pounds. No wonder it's getting harder to carry him around. It's true what they say about newborn time - the days are long but the months are short. He's started smiling a lot more and even gives daddy a laugh every now and then. And it's feeling less like he cries all the time because he now has slightly longer stretches where he can be awake and content, and during those times we can see he is really looking around at stuff. He still sleeps like a baby, in the literal sense of the phrase, as in not very much in a row, but he is also as cute as a button - both figuratively and literally, since buttons are in fact super cute.

Purple Monster

Nothing like a little jaunt at Fresh Pond on a fall day, wearing your purple monster hat. What we discovered on this walk is that Lotus does NOT like us to be separated. I tried to take her around the pond the other way and the first chance she got she sprinted back to Daddy and Forrest. So naturally we then did some experiments to see which combinations of family members she felt most drawn to. And that was our animal behavior research project for the day!

Sibling Secrets

I think she's teaching him how to be a good dog.

Sweats

Forrest is ready for a workout! Will he be on American Ninja Warrior or on So You Think You Can Dance? Only time will tell...

Picnic With Grandpa

Baby Love

Pepa loves her cousin Forrest! She loves to hug him and kiss him and smother him if we let her. Just as fiercely as she loves her brother Diego. The fun thing about watching her with the babies is that she sees them as real people that she can play with and laugh with. These first couple months I've felt like Forrest is more of a pet (a very high maintenance pet) than an actual child. Watching Pepa interact with him as a real person is a nice reminder of what he will grow into!

Cousins in the Bath

Pepa loves to bathe with the babies!

Social Smile

Forrest has started smiling! But it's nearly impossible to get a picture of it, so all I have to show for now is this blurry shot. The smiles are great because it's our first glimpse of the possibility that he may become more than just a lump.

First Ergo Ride

Our first use of the Ergo carrier came about when I forgot my Moby and had to borrow my friend's (counterfeit) Ergo. Not quite as cozy as the Moby for a little guy but it worked great!

Yawn.

Sorry if I'm boring you, Forrest.

You are getting sleepy...