7 Months!

Nobody is more disappointed in me than me for not putting together a six month video. But I have legit excuses. First, I was knocked on my butt for two weeks with Coxsackie virus. Yeah, that's a real thing that some clearly immature doctor first named. The day after I finally started to feel better, Shayna, Huyen and I went on vacation to Nantucket. Yeah, that's how we roll. By the time we got back it was already halfway to month number seven so I made the executive decision to combine the last two months.

I can't believe that Shayna is seven months old.  It's insane that's she's more than halfway to being one! It feels like just the other day we were coming home from the hospital with her (I know I'll be saying this the rest of my life). So many firsts happened during the last two months. Let me list them:

1.  Shayna started on food...and she LOVED it. So far she's eaten sweet potato, carrot, parsnip, summer squash, zucchini, apple, pear, green beans, chicken, fish, pork, kale, broccoli, mango, grapes, bananas, strawberries, melon...and basically any other fruit or vegetable we have in the house. The kid's an August -- she likes to eat.

2. Shayna went on a swing for the first time....and LOVED it. As you'll see in the video montage, she goes on swings all the time now. We literally took about 800 pictures of her swinging. Almost every day after school I take her to the park and watch as she lights up as soon as she sees the swing set.

3. Shayna had her first plane ride...and she LOVED it. Okay, I don't know if she loved it but she didn't cry at all. My friend Taylor had given us a tip to breastfeed Shayna during take-off and landing. It worked. I should also mention we were on a tiny plane and sitting right by the engine. Despite the noise, Shayna was all smiles the whole time. We even got a nice compliment from a fellow passenger for how behaved she was.

4. Shayna went to the beach...and LOVED it. When we arrived at the beach it was pretty windy and I was a little nervous Shayna wasn't gonna be happy. This feeling doubled when she took one of her biggest poops ever as soon as we set up camp. However, a few minutes later she was all smiles as she dipped her feet into the water. She also loved digging her feet into the sand. As you'll see in the video, Shayna spent a lot of time at the beach and really enjoyed it.

5. Shayna took her first boat ride...and LOVED it. Okay, technically it was her third boat ride since Huyen and I took a boat to Block Island while Huyen was pregnant. Also, technically Shayna slept on the boat about 90% of the time. Still I'm chalking it up as a victory since she didn't cry the whole time.

6. Shayna had two days of constipation...which she DID NOT LOVE.

7. Shayna started teething...which she definitely DOES NOT LOVE. 

8. Huyen got bronchitis...which Shayna DOES NOT LOVE. Because of Huyen's medication, she can't breastfeed for ten days. Shayna has adjusted to this better than Huyen who definitely misses breastfeeding her. That said, Shayna's eyes go wide whenever Huyen holds her to her chest. Yeah, mommy's a tease.  I can't tell you how proud I am of Huyen though for not only breastfeeding but pumping like a champ. She pumps at work and comes home every week with a huge bag of frozen milk. Our freezer is literally filled to the brim with milk...which is a good thing since Shayna's now chugging her way through it during this ten day breastfeeding break.

9. Shayna can hold her own bottle...sort of. Shayna loves to take her bottle while feeding her. She usually holds it to her mouth for about five seconds and then pushes the nipple into her forehead.

10. Shayna sits in a high chair during dinner. Our dinners are starting to feel like a family event. My brother Zev and sister-in-law Kathy hooked us up with their high-chair which we've now been feeding Shayna in. While Huyen and I eat dinner Shayna sits between us sucking on frozen fruit in her teething net. It's really nice sitting at the table together.

The only real negative from the last two months (outside of someone always being sick) was that going on vacation destroyed the already loose schedule we keep. The biggest issue was that Shayna stopped sleeping through the night. After two months of ten-plus hours straight sleeping, Shayna began to wake up around three times every night. We've been spoiled by her sleep habits so we were due for a few tough nights. Thankfully, as of typing this, Shayna has slept through the night for three straight nights.

I promise to be better the rest of the year! No more missed months.

Hope everyone is having a great summer.

Chau Yeu Ba!

For a couple of years while living in Vietnam, Huyen's mother and aunt always teamed up to give me a hard time about moving to America with Huyen. The conversation went like this:

Huyen's Mother and Aunt: Don't move to America.
Me: I'm sorry but we're gonna go. I promise we'll visit as much as possible.
Huyen's Mother and Aunt: You found Huyen in Vietnam so you should stay in Vietnam.
Me: Okay, that's a fair point. But I think America has more opportunities when we have children. Plus, did I mention we'll come visit as much as possible? Also, you can come visit us in America.

This last line was directed at Huyen's mother and always got a giant laugh in response. To her, the idea was so far fetched it truly sounded like a joke. If you remember, this is the same woman who had never seen the ocean until we took her to the beach! Vietnam is a skinny country, lined by water on the east, and my mother-in-law had never gone to the beach! The beach is less than hundred miles from where she lives. Compare that to New Jersey which is ten thousand miles away. Yeah, the idea of visiting America was laughable. Was.

There's all types of bravery. My mother-in-law coming to America, truly is a special kind of brave. Despite not speaking a word of English and barely having traveled in her own country, she boarded a Korean Airlines flight two months ago and came to America. To say she was taking a dream vacation would be wrong. She never could have dreamed about coming to America.

The two months that my mother-in-law were here were amazing. It's hard to imagine a home being filled with more joy than having a newborn in it. Yet somehow, our level of happiness was raised each and every day by Huyen's mom.  For Huyen, it was so special to be able to show her mother what her life is like in America. You could see the pride in Dung's eyes all the time. On one of her last days Huyen drove her around my parents' neighborhood. Dung got a little emotional and told Huyen that she was the first woman in their family to be able to drive a car. Luckily she didn't know that Huyen started the car with her foot on the accelerator and "turned off" the car while it was still in drive.  For Shayna, it was two months of being doted over. If you think that you can't spoil a baby enough...you haven't met Dung. Shayna's eyes went wide every time she saw her grandma. The other night we skyped with my mother-in-law and Shayna stared at the computer wondering when she was going to be wrapped up in a blanket. For me, the joy came in watching my wife and daughter spend time with Dung. I kept telling Huyen that her and her mother were like two high school girls when they get together. They were always giggling together and sharing stories. I know half the time they were making fun of me but I didn't care. I found myself always smiling, watching how happy they were together. And as a parent, nothing feels better than knowing your child is loved.  And my mother-in-law LOVES Shayna. As Dung told us many times, she wasn't going to miss me or Huyen, she was only going to miss Shayna.

Huyen and I know that Shayna will probably never remember spending this time with her grandma. Whenever I think about that it makes me sad. Really sad. However, Huyen, Dung and I will always remember it and we'll tell Shayna stories. For the past two months I've kept a journal and can't wait to share it with Shayna one day. Until then, I printed a handful of 8x10 photos of my mother-in-law and Shayna which we'll be putting up around the apartment.

Huyen, Shayna and I live in a one bedroom apartment. Before my mother-in-law came I worried that our apartment would feel very crowded. However, I can honestly say that it never did. Since she left though, it's definitely felt very empty.

We all miss my mother-in-law but are also so thankful that she was able to come here and be part of our lives. And the best thing is, we're already talking about when she'll come again.

Sleep Training

Our doctor encourages parents to sleep train their children around three-months of age. For those of you not familiar with sleep training, it's when you basically lock your kid in their room at night and let them cry it out when they wake up at three in the morning (while you lay in bed feeling like the worst parent in the world and begging the gods of sleep to quickly descend upon your baby's crib). The basic instructions of sleep training are this:

Step 1: Have a nightly routine with your child. i.e. Give them a bath at 7PM, read them a book at 7:30PM, sing them a song at 7:45PM and then put them into bed.
Step 2: Once in bed, leave the room.
Step 3: Don't return to the room until the morning.

We were told that it takes three nights to sleep train your child and to expect them to wake up twice and to cry for about twenty to thirty minutes. We've been pushing off sleep training because it goes against every fiber in my mother-in-law's body. To her, the second a baby cries is a half second after you should have been shoving a nipple/bottle in the baby's mouth. Since my mother-in-law arrived we've talked a great deal about sleep training. When she came with me to the doctor's office I asked our doctor if it would be okay to wait until my mother-in-law left. She said that it would definitely be to late since Shayna would be six and a half months by then (NOTE: I've surveyed a few friends who don't use our doctor and they sleep trained their kids around six months so I'm sure it would have been fine).

To me it doesn't make sense not to sleep train your kid as soon as possible. It's never gonna be easy to let them cry for an extended period of time so why not just get it over with? About a week ago my mother-in-law said to Huyen that we should try to sleep train Shayna. I thought Huyen must have been mistranslating but she assured me she still understands Vietnamese.

This past Wednesday we agreed to give it a try. I emailed our downstairs neighbor and gave them a head's up and offered them a box of earplugs. They declined the earplugs and wished us luck. Believe me, I knew we were gonna need it!  That night we tucked in Shayna at 8PM and had a quick conversation if we should sleep in our bed or in the living room. You see, we only have a one bedroom so we share a room with Shayna. We decided we would stay in the same room but just remain silent when Shayna woke up. Sure enough, seven hours later Shayna woke up at 3AM.  I'm a light sleeper and heard her first little movements. After a couple minutes her whimpers started to build into cries. When they got a little louder, Huyen woke up and I whispered to her that Shayna had been awake for about ten minutes. Right around this time I heard some rustling from the living room and thought to myself that trouble was brewing. A minute later Huyen's mom started to call out from the living room, "Huyen, Shayna's crying." We tried to ignore her -- hoping that she would remember we were sleep training -- but that didn't exactly work. Moments later there was a knock on our door: "Huyen, Shayna's crying." And so much for night one of sleep training. I got out of bed, picked Shayna up and brought her to Huyen for a late night snack. The next morning my mother-in-law said that Huyen hadn't reminded her that we were sleep training that night.

On Thursday, we decided to try it again with a few changes. We put Shayna in bed at 8PM and then ourselves in bed at 10PM. However we decided to sleep in the living room. We put my mother-in-law on the couch and we slept on her Japanese-style floor futon. At about 10:05 I realized that Shayna's crying was nothing compared to my mother-in-law's snoring! For such a tiny, fit woman she sure can make a lot of sounds in her sleep. After finally falling asleep I woke up at around 2:30AM to Shayna's whimpers. Soon Huyen and my mother-in-law were up too and we all laid there as Shayna cried for about twenty minutes. There were a few times it seemed like she was done crying and then after a few silent moments she would cry again with vengeance. At one point she was silent for about fifteen seconds and then let out a series of powerful sneezes. Following that she let out one more cry and then fell asleep until 6:30 in the morning...when my mother-in-law went into the room and took her out of bed!  Despite feeling like a horrible parent, it was a successful night. Shayna slept 10 hours!

On Friday we followed the same routine...including my mother-in-law's snoring. I woke up at 4AM and whispered to Huyen, "Have you heard anything?" She said she hadn't...or at least that's what I think she mumbled. Although it could have been, "Why are you waking me up at 4AM when my daughter is sleeping?"  Well, Shayna ended up sleeping straight through the night until 6:30AM. I can't tell you how proud we were of her. I mean, she's half Asian so she's obviously pretty smart. It only took her a night of sleep training to learn to sleep through the night...

...or at least that's what we thought. On Saturday night we followed the same routine. However this time Shayna woke up at 3:30 and cried for about thirty minutes. Her cries were much louder this time and sounded like she was saying, "Me! Me!" ("Mom! Mom!" in Vietnamese). After about fifteen minutes my mother-in-law started saying, "You should go pick her up." However, we hung strong and after her last cry she slept until 6:45 in the morning.

Last night we slept in the living room again. Our schedule was off a little and we ended up putting Shayna down around 8:45PM. We thought for sure she would wake up during the night because she had taken a very long nap during the day. However, she proved us wrong -- she woke up at 6:45AM!

So let's call it official -- today, on Shayna's four month birthday, she can sleep through the night!!!

Yeah, I know by typing this we're totally screwed.

Welcome Ba!

After a tough end to Shayna's second month, the third month brought nothing but smiles. Sixteen days ago Shayna's ba (grandma in Vietnamese) arrived from Vietnam. The two of them bonded immediately even though her ba kept insisting she was cold, even though she wasn't. For the first week or so we had to battle with my mother-in-law to stop covering Shayna with blankets and unnecessary outfits. My mother-in-law felt cold and assured us that Shayna must be cold too. Every time we turned our back, Shayna would have another layer on. My Vietnamese sucks but there's a few words I can easily recognize such as "lanh" and "ret." Both mean cold. My mother-in-law basically said these words a minimum of ten times a minute. It got so ridiculous that I changed the lyrics to Old McDonald to this:

Old McShayna had a farm,
Ee i ee i oh!
And on her farm she had a ba,
Ee i ee i oh!
With a "ret" "ret" here,
And a "ret" "ret" there,
Here a "ret", there a "ret", 
Everywhere a "ret" "ret". 
Old McShayna had a farm,
Ee i ee i oh!

It's become an instant hit in the house.

Huyen's maternity leave ended last week so it's been just me and my mother-in-law at home during most of the day. Despite some culture clashes, it's been amazing having Huyen's mom here. She's really wonderful with Shayna and has embraced the way we want to raise her. Here's a few things that Huyen's mom isn't used to but has quickly adjusted to:
1. Babies shouldn't leave the house for the first six months.
2. Babies should spend all their time on their back. There is no tummy time in Vietnam.
3. Babies shouldn't use a pacifier or suck their thumb.
4. Babies should spend ALL of their time eating and sleeping. 
5. Babies should be attended to the very second they cry.*
6. Babies should be held until they're fast asleep.
7. Babies shouldn't be comforted by their fathers. That's a mothers job.

*I don't like when Shayna cries but sometimes you need to give her a minute to let out a ten second cry and fall back asleep. For the first few days my mother-in-law would sprint into the bedroom and start clapping and singing right in Shayna's face to get her to stop crying. The problem is that Shayna usually would nap for an hour more after she has her ten second cry. Soon instead of taking three long naps during the day, Shayna was taking five short naps.

The next couple months are gonna be really interesting for all of us in our one bedroom apartment. I've started to call my life's sitcom: "Two and a Half Vietnamese Women."

Shayna's Second Month

People will tell you that being a parent gets better each and every day. Well, that's mostly true except when your kid gets sick. Last Friday Shayna got her first cold. On Monday morning it had taken a bad turn and we went to see our pediatrician first thing in the morning. It turns out that she had RSV which led to bronchiolitis. Shayna was having a pretty hard time breathing but she was still eating. The doctor told us that we could either go to the hospital or keep monitoring her from home. We decided to do the later. However, by the next morning Shayna didn't want to eat and had thrown up twice. We went back to see our pediatrician and she suggested that we play it safe and go to the hospital.

We had been prepared to go to the hospital and had our bags packed. After the doctor's visit we jumped in the car and drove to Hackensack Hospital which supposedly is one of the best pediatric facilities in the country. After a few hours of observation and some unsuccessful nebulizer treatments, the doctor tried a much stronger medicine. Immediately Shayna responded and started to breath better. Soon enough she was eating and crying again (she had been so lethargic she couldn't cry). Her crying-screams really sounded like Mozart at that point. After a few more hours the doctor told us we could go home. Honestly, there's nothing better than hearing your  child doesn't have to sleep overnight in the hospital.

It's been a few days since the hospital and Shayna has definitely rebounded well. She's still a little sick but she's getting better and better every day.  The point is, just when you start to think you've got this parenting thing figured out...you realize you don't have a clue. It's beyond words how much it sucks to see your child in pain...and equally how great it is to see them recover.

Besides that though, Month #2 was fantastic. Here's some highlights...

Shayna Phuong

 

On Saturday January 5th, Huyen and I had our friends Heidi, Seth and Sal over for dinner. The three of them left around 10PM and we went to sleep around eleven. Three hours later Huyen woke up with stomach pains. At first she thought she ate too much but after they didn't go away we cleverly deduced that they were contractions. We downloaded a contractions application on our phones and started to time her contractions around 3:30AM. At first we thought that they must be Braxton-Hicks contractions (AKA "fake contractions") since we weren't due for another two and a half weeks and since the contractions were all over the place -- some fifteen minutes apart, others just two minutes. I told Huyen to take a warm shower and made her a smoothie to help her relax. We then started to watch a DVD the hospital had given us that we were waiting till the last minute to watch. We got about ten minutes into the video when Huyen's contractions started to become five minutes apart. Our doctor had told us that this was the time to start heading to the hospital.

Huyen had packed her hospital bag weeks earlier and it was in the trunk of our car. As we got ready to leave I asked her if she packed anything for me...she hadn't. So I quickly threw a few things together...and then a few more things -- including our backgammon board -- thinking that we'd be at the hospital for a long time. When I finished packing the bags, Huyen had her most painful contraction yet; she literally bent over in pain and had a tear coming down her face. At this point I was 100% sold that we were having our baby since Huyen is one of the toughest people I've ever met.  We quickly went down the stairs of our building and I ran to get the car. When Huyen got in I called the doctor's office and was told that the doctor would call us back. Thankfully it was 7:30AM on Sunday morning so there was no traffic at all going to the hospital. We arrived at St. Barnabas thirty minutes later and as I pulled into the lot my phone rang. It was a doctor (not our doctor or any of the ten from his practice) asking us what the situation was. I told him we were having contractions four minutes apart and he said to come to the hospital. I told him we'd be right upstairs.

After checking-in, the nurses examined Huyen and told her that she was six centimeters dilated. It was almost go time.  At this point Huyen was so nauseous and in so much pain that she couldn't speak. She went probably three hours without saying a word. Actually the only time she spoke was when I was coaching her to breath. She turned her head and looked at me and said, "DON'T BREATH IN MY FACE!" She didn't say anything else again until she had her epidural.

Once Huyen had her epidural she was in heaven. She took a little nap and I decided to watch a little football. I turned on the TV and started to watch the Ravens vs. Colts playoff game. After a few minutes the nurse came in and examined Huyen. She then asked me to hit a little red button on Huyen's bed. The intercom came on and the nurse said, "Please tell the doctor to come in. We're ready to deliver." Five minutes later, four pushes by Huyen and three snips of the scissor on the umbilical  cord by me, Shayna Phuong was born. It wasn't like how I had pictured it or how a thousand movies had depicted it. Everything was very very calm. Shayna didn't cry but just stared at us with her beautiful eyes. She was immediately placed on Huyen's chest and just like that, we had a family.

That was four weeks ago. The best four weeks of our lives.

Epilogue: Table For Three

About an hour after finding out that we're having a girl, my family was sitting at the kitchen table eating dinner. After taking a bite of food, a thought popped into my head and I blurted out, "Shit!" My parents and Huyen looked at me with concern. My mom said, "What's wrong?" So I told everyone what was wrong: "I have to pay for a wedding."

The stress of having to pay for a wedding (and let's not forget college) is nothing compared to the joy we're feeling about having a baby. Huyen and I couldn't be more excited to have our blond-haired blue-eyed baby (shhhh, don't tell Huyen that's not gonna happen) and we can already feel our love for each other reaching a new level. As every parent and expecting parent knows, all you want is the best in life for your children. That said, I've got two or three decades to convince our little girl to get married in Vietnam. Until that time though, I'll be posting occasional stories/pictures/videos on Ahoy Hanoi.