Banana Rama Fo Fama Fi Fie Mo Mama

And we thought coming up with William’s name was difficult!

In the blog, I refer to my grandmother, William’s great grandmother as Grandmama (Eva), and my mom, William’s grandmother as Grandma. The promotion from parents to grandparents that comes with the new generation confuses my brain, but Will can’t call my parents Mom and Dad just to ease my slow uptake!

Nang’s family defaulted to the established Chinese name for great grandmother and Vietnamese names for the rest of his family, but arriving at the grandparent names for my parents has been a journey of trial and error. Nang and I wanted them to choose their own grandmother and grandfather names, but we tossed around a few ideas and presented our feedback on theirs situation. Options mentioned for grandfather were: Grandbob, Papa, Grandpa, Granddad, and Grumps (this is the “grandpa” name my brother and his wife use for my dad with their dog children). In the running for grandmother: Grandma, Mimsy, Ditzy, Mimi (the name my younger cousins called my mom), and Grandmother (stealing the idea from one of my mom’s friends to get the child’s pronunciation of “Grandmother” and use that so it may be Gamama or something similar). Grandma has spoke - Mimi it is! Any decisions Grandpa?

Poor Bailey

Staring at the empty bassinet last night before we headed to bed prompted so many questions. Not practical questions like where are we going to store the bassinet (right now it is in the middle of our room) or if Chandler will let us borrow it for the next baby (no, not yet, people). Moving Will to the nursery prompted crazy questions – crazy in quantity more than quality.

How loud should the monitor be?

Whose side should it be on? (The answer to this one was Nang’s side – he has the easy-to-access electrical outlet.)

Should Will’s door be open or closed?

When he wakes up during the night, where’s the best place to feed him?

Can I sneak him into our room to feed him in our bed (and take advantage of the tv)?

Is he going to freak out when he wakes

up in the unfamiliar nursery?

Should we leave a light on in his room? Or in the hallway?

Is this a good time to recruit Nang to help with one of the night feedings?

Hmmmm….we were in for an interesting night!

Now is a good time to introduce the original Baby Ngo – Miss Bailey, our seven-year old bull terrier. Bailey-dog has been Will’s constant companion since he got home from the hospital. She follows whomever holds Will to ensure the precious cargo’s safety, and greets him in his baby seat as soon as we bring him in the door and deposit the carrier on the floor. And while we do not leave her alone with William, she has done nothing to cause us to worry about their relationship.

Bailey had the roughest night of us all on Will’s first night in the nursery. William only woke up twice during the night (hallelujah – he may be getting back to sleeping through the night). Bailey woke up THREE TIMES in the night, twice with emergency diarrhea (luckily she panted loud enough for me to hear, let her out of her crate, and then follow her lead as she hightailed it downstairs to the back door) and once with a stomach evacuating vomiting episode in her crate. Nang bundled her crate bedding into a ball and asked me if he should put it in the washer (with all of the chunky goodness still stuck to the blankets…no) or just throw it all away. I hope he realizes that dogs aren’t the only ones who vomit on inconvenient objects.

Separation Anxiety

Last night we put William in HIS OWN CRIB in HIS OWN ROOM. I asked Nang for a couple of more nights with Baby Will in our room when he brought up that the baby was probably pushing the weight limit of the bassinet and could no longer move his arms and legs without colliding with the sides. I’ll admit that Will was starting to look a little bit like an egg in a carton, but eggs fit perfectly in their little cartons! When my two days was up, Nang had basketball and bowling on Monday evening and a business meeting on Tuesday evening, and I didn’t have the self-motivation to banish Will on my own, so I actually had four sneaky last days of the baby in the bassinet.

The event wasn’t nearly as traumatic as I imagined. Nang bathed William, read with him, and I fed him, and then he was off to the crib without protest. Granted, he was fast asleep, so we thought he may have a different reaction when he woke up in a new bed in a new room.

At least he's proportional!

7/20/2010: 4 month checkup

18 pounds, 8 ounces (95th percentile)
26-3/4” long (95th percentile)
DRUMROLL PLEASE…..
***rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr***
17-3/4” head circumference (slightly over 97th percentile)

5/7/2010: 2 month checkup
14 pounds, 1 ounce (95th percentile)
24” long (75th percentile)
16” head circumference (70th percentile)

3/22/2010: 2 week checkup
8 pounds, 8 ounces (50th percentile)
21-1/2” long (75th percentile)
14-3/4” head circumference (50th percentile)

3/7/2010: 1st day checkup
7 pounds 9 ounces (25th percentile)
20-3/4” long(75th percentile)
13-3/4” head circumference (25th percentile)

Y'all come back now, ya hear?

Keeping up with William is one thing….keeping up with this blog is a completely different ball of wax (thanks, Nanger!). I’ve neglected to blog about the past couple of months for our family, but consider this entry as a new beginning – I’m recommitting to adding to the record, and will try to play catch up and relay the goings-on in William’s life…he’s a busy boy! Maybe he’ll ease off the cuteness long enough to allow some entries pertaining to other inhabitants of The Ngo Home!

Snowballs!

Snowballs were the ultimate summertime treat for my brother and me when we visited our grandparents in New Orleans – the West Texas kids didn’t adapt well to the Louisiana humidity, and snowballs were just the thing the wilting flowers needed to perk up. Texas’ closest approximation of these airy, icy, sugary, super-artificially-colored Styrofoam cups of coolness is at Mam’s in Houston’s Heights. They recently started hauling their little trailer out and opened for the year, and a couple of weeks ago, Alisa invited us out for BBQ at Hickory Hollow (fried zucchini, yum!) and Mam’s snowballs afterwards. Alisa’s always on top of the happenings in town, and she not-so-secretly wanted to find out if my favorite flavor, spearmint, would turn my breastmilk and then William’s poo green – yes, we are in our 30s, I promise! Inquiring minds want to know, and the answer is…NO CHANGE!


DISCLAIMER: No babies were licked in the making of this blog post.

Nang ordered a flavor that was purple (to match the color of the shirt he was wearing, no doubt), took a couple of bites, dropped a little on William in his baby carrier, and abandoned the snowball as too sweet.

I finished all of my spearmint (duh!), and enjoyed watching Maddy and Emmie polish off their matching yellow flavor (ice cream, wedding cake, lemon?).

Kim shared her red snowball with Drew-Drew, and he busted out his sign language to ask Kim for “more” when she didn’t feed him quickly enough.

Rock-a-bye Baby

At my friend Kim’s suggestion, we started William on a bedtime routine. This was around the time Baby started enjoying his bath time, and we used his nightly bath as the jumping-off point for the routine. I thought it would be too early to introduce nightly rituals to establish a routine, and he wouldn’t catch on and submit to the schedule, but Kim was right…never doubt a mother of two! The ideal schedule starts around eight. I feed William, and then we play. He gets fussy at 8:45ish, but we forge ahead with the playing and hold him off until from his bath until 9. We take William the Fussy upstairs, and he calms a little when we turn on the bathroom lights, and he completely stops crying when the bathwater starts flowing. Magic. We play and wash him for about thirty minutes, dry him off (and blow-dry his hiney if needed), and head to our room to read. The Very Hungry Caterpillar is the only book we’ve tried with him, and it seems to be the perfect length. Some nights I can get all the way through it, and some nights he fusses at page two, so we skip to the last page with the butterfly. Once he has enough of story time, I swaddle him, feed him, and walk him to sleep. He likes to be walked around our room and have his butt thumped. Once he loses his grip on the pacifier, into the bassinet and SLEEP! Thanks, Kim for the suggestion to start this early – it has drastically reduced the nighttime battle with Baby Will, and last night marked his third night of a stretch of SEVEN HOURS OF SLEEP WITHOUT WAKING UP!!