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Triumph!

K-bao's desire to see her own face in the little mirror we rigged up on the floor finally overcame her unimpressive neck muscles.

We call this the victory of vanity over sloth.

As you can see here - a bit wobbly - but definitely up.

Her little neck has stiffened appreciably - both literally and metaphorically - over the past week. When held, she now cranes as far back as she can in an effort to make use of her new found freedom of movement. The strength is not yet completely there so she still looks like a bobblehead doll. She also tends to simultaneously wriggle her bottom, kick her legs vigorously, and generally make it as difficult as possible for whomever it is trying to hold her.

Incidentally, K-bao apparently sometimes likes her appearance in the mirror and sometimes not. Sometimes she will coo and giggle. But other times she will shrink back with a look of disappointment, and give us an exasperated look: "What did you do to my hair?!"

Tested

K-bao decided to test her parents this past weekend. Yes, this day has arrived - sooner than we had anticipated, and we can't say that we are overwhelmed with joy. Surely it was only yesterday that our little K-bao was a helpless, barely conscious little ball of wonder and joy, full of milk and gas and not much else, responding honestly to a hungry tummy or a rashy bottom. Today, she is a scheming little imp, full of mischievousness and rascality. Yes, original sin has reared its ugly head. Thank you, Adam and Eve.

We started to notice the transformation over the last couple of weeks. Prior to that KJ had only truly bawled a few times in her lifetime, notably early on at the clinic where blood was squeezed out of her little heel, and at the doctor's office where a large needle was stuck brutishly in her thigh. Once or twice when we were a bit rough washing her hair; but overall, plenty of reasonable provocation. Of course, there was the Quasimodo incident referenced earlier on these pages. But by and large we felt pretty lucky and K-Mum even went on record that the little one had inherited K-Pop's "laid-back nature." So we started to be concerned when KJ began really using her vocal chords these past couple weeks - the full-throated, let it rip, I-have-been-deeply-wronged-and-shall-not-be-comforted-for-at-least-5-minutes type of sobbing. And without proximate cause, it appeared to us.

On Saturday, during one of said blubbering and wailing episodes, K-Pop decided that the nonsense was ending and set her down alone in her room to calm down by herself. Lo! As soon as K-Pop left the room, all crying ceased and desisted. K-Pop returned to find K-bao finding plenty of comfort and justice in the fingers of her left hand. But as soon as Pops returned to the scene of the crime, the hand miraculously left the mouth, the lips turned downwards, the world became a dark and inhospitable place and the bawling began in earnest again. K-Pop felt like a used car being spun around for a test drive.

Lately K-Mum will simply look K-bao sternly in the eye in the middle of one of her sessions and let her know that we are wise to her ways. And we'll be darned if a roguish smile hasn't appeared once or twice.

Hungry

K-Mum and K-Pop strolled over to the Ferry Building for breakfast today at the farmer's market, where we ran into Stevie Wonder and Roy, who were on their morning constitutional. Here she is sporting her nice shades en route, and again taking in the various colors and smells among the many overpriced food, wine and coffee stores there. K-bao drooled and smacked her lips enviously while she watched us eat our fresh pastries.

Now, it may be that all babies are obsessed with food at this age - what else do they have to think about? - but we are getting the sense that little K is ready to take it to the next level. During the week, when K-Mum sets her down so she can have a bite to eat herself, K-bao invariably fixes her eyes on whatever Mommy's nibbling on and follows it from hand to mouth.


Often the look of envy turns shortly to righteous indignation - "where's mine?? where is the justice in this world??" - and enraged cries ensue. Or if we've delayed a bit in her feeding schedule, put anything near her cheek and she'll remind us of this feisty little fella. Or she'll cram in as many fingers as her little mouth will allow and stare at us defiantly. Now, while K-Pop certainly likes fat babies (and is a big fan of Phat Babies too), little K is almost one stone and has already caused K-Mum some painful wrist tendinitus. And of course, the more goes in, the more comes out (a subject we've had the occasion to dwell on many a time already). While hithertofore K-Pop's mantra has been "eat, baby, eat" - given her already well developed gastronimist tendencies, and her fast growing cheeks, let's just say K-Pop no longer feels so compelled to urge K-Mum to do the extra feeding session.

Quasimodo

Recently K-Mum and K-Pop have been talking about little K starting to be able to recognize faces. For example at her last doctor's visit she took one look at the nurse (who had jabbed her with a needle on a prior visit) and threw herself into hysterics. We patted ourselves on the back and applauded our precocious little kiddo (nevermind that it was probably indigestion or some other coincidental discomfort). Ah, we said - a strong instinct for survival. Knows friend from foe. Would have been a survivor in our caveman days.

The other day K-Pop came home in time to help K-Mum with bath time. While having her delicate royal bottom dried off, K-bao seemed to notice Daddy for the first time - and apparently did not like what she saw. After gazing intently at K-Pop's face, her lips curled down and out came a blood-curdling shriek, which then turned into five minutes of inconsolable sobbing. She had seen Quasimodo, or the Loch Ness Monster, or their offspring. K-Mum rushed back in and hurriedly snatched her from my arms, and muttered something about the baby being fatigued and fussy after a long day. Let's just say we've shelved the precociousness theory for the time being and decided that she can't quite yet figure out her surroundings. In the meantime, K-Pop has strict instructions with K-Mum to rotate his picture into view every couple hours when he's not home.

Philosophy

K-bao was in a philosophical mood earlier while on the changing table. We've captured a few moments in the clip below where she was commenting on the taste of her fingers (aged Parmesan, apparently). She is normally an alert but reasonably reticent little girl, but she relaxes and gets quite chatty - verbose even - while getting the ol' clean-up work done.

We had a lovely Easter dinner tonight with some old friends, though it would have been a tad more relaxing if little K had decided not to scream like a stuck pig for about 20 minutes straight at one point during dinner. K-Mum and I are very apprehensive that our own stiff-necked genes experienced some sort of multiplier effect in the womb.

Golden Gate Hike

K-Mum and K-Pop took the little one on a hike in the Golden Gate National Recreational Area today. Here is the Hu family posing on a little bridge. Our excursion was notable for (i) its brevity, related to (ii) our fear that she would unceremoniously do her business halfway through and we would be forced to lay out the changing pad amidst the thickets in the wilderness and expose her diminutive derriere to the glaring sun and gawking fellow-hikers. Luckily she spared us this adventure.

(By the way, the astute reader may have noticed that there's been a certain theme running through these first three posts. We will try and report on other matters, naturally, but really at this stage of parenting our lives are pretty much dominated by the few, basic rhythms of life - sleeping, eating and expelling. Not much going on with the first, and other than a freezer full of breastmilk, not much with the second either. So guess where all the action is. )

We did come across some nice horses during our hike. K-Bao did not appear to have much interest, gazing as much at the grass as she did at the horse, but here we've recorded the moment in case she turns out to be some magnificent equestrian in the future in which case we'll point to this day, this moment as the source of her love and inspiration. 

A Conversation

For those of you who have yet to meet her royal K, here is a little snippet showing a reasonably typical conversation she might have with you. The last few seconds, in particular.

Introducing Supergirl

It has been over 3 months since little K-bao arrived. There were plenty of good intentions on getting a parenting blog up and running early, but sleep deprivation, lactation consulting and other sundries along the way bedeviled our efforts. Finally, with a little extra encouragement from family and friends, we mustered the required activation energy and here we are.

Fittingly for a Good Friday, Kayla awoke this morning with a diaper overflowing with poop. She is a living testament to how dirty we get and how frequently we need to be cleaned up. The issue with K-bao is not how many diapers - 15 to 16 a day at first and now probably 12 to 13 - but how forcefully she expels. Force equals mass times acceleration, and while there isn't always a lot of mass, there is plenty of acceleration, generally all the way up to her shoulder blades. Oblivious of her sensationally foul state - thank you for the theologically timely spiritual commentary, daughter - she cooed happily on the changing table while K-Pop pulled the offensive materials off of her wriggling body.

Later, we gave her the obligatory 10 minutes of tummy time. Unfortunately, KJ is more than a little behind on the development of neck muscles. The parents happily attribute her inability to hold her head up at 3 months to a surplus of brain material (leading to an unusually heavy head), coupled with what will undoubtedly turn out to be a slender and elegant neck (but therefore a bit smaller and weaker to start). K-Mum discovered recently that an intermediate step to laying her flat on her tummy - which inevitably would lead to vigorous protests and demonstrations of anger - is to prop her belly-down on the boppy. Here she is quite happily demonstrating her new supergirl pose.