Maya has been so much fun the last two days. She is talking non-stop and demanding constant interaction. She loves to stand up "on her own" (meaning you hold her under her armpits but she carries her own weight). She is even sitting up with just a little help to keep her balance. Maya smiles constantly and has figured out that it excites mom/dad a lot when she does it.
Her eye/hand coordination is improving and yesterday she managed to not only hit daddy's glasses but also get a hold of them and rip them off.
Her absolut favorite toy right now is her little book that you can see next to her on the picture. She loves looking at the pictures and having mom/dad describe it to her. The poor girl must be getting confused as the same thing has three different names such as ladybug=nyckelpiga= ? in Chinese. Her favorite page is the ladybug picture and she talks a lot when we show it to her.
She is sleeping a lot less during the day now and stays awake most of the time. The great flip-side of this is that she now sleeps for about 5 hours straight most nights. Just 5 hours of straight sleep is enough to feel like a human being again. :)
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Getting dressed for a walk in the park
Mommy was off on Christmas lunch and shopping the other day so daddy was home alone with Maya all day. I decided to venture out for a walk in the park on my own with Maya.
This is what she looked like when I was done. I know...the hat doesn't match the dress but I couldn't find the outfits on my own. The main concern was to keep her warm in the cold California winter.
We took a long walk and Maya behaved like an angel. I had planned to spend some time taking pictures of the autumn leaves etc in the park but the noisy ducks by the pond woke up Maya so I had to move on to get her to stop crying again. Only managed to snap one quick picture.
Christmas Family Picture
Thanks to our dear friend Swati we finally got a semi focused picture where all three of us have our eyes open.
We had a great Christmas eve with our friends Swati, Bernice and Yu-Ling. We had a decent Swedish Christmas dinner with Janssons frestelse, three types of herring, gravad lax, meatballs, snaps and julmust. This year I was the only Swede so I didn't manage to do the full Christmas table with all the dishes.
My wonderful wife bought me a new camera for Christmas...a Nikon D90. I'm still debating if we should keep it or get a much cheaper D80 instead. I'm not that good of a photographer that the equipment is any type of limitation to my photos.
Cindy got shoes, two shirts, some face creams from a company I can't spell the name of and beautiful saphire ear rings.
Maya got a new play mat, tons of clothes, really cute shoes from Swati and a really cool Mozart music cube from Yu-Ling and Bernice.
I was completely outnumbered, all girls, even our cat is female. To be honest that's not a bad way to spend Christmas eve :)
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Merry Christmas from Kaiser.....
Kaiser (our medical insurance) decided to send us a Merry Christmas letter today as well. Wonderful timing for the Christmas celebrations.....guess what it was??
It was the bill for Cindy and Maya's hospital stay. It came to a grand total of $225,315.00. We already knew Maya was priceless but now we have it in black and white too. Thank god for having medical insurance as we only have to pay a small fraction of the cost.
I'm going to save this bill for when Maya is a teenager and doesn't listen to her parents. At that point I will pull out the bill, recalculate it to current value factoring in inflation and tell her to start paying it off if she doesn't listen to me....Think that will help? Me neither, but I'll keep it anyway just to be able to show her when she is older.
It was the bill for Cindy and Maya's hospital stay. It came to a grand total of $225,315.00. We already knew Maya was priceless but now we have it in black and white too. Thank god for having medical insurance as we only have to pay a small fraction of the cost.
I'm going to save this bill for when Maya is a teenager and doesn't listen to her parents. At that point I will pull out the bill, recalculate it to current value factoring in inflation and tell her to start paying it off if she doesn't listen to me....Think that will help? Me neither, but I'll keep it anyway just to be able to show her when she is older.
GOD JUL!
Merry Christmas from the Cedergren/Wu family.
We will work on a Christmas family portrait where all three of us are in focus tonight.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
This weeks theme: Smiles
This last week it's been a lot of smiles. Very hard to catch on pictures since Maya hasn't learned to smile on command yet(not sure we'll ever be succesful with that). Most of our pictures are taken too late or become completely blurry.
This is the best we could do so far.
This is the best we could do so far.
The real Superhero
Now that last nights heroic effort has faded some in the bright sunlight of this morning, I want to set the record straight and state that the real Superhero is mommy, who feed, sooth, love, hug, kiss and take care of Maya 99% of the time. Mommy also has to regularly calm down paranoid dad in regards to Maya's temperature, poop color, breathing pattern, crying etc etc so she has no easy task. Mommy REALLY is a superhero!
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Superhero
Sometimes it's all a blur. It seems like no matter what you do it doesn't help. To be honest, most of the time Maya knows exactly what she wants but mommy and daddy just doesn't get it. You would think by now that we had this pretty much figured out.....but when she's been fed three times within a three hour span the first thing that comes to mind isn't more milk.
Tonight though, for the first time, daddy felt like a superhero. Maya was crying inconsolably and mommy's usual tricks did not work at all. Daddy threw down the dish washing brush and rushed to the rescue. Picked Maya up and tried to calm her down. In less than ten steps (on my way out of the bed room to give mommy a rest from all the crying) Maya falls asleep in daddy's arms and was out like a light. Daddy walked around for a few minutes in the living room to make it seem like it took a bit more work than that to calm her down,. then triumphantly returned to the bedroom, put down a sleeping Maya in her crib to mommy's surprise. First time that daddy could do something for Maya that mommy couldn't. I felt like a super hero, albeit more like the daddy in The Incredibles, slightly overweight, too tight spandex outfit type of hero.
Turns out that tonight, what Maya wanted was daddy's arms and chest and not milk. :)
Superhero daddy is off to the kitchen to finish up the dishes, mix formula and prepare milk bottles for the coming nights super hero missions....
Monday, December 15, 2008
Videos captured and mommy is nominated to the Pushcart Prize.
I guess my video-boot-camp yesterday worked. Mommy did a great job today and we have lots of new videos but no time to download, edit and upload it yet. Hopefully daddy will get home early from work tomorrow (dream on dude!) so he can get this done and posted.
Some non-Maya related news:
Mommy got nominated for the Pushcart Prize by Redivider Journal. This is apparently a very prestigious American award for literary works. Daddy and Maya are very proud! Just being nominated is an honor in itself.
Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, a German publisher, bought another of mommy's short stories this week for translation to German and it will be included in their "New Dreams of the Red Chamber" anthology.
Daddy is not nominated for any prizes and his writing is not likely to be sold to anyone anytime soon but he is extremely proud of mommy's accomplishments. You would think mommy would be writing this blog huh? Maybe she will be doing a guest appearance here soon and raise the literary level of the blog?
Some non-Maya related news:
Mommy got nominated for the Pushcart Prize by Redivider Journal. This is apparently a very prestigious American award for literary works. Daddy and Maya are very proud! Just being nominated is an honor in itself.
Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, a German publisher, bought another of mommy's short stories this week for translation to German and it will be included in their "New Dreams of the Red Chamber" anthology.
Daddy is not nominated for any prizes and his writing is not likely to be sold to anyone anytime soon but he is extremely proud of mommy's accomplishments. You would think mommy would be writing this blog huh? Maybe she will be doing a guest appearance here soon and raise the literary level of the blog?
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Talkative
I had a long talk with Maya on the bed today. She is getting very interactive and loves to talk to us. She is especially talkative while on the changing table (just like Heather and Peter's Lucia!). Anyway, I called Cindy over to record this wonderful moment on our video camera which was purchased for just this type of occasion. Maya and I talked back and forth, discussed the weather, diapers, the benefit of milk vs formula etc for probably a good 20 min while mommy "recorded" us. After about 20 min the camera beeps. Cindy says "Why does it say auto powersaving mode?". Turns out, Cindy wasn't actually recording us at all, she had just turned on the camera and then thought it was recording. To but it mildly...I'm having a very thorough video camera class tonight with my dear wife......and it will be punishable by death to miss another camera moment like this in the future!! Sorry, no video post today.
I did manage to buy a Christmas tree all by myself. It only took three calls to Cindy before I managed to decide on the tree. Daddy wanted to buy the nice Christmas trees but mommy thought it was madness to spend more than $35 for a tree....guess what tree I ended up with?
I did manage to buy a Christmas tree all by myself. It only took three calls to Cindy before I managed to decide on the tree. Daddy wanted to buy the nice Christmas trees but mommy thought it was madness to spend more than $35 for a tree....guess what tree I ended up with?
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Big girl
Maya has been setting new eating records every day this week. Tonight when daddy logged the feedings in his nerdy Excel sheet, we discovered that she has now broken the 1000ml/day barrier. Amazing progress from a little girl that was struggling to process 10ml per day in the NICU.
Maya had her hip hop head thing on tonight which inspired daddy to play with Photoshop. She looks pretty tough if you ask me :)
Maya Graffiti
Originally uploaded by MattiasC
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Maya video
First video posting of Maya with our new video camera. Managed to capture a little smile, a sneeze and a little cooing.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Stimulus Package - Maya Anna Mei
Since the world wide economy is in the dumps we have launched our own economic stimulus package - Maya Anna Mei, or MAM for short. This package is meant to stimulate the economy in a broad and deep sense. So far we have taken the following actions:
- Since the American car industry is in trouble....we bought a Volvo. This action helps twofold. One it helps Ford, who is in trouble and two, it helps Volvo who is also in trouble and is laying off lots of people in Sweden. Smart move huh? (Gas mileage sucks so we are helping the oil industry inadvertently as well...)
- The lumber industry is in trouble since very few new houses are being built. We decided to not use cloth diapers and spare the environment, instead we chose to use disposable diapers so more trees are used and keep the loggers employed.
- Toy/baby industry, not sure if they are in trouble or not, but we are helping them out anyway by buying tons of gadgets for Maya.
- Electronic manufacturing, in the interest of keeping myself employed we have bought a video camera to record Maya , assorted accessories for the Nikon camera and other electronic gadgets.
- Power/Gas industry, we are now keeping the house so warm that our PG&E bill is close to double the normal cost. This keeps Maya warm and a bunch of other people employed as well.
We are working on the next step of this stimulus package right now. It was supposed to have been done already but unprecedented changes in this industry during last week has delayed this action. More to follow next week on this part of the MAM stimulus package.
/signed poor dad
- Since the American car industry is in trouble....we bought a Volvo. This action helps twofold. One it helps Ford, who is in trouble and two, it helps Volvo who is also in trouble and is laying off lots of people in Sweden. Smart move huh? (Gas mileage sucks so we are helping the oil industry inadvertently as well...)
- The lumber industry is in trouble since very few new houses are being built. We decided to not use cloth diapers and spare the environment, instead we chose to use disposable diapers so more trees are used and keep the loggers employed.
- Toy/baby industry, not sure if they are in trouble or not, but we are helping them out anyway by buying tons of gadgets for Maya.
- Electronic manufacturing, in the interest of keeping myself employed we have bought a video camera to record Maya , assorted accessories for the Nikon camera and other electronic gadgets.
- Power/Gas industry, we are now keeping the house so warm that our PG&E bill is close to double the normal cost. This keeps Maya warm and a bunch of other people employed as well.
We are working on the next step of this stimulus package right now. It was supposed to have been done already but unprecedented changes in this industry during last week has delayed this action. More to follow next week on this part of the MAM stimulus package.
/signed poor dad
Maya has graduated from size N to size 1!
Big news today......Maya graduated from diaper size N to size 1. A bit too big for her but I'm sure she'll grow into it. That's all for today. Over and out.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Papasan Swing
In the spirit of Thanksgiving.....got a hot tip from Cindy's friend Peg that the Papasan swing from Fisher Price was worth it's weight in gold (and it's heavy, I know, I have carried it back and forth from the bedroom to the living room 10 times already).
Just the look on Maya's face is worth the cost of this ugly contraption. She loves it and falls asleep every time we put her in it. It can swing sideways as well as back & forth in six different speeds. It has a mirror where she can look at herself and she is simply enamoured by her own reflection. An ugly mobile thing with bees and three different sound modes.
I wonder though, why can't they make nice, contemporary looking baby stuff? This thing is another hideous plastic thing with off white sheets of plastic and not so cool colors. Our house is going from an attempt at looking cool and contemporary to a mishmash of plastics in primary colors, bright red, green, blue and yellow.
I digress...just wanted to say that the Papasan swing works wonders and Thank You Peg for the tip.
Just the look on Maya's face is worth the cost of this ugly contraption. She loves it and falls asleep every time we put her in it. It can swing sideways as well as back & forth in six different speeds. It has a mirror where she can look at herself and she is simply enamoured by her own reflection. An ugly mobile thing with bees and three different sound modes.
I wonder though, why can't they make nice, contemporary looking baby stuff? This thing is another hideous plastic thing with off white sheets of plastic and not so cool colors. Our house is going from an attempt at looking cool and contemporary to a mishmash of plastics in primary colors, bright red, green, blue and yellow.
I digress...just wanted to say that the Papasan swing works wonders and Thank You Peg for the tip.
Thanksgiving
This is the first Thanksgiving holiday that it really feels like we have a lot to be thankful for. Not that we didn't have a lot to be thankful for before but being new parents it hits home in a different way. We are so very thankful for our lovely little girl. She had a very rough start but has done remarkably well so far and is growing and developing every day.
Maya started smiling last week(not as often as daddy would like yet) and yesterday she started standing up in our laps. Her legs are strong and she likes being able to stand up and kick away from your lap. Mommy is less excited about it when Maya continuously kicks on the c-section incision but nevertheless very happy of the progress. She is often concentrating hard to coo and talk but she hasn't mastered her vocal cords yet. It comes out more as grunts and cries but every now and again we hear an "AAAA" or and "Ohhh". I swear she said "Hej" 3 times yesterday but unfortunately she hasn't been able to reproduce that sound again.
Thank you Maya for being such a wonderful little girl. We are so happy to have you and we are looking forward to seeing you grow.
Maya started smiling last week(not as often as daddy would like yet) and yesterday she started standing up in our laps. Her legs are strong and she likes being able to stand up and kick away from your lap. Mommy is less excited about it when Maya continuously kicks on the c-section incision but nevertheless very happy of the progress. She is often concentrating hard to coo and talk but she hasn't mastered her vocal cords yet. It comes out more as grunts and cries but every now and again we hear an "AAAA" or and "Ohhh". I swear she said "Hej" 3 times yesterday but unfortunately she hasn't been able to reproduce that sound again.
Thank you Maya for being such a wonderful little girl. We are so happy to have you and we are looking forward to seeing you grow.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Poop blow-out, crying and no sleep
In an effort to give mommy a break daddy has tried to do most of the night time feeding this week when he's off from work. Mommy is feeling a bit better and daddy is exhausted now.
No sooner did I write a posting on Peter and Heathers blog about how fantastic Pampers diapers are and that very night I had two major poop blow-outs. It's fantastic to try to clean a poopy squirmy little baby at 2am and then try to change two layers of new clothing. And then to repeat it all again at 5am makes it a really memorable night. or NOT?
This week has been a week with lots of changes. Maya is eating like a machine! 120ml to 150ml per feeding and she still seems hungry. Fearing projectile vomiting (which we had this morning all over our new carpet) we don't want to feed her much more than 120-ish. So as a counter measure, Maya is now waking up every 2 hours instead to get fed. She is a smart girl and has already figured out how to get what she wants.
Tonight the feedings have been difficult for dad. She seems to be in pain when she eats and starts crying after just a few sucks. Daddy then puts her on the shoulder to burp and she cries even harder to get the food she wants so badly. Daddy puts her down to continue feeding and Maya cries even harder because she's got gas or a tummy ache. 30 minutes of this and Daddy's nerves are shot and has to call in mommy for help at the midnight feeding. Magically Maya calmed down, burped nicely several times, ate calmly and is now sleeping in mommy's arms. Daddy is NOT feeling like a hero right now.
No sooner did I write a posting on Peter and Heathers blog about how fantastic Pampers diapers are and that very night I had two major poop blow-outs. It's fantastic to try to clean a poopy squirmy little baby at 2am and then try to change two layers of new clothing. And then to repeat it all again at 5am makes it a really memorable night. or NOT?
This week has been a week with lots of changes. Maya is eating like a machine! 120ml to 150ml per feeding and she still seems hungry. Fearing projectile vomiting (which we had this morning all over our new carpet) we don't want to feed her much more than 120-ish. So as a counter measure, Maya is now waking up every 2 hours instead to get fed. She is a smart girl and has already figured out how to get what she wants.
Tonight the feedings have been difficult for dad. She seems to be in pain when she eats and starts crying after just a few sucks. Daddy then puts her on the shoulder to burp and she cries even harder to get the food she wants so badly. Daddy puts her down to continue feeding and Maya cries even harder because she's got gas or a tummy ache. 30 minutes of this and Daddy's nerves are shot and has to call in mommy for help at the midnight feeding. Magically Maya calmed down, burped nicely several times, ate calmly and is now sleeping in mommy's arms. Daddy is NOT feeling like a hero right now.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Maya's first real smile
I was very late for work this morning due to my little girl.
Cindy was feeding Maya whenI walked in to the bedroom after brushing my teeth this morning. Maya cracked up in a BIG smile when she saw me! So for the next 30 min I was smiling and talking to Maya. This is the first time she is doing "social smiling" and responding back with smiles. Up until now it's just been random "internal smiles" brought on by a nice fart or after a good feeding.
So Maya and I were smiling back at each other for a good 30 min and daddy was very late for his conference call this morning.
No pictures to show off. We were too enamoured with Maya to think of the camera.
Next week is Thanksgiving and we have mandatory time off for the whole week. Looking forward to being able to spend more time with my girls and give Cindy a well deserved break from all the feedings, diaper changes an non-stop activity that Maya has been demanding the last week.
Cindy was feeding Maya whenI walked in to the bedroom after brushing my teeth this morning. Maya cracked up in a BIG smile when she saw me! So for the next 30 min I was smiling and talking to Maya. This is the first time she is doing "social smiling" and responding back with smiles. Up until now it's just been random "internal smiles" brought on by a nice fart or after a good feeding.
So Maya and I were smiling back at each other for a good 30 min and daddy was very late for his conference call this morning.
No pictures to show off. We were too enamoured with Maya to think of the camera.
Next week is Thanksgiving and we have mandatory time off for the whole week. Looking forward to being able to spend more time with my girls and give Cindy a well deserved break from all the feedings, diaper changes an non-stop activity that Maya has been demanding the last week.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Maya's Christmas Wish List
Just wanted to share Maya's Christmas wish list. I'm sure she will add to it as we get closer to Christmas.
- A radio controlled car
- A radio controlled airplane/helicopter
- A cool slotcar setup, for example Scalectric
- A new lens for dads camera. A Nikor VR lens that can take good close-ups so I look sharp in low-light photography.
- A HD camcorder to film me while I grow up. 20 years from now I want to be able to see what I looked like as a baby.
More stuff to be added later
I swear.... this IS Maya's wish list. Dad has no ulterior motives with this and is NOT trying to use his daughter to get stuff he wants. He might do some product testing while Maya is growing up but that is all in the name of safety. ok?
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Tummy time!
Maya is getting more and more active now that she has passed her full term due date. We are trying to put her on her tummy as much as possible and play with her. She totally likes it and head control is improving greatly as well as her interest and ability to focus her eyes on your face.
It's an amazing experience to see our little girl develop. She is putting on weight and now have several fat rolls on her legs. She is starting to look like the Michelin man. :D
It's an amazing experience to see our little girl develop. She is putting on weight and now have several fat rolls on her legs. She is starting to look like the Michelin man. :D
Monday, November 10, 2008
Mayas new car!
Since all our cars are 2-door coupes (and a very unsafe Jeep) we had to buy Maya her first car already. Mom likes the pretty blue color, dad likes the 300hp engine(and the safety) and Maya likes sleeping in it. The whole family is happy :)
Sunday, November 2, 2008
More park walking
It's great to have a nice park close to the house. This afternoon the autumn was in the air. Big Canada Geese were taking off from the lake, preparing the long trip to warmer climates for the winter.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Maya
Daddy had time to play with Photoshop and created a black&white picture....that's how much time I had to play (about 5min)
Out for our first walk around the block.
I'm a bit behind on the postings so this actually occured a week and a half ago. But here are the pictures anyway. Our first walk around the block. 
Is all this really necessary?
Who knew it would take all this stuff to keep a little baby fed?
And we have expanded the collection since this picture was taken with two more bottles....
And, YES, it is necessary, gets you through the night without having to do dishes.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Home at last!
A very proud (and tired) daddy carries Maya home. Trip from the hospital took a little longer than usual as dad was driving uncharacteristically slow.
After the feeding we did the usual burping exercises. Please note daddy's excel sheet in the background that tracks every feeding, medicine administration, temperature reading, diaper condition etc. :)
We got busy changing diapers almost immediately and completed our first diaper change at home without much drama. Thanks to all the great training we got in the NICU.
After the feeding we did the usual burping exercises. Please note daddy's excel sheet in the background that tracks every feeding, medicine administration, temperature reading, diaper condition etc. :) Tuesday, October 7, 2008
On our way home
We packed up all the stuff and got ready for our journey home. Mommy was picked up by the volunteers and was treated to THE wheel chair ride out of the hospital. Daddy was really happy that we got the full treatment even though we all really could walk out on our own accord.
On our way out we met our NICU neighbors who were on their way in to spend the night and take their baby boy home the next day. We hope it went well for them and that they finally got to take their baby home too.
All my girls are strapped in and ready to drive home. Daddy drove veeeeeeery carefully home.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Parents in training
After Maya passed the car seat test we got booked for a night in one of the little apartments they have in the hospital. Here you get to practice for one night before you take your little baby home with the comfort of doctors and nurses just two doors away.
Our stay-over got moved from Thursday night to Friday night due to some test results that took longer than anticipated. Friday night came along and we settled into the room.
Had to get help at 11pm to burp Maya. The pro nurse got her to burp after 20 min of rubbing and patting the back. Neither Cindy or I slept much during the night. We took turns feeding, changing diapers, taking the temperature etc.
The delayed test results were due Saturday morning and the anticipation kept us on edge all night making it hard to sleep. If she didn't pass we would not be able to take her home and it would probably mean a much longer stay in the NICU. After a morning walk around the hospital for nervous dad, cool mom called and said we were allowed to take her home :D Talk about two happy parents!!
Maya is going home soon!
I've finally gotten all my girls home after 23 days in the NICU and 14 days in Mother/Baby (bed rest for mommy before birth). It's been a long wait for all of us but we are so glad that we are all home now.
Before we got to go home Maya had to pass the dreaded "Car seat test". Basically you have to sit in a car seat for 1 hour without forgetting to breath, having heart problems or starting to cry uncontrollably. Maya did great! She was awake for quite some time since there were so many new things to see from this position. Normally all she could really see was the ceiling. The little boy across from us failed for crying too much a few days earlier. Wooz! Maya showed him how it's done! She fell asleep once she had gotten bored of the new view of "Pod A" in the NICU. If you've seen one incubator, you've seen them all....
Yawn! This Car seat test is nothing for Maya.
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