The bench presses are starting to pay off

All the bench pressing is starting to pay off and Maya now shows perfect form for crawling. We have yet to get any forward movement but we think it's close now.




The exertion casued Maya to fall asleep on the spot surrounded by all her toys.

A visit to California Academy of Sciences

Last weekend was filled with activity. On Friday we went to San Francisco to visit California Academy of Sciences and for waipo & waigong to see the Botanical Garden.

The highlight of the new musem is definitely the rain forest and the aquariums. Maya was not so impressed by the hot and humid rain forest.



Dad really enjoyed the beautiful butterflies







Maya on the other hand much preferred the colorful fish and the big aquariums.





A pitstop to refuel after all the butterflies and fish







We ended the day with a stroll along Fishemans Wharf and Pier 39.

Bench pressing.

Maya has been doing some serious work-out and have literally been doing bench presses. Upper body strenth is crucial for crawling so this will surely help once she gets the hang of forward moving crawling. So far she can only move backwards and has to resort to a combination of rolling and twisting to get forward motion.




A good work-out requires healthy food to build those muscles up. As you can tell Maya enjoys her organic, home made peach puree. The home-made squash has not been as succesful and Maya much prefers the store bought version.

Reading with Waipo

Maya is studying Chinese Caligraphy with Waipo every morning. Given Maya's concentration I'm sure she'll pick it up soon and start drawing Chinese characters.

Family

Maya has been busy these last two month with lots of visits from mom's family. Mom's oldest brother, Xiang, stayed with us for over a month to spend time with his new niece and to do some sightseeing in the US.

Maya and her Dajiu (oldest uncle):




Mom's youngest brother, Bo, and his wife Beichan visited us as well for a week.



Maya really liked all the visitors and really enjoyed all the attention.

Economic Stimulus Package - Maya part 2

So in our continued effort to stimulate the economy and do our part in getting the world economy back on track we have made a few more well thought out purchases.

First we bought a Swedish high-chair "Svan"(want to make sure some of the money trickles back to the homeland). I refused to buy one of the typical hideous American high-chairs made of plastic and of enormous dimensions. This chair is rather compact in its foot-print and can be converted to a normal chair that grows with Maya. I'm sure she will be thrilled about having this chair until she goes off to college......



We also got a ridiculously expensive French chewing/teething toy, Sophie la girafe,. According to the package this has been the favorite toy for all kids since 1961. Maya was not impressed at all and threw it on the ground. She much prefers her stacking blocks. I think she might become an engineer or an architect.



To round it off we bought a new car seat for Maya as well since she has now grown out of her infant seat. Dad of course insisted on the safest brand known to mankind, Britax. Mom however, stopped Dad from going all out, with the top of the line model that has side impact protection, click tightening and some other fantastic features I can't remember anymore. We settled for the Britax Decathlon, made in the USA to support domestic manufacturing as well.

Who needs a fancy play pen? We don't!

Mothers day

Maya gave mom a really nice card and a little gift on Mothers day. Maya liked it so much mommy ended up with a soggy card that she had to pry out of Maya's iron grip.



Waipo got a nice orchid, a digital picture frame and a pair of shoes from Cindy.



The digital picture frame was a real hit.

Dr Kim was happy and so was mom and dad.

So daddy did what everyone tells you not to do....he looked at the test results before we talked to the doctor. The outcome of that was a sleepless night since one of the test values, BUN, had gone from normal range to above normal. So dad searched for high BUN level on the internet and that was not a good idea.

Fast forward to the visit with the Kidney doctor....The BUN value was of no concern at all. This value apparently fluctuates a lot based on what you eat, how much you drink etc. The value has to be 4x what Maya had for them to even be concerned. We were very relieved to hear this great news. Her kidneys have improved slightly but the creatinine is still a tiny bit above normal. Dr Kidney wants to see her again in 4-5 months so this time we got a further extension in the test frequency. Unfortunately (or it's probably a good thing really) they will continue to follow her up to age 18 YEARS, to monitor that all is well. So dad better get used to the idea of blood draws, worrisome test results and visits with Dr Kidney.

Maya had a great time in the doctors office and played with the ear-investigation-thing and tore up all the paper in sight.

So, it's time again for a blood draw

Yesterday it was time again for a blood draw and brave mom took Maya to the lab. The nurses at the lab in Milpitas are much better than the main hospital and did the blood draw with minimal drama. Our girl is so brave and tough!
She was happy but tired in the evening from all the crying. Keep your fingers crossed/hall tummarna, pray, send positive thoughts etc that the doctor is happy with the results.

Weekend outing

Despite dad's jet lag, hang over and the gloomy weather we made an excursion to Roaring Camp in the Santa Cruz mountains over the weekend. We missed the first train departure so we had to wait around for another 2 hours to catch the next one. Dad was not very thrilled.... However, we looked around in the little cowboy town and hiked up a nature path to look at the majestic redwoods.

Maya, waipo, waigong, dajiu (uncle) and mom were very excited to ride the train. Due to the drizzle in the mountains they kept the steam train in the depot and ran a small diesel engine instead.

Maya and mom in the rain:


Waipo and Maya on the train:


A happy and content Maya after visiting the dining car:


Sleepy after a long train ride:

Back in town

Dad is back in town and survived the trip (despite swine flu and a wicked night out with Hakan in Shanghai)

It was great to see Maya again. Amazing how much change in just a few days.

Maya trying to eat on her own from Mattias Ceder on Vimeo.