Today, we took Owen to Southpoint Mall.  We read in books that it is best to provide baby with different stimuli to stimulate the different parts of brain cells connections - it was Owen’s first outing to a mall.  It was such a monumental moment for us that we stopped in front of Macy’s to take pictures…real funny because people kept on staring at us, wondering why anyone would want to take a picture of Macy’s side doors! 

He slept for about the first 20 mins from the car ride, but then woke up.  Boo and I tried to get him to look at different items and guess what was his favorite item? An tight red prom dress that had a low “V” cut!!! ;P He got SO excited when he saw the dress - he smiled and cooed and smiled even wider when I led his little hand to touch the lacey material. *Grin* I think it’s more than just the fact that babies like bright colors; he probably took after his Dad and all other men in the world!!!

Although I would consider Owen to be on very good behavior already, he still cried toward the latter part of the trip.  I even had to duck into the fitting room twice to feed him!  *Smile* It really is different going out with a baby - way gone is the freedom, but as any parents will agree, it is still all worth it when you see his angelic face & smile!

Another great discovery by accident!

Sherwood often gets zits on his back, so I had bought a bottle of Johnson’s baby powder with aloe & vitamin E (medicated) to alleviate it.  Well, about 1-2 weeks ago, I came across the bottle again, and accidentally realized that the bottle says that it treats rashes. 

The active ingredient is zinc oxide, the same ingredient that is used in rash treatment creams such as Desitin.  However, it is lower in concentration (10% vs. 40% in Desitin ointment) and MUCH easier to apply.  Whenever you change the diaper, just sprinkle a little on the diaper where baby’s cute butt will be, and you’re all set! Owen was starting to get diaper rashes every so often, but since we have been applying this powder, his little hiny has been clear of rashes!  You also get an extra bonus - baby smells wonderful! ;P

The dad just cannot refrain from his purchasing maniac for his son, now the new addition to the photo background is this new custom made lamb skin bed. The result has been pretty amazing, check it out (there are 31 photos, four pages).

The biggest challenge for the parents is to rock the baby to sleep, if you are lucky, he can sleep for one hour straight, and then he is awake, you can hear that. Use owen as example, it all seems like Owen is suffering some kind of pain: the whole body moves like a worm, the fists are clenched like his life is in it, what follows? crying.
We tried some techiniques and we concluded the following methods are most useful. If you also have a light sleeper like our son, try them.

1. Put baby in a swing or cradle.
2. Wrap the baby so that baby feel secure.
3. Play audio CD such as white noise, or environment sound (ocean wave, raining etc)

Remember each child is different, what works for us may not work for you. Be patient, remember baby is always right - they cry for a reason. As parents, it is your job to figure out why he/she is crying.

Baby Owen experienced his 1st “official” outing today.  Location? The 35 Chinese restaurant in Cary in celebration of his 1-month birthday. Needed to prequalify with the “official” because he actually has been out a few times…but they are either for doctor’s visits (out of necessity) or just around the block in our community in his cute green Graco stroller.

Owen was SUCH a good boy - he pretty much slept through the meal, though he is the reason we went out. ;P He did start crying after 10-15 mins of us arriving there because he wanted to nurse, but he happily went back to sleep after drinking Mommy’s yummy milk.  Although I did not have any problems discreetly breastfeeding Owen, I learned a valuable lesson: wear a pull-up shirt rather than a buttoned shirt so you don’t have to fumble around with the buttons (also less exposure)!!!

As the chief editor of the blog, I have to consolidate my “in review” column from weekly to “biweekly”, at least for now. Both the mother and father couldn’t really sleep well to reorganize their thought so here we just present some factual stuff.

• Owen continues his two oz a day turbo growth, reaching a new record of 9 lb 7oz by the end of week 4, he is on track to gain 3 lb in the first month!
• Average daily sleep time dropped from 15 hours to about 12 hours. The implication of this troubling news: his more hours awake means our less hours sleep, a full night sleep was so last century, we must be his company on demand, it could be 2pm in the afternoon or 2am in the morning.
• Owen’s most significant achievement in this week is Owen can open his eyes - Owen learned to focus his curious eyes on his important people, he can even turn his head when we call his name.
• Owen learned there is only one place to go to sleep, that is on the shoulder of his parents!

Here are our week 4 albums (totally 32 photos in this set, enjoy)

Whew…what a month!  Finally coming back to civilization…

Ever since delivery, I have been under much supervision from Nei/my parents/parents-in-law in observing the “month after delivery”.  Never knew there were so much rules…can’t go out, can’t go up/down stairs, can’t touch “cold” floors, can’t watch TV/read/computers, can’t take a bath, can’t carry heavy things, etc.  I was very bad in the beginning as I had broken almost every single rule by the 4th day so I was later given strict orders to follow these rules, which turned me into pretty much a bigger version of Owen: eat, sleep, use restroom, and just laid in bed all day doing nothing.  For those of you who know me well, this has been quite difficult, but it has been even harder on my family…having to bring meals to me, cook for me, etc.  I am so thankful to God that I have such loving families…

Now that I am coming out of my “month” observance (next Tuesday on the 12th to be exact), I am slowly returning to earth.  There’s so much to write…will be writing quite frequently in the next few days to “catch-up”.  Stay tuned!!  IT’S SO GOOD TO BE BACK!!!