BushChang Family Web Site

Home of Steve, Christine, Katherine, Ally, Rosebud, and Rex

You are here: Home / 2003 / Archives for July 2003

Archives for July 2003

Microsoft Company Picnic

We went to North Bend to the Microsoft Company picnic today – the first time for both Steve and me (believe it or not!) We wheeled Katherine around in her jogger. She hung out with some friends and soaked in all the sights. Key milestones:

  • Katherine ate a small slice of watermelon, all the way down to the rind. Dad also gave her a few licks of popsicles to cool her down. She wasn’t sure what to make of the artificial flavoring and coloring. ๐Ÿ™‚
  • She watched her friend Audrey bounce around in an inflatable thing. Katherine stood on a ledge outside, clinging on to netting and squealing with excitement.
  • She tried pushing a plastic lawnmower, which wasn’t quite stable enough for her.
  • And….she rode on a horse for the first time! Steve held her on the saddle while the horse plodded around the ring.

Audrey’s Cool Swing System

Katherine’s friend Audrey got a Rainbow System last month, and Audrey was nice enough to share it with Katherine earlier this week. As you can see from the pictures, Steve (and Katherine) had a wonderful time, going down the slide and swinging. Katherine also tried out Audrey’s plastic car. She wasn’t really sure what to make of it, but she gripped on tightly!

Feeding Bisco

It was inevitable. Katherine has started to feed Bisco from her high chair. In the past, she would hold her hand out and drop Cheerios or biscuits to the floor. Tonight, she leaned down towards her foot ledge and seemed to deliberately offer her whole wheat bread to Bisco. She did this repeatedly, despite our explaining that Bisco didn’t need any more food.

Katherine is also really enjoying finger food. Tonight, she munged up banana, cantaloupe, and boiled carrot pieces. We also gave her roasted asparagus stems thinking she wouldn’t eat it – since she refuses to eat pureed steamed asparagus. Instead, she stuck one end in her mouth and sucked out the asparagus from the stem. When she finished one end, she then flipped the asparagus to the other end and went to work on it. This continued until dinner was over, at which point she dropped it on the floor for Bisco. ๐Ÿ™‚

Other favorites: peas and rice, apricots, Zwieback toast (dry wheat toast), and any sort of wheat bread. She managed to tolerate a bit of cottage cheese this morning. She still loves Veggie Booty, but we’ve decided not to give her anymore since it isn’t very healthy for her (or us for that matter).

More Teething, Crankiness and Napping

We read in a book that babies “as they approach a year” try to go from two to one naps. Katherine a couple days this past week decided that she doesn’t need two full naps. She slept as little as 75 to 90 minutes – unlike her full 3 hours a day. Unfortunately, she’s demonstrated through some serious crankiness that she really needs 2.5-3 hours still a day. So, we’ve used all sorts of techniques to get her to nap, from driving her around to walking her in her jogger. I hope this phase doesn’t last too long, as it’s also resulted in her waking up a couple times during the night.

Katherine’s three top teeth are now descending, giving her more of a toddler look. And, we also found that a fourth top tooth will be coming in soon! That makes a total soon of 6 teeth!

Training Mom and Dad

Katherine has really learned how to train us. When she screams bloody murder in her high chair, it means that she wants to sip water from a straw or that she has a dirty diaper. When she squirms off our laps, it means she wants to walk. Most notably, she’s learned how to sleep with Mom and Dad; namely by getting up and screaming every two hours in the middle of the night. This really has a way of wearing down defenses. This also has resulted in Dad escorting Katherine to Mom who feeds Katherine and places her in between the parents.

Generally speaking, we haven’t had any major issues – until last weekend when Katherine fell off the bed!! According to Steve, Katherine and I were snoring and edged him out of bed. He put his pillow to one side of the bed to serve as a bumper and went to the other room. This solution apparently didn’t work. At 4AM, I woke up to the sound of something hitting the floor (THUMP!). I walked around the bed, and lo and behold Katherine was lying on top of the pillow on the floor. She didn’t seem too upset until I picked her up. Interestingly enough, Steve heard the thump from the other room, came running in, grabbed Katherine from me and gave her the once-over to make sure she was OK.

As a result, we’ve decided that its time to start the Farber-izing again and to make sure that Katherine stays in her crib. She cried 30 minutes tonight and made every effort to stay up. As I walked her in the upper hallway towards the family room she peered over the wall, and gave Steve who was on the downstairs couch the biggest smile. Once she realized that it was time for bed, she howled all the way back to her crib.

Gross Motor Skills & Mobility

Katherine is getting faster and faster. We can put her down in the family room, turn around and find her in the kitchen just a few seconds later. Typically, she wanders off the carpet onto the hardwoods, climbs up her highchair, or crawls under the kitchen table. I found her standing next to different kitchen chairs this afternoon.

She can also easily walk along an object like the coffee table. She uses the coffee table cushion to stand up, then walks along the table holding onto the cushion. Everything from laptop power cords to drinks to the remote is fair game for her. Steve claims that she pulled his power cord out of his laptop several times.

She also stands up in her tub when we bathe her and squirms all over trying to get at the toy most out of reach.

Sharon and Jamey Visit Katherine

Sharon and Jamey visited us over the 4th of July weekend. Although the visit was brief, we had a wonderful time and enjoyed seeing them. Katherine had a blast walking with Sharon all over the kitchen and family room every day. Sharon also managed to feed Katherine several meals. After one of her meals, Katherine ended up with dried peas on her eyebrow and veggie booty on her nose! Sharon also changed her first diaper ever, which happened to be a pretty monumental diaper.

They arrived late Thursday and we spent several hours Friday early afternoon in downtown Seattle. We ate lunch at Etta’s (yum), purchased cherries & strawberries at Pikes Place and headed to Pacific Place. After wandering around, we headed back to the car. Having not slept for almost 4 hours, Katherine snoozed all the way home. For dinner we BBQ’ed salmon, ate corn, and had a pretty tasty dinner.

The next morning, after my workout we went to Redmond Town Plaza. We walked around the Saturday market, getting more Rainier cherries and vegetables. For lunch, we headed over to Acapulco Fresh and went home afterwards since I was feeling pretty tired. I took a nap in the afternoon, and Steve took Katherine to Costco. Unfortunately, it became clear that I hadn’t been able to avoid Steve’s stomach flu. I spent the remainder of the day and evening sleeping and fighting off the flu. The next morning, Sharon and Jamey headed back to the airport.

When It Rain It Pours…

This has been one of the craziest several weeks for our family. Steve and I both contracted the stomach flu. Although I managed to shake it in only a couple days, it put Steve on point to take care of Katherine. With his defenses low, he caught bronchitis….hopefully, once he’s better, our family will be healthy again.

Finger Foods

Since Katherine is now 8 months old, we’ve started putting more and more finger foods on her little food tray. Favorites are Pirate Veggie Booty, cantaloupe, Cheerios, rice cakes and teething biscuits. She doesn’t like egg yolk at all. ๐Ÿ™‚ Katherine uses the three finger pincer grasp to get the food and then try to jam it in her mouth. She’s gotten pretty good at this and can get a decent percentage of food bits into her mouth. Much of the food does find its way out. For instance, she’ll suck on the Veggie Booty and then spit it out into her bib. She’ll also chew her cantaloupe with an exaggerated chewing motion and then spit that out as well. Bisco is getting quite a feast now under her high chair.

Gymcrawlers Class

At least once a week Patty takes Katherine to Gymboree and the Gymcrawlers class. We’ve never been to class, but apparently Katherine has a blast! Patty and her daughter Paulette took these pictures at their last class. Katherine crawled into the tunnel for the first time; see her big smile! She also played on the parachute and in the inner tube. We’re thinking of moving her to the Gymwalkers class, since she is now walking with assistance.

Faerber-izing Continued…

We’re plugging ahead with the Faeber method, and so far it’s working well. Since her first two nights, she cried 12 minutes the third night and only 5 minutes the fourth night. Last night, she cried 2 minutes and started to suck her thumb vigorously (we could hear this on the monitor). This crying, sucking cycle went on for about 15-20 minutes. In all, she only cries a few minutes at a time and is learning how to soothe herself to sleep.

The next step is to do this consistently with all naps and during the night. For instance, last night at 11:30, she was really mad that I put her down after I gave her a snack. She spent at least 20 minutes, cycling between thrashing around in her crib, letting out a few cries and sucking her thumb. This morning I put her down semi-sleepy and she did the same for 40 minutes. So, hopefully, this length of time will shorten and she will be able to fall sleep quickly and easily on her own.

The biggest challenge, funnily enough, is coordinating efforts across the entire family. The third night, Steve and I agreed that we wouldn’t go in her room for 15 minutes. Well, as I headed upstairs right as she stopped crying, I saw Bisco padding out of her room! I guess he heard her crying and was checking up on her. Also, last night I had put Katherine down to find Steve holding her 5 minutes later – not realizing that I was letting Katherine put herself to sleep.

Getting More and More Mobile…

Katherine can pull herself up using almost anything now. She uses the toys that hang off of her toy bookcase to get to a standing position. Once she’s standing, she pulls toys, books out of her bookcase and plays with them for a bit. We also removed the Pack and Play and put down her quilt and toys. This is now her area for standing next to her block and table. She crawls between this area and her bookcase freely.

She’s becoming a frighteningly fast crawler. This morning, I turned around to put a music CD in the DVD player. When I turned back around, I found her under the side table picking up device that turns out the lamp. She’s also learned to make a beeline for any power cord in the family room that’s readily available. I guess we’ll be baby proofing the family room some more this weekend.