Kara Scooting Around (Not Quite Crawl Yet)

Baby Kara started to become more mobile now. She now can scoot herself to get a toy that's just out of her reach. Her legs are the main driving force for her movement. She scoots like a warm. Her head dives down towards the floor, while she pushes with her legs. Then she picks up her head and reach out for the object. The cycle continues until she reached the object or destination of interest.

Rice Cereal

As soon as baby Kara turned 4 months old, mama Lyanne was ready to feed baby Kara her first solid meal, rice cereal. Of course baby Kara was also ready as evidence by her drools, sucking fingers when she's hungry, mouthing and licking toys or anything that's within reach of her hands. Baby Kara still has the natural reflect to push food out of her mouth with her tongue, but you can tell she liked the cereal. Last week, mama Lyanne only fed 1-2 teaspoon of rice cereal. This week, baby Kara is able to eat 3-4 teaspoon. Eventually, she'll graduate to tablespoon to ounces portion and hopefully get into vegetable puree by her 5 month birthday.

Kara in Her Car Seat

Tis true. Baby Kara spends a lot of time in her car seat. Because of the recent head shaving, mama Lyanne have been putting a hat on baby Kara when she goes out. For the most part, the hat doesn't bother baby Kara until she gets sleepy. When she wants her nap, she'll spend couple minutes sucking her finger with one hand and the other hand would touch her face/head in one way or another. With the hat on her head, baby Kara now likes to pull the hat down covering her eyes. She didn't fuss about it either. It seemed like she enjoyed having her eyes covered. Everytime baby Kara pulled the hat down, mama Lyanne would pull it back up. Within seconds, baby Kara would pull it back down again. To some point, it turned into a game for baby Kara laughing each time mama Lyanne pulled the hat up.

"To be or not to be.....zzz."

Lately, baby Kara has been drooling a lot. People say that drooling is the first sign of teething or an indication that teething will start soon. Baby Kara has been drooling for awhile. Just today, she started to show fussiness that seemed like she might be experiencing teething pain. It was also her first time crying in the car seat while the car was driving. It wasn't time for feeding yet, but mama Lyanne tried giving baby Kara a bottle. Of course, she didn't want it. Mama Lyanne checked her diaper, and it wasn't dirty. Couple minutes later, she was quiet and happy. Mama Lyanne looked over and saw baby Kara gnawing on her toy and rubbing the toy against her mouth. And when the toy dropped out of her mouth, baby Kara started to fuss again. It could be a coincident, but mama Lyanne thinks baby Kara is teething.

Did you notice the earrings in her ears? Yesiree. Baby Kara got her ear pierced yesterday. She was a trooper. She didn't cry for long. She only cried for the split second of being pierced and stopped crying within couple seconds of consoling her.

Lastly, baby Kara was allowed to play with grass with her hands yesterday. Her first time playing with grass was around Memorial week when she touched the grass with her feet. In both times, you can tell that baby Kara was very curious about the grass. She kept on looking down and wiggling her toes. She was fascinated as this was entirely a new object for baby Kara.

Auntie Katherine's HS Graduation

Today was auntie Katherine's graduation. Mama and papa Wong got off of work early so that they can go pick up baby Kara by 5pm and head back to San Fernando Valley before 630pm. On the way back, the Wong family stopped at a store to buy a lei but sinse there were none they ended up buying a bouquet of flowers and an ice cream cake. Because of the ice cream cake, papa Matt decided to drop mama Lyanne and baby Kara off at Chatsworth High School first while he went to drop the ice cream cake at Uncle Benny's house. Last year's graduation for uncle Kevin (that's when baby Kara was still a tiny fertilized embryo inside mama Lyanne's tummy!), the staff closed off the football field right at 630pm. Knowing that and with the crowded parking situation, mama Lyanne was sure that papa Matt would not be able to join her and baby Kara inside at the ceremony. But to mama Lyanne's surprise, the gate was left open until 7pm which was right when papa Matt arrived just on time before they closed the gate and mama Lyanne was glad he can join her and baby Kara.

During the graduation ceremony, baby Kara got to meet uncle Long for the first time. She also had a chance to spend time with grandmother (婆婆). Uncle Kevin also came down from the bleachers to take pictures of baby Kara. Because baby Kara just had her head shaved off at her 4m birthday, mama Lyanne had baby Kara wore a hat. Cute, isn't she? Hehe.

When the ceremony ended, Auntie Katherine took her cap off to let Great Uncle Hoa take a picture with it. Then one of the uncles or maybe even auntie Katherine decided to put the cap on baby Kara's head.

After that, all of the aunties got together to take pictures with auntie Katherine including mama Lyanne. Then came the uncles with their wacky faces followed by the entire Wong family with uncle Jayden. And of course more family pictures with Great Grandma and Great Auntie Van (picture not shown).

Uncle Jayden loves to play with baby Kara every time mama Lyanne bring her by to visit. His newest skill is giving people kisses (he still need more practice). Basically, he kisses people by bringing his cheeks up against the other person's cheek. Just at that time, baby Kara decided to show uncle Jayden the correct way of giving a kiss! Hehe.

Just before heading back to aunti Katherine's house, uncle Christian decided to get the gang do one last silly pose. While all the uncles and aunties positioning their arms, mama Lyanne and Great Uncle Hoa tried to get uncle Jayden to add his arms infront of auntie Katherine. But with all the commotions, uncle Jayden got confused and slightly scared that he ended up hugging auntie Katherine's legs instead. At the end, they finally got uncle Jayden to face forward with his arms out (picture not shown).

Finally, everyone went back to auntie Katherine's house to continue their foolishness, being silly and laugh some more. At this time, baby Kara was getting a bit cranky for nap, so mama Lyanne got baby Kara to nap in auntie Katherine's room. It was so loud and people going in and out of the room, that baby Kara was only able to nap for 30 minutes. By the time dinner was over and everyone got their ice cream cake, it was already close to 10pm and time to go home. Mama Lyanne and papa Matt dropped grandma (婆婆) and uncle Long off at their house before heading home to end the long but fun day.

4-Month Old Appointment

Today was baby Kara's 4-month old pediatrician appointment. She weighed 11 lbs 1 oz and 24 inches tall. Comparatively, baby Kara's weight is at 10 percentile and 40 percentile for her height. Baby Kara was also scheduled for yet another set of shots again. After much debate and research, mama and papa Wong have agreed to minimize the number of shots per doctor's visit to 2. They will still have baby Kara complete all of the immunization requirements, but just at a delayed schedule.



Baby Kara seemed to either know she's going to get shots or maybe she remembered the doctor's face and nurse from her 2-month appointment that she cried everytime Dr McCormick came close to examine her. Some might say that it could stranger anxiety, but mama Lyanne doesn't think so because baby Kara didn't cry when Dr McCormick played with her, including the nurse. But as soon as they started to do examinations and put baby Kara on the examine bench, baby Kara started to cry. And when mama Lyanne picked her up off of the examine bench and have the doctor examine baby Kara in mama Lyanne's arms, baby Kara would tolerate it, but she still led out a whining sound. After the doctor finished her examination and left the room, the nurse came in with a tray containing the shots. This time, baby Kara had to be placed on the examine bench. She didn't cry at first, but when the nurse gave her the oral vaccination for rotavirus, baby Kara cried and cried, as if she knew that this was a precursor to the shots. If you remember, at the 2-month appointment, baby Kara enjoyed the oral sugary syrup, slurping at each drop in her mouth. But now, she wouldn't care to have it and just wanted out. After the oral syrup, baby Kara got her DTap and HIB vaccine. Like always, baby Kara led out a loud painful cry and fell asleep as soon as the car started driving.

Kara Rolling Over!

When papa and mama Wong went to pick up baby Kara after work from Day Care, the babysitter, auntie Yamuna (Yammi for short) gave them the wonderful news that baby Kara can roll over on her own! Mama is so excited to see this with her own eyes that as soon as she got home, she took baby Kara straight to her crib with a camera to capture the moment. At first, baby Kara couldn't roll over in the crib. It was evident that baby Kara was getting frustrated too. The contour of the crib mattress seemed to cause baby Kara to 'bounce' back on her back each time she tries to give herself momentum to roll forward.

After couple failed attempts in the crib, mama Lyanne decided to put baby Kara on her play area on the floor. Within seconds on the floor, baby Kara got herself to roll over! You can see that she was happy and smiling and delighted with a sense of proudness that she accomplished her goal of rolling over. Once again, everytime baby Kara saw mama Lyanne with the camera, baby Kara stopped whatever she was doing and just stared at the camera.

At one point baby Kara couldn't roll over on one side, so she was smart enough to roll over on the other side. Rolling over is such a new thing for baby Kara that she'll roll over everytime mama Lyanne put her on her back, even for bedtime. With this new skill, mama Lyanne would wait couple hours after baby Kara fell asleep (or wake up in the middle of the night) to turn baby Kara back on her back. She wants to make sure that baby Kara is breathing fresh air and not her own recirculated carbon dioxide breath, which can be very harmful for babies. So even though mama Lyanne has the luxury to sleep through the night, she would still wake up at least 1-3 times a night just to check on baby Kara.

Going back to past blog, May 16 was when baby Kara first showed her initial interest in wanting (or at least trying) to roll over. Now, June 8, it took her 3 weeks to master the skill. Don't know if that's slow or fast, but it's just good to know.