Pitching Change

I come home the other night, and walk into my bedroom. All I hear is, "I'm done, you take him". Umm, thats not good. I guess little Casey had a rough evening, fussing and crying. And Mom needed relief. So, you know in baseball when your closer is on the mound, most of the time, the game is good hands. He's usually a shut-down, goto guy, probably with a 100 MPH fastball or some close-the-deal pitch. Think Trevor's change-up, or Mariano's split-finger. In any case the closer is the guy, and you win or lose with him. Well, as a fan, think about how you feel when the closer gets pulled for say, a middle reliever... Picture a dude with a number in the 60's or 70's, that you have never heard of, straight up from AAA. Confidence inspiring huh? This is exactly what is going through my head when V tells me to relieve her. Great, if the closer just got shelled, imagine what is going to happen to me, the rookie with no experience. But, being the last guy on the bench, I'm eager to contribute, so I take the assignment.
I take Casey in the other room, and rock him. 3 minutes later, he's quiet. Damn, I'm good, there's nothing to this... So I sit down in the recliner, get some pillows and blankets, start to get comfortable... WAAAHHHH, WAAAHHH! Casey starts wailing. Uh, not good. I try the shussing, the swaddling, the sideways hold... every pitch in my repitoire. WAAAAHHH, WAAAHHH! Nothing helped. Reluctantly, I get up and start pacing the room. Bam, quiet. Now its pushing midnight, so I try to sit and get the pillows and blankets; yup, you guessed it... WAAAHHH, WAAAHHH! Get up, sit down, get up, sit down. I gotta wonder if Casey's thinking, "Dude, I rule this place.. watch this, I control daddy like a puppet."
I finally think I diagnose the problem.. He's got gas. What can I do about that? It's not like I can pull his finger... All I'm thinking is, "I got one play left"... Skin on skin... But that aint wise, considering whats happening. I'm holding him, in a diaper, in pajamas, in a swaddled blanket, and I still cringe everytime he lets one loose. Each time, I instinctively, I check my hand and fingers to see if they are wet... I should be putting on the HAS-MAT suit, but instead I strip him down to his diaper, and take my shirt off. GENTLY place him ( oh, please diaper, dont leak and seep) on my chest... and voila, he falls asleep.
All in all, a pretty good outing. Definitely a little shaky, sort of like lots of walks, some LONG flyball outs, and leaving the bases loaded, but I got out of the inning!

Breastfeeding Poses

PJ's many breastfeeding poses. Breastfeeding is an experience...some good...some bad. Some of PJ's poses make me chuckle as we share our many moments together.

This is the "Don't bother me I'm eating!" or the "Boy it's bright out there!" pose

This is the "More Milk Now!!!!....Ouch! Who's pulling my hair?"

He likes to throw this one in the middle of a feeding just to make things take longer. "Utter concentration a.ka. Poopy face".

Grunting one out... Looks like he's going to blow a gasket!

Whats up with this?

Like I alluded to before, having a child is a learning experience. And what I learned yesterday has me puzzled. Did you know child car seats have expiration dates? Yup, just like milk and sour cream, the car seat will expire... Somebody help me with this concept. The way it was explained to me, is that the 'recommendation' is that 'due to normal wear and tear', car seats should be retired from service and destroyed after 5 years. It goes without saying that after the 'retired from service and destroyed' there is the 'replaced' or 'buy a new one' that went unsaid... How convienent for the manufacturers of these seats. Hell, why doesnt everyone who makes/ markets and sells anything slap an expiration date on their product? Maybe the bailout car companies should start doing that with their cars... "Our recommendation is to replace our POS cars every 5 years, due to 'normal wear and tear'". The way I see it, that'll pretty much insure people will continue to buy cars, and guarantee profits for years to come.
Now, I havent reverse engineered the car seat, but as far as I can tell, it is mainly constructed of plastic, fabric, and probably foam padding with a tiny bit of metal mixed in there. Lets start with the plastic. What part of this plastic is subject to loading during 'normal wear and tear'? Its supporting an infant who weights approx. 7-15 lbs. You're telling me you constructed these seats with plastic that cant support 7-15 lbs, without deteriorating? And the fabric... and I'm talking about the fabric used on the tiny harness that secures the infant to the seat. It appears to me that this fabric is similar to the fabric used to manufacture regular occupant restraint systems in vehicles... IE: Every seatbelt out there, which are used to restain adults... So, if it is indeed the same fabric, how could this stuff lose its structural integrity in 5 years when regular seatbelts, subjected to far greater loads (picture a 250 lb adult in a 35mph frontal collision) dont have an expiration date? And if it aint the same fabric, WTF... Use the same fabric...
I'm going out on a limb here and guessing that the expiration of these seats have nothing to do with the cloth 'upholstry' or comfort padding under the upholstry.
Now, to be honest, I havent scoured the NHTSA archives to review and compare crash tests performed on new car seats and those that are 5 years and 1 day old. But I'm guessing the occupant acceleration plots wont look that different.
Hmm, I got an idea for my next research project.

Family day

Hey Casey, lots of people came to see you. And they are all related to you. We had Han's, Tung's, Wang's and Hua's... Some day we'll explain the relationships to you, but I warn you, its hard to understand. Here's the abridged version. There was cousin Andy and your niece Angela. Yup, little Casey, you're an uncle!

Then Uncle Tony and cousin Young came to visit you. They brought your Dads 3rd aunt. You'll learn soon enough that we just number them, never mind the names. She was happy to see you, and commented, 'We have the oldest, and the youngest'. Indeed, 92 years old paired with 2.5 weeks old. Two extremes. I gotta say though, you guys are somewhat alike. 3rd aunt decided it was time to go, she wanted to TAKE A NAP! Kinda sounds like you, little guy!

Road trip

Casey just had his first roadtrip. He went to San Diego to visit Nai-Nai and Ye-Ye. Our departure time from LA was timed around his feeding/nap schedule. We ended up leaving LA around 10pm. We got Casey all strapped into his newborn carseat, packed all his stuff and started driving, just hoping he would sleep during the car ride. Anytime the car was in motion, he was happy and more importantly quiet. BUT, anytime we stopped at a red light, he would fuss. Impatient little guy. Hmm, like father, like son! As soon as we hit the 405 freeway, he slept... All the way to SD. Then, about 5-10 minutes from our destination, Casey got hungry and woke up. He cried and cried until we reached out destination and he was able to eat.

Casey met KC for the first time! In some ways, those two are a lot alike too. They both spent a good portion of the day taking naps. Like grandfather, like grandson! Below are a couple of photos of Nai-Nai, Ye-Ye and PJ...

The trip home was again timed to coincide with Casey's naptime. We launched from SD about 8PM. This time, he only made it about 1 hr before he started crying and crying. We werent going to make it back home, so we sought other options. 'Hey, cousin Andy lives a few exits away, lets stop there to feed him.' So, we took a detour and introduced Casey to Uncle Andy and Auntie Angela. Casey said, 'thanks guys, I was HUNGRY!' Now, with a happy, and more importantly, quiet baby, we finally drove home. It only took 4 hrs to get from SD to LA. I guess this is life with a newborn.

Breastfeeding

First, I want to thank everyone who has shared their advice, encouragement, and stories of similar experiences. Knowing I wasn't alone in my struggle really helped keep me going when things got tough. A special Thank You to my husband for posting a call for help, looking for advice and assistance from everyone he spoke with, giving me his shoulder to cry on, and just supporting me when I needed it most!!!

Breastfeeding is a great experience....when it's done right....without all the cracking, tearing, burning, pulling, and all around pain!

Thanks to advice from many of you out there, a lactation consultant, and the information from the classes I took during pregnancy, PJ and I have finally been able to get to a point where most of the time we latch on correctly the first time. The correct latch and unlatch is key!!

Once we identified what I was doing wrong, how to get my nipples to heal (almost completely healed now), and how to latch and unlatch correctly breastfeeding life started to get a little more bearable. Now one of the biggest challenges is dealing with the lack of sleep.

Thank you all for your support!!!

Weekend!

Woo Hoo. Its Sunday. That means Sunday brunch, NFL football, beach volleyball (for those of us in Southern California) or maybe tranquil afternoon naps... Yeah, not so much. This Sunday in the Wang house, it was Bathtime!
We are starting to learn; right now, its still a tag-team effort, with Mom and Dad both working on this project simultanously. We dialed in the water-temp sensing Ducky, filled the baby bathtub with appropriately temp-ed water, stripped little Casey naked and put him in the bath.... And he wailed.

But, once we got some warm water on his body, his expression changed. Below, he seems a little confused, but not uncomfortable. "Yo, what's up with that camera, can I have a little privacy please?"