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Picking toys for Lauren

As all you parents know, there are many types and brands of toys on the market, it’s really hard to find the toys that offers the best Return On Investment (ROI), both monetarily and in terms of time spent playing.

From the books that I’ve been reading, it seems to me that a good toy should serve the child’s needs for playing, holds her interest and helps her with her physical, cognitive, social and emotional development.

Given that toys are such an important part of a child’s development, it’s the parent’s responsibility to pick the best toys for the child, and engage in toy playing with the child.

It’s indeed an awesome responsibility and as usual, I’ve been trying to learn as much as I can about which toys are best for my child at all different stages of her life.

Baby 411 book mentioned a booklet published by US Consumer Product Safeway Commission, called “Which Toy for Which Child, Ages Birth Through Five”. I was able to locate an online PDF copy of the document here. However, the PDF file’s quality leaves a lot to be desired. It’s better to request a hard-copy by email info@cpsc.gov to request Publication 285. You can find more information at the bottom of this page.

What this publication tells you is the appropriate toys for various ages, this particular publication covers birth till 5 years of age. I find the categorization of the toys into Active Play, Manipulative Play, Make-Believe Play, Creative Play and Learning Play makes a lot of sense, and the succinct abilities and interests sections quite informative.

There are also quite a few toy books on the market. The one recommended by Baby 411 is Oppenheim Toy Portfolio 2006 Edition: The Best Toys, Books, DVDs & Music for Kids. Although I have not read the book, the namesake website at http://www.toyportfolio.com has quite a few reviews of specific toys, and I found the review insightful and informative.

The book I did read, called Toy Tips : A Parent’s Essential Guide to Smart Toy Choices was also good. I found the information in the book a bit more general in nature than I expected, but it did brought several things into my attention especially regarding the repeat playability of toys, technology toys and classic toys. I wasn’t thinking in those terms before. I also enjoyed the http://www.toytips.com website. It features toy and other baby gear reviews for children.

Given the three wonderful resource I mentioned above, I was able to come up with a simple toy searching framework.

  1. Understand the Lauren’s next development stage and the required toys categories ahead of time, focusing on the skills I want Lauren to build
  2. Take inventory of current toys, find out which categories they fall under
  3. Based on the categories of toys, browse through http://www.toyportfolio.com and http://www.toytips.com for their recommended toys.
  4. Once the toys arrive, inspect them for loose parts, then note their future playable time.
  5. Once Lauren reaches the age for a set of particular toys, play with the toys together with Lauren to observe whether she is able to play them with and her level of interest, and make adjustment accordingly.

I’m just beginning to understand the importance of toys, and will welcome any feedback you experienced parents have in order to be more “toy smart”.

Have fun.

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Buy baby books from Amazon.com’s 4-for-3 sale

Reading to a child since early infancy has been shown to increase the child affinity toward books and later toward learning through reading.

JY and I decided to start reading to Lauren early, actually we have already read her some Chinese children’s book in the past few days. However, the Chinese book didn’t not rhyme, and rhyming is very important as a learning tool for an infant because she can’t grasp the meanings of the words yet.

I’ve decided to buy some baby books for Lauren. It just happened that Amazon’s having a 4-for-3 book sale, buying 4 eligible books and the cheapest one is free. Combine this with free supersaver shipping and no sales tax, it’s indeed an offer too good to resist.

How did I decide on what to buy? As usual, I consulted my trusted copy of Baby 411. It has a list of recommend books at the end of Development chapter. I then read through the Amazon reviews on these book, and decided on these four timeless classics:

Goodnight Moon (Board Book)
Big Red Barn Board Book
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
Counting Kisses: A Kiss & Read Book

You can follow these links and add them to your Amazon shopping cart one at the time. Make sure this statement is right under customer review rating “This book is one of thousands of titles eligible for our Buy 4 Books for the Price of 3 Sale.” Then when you check out, you should see the total with the price of the cheapest book subtracted.

Happy book shopping!

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妞妞四周大了

妞妞四周大了，今天我和JY带妞妞去看医生。

医生检查了妞妞的心，肺，鼻子，耳朵，眼睛和四肢，发现她一切正常。

她现在重量达到九磅一盎司，比出生时重了三十八盎司，在50% percentile. 高度是21。25英寸，也是50% percentile。

这次见医生我和JY都去了。因为我不久后就要上班了，下次JY负责带妞妞去，需要认认路。

我发现其实我们的儿科医生不是向他告诉我们的那么准时。 今天我们约的九点，八点四十五分就到了。可是医生直到九点二十分才到。不过我们非常喜欢这个医生，他非常和蔼，从来都不介意花时间来回答我们的问题。我们每次看医生时都会有一大堆问题，每次我们的问题都达到了详细的答复。

当初我和JY见了三个不同医生，才决定选他的。如果你们正在找儿科医生，又住在三藩市东湾，在留言部分留下你们的联系方法，我会把他的名字电邮给你。

我们唯一觉得有点不适应的地方就是每次去妞妞都要脱精光，而诊所里又不是很热，我们总是怕妞妞着凉。

妞妞又有新照片了，像往常一样，只要点击右面的“Lauren’s Photos 妞妞所有照片”的连接就可以看到。

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Lauren eats a lot

Lauren’s almost four weeks old.

I never imagined an infant can eat so much.

Since JY pumps her milk, we were able to track how much Lauren eats each time, and have been tracking her total milk consumption.

Here is a diagram that shows Lauren’s eating pattern:
LaurenFeeding

As you can see, she’s been steadily increasing her milk consumption. For the last few days, she’s been eating a lot, and feeding many times a day. I guess she’s in a growth spurt.

On some of Lauren’s earlier photos, she’s had some pimples on her face, which we were told were just fine. They seemed to clear out gradually over the past few days. It’s still evident in some of the photos on the site. BTW, you can follow the links on the right hand side to see all Lauren’s photos.

We’ve also graduated to the 8 oz Dr. Brown’s bottles since we are feeding Lauren around 4.5 oz every time. It’s a huge bottle compared to the Avent one, don’t know why they need to make them so big, and sterilizing them has been a chore.

I need to seriously think about getting back to work, there are quite a few things I started and not yet able to finish. It’s hard to not to see Lauren during the day, I’ll make sure to have her photos at my desk.

I’ve also been trying to find out a solution to the ant problem we’ve been having, look for details in a future entry on how I’m going to attack it.

Here are couple of recent photos:
PICT0176   PICT0178

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Book Review: Freakonomics

By now, I’d imagine most people with any interest in books have heard of Freakonomics : A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

I forgot where I heard about it initially, but couldn’t be happier that I found it.

I’m a scientist by training, have a Computer Science and Engineering degree from University of Pennsylvania with a minor degree in Psychology.

I’m always fascinated by hidden connections and meanings presented as the result of carefully designed scientific research. It’s not enough for me to just to know what the result of the research is, but how they came up with the research method and whether it’s a valid method in measuring the variables what they set out to measure.

What Freakonomics provides, is taking scientific research methods and apply them to social-economical situations attempting to obtain the insight of what motivate people to do certain things. It’s indeed about asking the right questions, and use the data available to find answers. A lot of times, these answers are counter-intuitive and against conventional wisdom as most revolutionary ideas are.

The economist Steven Levitt, was an expert at asking the right and interesting questions. The result of his research provides insights into such things as “What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestler’s have in common?”, “How is the KKK like a group of Real-Estate agents?”, “What makes a perfect parent?” etc…

The last topic of the book, “What makes a perfect parent” was my favorite part of the book since I’m a new dad myself.

All these questions are very interesting questions, which weren’t usually asked, and usually not by an economist. What makes these questions interesting are the answers that are so outrageously counter-intuitive yet making sense.

One section of the book was very controversial, it’s the part that links the decline in crime rate to the legalization of abortion. I found the book’s argument well formed, yet think it attributed too little of the crime rate drop to “innovative policing” as outlined in Malcolm Gladwell’s
The Tipping Point and Rudolph Giuliani’s Leadership. I’d love to get my hands on the data set and do a more in-depth analysis of this.

The parenting section is indeed an eye-opener. For instance, these eight factors are strongly correlated with a child’s test scores (either positively or negatively)

  • The child has highly educated parents.
  • The child’s parents have high socioeconomic status.
  • The child’s mother was thirty or older at the time of her first child’s birth.
  • The child had low birthweight.
  • The child’s parents speak English in the home.
  • The child is adopted.
  • The child’s parents are involved in the PTA.
  • The child has many books in his home.

And these And the eight that aren’t:

  • The child’s family is intact.
  • The child’s parents recently moved into a better neighborhood.
  • The child’s mother didn’t work between birth and kindergarten.
  • The child attended Head Start.
  • The child’s parents regularly take him to museums.
  • The child is regularly spanked.
  • The child frequently watches television.
  • The child’s parents read to him nearly every day.

There lies the genius of the book, it makes things obvious when they are not and back things up with solid data. Read the book to find out more details about each one. Since these data sets are based on ECLS, they only indicate testing score. The authors did point out Bruce Sacerdote’s “The Nature and Nurture of Economic Outcomes” paper that made clear that “By the time the adopted children became adults, they had veered sharply from the destiny that IQ alone might have predicted. Compared to similar children who were not put up for adoption, the adoptees were far more likely to attend college, to have a well-paid job, and to wait until they were out of their teens before getting married. It was the influence of the adoptive parents, Sacerdote concluded, that made the difference.” Clearly, good parenting has wide-reaching effects, just not in the sense people thought originally.

Another interesting section of the book was the names people give their children. I’ve actually made extensive use of the information in the book to name my daughter, you can find out more in this post.

Overall, I find the book fascinating the same way Malcolm Gladwell’s books are, they point out things that are far from conventional wisdom, and digs deeper to unearth hidden relationships that are not obvious. However, as the author pointed out in the Epilogue “… The most likely result of having read this book is a simple one: you may find yourself asking a lot of questions. Many of them will lead to nothing. But some will produce answers that are interesting, even surprising…” And indeed the book did just that.

On scale of 1 to 10, Freakonomics scores a solid 9.

Go out and buy the book, you’ll be glad you did. Also check out the book’s website for more articles and detailed information.

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Lauren’s doing well

It’s been a hectic week so far.

I brought Lauren to a dermatologist’s office on Monday 01/30 to have a birthmark on her neck checked out. It turned out to be nothing, the dermatologist told me that if I want it removed, I should do that later, when Lauren’s older, and only if it becomes infected or discolors.

On Tuesday 01/31, I brought Lauren to her pediatrician for her second well-child visit. Things again turned out well, I was told by Lauren’s pediatrician that she’s progressing, gaining 1.5 ounces everyday, which is the upper limit. I also learned that Lauren’s height is in the 50% percentile, her weight is 25%, and her head is slightly less than 50%. I also got a chart from the doctor so I can check her percentile at home.

JY’s parents also arrived on Tuesday, I fetched them from SFO in the morning. So far, they’ve been a great help, taking care of the baby, feeding her, and feeding JY. It really gave me some time to catch up on chores and pay a few bills. Hopefully I can continue to manage my time, spending as much time with Lauren as possible, but at the same time, getting more stuff done.

Couple of things I learned this week. Avent bottles don’t work well for Lauren. Although they are cleverly designed, but it’s very difficult to get the right tightness of the cap. If the cap is too tight, then air won’t be able to enter from the tiny holes around the nipple, if too loose, then milk leaks. After struggling with it for couple of weeks, we decided to switch to Dr. Brown’s bottles, and couldn’t be happier.

JY also had a fever on Tuesday, and since then, her milk supply has been dramatically reduced. However, due to the excellent care that her mom provided, her milk supply is gradually returning to normal. We think Lauren just had a growth spurt. She went from eating on average 25 ounces a day to 27+ ounces on Thursday, it’s pretty dramatic increase. She seems to be back at the 24-25 ounces/day level, but we’ll make sure she doesn’t go hungry.

We’ve made some more adjustments to the feeding rules we laid out initially. We were trying to steer Lauren to feed less and more frequent during the day, and more and less frequent at night. It worked out well, but since her appetite has increased, we are adjusting the amount we give her each time. We also made a new rule that even in “cluster-feeding” situations, we’ll always give her 3 oz to begin with instead of 2 oz.

People keep on telling me Lauren looks like me, but prettier. I happen to agree, what do you think?

I don’t have any new photos to post at this moment, and hopefully will take some more over the weekend.

Please continue to pray for our family.