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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.

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恭贺新禧

JY,妞妞和我祝大家狗年愉快。

你们都知道妞妞是一月十六号出生的，赶了个鸡年的尾巴，所以也是属鸡的。

我在网上查了一下她的农历生日及八字：

公历：2006年1月16日（星期一）4点
农历：乙酉年十二月十七日寅时
春节：1月29日
节前：乙酉年
节后：丙戌年
八字：乙酉　己丑　乙巳　戊寅
五行：木金　土土　木火　土木
方位：东西　中中　东南　中东
生肖：鸡

本来我们的医生说要JY在一月十八号做刨腹产的手术。我妈说其实那天皇历上说不吉利，不宜吉事。我们是基督徒，所以不信这个。JY和我已经做好了准备在十八号手术。可是JY的羊水在十六号破了，所以就在十六号生了妞妞。

我们后来才听说十六号是皇历上的好日子，碰巧台湾演艺圈的小S选择在十六号刨腹产。所以小S的女儿和妞妞是同一天出生的。小S的女儿应该觉得幸运才对。;)

我们下星期会带妞妞去看皮肤科医生和她的儿科医生。妞妞有颗大的胎记在脖子上，儿科医生建议我们去看皮肤科医生，看看是不是要紧。妞妞两个星期大了,所以又要去做例行检查了。

希望大家继续为我们全家祷告。

下面是几张最近妞妞的特写。

PICT0134   PICT0152
我们会把妞妞所有的照片都贴在网上，点击右面Link里面的“Lauren’s Photos 妞妞所有照片“就能看到。

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Lessons learned so far 和妞妞一起成长

Our daughter, Lauren has been exactly a week today. It’s indeed been an exciting journey for both JY and me to care for the new baby.

I thought I was well prepared for parenthood, read many books, attended baby-care classes and also has taken developmental psychology before. However, it turned out dealing with a new born on a hands-on basis is quite different than what you can learn in theory.

I’ve learned quite a few things in the past few days. The following is the summary.

Things we are doing right:

  • We are feeding the baby the right amount of milk. According to the Baby 411 book, new borns need to take about 18-24 oz of milk daily, and Lauren is right on, although she sometimes eats more than recommended, but we are not stopping her 🙂 Guess mom needs to pump more.
  • By now, I’m the resident expert in diaper-changing. Since Lauren eats almost exclusively JY’s expressed milk, her stool is generally odorless. However, she does produce a prestigious amount of it, and this stuff sticks to everything. I generally follow the procedure as outlined in the Be Prepared book, and it works like a charm. Using that and the Diaper Champ, we can keep 20+ diapers in our room without the smell. I’m quite happy that I don’t have to run downstairs to dispose the diaper every time I change the baby.
  • I’m also quite adequate at swaddling the baby, I can wrap the baby up just right so that she doesn’t overheat yet can’t pull her hands out from the wrapping blanket. It sounds easy, but believe me, it’s not. Read the Happiest Baby On The Block book for details on how to do swaddling right.
  • We’ve created an “parent dashboard” on a whiteboard that lists all the vital information related to the baby, such as last time Lauren was fed, the amount, last time mom pumped and amount of milk in storage. With this dashboard (currently updated manually), we are able to anticipate the baby’s next move (right now it’s just crying and waking up) much better.
  • I’ve created a “dirty bottle”/”clean bottle” system similar to the one posted on Baby Bargains site. I had to run up and down stairs multiple times before we implemented this system. Now I keep the dirty bottles at one place and just throw used stuff on top of it, and clean everything once a day. By my calculation, this saves me at least 5 minutes per feeding.
  • I’ve also purchased a bottle-warmer. I know it wasn’t recommended by the Baby Bargains book, however, I found it really useful in keeping the bottle warm while I’m burping and changing the baby so when the baby is later ready for the second round of feeding, the bottle is warm.

Things we didn’t do too well.

  • The clothing we got for our baby were all way too big. None of the them fit the baby snug enough for her to stay in it. I had to purchase some more infant body-suits to put on Lauren so her hands are actually in the sleeves.
  • I have not mastered the art of “burping” – need to read up more and find out a better way to burp the baby so that she can finish and hold down all the milk.
  • Lauren is much more active at night than during the day, she wakes up more, eats more, and generally has more energy during the wee hours. I’m not a night person, and I a sound sleeper. For me to deal with Lauren at her peak of energy while I’m at my lowest puts me in a disadvantageous position in dealing with her needs. I’ll need to make subtle changes to the feeding pattern to generally nudge Lauren into my circadian rhythm so we are both happier.

Here are some more photos of Lauren. You can also find all the new photos on the same album 妞妞照片 from the previous post.
PICT0121  PICT0122

I’ll bringing Lauren to see her pediatrician for the first time tomorrow. Hopefully things will turn out well. I’ll keep you all posted.

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We are home now

Hello again.

After spending four days in the hospital with JY, I’d like to let everyone know that we (JY, Lauren and I) are home now. We are accepting visitors, however, I’d much prefer if you call me at home before coming so I can make sure the time is opportune. The baby is on a sleep-eat-sleep-eat schedule, and spent most of her waking hours feeding. So don’t be surprised if the baby’s sleeping when you visit, btw, she sleeps like an angel (most times, sometime she has a strained expression while sleeping, but I was told that means she’s having a bowl movement).

Lauren’s birth was a wonderful experience for both JY and I. It’s indeed a miracle, to feel our baby growing in JY’s tummy, and then emerging as a whole new person, it’s really gave me a sense of awe.

We delivered at Eden Medical Center, which was a great facility. The rooms was quiet and large, I was able to stay with JY in the same room to care for the baby when it’s needed. We have our own private bathroom. The nurses were truly wonderful, and we found out it’s really the nurse that matters the most in a birth because they are the ones caring for the mother and baby most of the time.

Here is the the very first photos I took of Lauren (notice her full head of hair):
PICT0086

One especially great nurse, Esther, is their resident lactation consultant. She spent hours with us to show us breastfeeding techniques. It was of great help to have such an experience person to help us out because frankly, we were both clueless about breastfeeding. Here is a picture of Esther with Lauren.
PICT0103

We also had two groups of visitors during our stay in the hospital. One is our pastor Jay and his wife. Here is a photo:
PICT0100

The other group was four of Jiayin’s co-workers, here is a photo as well:
PICT0111

We actually told our friends to wait till the weekend to visit Lauren at home because the hospital has visiting hours and rules that are limiting.

Anyway, we are home now, and are trying to get Lauren adjusted to the home environment. So far, she seems to be doing fine. I have some more lessons to learn regarding baby care, and hopefully Lauren will remain health and happy.

I’ve also created a photo album inside my photo gallery named Lauren – the beginning. You can find more photos of Lauren with her mom and other people. Although I’m biased, I must say I think Lauren is very cute, do you agree?

Please continue to pray for us to adjust to home life with Lauren.

Please call me before you decide to drop by to see the baby.

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My baby is here!

Just want to let everyone know that our daughter, Lauren Alexandra Wang was born today (01/16) at 3:58am. She’s 6 pounds 11 ounces, and had an APGAR score of 9-9-9.

As many of you may have known, our due date got changed around quite a bit. It was originally 01/13. However, my wife’s OB told us the baby’s bit small, so after another round of ultrasound, the due date got moved to 01/23. Then the OB found out the baby’s in breech, she’s not coming down, and advised us to make a regular C-section for 01/18. That’s what we did.

This morning, at around 1:45am, I was waken up by JY’s screaming. She just found out that her water broke. I immediately called the hospital, and was told to get her to the delivery room ASAP. I drove JY to the hospital, trembling on the way due to excitement. When we arrived, the nurse on duty took JY in, plugged in a fetal monitor, and told us the baby’s doing just fine. She also told us that JY was not having any contractions, so there is no immediate need to deliver. She then called the OB on duty, and after conferring, they decided to perform a C-section quickly.

JY was in the Operating Room for about 45 minutes, she was put on local anesthesia, and was conscious during the whole operation. I was allowed in to hold JY’s hand during the latter part of the operations. There were quite a lot of blood, I guess that’s to be expected.

The baby emerged at around 3:58, I held the baby and showed her to JY. I then followed the baby to the nursery where a bunch of tests were performed on her.

It was the most joyous occasion in my life. Being a new dad, seeing the baby for the first time. She had a full head of hair, and was crying loudly and clearly. At this point, it’s hard to tell who she resembles more, my wife me myself, but time will tell.

I just want to thank all of you who have been praying for us, and who had inquired about our baby’s progress. I’ll post some pictures of Lauren as soon as I get a chance.

Please continue to pray for JY’s recovery and the baby.

Thank you and God bless.

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My adventure with electricity part 2

Here is the remainder of the story.

Well, this introduces a problem. Out of all the circuit breakers on the panel, none was marked “Main”. That means the main breaker was somewhere else in the house.

I call my good friend Eddie, he’s very handy, and hoped for some advice. It turned out he was still at work, but his wife, Alice, was able to give me the contact information of the electrician they use. Alice also told me to call Eddie’s cellphone. I called him right away, it was just my luck he was on his way home and just passing the exit where I live. Being a good friend, he immediately diverted course, and came to my place directly.

The first we needed to do was to figure out where the main breaker was. Eddie had a slightly older house, and he told me in addition to a switch panel, he also had fuse box. So we spent the next hour and half looking for a fuse box inside the house. I also vaguely remember seeing a fuse box somewhere, it turned out later to be the result of false memory, but I didn’t know at that time.

We couldn’t find any fuse box. We then went to two of our neighbors’ houses to see if they know where their fuse boxes were. It turned out though, they never had the same problem with their circuit, and never had the chance to use anything other than the circuit breakers.

We were baffled, and a little bit demoralized. As luck would have it though, Eddie and I went back to the electrical meter, and plied open the box next to it, we thought it was locked, but it really just latched in. Anyway, there it was, the main circuit breaker, and it was tripped. After we turned on the main breaker and all the subsequent breakers on the panel inside my house, electricity was restored. However, the circuit breaker that was controlling the rooms affected still tripped when we try to flip it on. Eddie told me it could be that the breaker was shorted as well.

So the next decision is whether to have the broken circuit breaker replaced professionally or by myself. I’m not that handy around the house, haven’t had the chance to poke around much. Eddie however, has done this numerous times, and he assured me that I can do it, then showed me in detail how to replace the circuit breaker myself. I practiced couple of times under his watchful eyes, and was told I got it.

There was yet another decision to be made. I was thinking of turning off the power to the whole house again, take out the broken circuit breaker and bring it to a store so I can get the exact replacement, making sure I don’t make the same mistake as I did with the receptacle. However, this means the whole house will be without electricity for at least couple of hours, and that will be quite inconvenient for everybody.

I decided I’d actually write down the information on the circuit breaker and call OSH to see if they carry the model. I did just that, however, the gentleman on duty at the time of my call was filling in for someone, and he wasn’t very knowledgeable in circuit breakers. I was told to call back the next day when they have the regular lady (the one who sold me the wrong receptacle) available. I decided to try my luck with Home Depot, and drove there directly.

I couldn’t find circuit breaker on display that matches the model number on my broken one. I again looked for help, and again a lady came to my rescue. She found the breaker easily, telling me I didn’t really need the same model number as long as they were from the same manufacture and had the same rating (Amps). She even showed me the proper way to install a breaker with a dummy panel, which was exactly how Eddie described it.

I went home, turned off the main breaker, took out the broken breaker, installed it and screwed in the wire. It took all of 10 minutes.

However, this is one more thing to do before I turn on the breaker. You see, one should never solve a problem without figuring out why the problem happened in the first place. So I unplugged all the appliances from the wall outlets of the rooms affected. I then only turned on the formally broken circuit breaker. Then I plugged in the appliances one at the time to make sure it didn’t trip the breaker. I was proceeding happily along until I tried to plug in the power cord of the new Dell Inspiron’s power supply. I saw an arc, and the breaker tripped again. So that’s what was causing the problem.

I used a meter to figure out that the Dell power plug was actually shorted out. I then called Dell immediately, they promised to send me a replacement part. However, when I got the replacement parts three days later, I found that Dell sent me the wrong parts! Instead of a power cord and an AC/DC converter, they sent me a heat-sink and a fan for a desktop. I had to call Dell again to straighten that out. But I digress.

At this moment, we have electricity and we couldn’t be happier. I’m sure my yet-to-be-born baby would also be proud of his dad 🙂

So what have I learned:

  • It’s pays to have friends who you can count on
  • It’s pays to know a bit more about electricity and how electrical systems/components work
  • You needs to stay calm during any crisis so people around you don’t panic
  • Never give up until you find the solution

Anyway, life’s full of challenges, and that’s what makes it so interesting.