I started writing this post two weeks ago (when I was still a stay-at-home mom), but haven’t had time to finish it up till now (after my first week back in the office).

Well Miss Maddy, you seemed to know when it was my last day at home with you. That’s my only explanation for why you woke up at 3am and wanted to play for an hour or two in the middle of the night. Luckily, you were a little easier during the week, and your dad pitched in a lot to let me sleep at night.

We had a pretty good last week together, despite all the work I was doing and all our running around visiting daycares. In between the craziness we found time for a playdate with some neighborhood kids your age – I think you liked the swing, but you had your serious face on so it was kind of hard to tell. We went back to the park with dad last weekend and you were really out of it then (you were sound asleep by the time we got home).

Being back at work was great, and scary, and invigorating, and sad, and overwhelming for me. Overall, my first week as a working mom went much better than I thought it would even though I missed you even more than I thought possible. Being away during the days really makes me think about all of my favorite things that you do lately (copying Lorna’s wonderful post about your cousin Jude):

- I love it when you wake up sweetly in the morning or after a long nap without even crying. It’s fun to sneak into your room, peek over the side of your crib and watch the biggest smile creep over your face when you realize you have company. Check out this video we took one morning…

- It’s so cute when you make satisfied noises while eating kind of like “mmmm-gulp, mmmm-gulp.” Sometimes after being in the zone and eating for a while, you all the sudden turn your head and look up at me (as if to check to see if I’m still there) and then give me a cute smile of pure satisfaction.

- It’s fun to go on walks together and watch you take in everything you see with intense concentration. You’re definitely very focused on observing as much as you can wherever you are.

- Your rare, but hilarious chuckles are great. Every so often, something we do just makes you bust out this adorable little chuckle to go with your adorable smile.

- Watching you doze off to sleep at night during a good long meal is the best. I know you’re really asleep when you take a break in mid-suck to do your sweet “hello to my dreamtime friends” half-smile.

Of course, there are a few of your crazy traits that I don’t miss quite as much, like:

- When you can’t decide if you’re hungry or not and keep yanking your head back in mid-suck to look around (ouch for me) or cry for no reason.

- When you decide that you don’t want to sleep all afternoon/evening and you wake up every time we try to put you down in your swing or your crib.

- When you produce large, smelly, messy poops after we JUST changed your diaper.

Welcome to the good and the not-so-good of being Mr. Mom, Dave

We’re almost a week late, but we’re happy to welcome in the Year of the Rat (I’m so glad Maddy was born in the Year of the Golden Pig and not 6 months later). Maddy got her first red envelop from our neighbors, and we even tried to go to the Vietnamese Tet parade in San Jose. Unfortunately Maddy napped through it and by the time we went to the festival all the fun stuff was over.

The past week was also super fun for Maddy in other ways (that’s sarcasm). I think there might have been a secret ingredient in one of her immunizations last week, because ever since then she’s developed stranger anxiety. We’ve had a babysitter and a friend over and all 3 times she’s made the most anxious faces and then completely freaked out when they held her. It’s so sad, we sure hope she gets over it before she starts daycare.

On a happier note, Maddy laughed at herself in the mirror this morning, and she’s started rolling over much more easily for real now (not just once in a while after lots of grunting and fussing). In addition, she had a great time this morning just laying on the floor kicking her legs:

Okay, soooo much has been going on lately that I don’t know where to start.

On Monday, my mom put me in front of this big mirror in her room, and there were people in there! One of them was this cute little baby that I thought would be a good friend to have, and the other one looked suspiciously like my mommy. Next, we went for a walk and I got to see our whole neighborhood. It was really cool ’cause mom let me face outwards in the Baby Bjorn (usually I’m stuck in the boring stroller where I just fall asleep, or in the carrier staring at mom or dad’s chest, where I also end up bored-to-sleep).

Later that day mom also tricked me into making this funny noise when she was acting really funny. I always did think there was more I could do besides just smiling and squawking, like I’m doing in this video of me hanging out in my all-time-favorite bouncy chair:

Then, yesterday, I learned about the elections process in our country. Mom took me to our polling center to help her vote, and told me about how exciting it is to have a woman running for president. She said that I can even run for president someday (but dad says I’ll have to run as a republican). I think I’ll wait for all that until after I’ve been CEO of my first global Fortune 500 company.

This is off topic, by my parents seem to be fascinated by this one strand of hair on my head. I can’t see it, but they say it’s wayyyyy longer than the rest of my hair. Look closely, can you see what they’re talking about?

Another thing we did yesterday was go to the doctor. At first I thought that was lots of fun, because they let me hang out in my diaper for a while, which I love! They said that I’m getting fatter (12 lbs, 5 oz) and that my head is kind of huge for my size (41 cm), but that I’m a shorty like my parents (22.5 inches). After the fun part, they ruined it by sticking me with those stupid needles again. Mom said I was brave and didn’t cry for toooo long, but my face did turn bright purple when the first needle went in.

When we got home, I was not in the best of moods until daddy came home. He got me totally distracted from my worries and before I knew it I was making that funny sound again! It went something like this:

As you can see, I was just innocently hanging out on my mom’s shoulders when he started making faces at me and saying all this hilarious stuff. Now I’m much happier, but I’m very confused – should I grow up to be a democrat or a republican????