Six-Month Update

Dear Mackenzie,

You are six months old! When I was pregnant with you, six months went by sooooo slooooowly but these past six months with you have flown by. You are such a sweet and happy little girl and I love watching you grow and evolve every day.

At your checkup today, you measured in at 18.9 pounds and 27 1/4 inches long. You are so big that you barely fit in the bassinet anymore and are growing out of your size 6-months clothing. You have such strong legs that I often lay perpendicular to you in my bed so that you can kick my back and give me a good back massage! You smile a lot, like to stick out your tongue, can grab items with both of your hands and--something I'm especially happy about--have gone from pooping an average of six times a day to only one time a day!

You often stare at me when I am eating so you were clearly ready to start eating solids this month! I started you on rice cereal and you have been doing really well with it. You also like sitting in your high chair--and sucking on the tray!

You don't like to be left alone and cry for me when I leave you. When you're really upset, you emit these incredibly shrill, ear-piercing shrieks (which Daddy loves). But then as soon as you see me again, you sigh happily, grin from ear to ear and kick your feet really hard (similar to how a puppy wags its tail when it is happy, haha!). I don't like hearing you shriek when we're apart but I do love your joyful reaction when we're reunited!

Love,
Mom

Longer Legs

Dear Mackenzie,

Two weeks ago, you got a new toy--a baby jumper! You have really strong (and beefy!) legs and love to stand upright, so you have been really enjoying the jumper. You look so happy playing with the attached toys and jumping away.

When I first put you in the jumper, it was already on the lowest level setting but your legs were too short to reach the floor, so I put the Mouse Trap game box underneath you and it was the just the right height to let you push off of it and jump. When you were in the jumper last night, though, Daddy took away the box and to our surprise--your feet reached the floor perfectly! You grew so much in just two weeks! It really does seem to happen in a blink of an eye.

Love,
Mom

Homebound

Dear Mackenzie,

You are such a happy baby! You smile a lot and always with your mouth wide open, which I love! But I gotta say, it's really hard to make you laugh! When Second GuhGaw was a baby, he laughed at all sorts of things all of the time (and still laughs a lot at everything). You don't find many things (like the silly faces or sounds I make) to be all that hilarious and when I do something that actually does make you laugh, it only makes you laugh a couple of times. Again in comparison to Second GuhGaw, if something made him laugh, I could do it dozens of times and he would laugh every time. You are a much tougher audience!

I love all of your little baby mannerisms and am just trying to soak them all in before they disappear. You often pause while nursing to look up and smile at me or stare into my eyes. You stick out the tip of your tongue a lot and you do this adorable snow angel wiggle dance whenever you're lying down in your crib or on the changing table. You now reach for objects that I hold in front of your face (your first sign of independence!) and have an incredibly strong grip. You especially love this one rattle you have and shake it so violently that I have to sit next to you when you play with it to make sure you don't bonk yourself in the face with it (which you have done a few times). You also love the rattle so much that you immediately cry when you drop it.

In addition to your strong grip, you also have strong lungs! You squeal and shout REALLY loudly for a baby who is only 5 months old! I guess you figure you have to since you are the youngest and you have to compete with five other people in our household in order to be heard! We were playing Taboo the other night and the game got really loud with Daddy, Big GuhGaw, JieJie, Second GuhGaw and me all calling out answers. You clearly weren't going to be left out because you were shouting along with us--and you were loudest!

You are currently 17.8 pounds and 26 inches tall. You are sleeping sometimes more than 8 hours at night, which is AMAZING. But there were two not amazing developments this month. The first one is that the eczema that you started to get last month has gotten worse and is now quite bad on your face, torso, arms and legs (so, like, your entire body). Your pediatrician recommended a hydrocortisone gel, so hopefully that will help.

The second incident is so crazy and unthinkable and literally life-changing that I still can't believe it's happening. You are way too young to even understand what is going on right now but the world, and I mean the entire world, is going through a pandemic. A new coronavirus started making people really sick in China back in November and to the disbelief of everyone, it has literally spread to every corner of the globe in a very short matter of time. People in every country have been infected and it is the most contagious disease humankind has ever seen. If you have the coronavirus, you can infect someone just by coughing or sneezing on them. Some people who get the virus recover but many, many people who contracted the virus have died and there is currently no cure or vaccine so we are all practicing "social distancing" and staying away from each other. Schools, restaurants, movie theaters and practically everything except essential businesses such as grocery stores and pharmacies are closed and people are being asked to stay in their homes to prevent spreading the disease. We can't see our other family members, we can't see our friends, we can't see anyone. I have never lived through anything like this in my life and it is mind-boggling to think that one disease has managed to affect the entire population of the world and there is nothing we can to do stop it.

After you were born, we were kind of in quarantine because I didn't take you anywhere and didn't invite any friends over to meet you. Your immune system was still so new and weak and I didn't want to expose you to any unnecessary germs. You were also born right before the dead of winter, so it was too cold to take you anywhere. But by the beginning of March, you were older, the weather was warming up a little and I took you for your very first walk around the neighborhood in your stroller on March 9. Little did I know that it would be your first and last walk around the neighborhood because now we have to quarantine ourselves. The coronavirus had been gradually spreading from China to Europe and the West Coast of the United States. In February, there were no reported coronavirus cases in New York. But it all changed in March. The number of New Yorkers who became ill with the coronavirus suddenly skyrocketed into the thousands within the first two weeks of March. New York became an epicenter of the virus and we no longer felt safe going anywhere. The public schools were closed on March 16 and we stopped leaving the house.

We have now been in quarantine for a month. We haven't seen PoiPoi or GongGong or any of our friends other than on FaceTime and only Daddy leaves the house once a week to get groceries. Your siblings have started online school with their teachers and we try to stay active by doing dance and yoga videos on YouTube, playing in the attic or getting some fresh air in the backyard. It has been a huge change for everyone. Before this, we saw PoiPoi almost every day. We always went somewhere on the weekends--friends' houses, museums, playgrounds--and ate out at restaurants a couple times a week. Now we are stuck at home all day, every day. But I am grateful that at least the six of us are together, that we have the option to stay at home safely and that we are all healthy. Hopefully, this will all be over sooner rather than later and when you are older, we will tell you about that insane time when you were a baby and the whole world couldn't leave their homes.

Love,
Mom

Loud and Proud

Dear Mackenzie,

My fourth child is now four months old! You were a tiny newborn but you have grown into a full-fledged chubby infant--and I love your round cheeks, your dimpled arms and your Michelin Man-like legs so much! At your checkup this month, you measured in at 16.7 pounds and 25.25 inches long.

The first year with a baby is so fun because there are so many cute new behaviors with each passing month. Month 4 with you has brought us:

- The sweet smiles when you see me, I dance with you, I bring our faces close together and I hold you high up in the air

- The looking up and smiling at me while you nurse (always one of my favorite things about nursing!)

- The way you stop crying instantly when I get near you

- The "happy baby" yoga pose, where you grab your feet and hold them

- The "happy Mackenzie" dance, where you are your back and you pump your arms up and down and kick your feet while wiggling your torso back and forth

- The biting of the lower lip

- The pressing of the bottoms of your feet together

- The fact that you can kind of sit up on your own (see photo above!)

- The way you get scared when I carry you down the stairs, the blender is on or Daddy blows his nose

- The laughing when Daddy sticks a tissue up his nose

- The way you sometimes sound like a really loud screeching alley cat

- The time I was holding you in my lap while talking to Big GuhGaw's teacher on the phone but you were babbling and screeching so loudly that I couldn't even hear her!

- The super wonderful fact that you are sleeping for SIX HOURS straight at night!!!

Love,
Mom

Giggly Girl

Dear Mackenzie,

Another month has flown by! You are three months old now and just getting cuter, sweeter and squishier every day! Daddy calls you Smiles because--can you guess why?--you smile so much! You love it when people interact with you and reward them with sweet little drooly grins. You always smile adoringly at your siblings when they are near and when you wake up from a nap and see me, you smile a big open-mouthed smile at me while you wave your arms and kick your feet in excitement--it's so cute and makes me so happy!

What's better than baby smiles? Baby giggles! I heard you giggle for the first time last Wednesday when I was holding you in front of the big mirror in your room. You love looking at your reflection and always smile at it. That night, I was being silly and sticking my tongue in and out at our reflections and making funny sounds. You apparently thought that was hilarious and let out the sweetest little giggles! I have done the silly-faces-in-the-mirror thing a couple more times since last week and you always giggle but strangely, you don't giggle when I make the silly faces directly at you. Guess it's funnier in the mirror?

Other new developments this past month: You are cooing and babbling a LOT; you now weigh 14 pounds, 1 ounce; you are wearing size 2 diapers but need to switch up to size 3 soon; you are barely fitting in your size 3 months clothing and need to switch up to size 6 months; you are waving your arms around so much, especially your right fist; you love sucking on your right fist (but never your left one); you have such strong leg muscles and can stand really firmly when I hold you up on my lap; your neck muscles are really strong, too, and you can hold your head up for long stretches; if you're crying, I can get you to stop when I sing "Skida markinee dinkeedink."

Love,
Mom

Sweet Smiles

Dear Mackenzie,

There were a lot of big changes this past month! First of all, you jumped from weighing 8 pounds, 6 ounces at your one-month checkup to weighing 11 pounds, 2 ounces at your two-month checkup yesterday. You are wearing size 3-months clothing and size 1 diapers (both of which are already starting to get a little snug) and have the CUTEST chubby cheeks now! They droop down like a bulldog's cheeks! You also have a big round tummy and chubby thighs, so you are so adorably squishy and kissable!

Other new behaviors this month:

- You recognize my voice and are instantly calmed by it.

- You like sticking out your teeny little tongue often.

- You are cooing and trying to talk a lot when someone talks to you. You open your mouth and move it around a lot in an attempt to speak.

- You are more active and constantly waving your arms around and kicking your feet back and forth.

- You are fascinated by the Snoopy wall decal right next to your changing pad and often stare at it intently during diaper changes.

- You like your baby swing and fall asleep in it a lot.

- At night, you sometimes sleep for as long as 4-5 hours (woohoo!).

- We went on our first two non-checkup outings: the first was to a Thai restaurant for dinner with my cousins (you ended up sleeping in your car seat the entire time) and the second was to a Chinese place for dim sum with a big group of my relatives. During the latter, you were so good and calm and hardly fussed or cried at all, even though there were a lot of people and everyone was trying to hold you and touch you.

All of the above are great but the BEST new behavior this month, though, is that you are smiling at people! I love love love it when I approach you in your crib or rocker and your face breaks out into a huge smile when you realize it's me. And when your face lights up when one of your siblings comes up to you and says hi. And when you smile at the silly faces Daddy makes at you. You also smile at people you have never met before when they smile at you, including your cousin Julietta and a few of my friends who have come over to meet you. Your smiles are the sweetest and make everyone around you melt!

Love,
Mom

Get A Grip

Dear Mackenzie,

You are one month old today! The first month with a newborn is always the hardest for me--I don't get much sleep, I'm still achy from giving birth, I don't get much sleep, I'm worried about producing enough breast milk and did I mention that I don't get much sleep? I have only been sleeping for 3-4 hours every night and am really surprised that I've still been able to function as much as I have!

This first month with you has also been a little more difficult because you are fussier than JieJie and Second GuhGaw, who were pretty easygoing and could hang out in their crib or rocker for awhile without making a peep. You are more like Big GuhGaw in that you cry a lot and you don't like to be left alone. You also want to nurse practically non-stop. So yeah, it's been so exhausting but as crazy as it sounds, I am really enjoying the baby phase again! You are so tiny and sweet and when you are asleep on my chest and I am breathing in your wonderful baby smell, there is nowhere else I'd rather be.

Here are some things about you at one month old:

- You like to be held upright and tend to fuss if I hold you in a more horizontal position.

- You don't like to sleep in a horizontal position, either, and won't sleep in the bassinet. If I put you in it after you have fallen asleep in my arms, you wake up crying within a few minutes. But your rocker puts you in a more upright position and you do love taking longer naps in it, so thank goodness for that!

- You sleep with your mouth open, which is so cute.

- You stare at me a lot.

- You have started cooing.

- You snort like a pig sometimes, which is fitting, because you were born in the Chinese year of the pig.

- You have really forceful poops. They are quite loud and if my hand is right on your butt, the vibration is pretty strong. At least I always know when I have to change your diaper!

- Your tear ducts have developed and the tiniest teardrops now appear in the corner of your eyes when you cry.

- You have poor circulation in your hands and feet (like me), so they always feel cold.

- Speaking of cold hands, you HATE mine and will often scream when I touch you with them during outfit or diaper changes. Sometimes, you scream as if I'm cutting you and not just holding your arm while I guide it into a sleeve. I mean, my hands aren't that cold, are they?

- You have a very strong grip. You also keep your fists tightly clenched with your fingers over your thumbs. It's actually quite difficult for me to pry your hands open when I'm trying to wash your hands during bath time.

- You also like to bend your arms and keep your clenched fists near your chest. As Second GuhGaw pointed out, you look as if you are going to punch someone. My tough girl!

Love,
Mom