Naomi, what's your name?

When we ask Naomi what her name is, she responds, "Ella" and then laughs hysterically. Ella is a girl in her daycare.

Anthro for kids!!

It's a slow day at work today, so I snuck up to Anthropologie to return some things. I've been on a bit of an anthro spree the past month, and seem to have a problem where I can't walk into the store without buying something. Even if it's to return something, I always come out with more stuff! (crossing my fingers, really really really hoping for a good bonus year). Anyway, this time I came out empty handed...for myself. But I picked up a couple of cute things for Naomi since their kids stuff was on sale. Too cute!

18 months

Naomi turned 18 months on Saturday. That's 1.5 years old! Hard to believe we have a toddler living in the house. Gone are the days where Austin and I would turn to each other and say, "you know, she's so quiet and sleeps all the time, sometimes I forget we have a baby". This past month has been incrediblly exciting and yet incredibly challenging as Naomi becomes more and more independent and more aware of her needs and desires.
She can understand almost everything we say to her, and can resond in 1, 2 or 3 word phrases.
She's become very picky with what she will and won't eat...there are days when all she'll eat is rice, and will keep saying "rice rice rice rice, pleeeease rice!!!" She also went through a strawberry phase, a blueberry phase (bebees and boobies, oh and by the way, eyeglasses are asses).
She absolutely loves to dance, as soon as I pick her up from school she starts moving her arms and asking for music, particularly "Down" (by jay sean). yes we have Wei family dance parties everynight before bed now.
She's a great imitator, and mimics everything we do. eeks time to be careful here! She even knows how to use our iphones and can switch from app to app, and knows how to operate the games we have on the phones for her. She also knows how to say iphone (i pone, sounds almost like how she says apple).
She adores her grandpa and has given him his own nickname. In chinese she would normally call him "Gong Gong", but when she was just learning to talk she couldn't say G's, so she called him "Do Do" and the name has just stuck. Terribly cute.
I used to think Naomi wasn't the cuddly or affectionate type baby since when she was little, and you tried to hug her, she'd stiff arm you in the neck. These days, she loves to give you unsolicited kisses and hugs, and her hugs are real embraces now. Best thing ever.
I suppose the biggest change in Naomi this month has been her vocabulary explosion. The number of words she knows now has easily tripled. My mouth literally dropped open the day she asked me for my iPhone. And when we put up our christmas tree, she ran right up to it and pointed at the tree topper and proclaimed, "STAR!!".

With Christmas and the New year coming up, I'm excited to have some time off with Naomi and Austin. I'm utterly amazed at how much my little girl can learn in a day, and it makes me sad to think that I'm missing a lot of these new milestones while she's at daycare. Although I'm grateful we've found a center where the teachers adore naomi and naomi adores her teachers.

Faux sho!!

In my quest for cute/affordable and practicle winter wear for Naomi, I stumbled upon these boots from Crazy 8

Faux fur boots!? Yes please. They're so cute, ok probably not practical since they're not water proof...but I like that they're all white, Naomi will look like a little marshmallow princess. I know I couldn't pull of a look like this, so poor Naomi might just have to wear them for me.

Construction of a tower

Taking a break from our regular sleep updates, here is a video of
Naomi working on constructing the worlds tallest block tower

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Iron will and legs of steel

Naomi woke up at 9:30pm last night, jumped up, hung onto her crib railing, and didn't lie down. When I left for work this morning at 5:30 I snuck into her room, and she was out cold, head on the crib railing, butt sticking out, her legs must be completely exhausted. I dont even like standing up for 30 minutes at a time! (the good news is, since she's so used to standing up, maybe she'll hold up well in the lines when we go to Disney World next year). Since I knew she was asleep (she was snoring), I tried shifting her again so that she would be lying down. She woke up as soon as I moved her (proof that even though she's asleep it't not deep enough to really be giving her enough rest). She pointed to her rocking chair and told me to "sit". I tried patting her hoping she'd fall back asleep, but she didnt. As soon as I left she was back up on her crib rail, cried for 2 mins, then was quiet (and hopefully asleep).

update: I just got off the phone with a nurse at our Pediatrician's office. She told me to keep doing what we're doing. Don't go in there and let her stand up. Each night she'll stand up a little less. (NOT TRUE). I told her it's been about a week of this, and she said she highly doubts she's been standing up 9hours at a time. I told her she does, I'm literally up all night watching her on the monitor, I HAVE THE MOST STUBBORN DAUGHTER OF ALL TIME. she said, it didn't matter and that I absolutely should not go in and take her out of her crib until morning time

Ooops she did it again...

Yup folks, she stood up ALL night again. Lets just say a good portion of today was NOT fun as we dealt with a clingy, uber fussy baby. We finally gave her motrin cause she started to feel warm...and like a miracle drug..it kicked in and we had our happy baby back. I think she's teething...she's extra drooly, keeps putting stuff in her mouth, extra irratible, having trouble sleeping, runny nose, pulling on her ears...hopefully this is all just a phase!

She's sleeping right now, on time, at her usual 8pm bedtime, so we already have a one up on yesterday's performance. Here's to hoping for a good night of sleep.