Holiday Happiness

Ryan: "Who's this Santa guy? And why is there a tree in my house? Ooh...I like the lights, and I really like this paper and ribbons! Wow! More things for me? I'm so lucky to have so many nice people in my life!"

Happy Foosball!

We finally fixed up the game room (now family room) with new flooring and paint, so we moved the furniture and recently added a foosball table. Ryan got to be the first one to break it in and attacked the soccer ball like a good boy!

Rollin' With The Homies

Ryan rolled for the first time all by himself today! Grammy Liu leaped with great agility to snap these photos. As you can see below the little guy was quite proud of his accomplishment. All the cheering in the room probably didn't hurt either...

5 months old

Since it's chilly out, we've been squeezing beanies onto Ryan's big noggin; this one is supposed to fit babies who are 6-9 months old (we'll see how long we can keep it in use). He's now about 18.5 lbs and has lots of smiles and laughs for friends, family, and even strangers. He's eating a bit of rice cereal once a day and sleeping more at nighttime (from 10 PM - about 4/5/6 am then back to bed until about 8/9 am) but still only takes 30 minute powernaps during the day. He still loves his fish balloon but is now entertained by fingers and feet, especially ones with white socks on them. We've also pulled out the Graco entertainment seat (thanks to the Giffins for passing this one down to us) and he seems to like all of the toys on it.

Turkey Drumsticks

Well, this Thanksgiving we have a lot to be thankful for! We went over to the Liu grandparents' house to do battle with a 19 lb turkey. Ironically, the bird weighed the exact same as Ryan so we had to do a side-by-side comparison. Pretty close, but we decided to eat the one on the right!

Matching Jerseys

Here's all three of us, back from the last Tornado soccer game of the fall season. Ryan is ready to play... do they have a U-1 league?!? Ryan is wearing the field jersey and Dad is the goalie!

Ryan at 4 months old

Ryan is now 17 lbs., 26.5", and has a 44 cm noggin. This puts him in the 91st percentile for length, 83rd percentile for weight, and 87th percentile for head size for his age (big kid!). He got his second round of immunizations today and was a brave baby boy - only cried briefly when the shots went in. Here, he's sitting in his Bumbo chair with his trusty pal Montie.

Happy Halloween!

Steve robbed the Liu vault and took out this prized possession for Halloween! Our li'l sack of money had fun walking around the Rosenthal neighborhood but fell asleep after visiting about three houses.

ooh...balloon...

"you are under my spell...you will now gaze at me for several minutes and ignore all other things around you...you will coo with satisfaction and kick your legs with excitement because of my striking colors and the way I float in the air...you can thank Auntie Jeri for giving me to you...you will cry when I am deflated but this will cause your mommy to take me to the store to bring me back to life again...I am the fishy and I am all powerful!"

Ryan at 12 weeks

Ryan is now 12 weeks old and weighing in at 15.5 lbs. He is much more vocal (cooing and making sounds when he's happy, excited, or upset) and I got to hear a few belly laughs out of him when I played peekaboo with him in a mirror and balanced him on my shins to "fly" him in the air. Here he is propped up in his crib. He can hold up his head a little better but still flops over or head butts me frequently. He's not sleeping through the night yet but has a more predictable schedule (every 3 hours he eats, then stays awake for a bit, then gets a little cranky before nap time). As you can see, he's a pretty happy baby!

Tryin' to be like dad

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Ryan cools out with the "Champagne of Beers".

Superfriends: The next generation...

Here is Ryan chilling out with his new friends in a brief moment of controlled madness... 9 kids! Sitting! After eating about 6 Jake's pizzas nonetheless! Actually they are old friends, older than he can imagine right now. They are the next generation of Dad's old buddies: the Hays, Giffins, and Rosenthals. I wonder years from now if all these guys will be best men for each other in weddings to come. Time will tell!

Baby B-Boy

What can I say, the boy likes to bounce around to Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five... As soon as he can sit up straight, he'll be cuttin' and scratchin' on the wheels of steel for real. Yeah boy!

Happy Little Piggy!

Ryan turned 8 weeks old and had a round of shots - not a happy boy at that moment, which was very sad for me because he was very smiley up until the point the needle went in. He's now 13.5 lbs, 25", and has a noggin that's 41.5 cm, so he's moved up to the 90th percentile for weight, 97th percentile for height, and 87th percentile for his head size - BIG BOY! He's now smiling daily and working out babystyle - tummy time means he practices raising his head.

Likes: getting a diaper change, warm baths, people smiling at him. Dislikes: shots, tummy bubbles.

Ryandinho!

Ryan turned 4 weeks old today, so I thought I'd take a cute picture...then he was fussy, so I decided to make the most of it. I originally put the ball in the photo just to provide some sense of his size, but now I think it looks like he's heading the ball...good baby!

He's now weighing in at about 11 lbs. We'll be celebrating his 30 day bday, a Chinese tradition, with family this weekend.

Party in my crib!

Life as I know it:

Ryan is definitely a night owl, just like his mom and dad. While in the womb, he often kicked and moved around from 11 PM - 1 AM and now that he's in the world, he's continuing this trend. Some days, he does actually sleep during the wee hours, but other nights, it's party time. He's 3 weeks old now, and at the 2 week appointment, he weighed in at 9 lbs 5 oz. He's around 55-60 percentile for length, weight, head size (for non-parents out there, that means he's average size) but he definitely has some leg strength as he almost launched himself off of the doctor's lap and regularly makes the attempt to do so when he has his meltdowns (which, thankfully, aren't too frequent). Favorite things: punching his bird toy, being held, car, front carrier, and stroller rides, people singing to him. Things he dislikes: blood tests (who could blame him), getting a surprise splash of water during a bath, gas, mom and dad not understanding him.

First Bath

Here is Ryan after taking his first bath. He actually liked it a lot. We'll see how long that lasts. For now, all squeaky clean!

Fortunately, Unfortunately

There is a book I remember reading as a kid (a long time ago) called, "Fortunately, Unfortunately." I decided to write a little spin on it.

This is a story about a little boy named Ryan who arrived home for the first time after being born in the hospital.

Fortunately, Ryan had a nice house full of relatives to welcome him. Unfortunately, there were no nurses there to help change his diapers anymore. Fortunately, he had a big cookie bouquet waiting for him when he got home. Thanks Auntie Sharon and Uncle Chuck! Unfortunately, Ryan didn't have any teeth to bite into these cookies. Fortunately, his dad had teeth. Unfortunately, his dad had teeth!

Don't worry Ryan, we'll have lots of cookies together.

"I'm a dad. Oh my god!"

Those two phases slowly repeated in my head as I stared down at Ryan. He was bundled up tightly and sleeping now. He had just finished getting poked, prodded, and pricked by 3 or 4 nurses and spent a most of his first 2 hours on earth crying. But now, he was so peaceful.

At first, the words came pounding with a tone of complete and utter shock and bewilderment, "I'm a dad. Oh my god! (aka Holy @#!, I'm responsible for this guy?!?)". Then came a churning wave of bubbling anxiety, "I'm a dad. Oh my god! (aka some more holy @#!, what kind of dad will I be?!?)". Finally, came a foaming sort of calm elation as I realized, "I'm a dad. Oh my god! (aka Holy @#! We are going to have so much fun!)". The whole evolution took about 30 minutes.

Leslie was sleeping, recovering from surgery. Ryan briefly opened his eyes to look up at me. I introduced myself, "Hi Ryan. I'm your dad." He was completely and utterly vulnerable... a blank slate. I had never felt such an innocent dependency before. As he drifted back into slumber, my mind began to race again. So much to teach! So much to learn! So many times ahead! "I'm a dad. Oh my god!"

Ryan's Here!

Since the baby was a week overdue, my doctor scheduled me to be induced on Monday, but then the hospital ended up not having rooms available - I guess it's baby season! We were able to check-in on Tuesday at 7 AM and after a LOOOONNNNNGG time of laboring, pitocin, an epidural (ah), and not enough progress (thanks, Jeri and Steve, for hanging in there with me!), it was C-section time. Thus, at 2:44 PM on Wednesday, 6/27/07, Ryan was born! He surprised all of us, including the doctor and nurse who had been in the labor room earlier, as we were expecting a 6-6.5 pounder but received an 8 lb. 9 0z boy who was 20" at birth. He's got a loud yell but overall has a very sweet disposition - maybe all of that prenatal yoga helps him get zen with the world? I'm in the hospital until Sunday (which is also our 1st wedding anniversary!) and then it will be time for us to go home! Wish us luck and hopefully you can meet him soon!

Coming Soon...Ryan Hiroshi Liu

The due date has come and gone, but still no Baby Ryan! We thought 6/21 was the day, then learned the actual due date was 6/20, but apparently Ryan is late like his parents always are, and so we're still waiting. If he doesn't appear before Sunday, then doctors will be taking other measures, so soon enough he'll be making his grand entrance into the world!

Steve's Newest Toy

Steve and I grew up with VW buses as part of our families' vacation experience and car history (and we each have the Little Miss Sunshine type stories to go with them), so when he decided to buy a 1966 21-window bus, it wasn't a big surprise to me. He flew down to San Diego with a cashier's check, took the bus for a test drive, and then began the process of bringing the bus back to our house in Cupertino...an adventure in itself. Perhaps we'll start a separate blog called Travels with Diego, the name we have now given to the bus (another family tradition). Yes, that's right: we now have TWO VW buses (Charlie, the brown one on the right, is an automatic and only has about 70K miles on it. Steve's mom and dad were the original owners, so we decided it needed to stay in the family....).