Yesterday, J suggested that we take both girls and — with the help of his parents — go have lunch at a Hibachi Steakhouse.

Before I go on, I should state that I do not particularly like taking my kids to “adult” places. If the locale is specifically marketed as a family-friendly establishment? Sure, let’s go for it! But otherwise, I am a firm believer that most patrons of restaurants, theaters, and such pay the markup for the experience, and have the right to get annoyed when children are ill-behaved, or when babies won’t stop crying.

(And although I am a mother myself, I personally would pay more for a child-free cabin if I were flying without my kids.)

But this time around, I honestly believed that Claire would be fascinated by the Hibachi style of cooking, just as she had loved the Liberty Science Center. As for Aerin? We figured that we could time it so that lunch could coincide with a nap, and that she could be peacefully sleeping in her carseat on an adjacent chair while the rest of the family were dined and entertained by a Hibachi chef.

As soon as the chef arrived and performed his first showy act — a hissing river of steam angrily rising from the stove — we realized we had made a big mistake.

Because Claire started BAWLING.

Not just tears and sobs. Hysterical, red-faced WAILING with tears streaming down her face.

J’s father immediately scooped her up from the high chair and embraced her in a hug while we all pitched in to help calm her down. We tried distracting her, as well as clapping and excitedly saying “Yay!!!” whenever the chef performed a new act. But no dice. Claire seemed to only grow more and more terrified of the scary Hibachi man and his bag of tricks. Eventually, J and his father had to take turns walking her around to other parts of the restaurant because every time that they attempted to return her to the table, she would start crying again.

I felt horrible for the chef and the nice old ladies who shared the table with us. HORRIBLE. I couldn’t apologize enough.

(I also couldn’t help but look on to a nearby table with envy, because a little boy who seemed a few months younger than Claire sat in his high chair, laughing and clapping and simply enthralled by the Hibachi cooking.)

As for Aerin? She decided that she didn’t want to nap at all and started crying too. I barely got to eat my food because I had to bounce her while pacing in order to keep her quiet.

However, I’m happy to report that the outing wasn’t a complete bust. After the chef left the table, we tried one last time to return Claire to the table and she started crying again. But right then, our waitress served us dessert — ice cream! — and once Claire had a spoonful, she immediately shut up.

This was Claire’s very first time having ice cream, and it was clear that the girl loved it. We gave her four flavors to try: chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, and green tea. And soon, it also became apparent that she had a favorite flavor: chocolate!

Claire loved the ice cream so much that she began to dance along to the music playing at the restaurant and J caught a bit via his phone:

Isn’t it funny how we don’t teach babies to dance and they all still move their bodies along to music? Whenever Claire starts shaking her little booty even just a bit, I can’t help but think back to this video from when she was 11 months old:

J and I think that the scary Hibachi chef continued to linger on Claire’s mind, because she randomly cried out in her sleep throughout the night.  Next time, we’ll be sure to remember that our firstborn is an overly shy, cautious little girl who tends to scare easily. 

Welcome to today’s installment of Cool Tool Tuesdays, where I feature a favorite item from my life and spotlight it so that others who are not familiar with the product may also benefit from it. A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, hardware, material, or website that I have personally tried and love.

Do you have any questions about today’s cool tool? Would you like an item featured in the future? Please leave a comment to this post, or send me a message via my contact form. Enjoy!

Do you remember the episode of Friends titled “The One with the Baby Shower”? Yes, I know Bamboozled is an epic game show we would all like to see live on TV, but I would like to talk about the story behind the title of the episode — more specifically, the scene at the baby shower where Rachel starts to freak out about not knowing anything about babies.

Oh mom, I swear I’m not an idiot. I’ve read all kinds of books on pregnancy and giving birth, but I — I just didn’t think to read the part about what to do when the baby comes. And — and then guess what? The baby’s coming and I don’t know what to do. Oh, can I throw up in my Diaper Genie?

“Wait a minute. That can’t be right. Is that a beer bong for a baby?”

This is actually a common problem amongst many first time parents. Even if you take baby care classes and read parenting books left and right, there is no denying that every parent goes through that moment of “Oh crap. I have NO idea what I am doing.”

Like the first time J and I gave Claire a bath. Although I have babysat and even nannied for babies in the past, my responsibilities had never included bathing an infant. Needless to say, we were petrified at the thought of bathing our daughter in — gasp! — WATER for the very first time and we had no idea how to do it. Should it be a two-person job? Do we submerge her all the way up to her neck? How do we shampoo her hair without getting the soap in her eyes?

In the end, we ended up doing a YouTube search for babies being bathed.

I wish that we had the topic of today’s Cool Tool Tuesdays on hand that first frantic week, because it would have saved us a lot of time and many doubts! Because today, I will be highlighting my personal favorite baby care book: The Baby Owner’s Manual: Operating Instructions, Trouble-Shooting Tips, and Advice on First-Year Maintenance.

The book, written as if your baby is a product to be “maintained,” is filled with facts, instructions, and diagrams that explore hundreds of questions that first-time parents may ask, in a humorous and straight-to-the-point manner.

At first glance, the book is a satire — think of a VCR manual, except with babies. But it really is filled with great tips and information from board-certified pediatrician Dr. Louis Borgenicht and his son Joe Borgenicht, who is “a first-time father who frequently telephones his dad for advice.”

Perhaps it is due to my penchant for illustrations and diagrams. Or perhaps it is because I have no desire to read through hundreds of pages of fluff that is so prevalent with other baby care books. (Informative, yes — but still fluff when there is only ONE THING you need to know, especially when that tidbit is needed at 3am with a screaming baby in your arms.) Because as those first few weeks turned into months, I found myself reaching for this book over and over again, leaving the likes of What to Expect the First Year and Baby 411 gathering dust.

Another huge plus is that because the book is written with men in mind, they are much more likely to be receptive to it. I know that J cracked it open on more than a few occasions when he had questions that needed to be answered.

The Baby Owner’s Manual is sure to make a great gift for first-time parents. The other two books in the series — The Pregnancy Instruction Manual and The Toddler Owner’s Manual — look intriguing as well, and I am especially tempted by the toddler one!

Still doubtful? You can get a nice preview of the book before deciding to buy — most of the book’s contents are available via Google Books!

…is that they will wake each other up in the middle of the night.

Claire had been sleeping 10-12 hours straight through the night since she was about 9 months old. And as you can imagine, all that changed when a screaming newborn came into the picture.

And while this issue wasn’t quite as bad during the second month of Aerin’s life, when she regularly slept 7-8 hours straight through the night, it has recently become more serious as Aerin seems to have hit her 4-month sleep regression a few weeks early — waking up practically every hour during the night for the past week.

Aerin has been sleeping in our room — in her bassinet, the swing, or on our bed — since we brought her home from the hospital. I know that once she outgrows the bassinet, we will move her into a crib. The question is, where will we put the crib when we do not have any extra bedrooms?

Option 1:  Have the girls share Claire’s room. But this can only mean additional months of restless nights for poor Claire. (Because at least now, the sounds of Aerin crying is somewhat muffled by two closed doors and a white noise machine.)

Option 2:  Put Aerin’s crib in our living room. But this means that we will lose access to our living room after she goes down for the night.

Option 3:  Leave Aerin in our room and just move in a crib. But this somehow feels unfair to both girls — Claire for not being around her parents as much as her little sister, and Aerin for not having her own room.

What would you do in our situation?

When we purchased our 2-bedroom, 1067 sqft condo 4 years ago, we definitely did not have babies in mind. (At the time, I wasn’t sure if I even wanted kids.) We didn’t bother to check the school districts, and thought that we would always use the second bedroom as a guest room.

For these reasons, we know that we will be moving to a larger place in a more child-friendly neighborhood within the next few years. But for the moment, we have to make do with what we have.

I ask my mother how she did it when my sister and I were young. Back then, our entire family of four slept together on the floor of a tiny room.

“No one slept,” she answers.

ETA, 2/14/12:  Many commenters are asking if we have a walk-in closet we can convert to a nursery. We do have a large closet in our bedroom, but it is not large enough for a crib. Additionally, our master bedroom is not very well-ventilated, so our closet would be even worse if we close the door. For this reason, we definitely do not want Aerin to sleep in there. 

Last night, I noticed that Aerin’s tongue was green. 

Okay, so it wasn’t that bad. She has always had a white patch on her tongue, which is common in many babies due to their milk/forumla-only diet. But last night, when she happily stuck her tongue out at me during her bath, I noticed that the white patch had taken on a green tinge.

It didn’t seem to be bothering her so I did not feel it warranted a visit to the ER. But I did take her to the doctor first thing this morning to have it checked out, and my suspicions were confirmed: Aerin has thrush.

If you can remember, Claire had a stubborn case of thrush when she was young. In fact, recurring thrush and mastitis infections is the reason I quit breastfeeding her, because it physically became too painful to a point where I was not able to properly take care of her.

For once, I was extremely happy that I am no longer breastfeeding Aerin. Thrush, which is essentially a yeast infection, can be passed from mouth to boob — back and forth — which is what kept happening with me and Claire. And while the pain level from a breast thrush infection varies with each woman, it is extremely painful for most, and in my case, it literally felt like razor blades ripping through my breasts for up to 2 hours after each feeding session.

At its worst, I could not do anything aside from being curled up in a ball of agony with tears streaming down my face. It had also made my holding Claire practically impossible, because every time that anything brushed against my breasts, the pain would start up again.

And that’s when I had decided to quit breastfeeding — because personally, my being able to hold my own child and tend to her needs is more important than any added benefit of breastmilk over formula.

These painful memories all came rushing back to me as the doctor gave us the diagnosis. He said that the infection wasn’t bad, especially since it was localized only to the tongue (thrush tends to spread to the inside of the cheeks, gums, and even the diaper area) and didn’t seem to be bothering Aerin at all.

As for the green color? He told me, “Fungus comes in all colors.”

The first line of attack against oral thrush is nystatin, which we will administer to Aerin three times a day for 2-3 weeks. The problem with nystatin is that it is only effective in about half of all thrush cases. We had been in the unlucky half with Claire, so we had tried yogurt and grapefruit seed extract before finally turning to gentian violet. (Remember Claire’s purple lips and my purple breastmilk?)

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that nystatin will work for Aerin. If not, we will go straight to gentian violet.

Perhaps the most annoying thing about thrush — aside from the pain for the mom — is that we need to disinfect everything that comes in contact with the baby’s mouth during the course of treatment. So, as we have done in the past, we will be boiling everything after each use, and then discarding them and getting new items once the infection is gone.

(image source)

It’s been a tiring morning. Let’s hope that we can beat this infection quickly and effectively. 

My mother has been telling me ever since Aerin was born that the best way I will survive the next two decades is by getting both girls to help me out as soon, and as often as possible.

Obviously this is still an unreasonable request to ask of Aerin, but now that Claire is walking — and growing more curious and precocious with each passing day — we have slowly begun to teach her little ways to help around the house, and with her little sister.

For example, yesterday as I was cleaning I made a little game of it by pointing out dirty spots, making an overly exaggerated disgusted face as I said, “더러워!” (“Dirty!” in Korean), then wiping up the dirt, showing her how the dirt was now on the paper towel and not on the floor, making another disgusted face as I pointed to the soiled paper towel, then throwing it away in the trash can. And every time a dirty spot disappeared I made a big spectacle of it by clapping and saying “Yay!!!” Soon, she caught up and wanted to help out too.

It goes without saying that she wasn’t much help — if anything, she slowed down my cleaning time significantly as I needed to wait for her to slowly and deliberately wipe, and go over the dirty spots myself again because she did not get everything — but just the fact that she wanted to help out, and was so proud of herself for doing so, made it all worthwhile.

Claire’s latest word is “Juice!”

It is also evident that Claire loves Aerin and wants to help out with her as much as possible, because she will almost always learn copperative activities on the first try, or the first time we ask. For example, the very first time that I made a bottle for Aerin and gave it to Claire, telling her “Go bring this to daddy so he can give it to your little sister,” she did it right away. And the very first time that we asked her to bring us one of Aerin’s diapers from the other room, she did that without hesitation too.

And heavens forbid that we even burp Aerin without her — every time that she hears the telltale “patting on the back” sound, she will practically run into the room and insist on burping her little sister too.

J rolled his eyes at me when I told him of our little cleaning game yesterday. “You’re not gonna turn our girls into neat freaks like you, are you?”

“Of course I am! Wouldn’t you rather have a clean house than a dirty one?”

I also like to remind him that whenever his mother plays with Claire, she always ends playtime by putting toys back in the toy box, so that Claire will know that that’s where they belong when they’re not being used. 

I think Claire is definitely starting to catch on. Because now, whenever she sees a dirty tissue anywhere, she will pick it up and throw it in the trash.