Update

Ailin at 4 Months Old

Since I haven't written much in so long, I will start with an update.

My daughter, Ailin, was born on February 15. She was two weeks early, but there were no complications and it was a completely natural delivery. (7 1/2 hours from start to finish, in case you were wondering.) She is a nice little baby - we were lucky to have an easy time with breastfeeding, at least. I felt blessed to have an easy baby after enduring such a hard marriage these past few years. I doubt I could have handled a really colicky baby and post partum depression on top of a difficult home life.

These days, at almost 5 months old, she is going to bed at 7:30 pm, so that leaves me some free time in the evenings to do my own thing. During the day though, she keeps me pretty busy. All household chores must be done in her presence or we have to listen to "complaining". I recently bought a bumbo chair so she can sit in it and watch me while I hang laundry or clean up the kitchen, but even that doesn't last too long. We try to go out at least once a day, and of course we take the dog for a walk every morning.

Today, we went to the Flower Museum, and she seemed to enjoy looking at all the colors of flowers. We also stopped at my workplace to visit them. They always enjoy seeing Ailin and of course, the high school kids go nuts over her.

In the afternoons, we try to nap together on the couch with Max. Max lies in the crook of my knees while she lies next to my chest so she can nurse herself to sleep. It works out well, and I either watch TV, read or sleep during these quiet times of the day.

But at around 4pm, she wakes up from her nap and I try to fend off "witching hour" by keeping her thoroughly entertained until her bathtime at 6:30. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. We used to go for walks with Max at this time of the day, but since summer hit, it is too hot at that time of the day to go outside. I am also pretty tired by that time, I have to admit.

At night, she goes to sleep around 7:30, but then starts to wake up from 11pm or 12am on. She wakes every 2 or 3 hours and nurses back to sleep. So, in order to get enough sleep myself, we bring her to bed with us from about 1 or 2 am and she nurses whenever she needs to during the night.

Ailin has made a few friends already...actually I have made a few friends who just happen to have babies around the same age. Lani, a Canadian friend, and I started a playgroup in our area and we meet once a week. So far, there are only 5 members in this group, but we plan to expand in August. I love the women in the group even though they are Japanese and we have to communicate mostly in Japanese. It is good practice for us, at least. And, we can get a lot of information from them that we otherwise would not be privy to. In any case, starting this group was a great idea.

Ailin and I are going back to the USA next week for about one month. We will stay with my parents in Wisconsin most of the time, but then we are going to Colorado for Shannon's wedding for about 1 week. Going on this trip is nervewracking enough since Ailin and I are traveling alone, but Suk (my husband) is really resentful of the fact that we are going. So, every chance he gets to complain about it, he goes on and on about what a horrible thing I am doing. Well, in any case, I am really looking forward to introducing Ailin to her American family and to participating in Shannon's wedding.