Family Files!

Amy and I asked our friends from Taiwan and China to help us choose a Chinese name for Flora. It is a custom in China for elders or grandparents to name their grandchildren and they take great care and pride in the process. They often pay fortune tellers to choose an auspicious name with meanings of good fortune. Brand and Chloe, friends of my father and mine from Taiwan, took two days and came up with a short list of seven names for Flora. Brand (whose English name, by the way, is a truncation of Marlon Brando) made the final choice from the list.

The winner? Fu 芙 Lian 蓮 (pronounced “Foo Lee-Inn”). Fu means Hibiscus flower rising out of water (an auspicious symbol with promise of a good future). Lian means the nature of pureness and innocence. Another interpretation is the purity of the lotus which is pretty and clean since it grows out of the water. Though the stem is soaked in the mud, the pureness of the lotus is not affected.

So please say hello to Fu Lian.

To celebrate her 10-week birthday, Flora slept entirely through the night! She went down at 9:45PM and didn’t get up until 7:15AM (that’s 9.5 hours!) After eating, she went back down for another 45 minutes to sleep off her full belly.

Last night before Flora’s bath — she’s usually pretty happy in anticipation of one of her favorite things — Marty got the Bean to laugh! He was making raspberries on her belly, and she squeeled and giggled several times! I was able to get her last laugh on video, so we’ll try to post that here, or the sound clip, soon.

Okay, so I know she didn’t *really* say it, but the two sounds that Flora said last night made a clear “dad-ee” — not “dad-o” or “do-dee” or “dad-a” — but “dad-ee.”

Last night, in an unprecedented event, Flora slept for 8 hours straight!

But techically — if sleeping through the night means 6 hours of straight sleep — Flora has been sleeping through the night since her fifth week. She has, with fair consistency, been waking up only once during the night since her third week, when I started loosely applying the scheduling ideas of On Becoming Baby Wise. For the past two weeks or so (since she was in her 7th week), she has nailed down an evening schedule — winding down with a bath between 7PM and 8PM, going to bed between 9PM and 10PM, waking up between 3AM and 4AM, and then up for the day between 7AM and 9AM.

Lately, when Flora is tired, she’s been rubbing her hands together or rubbing her eyes, and usually ends up falling asleep with her hands over her face or her hands clasped together!

View Flora’s “Sleeping” photos

Today Flora and I joined lots of other mommies and babies at the parent-infant group offerered through the North Suburban Family Network. Turns out many of the same moms go to the breastfeeding group, so we knew a bunch of folks already. Flora had a few interactions with some of the other babies (a couple goos, a couple gahs, some hand-reaches, and lots of smiles) before conking out for a nap.

Today Flora reached out with her hand several times to touch my mouth as I made silly sounds. Then she touched her mouth. She must be trying to figure out just how to make that raspberry sound! She’s pretty good with spit bubbles.

And yesterday she discovered her feet — she thinks they are almost as fascinating as her hands!

It won’t be long before I post Flora’s First Giggle. She’s done it a couple times in her sleep, and is oh so close to doing it when awake!

The Bean seems to have a stomach bug — at least that is what the pediatrician thinks. We hope it’s the 24-hour kind — it’s heart breaking to see her so out of sorts!

3.13.06 UPDATE: Flora seems to be feeling much better after each feeding and nap today!

3.14.06 UPDATE: All better!