Romi 411

Everyone tells us to enjoy these days with Romi...that they fly by, they won't last, we won't even remember them. It's simply unbelievable to me that I won't recall every last bit of every wonderful (and not so wonderful) Romi moment, but I figure all those people must know what they are talking about. That, and it's amazing to me to see Romi today and realize how much he has already grown and changed in the five weeks we've been a family. So I've decided to write down some Romi facts.

Romi's favorite food is cotton. The preferred method of intake is to suck on Ima or Abba's soft shirt while they are still wearing it. A close second is to eat one of Jacob's onsies while in the car. A burp cloth will do, but it comes in a distant third.

Romi is ticklish, most especially on his upper thighs. Biting his shoulders will also make him laugh. His belly is ticklish too, but not as much. He can even anticipate a tickle, and will laugh as you get closer.

To get the Romster to smile, throw him. Yep, just toss him almost anywhere: up, down, sideways. As long as he's airborne and there's a threat of bodily harm, he'll grin like the Cheshire Cat.

The little man-arooni can pick up a Gerber's Puff, but hasn't figured out how to get it into his mouth. However, he is an expert at whipping off his parents' eyeglasses.

When he gets excited, Romala will kick his feet up. If he's on his back, that means repeated leg lifts and slams. If he's on his stomach, that means kicking donkey style, with his legs up and out.

Romi has absolutely no interest in his pacifier. He likes to talk to the lion on his crib bumpers. After sleeping, when you change his diaper, he does a full body stretch (which is cute but makes the diaper changing more a challenge). He can scream, grunt and make vowels sounds. Not only is he not afraid of water, he likes to put it in his mouth, which means take-you-by-surprise face dives into the bath water.

And still, the very best sound in the entire world is when he laughs.

Heh Heh

Our little guy has a bit of a cold. It's not much, but it does cause his nose to run, which in turn means we need to wipe it, which translates to Romi screaming his head off. We bought a cold mist humidifier and have been squirting saline up his perfect little nose, which also makes him shriek. Of course, all the crying just makes his nose run more, so I honestly don't know why we bother.

This little snarfy nose of his has also made Romi more tired then usual. Last night, the little monkey was so wiped out he went straight past sleepy, ran around grumpy and landed at punchy. As usual, Rob got up to put him to bed. (I admit it, I am too much of a wimp to do it. If he seems even remotely displeased I can't fight the urge to pick him up and make him happy.) I stayed on the couch and tried to distract myself, in case he whimpered or cried. But instead of the sound of cries of complaint, all I could hear was laughing.

It seems as if Romi got so tired he entered the silly stage. Rob would look at him and laugh: heh heh. And Romi would open his mouth wide and belly laugh back: heh heh. That would make Rob laugh, which would in turn make Romi laugh. And so the cycle went on until I couldn't take it and joined the laugh fest in the dark bedroom. It sure was more fun then wiping his snotty nose.

Rob's Real Job

Our dear friend, six-year-old Lily, is confused by Rob's life responsibilities. When told that he stays home to take care of Romi, she wanted to know what he really did for a job. He reiterated that he stays home to care for the baby, but Lily insisted that wasn't "real" work. I think her mother shared in equal parts pride and mortification.

Romi, however, is unaware of Rob's questionable status and continues to grow and thrive, although eating solid food still isn't his favorite activity. His main responsibility as we see it is to roll around the living room, playing with toys, exploring the world, laughing and coming closer and closer to crawling. Rob's main responsibility is to watch this happen, the lucky dog. Somehow, I got stuck with writing the thank you notes. Hmmmm.

When Romi gets really excited he gets on his hands and knees and jumps into the air using his back legs and tush. It's really cute; almost as cute as when he laughs in his sleep. (We love that.) He is such a pro at rolling that he can make it across the living room, through the dining room and pretty much to the family room, which makes us happy but certainly makes life a bit harder too. But all in all, Romi continues to be my very favorite person ever.

Learning Curve

Rob went off to work today and left me home--alone--all day to play Ima to the little monkey. We did just fine, although I learned a few very important new mommy lessons.

First of all, do not go grocery shopping with a seven-month old. Most people already know this, but I was lulled into a false sense of security by the laid-back dude-factor of my particular bambino. And truly, it wasn't really him that made it difficult; I should know better than to go to Sunflower on a Wednesday afternoon. It's double ad day, which means everyone shops there on Wednesday (yes, including congregants). So the place was packed. I knew enough to get a small cart, but I didn't bring the baby carrier and Romi flat-out refused to sit in the shopping cart seat. Which meant that I spent the longest 30 minutes ever navigating a store with tiny aisles on its busiest day of the week all with one hand, seeing as the other arm held 16.5 pounds of baby goodness (who also happened to be eating the grocery list). I am proud to say I picked out fruit and vegetables one handed and got almost everything on my list.

My second lesson for the day is that a baby will not sleep through a barking dog and/or men from the gas company filling in a hole outside his or her bedroom window. Seeing as this all occurred smack in the middle of his "big" nap, I worked really, really hard to get him back to sleep. I did such a good job that I learned another lesson: a baby who wakes up when the dog barks at the gas company men filling a hole in the backyard will sleep soundly through two smoke detectors going off in the house.

Of course, I wish I had learned that last lesson before short-little-me got frustrated enough to jump up and rip the beeping smoke detector in the hallway out of the ceiling.

Sigh...live and learn.

Bloody Bagagge

And once again, we have to ask: they gave us a kid?

Just two weeks shy of being home, we were off again on another adventure, this time to SoCal for Devin and Paul's wedding. On one hand the idea of ever leaving home again, let alone getting on another plane, was completely abhorrent; on the other hand, this was Devin's wedding and there was no chance we were going to miss it (regardless of the fact that I was performing the ceremony). So we broke out the bags and began the arduous task of packing for a four-day stint at my mom's with Romi. We thought long and hard about what to take: four bottles, the Baby Bijorn (thank you AGAIN Hoffmans), formula, cereal, clothes. We also needed wedding attire for ourselves, so that meant a garment bag. And Romi needed a place to lay his little keppie, which meant schelping the Happy Cabana. Add in the car seat and we hit the four-bag limit pretty darn quickly. As for carry on bags, we had our stuff, his stuff and plane stuff. Ugh. The days of traveling light were long, long, long gone.

Travel day arrived quickly and we got up, got everyone dressed, loaded up the car and headed to the Park and Save lot at the airport (which is $3 a day!). We parked, got on the van, made it to the airport and balanced bags and baby all the way to the ticket counter, where we had to get a lap-child boarding pass for Romi. Once there the nice Southwest ticket man asked us how many bags we were checking and we proudly replied four. He looked around and said he only saw three, which just happened to coincide with the exact moment we realized that we had left the car seat in the car.

Rob was concerned about how long it would take to retrieve the car seat, so we got on the plane hoping for the best. We called Carrie for back-up; she left her extra car seat on the front porch. The car rental place, however, had car seats and after a frustrating 30-minutes Rob was able to ensure that Romi traveled in safe style.

Hey, at least we didn't forget the baby.

Time and a Bottle

Romi, genius baby that he is, has made the distinction between night and day in our time zone. Alas, knowledge does not equate to caring. Of course, before we are too quick to judge, in all fairness he did have three vaccination shots and a TB skin test, which has really got him off his game. He's been gritchy and fussy and is currently taking a much needed nap--at 6:00 p.m. Sigh.

Romi is settling into life in AZ. He loves being outside and is slowly beginning to get the concept of solid foods. He spends a lot of time on his stomach, inching ever closer to crawling, and has both grown and gained wait in the week and half since we've been home. Of course, he's as photogenic as ever.

We are off to SoCal this weekend, where Romi plans on spending quality time with his Grandma, Nana and Papa. Just what we need: another plane ride and one more time change!

Buddies

Tuesday evening entailed dinner provided by the Hoffmans and Romi's introduction to his first American friend, Jacob. It was quite a meeting. We think the hair-pulling was a gesture of love.

The babies got on famously, but what was most appreciated was Stefani's willingness to trim Romi's finger and toe nails. I admit it, I find the prospect daunting! He ended the evening with a bath.

Romi is still suffering from jet lag and having trouble sleeping at night. Rob and I are adjusting to the time change, although it's a slow process.

Wednesday was an eventful day. Romi had his first solid food: carrots. Although he began less than impressed, I think they grew on him (both literally and figuratively).


We stopped by the shul where Romi found his many admirers overwhelming, so he checked out by taking a half-hour nap. Unfortunately, he woke up in time to go the lab where they took blood. At first it hurt and then the process just ticked him off. It didn't do much for Rob or I either!

Romi Gets a Thumbs Up

Rob and I put our jet lag aside and took Romi to his first doctor's appointment this morning. Dr. Cochran had wanted to see our little bundle of fun within 48 hours of our returning home (just as she does newborns), so we headed in. Luckily, the little guy had just gotten up from a nap and was, as usual, all smiles. He thoroughly charmed the office staff and the nurses. Even better, he got a great bill of health. The doctor says that developmentally he is absolutely where he should be. His eyes, ears and lungs looked great. He weighed in at 16.2 punds and reaches just over a very respectable 27 inches. He needs some vaccinations and some lab work (ugh!), but he's off to a great start. (She actually used the word "perfect" but as a humble Ima I'm avoiding that.) We go back again in a week. The other good news is that we get to start feeding him vegetables, so carrots will be on tonight's dinner menu. Should be interesting!

Mazel Tov!

For an eloquent, funny and touching account of our Sunday afternoon at LAX, please see Heather's blog at http://somethinshiny.blogspot.com/.

The Never-Ending Trip Home

First the good news: we made it home, safe and sound. The bad news is that jet lag totally sucks. But I get ahead of myself. Romi and I both woke up very early on Sunday morning (at 4:00 a.m.), the result of the two of us going to bed two hours early the night before. It worked out well, however, because we had plenty of time to get ready to depart. We packed up and Mr. Yeh drove us to the airport. We arrived in plenty of time to check in, but Romi was definitely getting hungry. We found an ice cream sweet-shop kiosk in the airport and I took the bottle out and indicated that I needed hot water. I know I've stated how baby-orientated Taiwanese culture is but it still surprises me how helpful people are when it comes to the little ones. The woman not only took the bottle but made sure to sterilize it too. Once we made it past security, we tried to find a place to change Romi. Luckily, we stumbled on Baby Kitty, the Hello Kitty-sponsored baby room. (No, I am not making that up.) The room was well appointed (diapers, wipes, changing stations, hot water, a crib, etc.) and was done all in pink with a cloud-blue sky. These people really love Hello Kitty.

We boarded the plane, settled in to our comfy seats and began the long trek home. We had once again to stop in Japan, gather all our belongings, get off the plane, go through security, and wait at the gate just to get back on the plane to sit in the exact same seats. Whatever. Romi did well on the plane, all things considered. He didn't even mind the turbulence. Rob and I, however, had less patience for the bad food (both Kosher and Asian vegetarian) and hours of hurling through the air. We ended up using Romi's bassinet seat more as a convenient changing table and shelf. He slept off and on, mostly on us. In actuality the trip was two hours shorter (only 10 hours from Japan and not 12), but it still seemed an eternity.

We were concerned as to how long and complicated the customs and immigration process would be in Los Angeles. Fortunately, our fears were unfounded. Rob and I breezed through, and they sent us to a separate counter for Romi. We handed the man the special sealed visa envelop from AIT (the consulate in Taipei) that we had been told repeatedly and emphatically not to open. The immigration official told us to sit and wait. We opted to stand (I didn't think we'd ever want to sit again!) and the whole process took about 10 minutes. That was it--Romi is now a U.S. citizen. We will have to go through the process of re-adopting in the States to get him an American birth certificate and all that, but he's legal.

We gathered our luggage, navigated through customs and headed out into the sunshine, a family of three!