To Fuss or To Laugh?

We love the fact that Zoe has a sense of humor already. Here, as captured in the video, she was tired and cranky and so rather fussy and whinny. When I reacted to her whining with laughter (or actually, laughing at her), she was confused for a brief second and then started to laugh too, as if she too sees the ridiculousness of the situation. It is also really funny when she has a genuine complain and yet wants to join in the laughter too. You see her teetering between the two.

Eight Months!

Zoe is eight months old today and, though it is not a significant milestone by general consensus, for some reason it is to me. Perhaps it is because she is daily becoming more a girl than a baby. Counting by months, she is closer to being a toddler than a newborn. It is probably silly, but not entirely so, to think this: but expecting her to leave home to go to college at 18, and then to wherever life takes her, we would only have her - really have her under our wings - for 18 years. Of this, one year is nearly done and the rest will surely go fast. Every moment is to be cherished!

Anyhow, Zoe's development, as we can see it, is accelerating. Though Dennis disagrees on this, I think she did her first rudimentary crawl yesterday (or perhaps it was earlier than yesterday; we were simply not there to witness it). She did not move in a straight line. Rather, because one leg pushed off more strongly than the other, she moved in an arc like trajectory. It was very cute though, she was trying very hard. I believed she was pleased with her efforts.

Yum!

We gave Zoe chocolate yesterday. Ok, just kidding. The stuff that she had all over her mouth were prunes.

A Snapshot of the Weekend

We went hiking at Torrey Pines State Park yesterday because it was too hot anywhere else in San Diego.

Sunglasses

Dennis got Zoe to accept the sunglasses for the first time yesterday. We think she looked super cool.

Nearly Eight Months

I haven't written here in a week or two, I think. It feels like a longer hiatus, however. Anyhow, all has been well the last two weeks or so and little has changed. Zoe is not yet crawling, though she wants to. She is very expressive and can be impatient. Mostly, she is very good natured. Her skin condition has improved, though her skin does turn red from time to time still.

I've been busy though, or at least I feel very busy. We had a little mold issue last week in the laundry room, which made me a little unhappy. The laundry room was horridly musty for a week. At first I thought it was a dead rodent up in the attic. We had the pest control people come out. He took one sniff and said "that is no dead rodent." We came to the conclusion that the funky smell might well be mold. Next, the mold guy came out to test the air, to see if we really have a mold problem. In the meanwhile, I called a few mold remediation companies as well as a leak detection company. Well, to make a long story short, after $450 in damage, we found out that there was indeed elevated mold spores in the laundry room. However, it was not at a level that suggests the necessity of drastic remediation. The leak experts also came out and found no leak (though they did tighten the brackets holding the pipes up in the attic) and the probable cause of the increased moisture is the dryer hose having come loose. So it was much ado about nothing. But I am glad it was about nothing than about something!

Else, I also started a compost pile. I put it together this morning. It was a lot of unfamiliar work and I did wonder, when a spider jumped at me, why I thought I was capable of this and if this vegetable garden thing - my new ambition - is not way over my head. But I finished it and so there it is. Being more green does require lifestyle changes!

Zoe Feeds Herself

On Friday (4/11), Zoe grabbed for the spoon as I was feeding her. I took it as an indication of her wish to feed herself and so passed the spoon to her. Unfortunately, her quest for independence was thwarted by the fact that her motor skills need refining still. First, she stuck the wrong end of the spoon into her mouth. She tried again. This time she got the spoon in the right way, but all the food had fallen out of the spoon by then. Undeterred, she tried again by swinging her hand (with the spoon) far out and then bringing it into her month, which was opened very wide. It was very funny. And it was messy! Needless to say, there was food everywhere. On her bib, on the highchair's tray attachment. On her face. On her hands. No matter. Both Zoe and I were very pleased with her attempts. I think, for now, we are ok with her exploring the various aspects of food and nourishment, sticking all fingers into pureed butternut squash included.

Reduce, Reuse and Recycle

I recently decided that driving a Prius and renewing my Sierra Club membership from time to time will not change anything about the direction we - humans - are taking our planet. I am convinced that going at the rate we are going, the planet would be a hostile and inhospitable place with little or no natural beauty before long. The thought of this was frightening before. It is intolerable now after we had Zoe. Dennis and I worry about the planet Zoe will inherit and the kind of life and times she will live in as a result. So rather than whing about the Hummers and SUVs, it is time to do more, starting today, starting with ourselves.

Taking personal responsibility means some lifestyle changes. Thus far, we noted and implemented a few we can make within our power. For example:

1. Hanging clothes out to dry instead of using the dryer.
2. Using cold water wash instead of hot or warm for our laundry.
3. Taking short showers (no more luxuriating!) and turning off the water when lathering.
4. Being more careful with our use of ziplock bags. Reduce and reuse comes to mind. (My mom was the true conservationist after all. She always cleaned and reused the bags, something I pooh-poohed as not hygienic. That said, I did read somewhere about plastic breaking down and all. Perhaps the solution is to stock up on the glass containers and storing everything in them).
5. Reusing the little plastic bags they give out at supermarkets for wrapping vegetables and such in.
6. Driving about less (no more going to the grocery every day or even every other day! Even if Trader Joe's is only 5 miles down the road, every little adds up).
7. Stopping at Starbucks less for my "Doppio over ice in a grande cup." The plastic cups, even if recycled, add up! (This will be a really hard one).

There are a few other things I would like to do but they require a greater investment in time (research), money and effort. They are:

1. Turning to renewable sources of energy. That is, solar power. On this, I looked into the investment needed and, not surprisingly, even after hefty government subsidy (in the form of rebate) and tax credit, it is still an $18,000 to $20,000 investment. Sure, we would be done with electric bill for good, and might even make some spare cash by selling unused energy back to the grid, but the upfront cost is too much for now. I'm researching the other alternative, which is to buy our electric energy from a solar company. They will install the solar panels on our roof and we buy the energy from them. The upfront cost is little, our immediate electric bill will amount to just about the same (on average $300 a month, including gas), but long term cost will be much lower as the $/watt is locked in. I'm still studying this avenue and will have a better picture of cost/benefit when I meet the salesperson (Business is very brisk evidently, he told me he would have to get back to me in a week or two!).

2. Reducing our waste, or waste that ends up in a landfill. To do this, other than buying less and buying less with lots of packaging, we would have to turn to composting. I'm researching this and will soon find out if this is something we can manage.

3. On reducing our waste, I'm also looking into the diaper question. Zoe is on disposable diapers, which I did not realize take a whooping 500 years to break down. (And this is 500 years in optimal conditions). Zoe uses about six to eight diapers a day, which means, assuming she is potty trained at 24 months and averaging 7 diapers a day, we would have used about 5110 by the time she is two years old! The eco-impact per child is significant. That said, we did not even consider cloth because the hassle of cloth seemed daunting to both Dennis and I. They did not seem to work as well (in terms of leaks and dampness and associated diaper rash) and cleaning the soiled diapers would be very time consuming. Then, there is the whole issue of the other resources (water and electricity) used to clean the diapers. It seemed like a toss up, a choose your sin situation. Well, I might be changing my mind about this. Turns out that the cloth diapers I had in mind were the cloth diapers of 30 years ago. These days, the cloth diapers (and the panties holding them) works very well, supposedly. So it seems that the crux of the issue is resource usage (including resource used to make the diaper). On this, I'm still studying and considering.

Incidentally, during my research, I came across these two products on the market. One is a hybrid system (gdiapers) where the diaper core is biodegradable and the other is a disposable that is completely biodegradable. But as I learned by reading various mommy blogs, to say something is biodegradable is not saying much. If the biodegradable item ends up in a landfill, it would have a hard time decomposing as landfills in America are anaerobic. If we do end up with the disposable diaper that is biodegradable, I would try to compost it. Well, if I end up composting.

3. Finally, though this is only tangentially related to lowering our carbon footprint, I would like to grow our own organic vegetables. I love the idea but gardening is very daunting to me. My fingers are far from green. I'll report here if I ever get around to it. It seems a natural thing to do if I do end up composting.

Well, that's what we are doing for now. I have to say that some of this lifestyle changes is only possible because I am now a stay-at-home-mom (gasp! I said it!). For example, the drying the clothes out on a rack was almost a whole day affair as there were more clothes than rack space. A working mother or father would probably have little patience with or time for it.

Anyhow, we hope it is not too late to turn back the clock or to change course. This is not only for Zoe. It is for all the babies out there. Baby animals included.

FIrst Words?

Zoe is developing so quickly. Both Dennis and I think that she said her first recognizable words today - "Ah Pa" and "Yao," which is Dad and want in Chinese respectively. She said Ah-Pa and Pa many times over today. And I thought I heard "Yao" when I was feeding her. We are very excited!

Another first: I snipped off a little of Zoe's hair on 3/31. Just a little to keep her hair tidy.