When I send my mother photos of Mio in her various dresses and outfits, she often comments on how Mio must be like a “living doll” (生ãã¦ã‚‹äººå½¢, ikiteru ningyou in Japanese) that I can play dress-up with. I admit that I have way too much fun picking out what Mio will wear every day, and I probably enjoy it far more than Mio herself does. I’m relishing it while I can, since before I know it, Mio is going to be rejecting my outfit choices for her and wanting to pick her clothes out herself. (And I can already tell you that I will most likely cry when that day comes, just as my mom did when I rejected the K-mart clothing she bought me in favor of Limited Too.)
Mio has a bunch of cute jinbei clothes that she received as gifts as well as hand-me-downs (all in the same size!), so I decided to take advantage of the hot weather we’ve been having this past week and have her wear them while she still can! Welcome to the fashion show of my little Japanese doll, summer edition:
Love the frilled sleeves and the goldfish design…
Bunnies and cherry blossoms… so very appropriate for Mio.
In all the craziness of Mio’s eye problems, I almost forgot to mention a milestone Mio was able to accomplish this past weekend! On Sunday, we were playing in a nursery room with a bunch of other friends’ children, and though I usually hold Mio, she was intent on joining the big kids in exploring the toys. She was particularly interested in a large wooden block with a wire maze on top. She grabbed a hold of the wires of the wire maze and pulled herself up to a standing position! Although I was spotting her the whole time in case she lost her balance, I let her support herself without my help. Although she wobbled a little here and there, she stayed standing like that for a couple minutes!
Holding onto the wires for support.
The knees are starting to give way a little, but Mio continues to hang on.
The past 24 hours have been rather stressful. Mio was having bouts of inconsolable crying early yesterday afternoon, which is uncharacteristic of her because she’s usually pretty mellow and her cries are usually more whiny. I’d only heard her cry like that when she got her vaccinations, so we were worried she was in pain. We then noticed when she was shifting her eyes that the inner corner her right eye had a noticeably red patch in the sclera. We freaked out and called the emergency hotline of our medical center, but after asking us a bunch of questions, the pediatric advice nurse told us that it sounded like Mio had just poked her eye, and that we could come in the next morning but there was no need to come into urgent care. Later in the evening, the rest of the whites of her eye had gotten pink, she was still crying a lot, and her eyelid had gotten so puffy from the crying that she could only open her eye halfway. We called the hospital a couple more times, and they just kept telling us to come in the next day, and that bringing her in and waiting for hours in the emergency waiting room would only add to her distress. While I understood that and wanted to trust them, at the time I was so scared for Mio that I got really frustrated and upset, and I couldn’t help but weep too as I held Mio and watched her cry herself to sleep in my arms.
My poor Mio, puffy-eyed from all the crying. :'(
The red patch in the white of her eye.
Dan and I took Mio to the pediatrician first thing this morning, and were told that the red patch was a subconjunctival hemorrhage and a possible eye infection. The type of hemorrhage happens when a small blood vessel breaks and bleeds near the surface of the white of the eye. and can be caused by sudden increases in pressures such as a violent sneeze or cough, among other things. It apparently will go away after a few days and does not require treatment. The fact that Mio’s eye was tearing a lot and getting pink and had some slight discharge was a sign that it could be infected, so the pediatrician prescribed us some antibiotic eye ointment to apply three times daily to both eyes (since it can very possibly spread to the other eye) until it goes away. I’ve already discovered that it is a pain in the ass to apply, because Mio starts screaming and clenching her eyes shut whenever I try to apply it to the inner portion of her lower eyelid as directed. But a mother’s gotta do what a mother’s gotta do! And after only two applications, her eye is already looking significantly better. Phew… I can finally breathe a relief.
Hopefully Mio’s eyes will be back to their beautiful normal state again… I miss this sweet, unclouded gaze of hers.
Ch-ch-ch-changes! The car seat and Snap-n-Go stroller that we got from Baby Trend earlier this year has been serving us well for the past few months since Mio’s birth, but we had been setting our sights on getting a big girl stroller for Mio for a while now. Although the car seat claims that it can hold up to 30 lbs of weight (and Mio is still under 20 lbs), she is already just barely fitting in it mass-wise. We’re pretty certain that in a month of two, she’ll be too large for it. So, being the prepared Super Mom — or rather, control freak worrywart — that I am, I started doing my usual extensive research on virtually every stroller out there to figure out what would be the best fit for our little family.
The Quinny Zapp Xtra intrigued me and was a top contender in my mind from the beginning. It was actually the original Quinny Zapp that I initially considered, due to the fact that when folded up, it is the world’s most compact stroller. (Having a stroller with a small footprint is important to us, since we wanted to be able to store it in our small duplex unit when necessary, and keep it in the trunk of our cute little Honda Fit for outings.) It has a sleek design and is originally from the UK. There were some major disadvantages to it, though — it was unable to recline, the sun canopy was not that big, and it could only face forward. That’s when I stumbled upon the updated version, the Quinny Zapp Xtra, which just released in the US market in March. The Zapp Xtra solves all those issues of its predecessor with a new seat that reclines to three positions, has an impressive sun canopy, and the ability to be flipped to be either forward-facing or rear-facing. I had never really thought about the option of having a rear-facing stroller, but I figured it’s nice to have the option, especially when the baby is still young. (I also recently read this article that away-facing strollers stress babies out. While the study’s suggestion that life in such strollers is “emotionally impoverished”and lead to “stressed babies [that] become anxious adults” seems a little extreme, the observation that parents tend to talk more to their babies when they are facing towards them definitely makes sense.)
The drawback to the Zapp Xtra is that the new-and-improved removable seat now adds a bit more weight and takes up a little more space than the original Zapp pushchair, but the frame itself is still just as compact. It can actually be used from birth (with a minimum weight of 5 lbs) to around 4-5 years old, with a maximum weight capacity of 50 lbs. The Zapp Xtra also comes with adapters so that you can attach a Maxi-Cosi Mico infant car seat to the frame as well, so we may get rid of our Baby Trend system and just go that route for any future babies. It’s great for travel (apparently, it’s so lightweight you can even take it on the plane as a carryon), and all around just seems like the perfect urban stroller.
There was no shortage of street food vendors, but some of the restaurants were also offering some great discounted prices on platters, so Dan jumped at the opportunity to get some Indian food!
