One Month

Arthur turns one month old today. We're going to have this serious ceremony of shaving him bald tonight. We never did it for Arnold. I don't think Arnold's hair is as good as it should be. And at that time, I was not recovering well and was quite nervous about shaving a baby's head.

I'm quite ready today for practicing my barberess' hand. The old Chinese way is to make a paint brush with the baby hair. Biajee said it was too short for it. Arthur's hair is only about one inch long and we don't know whether we should save it and send it back to China to make paint brushes.

I was also told that green is the best color for the baby's room. It'll provide a peaceful environment for the baby so the baby doesn't get fussy so often. Blue is a calming color as well, which is the color of Arnold's room. Yellow, on the other hand, will tend to make the baby cry more. Well, it's too bad and too late. Biajee painted Arthur's room yellow last June. Obviously there is no turning back now. Maybe we'll have a super crying baby after we move him to his room.

Nickname

Arnold likes to try out everything that Arthur uses, from car seat to baby bassinet, although he's already too big for these. They were once his when he was a baby.

Amy's pediatrician said when kids were 3 years old, it was normal for them to eat just one spoonful of cereal per day because that was all they need. I think we'd be worried if our kids eat that little.

"What did he eat for breakfast?" Biajee inquired me about Arnold this morning.

"A shrimp and a bit of egg." I replied. Biajee looked a bit upset so I added, "Don't worry. More people in the United States die of too much food than too little food."

"I think you're right." He had to say. And that's the end of this conversation.

I also found out from Amy about baby's nicknames. We already know nickname for Arnold is Arnie. She said that nickname for Arthur would be Artie. Boy, aren't they too close? We'll never be able to tell them apart.

"So what about Sam? Some woman's nickname was Sam." I asked.

"Oh that's short version for Samantha." Who would have thought of that?

"And Charlie? A girl's name is Charlie in Arnold's class."

"That's for Charlotte."

"This is too much for me." I finally commented. "I'm glad no girls would be named after Arnold or Arthur. I want people to know they're boys from their names."

Severance Letter

It appeared that I never signed the Severance Letter when I left Corporate Express. Now that Staples is going through auditing procedure and need this document signed. I received it via email today with the wrong address printed on the letter.

I was asked to either fax it back or mail it back. I am choosing to mail it back. Last weekend Biajee sent a one-page domestic fax for me at Kinko's and was charged $2.49. It's a shame that he cannot send a fax from his company. I suddenly realized how inconvenient it is for me to not have a job.

Biajee and Arnold attended the Parent Appreciation Breakfast at Montessori yesterday. Arnold got a Fish is Fish book, which he loved. We were also provided a brochure of Tips for Growing Readers.

I finished reading a book Come on, Kid yesterday, which talks about how to raise a child in modern China. It went through all the painful process of having to sign up the child to best kindergarten, primary school, junior and senior high school and the fees and relationship network one has to push for. In the end, the child applied for a private high school in England and left China at the age of 16.

I really feel blessed living in the United States now, thinking about those people in China are paying the same amount of money for kindergarten as I do.

4 Week Check

Arthur had his 4 week check yesterday. He is 22.5 inches long (80%), 9 lbs and 14.5 oz (50%) and head circumference is 15.25 inches (60%). He is a bit bigger than Arnold at the same age.

We also received Arthur's social security card yesterday. I finally read the form for applying for birth certificates and mailed it out today with a copy of my driver's license. He is a valid person in the society now.

Doctor said Arthur's hydronephrosis was moderate so he definitely need to see the urologist. Moderate means it can get better to be mild or can get worse to be severe. The urologist will probably do some testing to see whether the ureter is blocked by injecting a tube with colored liquid into his kidney. The thought of that makes me sick, but we'll wait to see what the urologist has to say.

I got the flu either from Biajee or Arnold. My throat hurts like hell whenever I'm swallowing and I'm coughing all the time. Biajee sounds pretty dandy about it because he suffered from the same symptoms a few weeks ago.

Skateboard

Biajee went to get Arnold a skateboard yesterday. It's an adult size, 31 inches long. The stores here carry smaller boards for children from 5 to 7 years old. The length is about 29 inches or 27 inches, not much smaller than the normal size at all. The mini boards on line can be 21 inches long, which is more suitable for Arnold's size and age.

At this point, I don't know whether we should let him learn the normal size from the beginning or not. If he sticks to the adult size, it'll be easier for him as he grows older. However, it may be more dangerous when he is younger or he may develop bad habits because the big board is harder to manage or turn.

Neither Biajee or I play skateboard at all. It wasn't in fashion when we were kids. I played roller skates when I was a kid, but that was in the playground in Beijing Workers' Sports Stadium. Even if I fell down, it wasn't a big deal. Here in US, kids play these things in street. I'm paranoid that they'd get hit by a car if they don't pay attention or if the drivers are careless.

Gold

The price of Gold trades at over $1000 per ounce today and the stock market plunged again.

Generally speaking, people don't like to convey bad news, even though the news is true. David Einhorn has successfully forecast the current financial crisis in his book Fooling Some of the People All of the Time published in 2007. David Einhorn is President of Greenlight Capital, a "long-short value-oriented hedge fund", which he began with $1 million in 1996. Greenlight has historically generated greater than a twenty-five percent annualized net return for partners and investors.

Starting July 2007, Einhorn became a short seller in Lehman stock. He believed that Lehman was under-capitalised, and had massive exposures to CDOs that were not written down properly. He also claimed that they used dubious accounting practices in their financial filings.

When Bear Stearns had to be bailed out by the Federal Reserve in March 2008, Lehman was widely considered to be in a fragile state. Lehman's CFO was Erin Callan, hailed by the Wall Street Journal as "Lehman's Straight Shooter". But she had been on the job for just six months and her background was as a tax lawyer, not in finance.

In a speech at a conference in April, Einhorn started talking publicly about his Lehman short positions. Lehman called Greenlight and asked for a copy of the speech, which was sent over.

In May 2008, Lehman CFO Callan had a private call with Einhorn and his analysts. The conversation with Callan was to give her a chance to explain discrepancies he had uncovered between the firm’s latest financial filing and what had been discussed during its conference call about that filing.

Ms. Callan is said to have fumbled some of her responses to questions on Lehman's asset valuations. When Einhorn later went public with the conversation, the declining Lehman share price took a further knock. Callan was fired a few weeks later, when Lehman reported a worse than expected $2.8bn second-quarter loss.

Lehman finally went bankrupt in September 2008.

The fact that Arthur was born in the worst recession may not be a bad thing. This means everything can only go uphill in his life.

COBRA

Biajee's company doesn't offer any health insurance so we had to seek other options for health insurance after I was laid off. We decided only the kids and I would be on COBRA and Biajee bought his own health insurance. This is the most cost effective way for us at the moment.

President Obama signed a bill yesterday saying that the employers should pay 65% of the COBRA premium for 9 months for the laid-off employees. I immediately called my COBRA company to check whether I could enjoy the benefits.

"We don't know yet." They replied over the phone. "It just came out this week. You should continue to pay your current premium until you get information in the mail."

I'd better write a check for our March health insurance since Arthur's kidney needs to be monitored for maybe over a year.

We found that swaddling the baby may not be helpful for letting him sleep through the night. Arthur used to be able to sleep for 5 hours before he was swaddled at night. He woke up at 1:15 am and 5:15 am today. We should try the no-swaddle thing tonight. There is nothing to lose at this point since we cannot get any sleep at all.

Monitor

Our ViewSonic monitor finally came back. Basically, it was replaced by a new monitor of a newer model. The old model we sent in was probably out of date and it probably costs more to repair it than to send us a new monitor.

Biajee and I decided to sell it on eBay soon. Buying a ViewSonic monitor from Circuit City is like putting the money into the worst brand in the worst retailer. Of course it'll be a no-win investment.

Arthur woke up last night at 12:30 am and 4:30 am so both Biajee and I were exhausted. Arnold goes to bed at 11 pm these days and that doesn't help with the situation at all. Biajee doesn't want to be too strict with him since we need to be careful about his feelings of the arrival of Arthur. The result is we are all suffering from sleep deprivation.

I'm quite obsessed with the weight loss progress. "You should have logged your weight loss process from last time." Biajee said. "So that you don't have to worry about it that much every day."

Biajee has lost 7 lbs since the baby was born. He said he was feeling great.

Kidney Dilation

Biajee took Arthur for ultrasound yesterday on his kidney dilation problem spotted when I was 28 weeks pregnant.

The nurse called me today and said Dr. C recommended that we take Arthur to a urologist as soon as possible to diagnose. Hydronephrosis is the term and we need to take the disc of the ultrasound to the urologist.

Biajee has scheduled it for March 5th in Littleton. We are quite paranoid these days, wondering whether Arthur's kidney is fine or not. The urologists Dr. Cavanaugh recommended wouldn't take our insurance so Biajee scheduled the appointment with Dr. Wilcox, who is the chair of Colorado Pediatrics Urology.

Hydronephrosis has never been linked to anything the parents have done during pregnancy and is usually not passed from parent to child or found in more than one sibling in a family. The blockage that produces hydronephrosis is usually the result of a narrowing at the top of the ureter near the kidney that probably developed before the fourth month of pregnancy.

The severity of hydronephrosis depends on the extent of the blockage and the amount of stretching of the kidney. Hydronephrosis may range from mild to severe. Children with mild hydronephrosis usually do not have symptoms, the kidneys are minimally affected, and the hydronephrosis may disappear in the first year of life.

Nursing

Biajee hasn't downloaded any baby pictures from the camera, but I received a nursing picture from my friend Judy. She came to visit me in the hospital while two nurses were trying to help me breast feeding.

"See how insulted I was?" I tried to joke with her. "It's like being raped and every day two different nurses will come in to watch me feed."

Judy left quickly - she must have thought this scene was pathetic.

We finally got Arthur latched on correctly and perfectly after a whole week's effort. His weight dropped to 7 lbs 13 oz when we were discharged from hospital and even lower to 7 lbs 11 oz last Friday. But on Monday, it came back to 8 lbs again. All the sleep deprivation over the weekend was definitely worth it.

In the old days, before kids, my mind would be filled with fantasies and ambitious thoughts and terrible worry about every aspect in my life, including economic recession, global starvation and the environment and nuclear power and weapons, and now all that still goes on, but there are a lot of times in a very real sense when images of Arnold and Arthur give my mind something friendly to play with, something lovely for a change to click between its fingers.

Arthur had a little bit of Jaundice as well, but not so bad as Arnold's when he was born. He looks more red than yellow, just like a Pizza Face. He bites a lot but does not drool too much. Arnold's drool is immense. There are still rivers of drool from Arnold all day, almost biblical, like the waters of Babylon.

Arthur was able to hold his neck up the minute he was born and he looks exactly like Arnold as a baby. Biajee sometimes mistakes him for Arnold. He always has this feeling that the baby Arnold has come back. Arthur and Arnold are our anchors. Without them as the counterbalance to the current credit crunch, we would float off into outer space on fear. It crossed my mind recently that maybe we were using the kids like a drug, to avoid terrible feelings we are having about me having been laid off. But drugs take you away from what's in front of you, whereas Arthur and Arnold are what's in front of us. They're not the drug, they're the reality.

Biajee finally got his last deep cleaning part done on his teeth. In the mean time, I've made a watery mess in the bathroom and he had to repaint the drawer. No time for him to paint the dining room or kitchen. What was he thinking at that time? Doesn't he understand a baby is a handful of work? At least he wasn't complaining when Arthur peed on him from time to time.