Here comes Yifan’s newest photo. He is no longer an infant – he is new a baby boy!

From tonight, Wendy and I arranged Yifan to sleep alone (with nanny). After Yifan fell asleep, Wendy said: “Is the nice time Yifan sleep with us over?” I know she feels lost, so do I.

As Joshua Allen told me in a comment, “We are worrying of the children’s dependent on us and worrying even more of their independent as well.” He is just less than 6 months old, and he is now independent enough to sleep on his own. Big step for him.

Also, today, he started to be able to use his two hands to grasp the small cup and start to drink by himself – just the beginning and could only drink a little bit, but it is also a big step for him. What people told me (especially Carroll) is very true – time flies, and before you notice, the little boy is almost starting to escape from our arms and embracing his own world.

Yifan, we love you.

Yifan has new photos.

He is already a big boy!

Photograph by Wendy

Photograph by Jian Shuo Wang

Photograph by Jian Shuo Wang

Photograph by Jian Shuo Wang

Photograph by Wendy

I didn’t wonderful job (maybe you don’t think so) to do a hair-cut for Yifan.

Yifan is 4 months and a half old, and he did his first hair cut when he was one month older by professional infant hair-dressers, and this time, it is my show time.

Before:

I am doing my first hair-cut for Yifan.

This is the result:

Not very bad, isn’t it?

I told Yifan that he’d better pray for his father’s hair-cutting skill improve soon, since in the future, all his hair-cut job is mine.

Yifan is 4 month and 12 days old today.

Here are his photos – a little, lovelym fatm healthy, and lazy boy.

Photograph by Jian Shuo Wang.

Photograph by Jian Shuo Wang. Yifan and Wendy – what a sweet month-and-son

Babies grow so fast. I even can notice his daily progress. It is so nice to have a child.

Tomorrow Yifan will be three months old. Here are his recent photos – I took it today.

Wendy today created a flash movie for Yifan.

Yifan now is so sweet, and his has lots of “favorite moment”.

• He loves morning. I like to sit by his bed and wait for him to wake up from the long sleep in the morning. When he wakes up, and see me, he immediately give me wonderful smile – I always smile longer and happier than he does.
• He loves to have his “breakfast”. He eat milk from his mom, and he does enjoy his first “meal”. He sings and kicks when he eats, and obviously he is happy about eating again after long hours of sleep.
• He loves to go out. We bring him out, and now he starts to be a little bit curious about the outside world. He keeps eyes wide open and see this and that along way. At the second part of any trip, as always, he sleeps in my (or Wendy’s) arms.
• He loves bath. He do enjoy sitting in the warm water and enjoy Wendy to put shampoo onto his body.
• He loves TV!. I cannot believe that he, at his 3 month, is so interested in the TV. He tend to turn his head toward the screen. I guess he is just curious about colorful objects. I am always naughty enough to put a pillow between him and TV so he cannot watch TV – he is not frustrated about it yet. :-)

The life with Yifan is so much fun. I do enjoy everyday this little angel in our home.

2 months ago, Yifan joined the family and today is exactly 2 months for him.

I remember when he was just born 2 months ago, when we were still in hospital, my favorite question to ask him is: “Little boy, how old are you?”. I guess if he would have been able to answer this question, he would have said: “I am 7 hours old now.”. :-)

60 days past so quickly that I even barely have time to record the time I am with him. Yesterday night, for example, he wake up and Wendy and I spent a lot of time to make him sleep again (to be exactly, Wendy did the work, and I watched). At 6:00 AM, I wake up (or was waken up) and mixed some milk for him. He only need to add one cup of milk now.

He grew taller (60 cm now), and heavier (6+ kg), and changes almost everyday. Since I go to work in the day time, and every day when I get back home, he seems to change a little bit to me. Now he start to be able to communicate with others with his sweet voice – hmmm… a…. o….

Congrats Yifan! You are two month old now.

Yifan is in his second months now. Let me post two recent photos of him. I am always so happy

• to hold him in my arm and look at his naughty face
• to watch him fall asleep
• to hear his voice (just some fragment of sounds)
• to take photos of him
• to whatever he wanted me to do
• to see his expression (of whatever kind)

Yesterday, I registered Wangyifan.com, as a gift for my newly born baby. The domain expired on June 30, 2007, and within seconds, it was registered by SnapNames.com, and finally, I spent 79 USD to get it back. Then I noticed that SnapNames.com did a good (well, only from business perspective) to have 10 million domain transaction per year. Pretty amazing.

First, the name of my baby is finally determined. We decided to call him Wang Yifan 王逸凡. Out of all the name, we like this name best and there is no bad similiar meaning related to it. We are happy to announce his name. The english name is Yifan Wang…

Second, he got his Hukou today.

In China, everyone must have a Hukou (refer to Hukou System in China). It is a residential permit that bind someone to a piece of land and restrict free move from one location to another. As I decribed in my previous article, this stupid system is not as powerful as 20 years ago, but it is still in effect, so my darling has to register with the police to get his Hukou. I did it today.

With the Hukou Booklet, the marriage certificate, national id and new-born baby certificate, I added Yifan’s name on our Hukou booklet. Officially, Yifan is now part of our family.

Something interesting for Yifan’s Hukou.

1. There is a column saying: When and why you moved into this family?

The answer was: June 2, 2007, because of newly born.

2. The Origination 籍贯

This is wired. It said: Mingjin County, Henan Province.

I asked the police why, and they said it is by regulation that every person’s origination must follow his father (not mother) and has nothing to do with where he was born or raised.

My origination was also given according to my father, so does Yifan. That means, he is legally bound to a land that he has never been and maybe only visit several times in his life time.

According to this law, his son or daughter will also be treated as a person coming from the county 1800 km away. I firmly believe Hukou system won’t last that long.

3. He has has national identification card number already.

Although it will be at least 18 years for him to claim his id card, he already has a number that is uniquely assigned to him. Isn’t it interesting?

4. The other things like education. Wendy has ‘Graduate’ in the field, and I have ‘B.S.’ and guess what’s in Yifan’s field? It says: ‘pre-school child’. There are also some fields I feel funny, like “Marriage status: not-married”…

Anyway, Yifan has Hukou today.

Didn’t update the blog as often as before – very normal for a new father – my night time was occupied (while, maybe attracted is the more exact word) by the little boy. It happens that these weeks are the busiest week at work, so I didn’t have time to write an entry for many days – even failed to check some comments.

OK. My thoughts about these days.

Sweet!

I heard a lot of people saying how hard it is to have a baby – either the course of pregenancy or having the baby born and living in the family. I heard a lot. The reality is completely different. It was so sweet and almost no bitter in it. Yes. He wakes up at night, and he needs continous attention (if he is awake, he will make some noise so that you know his existance). But sleepless nights (or sleepy nights) are so sweet (what are the other words to describe it?)

The Star of the Family

We were worrying about leaving our two-person world and step into 3-person world as a family. We thought about the ‘freedom’ we were going to lose, and have to remove any long-vacation and long-trip from calendar. That seemed scary.

The reality is, with the arrival of the baby, it is a completely more sweeter world (again, is there better word than sweet?). He is the star in the family and the Sun of the family, and the center of the family. He shines the whole house.

When I am near home, besides Wendy, I know exactly another small boy who is waiting for me (he is too long to be “waiting”, but I am sooooo longing to see him!) The closer we are, the happier I am. So does Wendy.

The Long Term Planning

How many people started long term planning after they have their children? I did. Looking at his smiling face, deep in sleep, I cannot help to imagine when he grows bigger (not a typo, I do mean physically bigger), we can go out together, play sand on sand hill together, go to all kinds of interesting places together, and have all kinds of sports together. He is a boy! A father always have a lot of tricks to share with a boy.

I also imagined how he should behave, and how he should look at this world – this is actually a reflection of myself. He is a mirror upon which I can analysis myself deeper and see myself clearer.

The Start

I wrote a little letter to him, and in the letter, I said I am happy to accompany him on his journey – his own journey (not mine). There are so many things for him to discover. There are as many for me also, just like having him is a new start of my own journey. We can be good friends in exploring this world. He learns how to be a good son while I learn how to be a good father – both are new to the role.

I encourage everyone who don’t have a child or didn’t plan for it to seriously think about it. It is much easier than I thought, much sweeter than any article describes, and much rewarding than anything else.

:-)

The dilemma (as Carroll put it) I am facing for the name continues. The good thing is, I still have time, but the more we think about it, the harder it seems to make a decision. The more you care about something, the slower the progress is, and the harder it is.

Wendy and I came out several candidate names. Let us share them here, and if you can read Chinese, let us know what do you feel about the name – let me do it just as a usability test.

王乐凡

王子欣

王纳言

王天哲

王逸凡

We are still thinking back and forth about the name of the baby. We are not going to give him an English yet (this is why), and there are at least 6 candidate names that we are still not able to decide yet. To name a baby is maybe the hardest thing in the world, just because it is such a big responsibility. Maybe, compared to raising him up, this is still a very small piece. :-)

Just as someone (I forgot the name, and the time does not allow me to check it up) in the post before the last: having a baby means more responsibility – not only for the baby, but also for Wendy. I do agree.

P.S. The little boy was able to reach out to my finger and grasp it today. What a surprise for me. He also smiled more often, and for the first time, he didn’t cry after bath. We see his progress every day. For a child, everything was counted from 0. It is a fresh start. In the first two days, I could count – the first smile, the second smile, or the first eating, the second, and very soon, I cannot count how many times he smiled to us, and how many times he cries.

It has been exactly one week (7 days!) since I posted my last entry about the arrival of our baby. I believe everyone (especially experienced parents) understands what I did – the first week of the boy is too precious that I don’t want to leave him for a second. Today is the 8th day (one hour ago at 1:15 PM) for him, and I believe I should at least post some photos – a lot of people are asking for it – and share what I feel. How can it be possible for a blogger to skip this chapter?

Cute Boy

Yes. Let me confirm that the baby is healthy, lovely, and starts to be a little bit naughty (that you can hardly notice).

Here we go.

He smiles! Deep in his own small dream world (I am still wondering what’s in his mind now since he didn’t know too much about this world yet – I guess he only dreams about drinking more millk).

When he sleeps, he tends to lean his head to one direction – typically the side with window, and looks like deep thinking – hey, little boy, what you are thinking about?

He enjoys his own small world – the small bed (still too big for him). One day, he will walk to the outside world which he is now staring.

Look at this!

He is tired! He loves sleep! As long as he is not hungry, he falls asleep quickly, quitely, and sweetly. This expression is a sign that he is going to sleep in 2 minutes.

Look. He falls asleep shortly.

Sometimes he plays by himself – as if anything in this world has nothing to do with him – which is true.

He also cries, when something he doesn’t like happens. Currently, there are not too many things he doesn’t like. Taking him out of bath is one that he really doesn’t enjoy. As soon as we put on clothes for him, he is quite and happy as an angel.

Oh, my little darling. You are perfect, and I cannot thinking of anything that can makes you more cute, and sweet. I know everyone thinks his/her baby as the best in the world. I do feel so. I am so pround to have you joining me and Wendy, and we step into a three-person family hand-in-hand.

For more pictures I took these days, check here.

P.S. These days, Flickr.com was banned by the government, and people in mainland China may not be able to see the pictures above. Here are the snapshots of the pictures, and it links to the original site on flickr. I hope you can at least see these smaller pictures (it is hosted on my own server).

At 1:30 pm today (June 2, 2007), my baby boy was born at International Heping Women and Children Hospital. He is 3526g in weight (or 7 Jin), healthy and lovely.