Fei, today you're one and half years old! That's a major achievement, you're really becoming a toddler now and leaving the baby days behind.

Today the weather was far from perfect which destroyed most of the plans we had for the day. We thought of taking a ferry from Rapperswil to Zürich, eating in some nice restaurant and finding a beautiful spot to give you a gift! Instead we ended up getting wet in the rain, eating in McDonald's and taking a hot bath back home...

You're quite a late walker. Even though you started walking while holding hands already 4-5 months ago, you only recently started to walk on your own. Your mom has been quite worried about it, but I've tried to tell her you're just doing it on your own pace and there's nothing to worry about. You're clearly really smart, and have an extremely strong will (kind of like your mom) so you just like to do things your way.

Your absolute favorite of all things in the world is cars. It doesn't matter what type - cars, trucks, buses, trains or even motorcycles are all very exciting! There's a little mix-up due to your multilingual background, as you seem to think everything that moves is a car. In Chinese language that is pretty much true - all vehicles on wheels are called cars, from cars to bikes.

You have a plenty of small toy cars already and you really love playing with them. Often one of the cars comes to my office for a cruise, going through all the corners, shelves, closets and chairs... only to be later followed by another car. And all new cars obviously need to take the tour around the house right away!

Already couple months ago you started to love cars so much that you needed to hold one in your hand everywhere. Even in the trolley, or when taking a nap! When we're walking somewhere and you see a train, or a bigger car, in the distance, you start shoutig "car, car, car" and pointing towards it full of excitement!

Another thing you love almost as much is music. This may be because your mom has been watching some musicals and listening to a lot of piano music, but music really seems to be close to your heart. You calm down and focus when you hear good music and you often like to sing along. Even my singing gets your approval, which is quite something!

Your mom actually wanted to give you a piano for 1.5 year birthday but we couldn't get the right type in time. Perhaps that's for the best, as she's already having second thoughts about the model and will likely end up choosing something else... we mostly just need to find out what is the best digital piano out there and where to get it from!

Some of the other things you like these days include playing with small stones (in fact just last month you ate one of those and made mom really worried), playing peek-a-boo and catch-up with daddy and eating potato and edamame! Unfortunately you're not one of those kids who are picky about what they put in their mouth. You're quite picky with the actual food, but other things are quite ok! In fact, you don't eat as much as you should as you're above the average height but below the weight for your age group. The doctor said you're doing fine though.

There's so many more things to write about... We also recently got a new 24-70 mm 1:2.8 lens for our camera, so there will be new photos of you coming up. Unfortunately I've been a little too busy lately so there's something like 50 gigabytes of unsorted photos to go through...

An important day to remember - March 11, 2009 was the day when you started walking on your own! You're about 14 and half months old now which I guess means you're a little later than average but still within perfectly "normal" boundaries.

I guess the timing has to do with your personality. You're just so amazingly careful that you need to be sure you know something before you do it. You've been actually walking with us for many months now, holding hands. But two days ago you just decided to get walking by yourself! The first attempt came totally out of the blue and your mom and I did't quite realize what happened until you flipped over after a few steps.

Later on that day you were very excitedly running between mom and dad, up to couple meters distance. You were clearly very happy about this newly found skill, as you just kept doing it over and over again, laughing all the time.

And then, the next day, you just wanted sleep most of the day. I can imagine your poor little legs were sore from all the running! Today you've been into walking again and you seem to be learning to balance really fast now that you're practicing it.

Another "new" skill you've picked up in the past month - you have started imitating sounds. You repeat words we say, almost all the time. What you repeat seems to be quite random, often the last word of a sentence but also sometimes just something that sounds funny. You mostly like to decide by yourself - an attempt to get you repeat a specific word if usually met with silence and a curious look, as if you want to say "What are you doing? Why do you keep repeating that word?"


Your main interest these days is cars. You love playing with cars, and you love watching cars when we're walking outside. You are not just playing with them, you carefully inspect all the toy cars, trying to figure out how they work and paying special attention to their wheels. Today you wanted to stop and look at a contruction yard, which had very fascinating vehicles moving around!

It's been six or seven weeks since my last update to Fei's book. As I'm writing this we're all in Sanya, in the island of Hainan in China. This is kind of like "Hawaii of China", a tropical island where the weather is always warm.

We're here basically to escape the winter of Zürich, or at least your mom and you are. I'm here just on a short visit as I couldn't handle being away from you for too long time! You've grown to be a really adorable little toddler, always on the move and full of energy and positive attitude!

The main reason why your mom wanted to bring you here is that there's really not much sunlight in the winter in either Switzerland or Finland. All kids eat vitamin-D as a supplement because of that, but nothing really beats the real natural sun. It's not just the vitamin, it's also the way it affects the overall well-being.

Another important difference here is that since it's really warm you can be almost naked at all times. Just shorts and a t-shirt, indoors and outdoors. This makes moving a lot easier, and boy you love to move! Your grandma is here too, and we're basically taking turns going for a walk with you as you can basically walk all day long.

Your very special attraction is walking up and down the stairs! You've learned to lift your leg up to reach even a high step, and that's just the best thing in the world! We still need to hold your hands as it would be quite a disaster if you lost your balance and came rolling down the stairs, but not for long I guess.

You can pretty much walk holding one hand on a stable surface now, though you still refuse to walk or stand on your own. I've tried letting both of your hands go and see what happens... basically you stand still for a few seconds, until you realize what's going on and then you just lower yourself to a sitting position... but whatever, take your time. You're not far from it and basically you already know all the little bits and pieces that are necessary. Just need to put it all together...


I'll be going back home the day after tomorrow. This coming weekend I will attend my grandma Elli's funeral, she passed away on Feb 8th. I'm glad you were able to meet her, even though you will obviously not remember her when you grow up. She was a very special person, good to the heart and would have loved to get to know you as you grow up.

Happy New Year 2009 Fei! After spending the Christmas in Disneyland we were finally ready to hit the Paris big time. We rented an apartment for one week at the very center of the city, halfway Champs-Elysées. There you, mom and I spent the last week of 2008 all the way until the first of January, 2009!



You're always excited to see new places and Paris was no exception. You didn't enjoy the shopping as much as your mom, but you very much liked the Christmas lights that decorated the trees along the streets. Unfortunately the weather was cold and windy, so we had to limit the time spent outside. Paris is also extremely polluted - perhaps even more so than the big cities in China - so it was overall a good idea to stay mostly indoors.

During the week you had a chance to meet your lovely French teacher Meriem. You immediatelly hit it off with her and started slapping her face with both hands, which I guess she took as a gesture that you don't like her. Quite the contrary of course. It's just that you seem to be very interested in the ways that your hands (and other objects) interact with all kind of surfaces. You bounce me in the head with all kinds of things multiple times a day and I think you obviously couldn't possibly love your dad a single bit more than you already do.

After one week I think we're all pretty much done with Paris for the time being. It's nice to be back in Zürich - it almost felt like returning home to see all the familiar buildings around river Limmat when we finally made it to the city. For you it's probably been at the same time exciting and stressful to be on the road for past two weeks. We're now going to take it easy for a while and settle down, trying to get back to daily routines... it's fun to travel but it's also very good to just be home!

Ok, so Christmas Eve was the third and final day of our adventures in Disneyland Paris. I think it's safe to say we've had a good dose of Disney for now, we'll see when the next time is. I honestly cannot understand the joy of standing in line hour after hour in a freezing cold weather. You didn't seem to mind that much though, as in the line there's always people who are willing to respond to your flirting, which helps a lot.

On the third day we were lucky, as it seems Christmas Eve is not a popular day to be at Disney. The weather was nice, and the lines were a fraction of what they had been in the previous days. We went on to several rides: Dumbo the Flying Elephant, Mat Hatter's Tea Cups, It's a Small World and Peter Pan's Flight. But before that we visited the Walt Disney Studios theme park which is right next to Disneyland. Right at the gates we bumped into Pluto, who was happily run around and came to say hello to you too!

Walt Disney Studios didn't offer much to one-year old dude like you, but it had one unexpected highlight - after having bumped into Pluto on the entrance, on the way out we met with Mickey Mouse! Unfortunately your first meeting with Mickey didn't go quite as planned...

You were asleep when we stood in line waiting for our turn. It was just about to be our turn and you were still in a deep sleep. I guess your mom was worried you might be feeling cold as she placed her hands on your cheeks... somehow her warm hands on your cold little cheeks freaked you out as you woke up and started crying as loud as a baby just can. And then it was our turn... oops! While you are usually mr. Sunshine with strangers, Mickey got an earful that he is not going to forget for a while... 

After meeting Mickey we decided to try Disneyland again. Dumbo was the first, and it also had the longest lines. The sign posted at the start of the queue said 60 minutes, but I would guess it was less than that. You were quite happy to be looking at the elephants from a distance, but the actual flying turned out to be kind of scary.

The tea cups seemed a lot more fun to you. Probably that was because you were riding with mom, who was not giving any extra spin to the cup. I surely would have given a you a wilder ride... then, the Small World was naturally quite interesting but it was also very short. Peter Pan might have been a little scary but you didn't actually see much as you were sitting between mom and I...

We missed the parade, but we'd already seen it twice. It was getting chilly so we decided to stroll through the Disney Village once more and get something to eat before retiring for the day. We thought of a balloon ride but since you fell asleep again, we just decided to get something quick to eat.

And then we found it! At the end of the Disney Village's main street there's a fantastic restaurant called Mickey's Cafe. Mickey and a lot of his friends are around all the time talking to the guests. You woke up just in time to have the second chance to meet Mickey. Fortunately Mickey is such a relaxed dude so he acted as if nothing had happened earlier in the day and so you guys had a nice little moment together!

In the end you met a lot of different Disney characters and you seemed to have a very good time. After all it seems this was the best moment for you during the Disney adventure. It's definitely much nicer to sit around a table enjoying food and letting everyone come to you than waiting ages in a cold weather for a chance for a quick photo!

We skipped Disneyland for one day and drove to Paris city instead as your mom wanted to visit Galeries Lafayette to do some last minute Christmas shopping and daddy wanted to have a chance to take some photos. It was sort of a mistake to drive there, as it took over two hours to get through the 30 kilometer distance! The traffic in Paris is definitely not any better than in Los Angeles...

The actual Lafayette department store was quite a disappointment. In fact Stockmann in Helsinki city center is better, if only somewhat smaller. For you though, the only thing that matters is that people around you like to flirt with a cute baby such as yourself, so the trip wasn't too bad. Except for the drive, which was starting to bore you a lot. In the end it turned out to be impossible to park anywhere in the city so we didn't take photos, but we did drive through Louvre and by other famous buildings. You didn't seem to think they were anything special, but it might have been that you would have preferred walking instead of sitting in the car seat...  

So the next day (the day before Christmas Eve) it finally a sunny and we decided to go to Disneyland again. This time you were clearly a lot more alert and interested in things around you. I guess the first time there were just too many new things. Now that the surroundings where a little more familiar, you were very active and looked at everything with a great deal of interest.

We thought of taking you to some rides, but then the reality hit - even Dumbo, which is just a simple carousel type of thing where you sit on the back of Dumbo the flying elephant, has 90 minute long wait with no FastPass. In fact, almost all rides that are suitable for kids your age had extremely long lines but no FastPass.

Fortunately you are perfectly fine with just looking at all the wonderful things around. I can only imagine what will happen in a few years time when you absolutely must go through every ride!  

In the end we just took a spin on the traditional carousel. You didn't quite know what was going on so most of the time you were just trying to get out of the horse's back. Live and learn though, I'm sure it was still quite an experience.

As the daylight faded away it became quite chilly. We watched the 5PM parade and the returned to the hotel for some hot bath and nice relaxing time... 

Happy birthday Fei! On Sunday, December 21, 2008 you turned exactly one year old! What a year it has been! You were actually a big and strong baby when you were born so I can't say you've grown from the tiniest little baby to a big boy, but you certainly have grown and learned a lot.

To properly celebrate your first year we headed over to Disneyland Paris. The drive from Zürich to Paris is about six hours, but with couple stops it turned to be more like eight. Add to that the fact that daddy couldn't find the hotel as my cellphone, which was used as a navigator, ran out of power just as we arrived the area, and the entire trip was over nine hours! I must say you did much better than I ever expected and in the end it was your mom who almost couldn't handle it...

Anyway, on Sunday we ate birthday cake with the breakfast. We did it the Chinese way, just on the side of the food instead of as a dessert. We decided to let you go wild with the cake and do with it anything you want, but it didn't quite work out as planned... as you're always super careful with all new things, the wildest thing was when your sleeve accidentally touched the corned of the cake as you were carefully reaching to touch a strawberry on top of it. No smashing, banging, etc... what a neat little baby you can be!

After the cake we quickly headed over to Disneyland, which was could actually already been seen from the hotel so the drive was not long and we had not danger of getting lost this time! Unfortunately the weather was kind of dark, cloudy and a little rainy, but I guess that's going to be a common theme with your birthdays to come. Late December is not exactly known for its sunshine... so we'll just have to live with it!

You fell asleep almost instantly after we arrived to the park and in fact took one of the longest naps for a long long time. Your mom and I were actually able to walk through the Disneyland park and all the way back to Disney Village, then proceed to Planet Hollywood for some lunch and almost finish eating before you woke up! Since it was already getting late, the most exciting part of the day ended up being the loud and colorful Disney parade which started right after sunset. You spent the entire parade sitting on my neck looking at the colorful show intently. I can only imagine what you must have been thinking... waking up from a nap and being thrown into the middle of a parade of Disney characters...

So, happy birthday my little boy! I will be writing more as soon as I can... now we're still staying near Disneyland and will spend some more time there (today was another day at the park, but more on that later!) Now it's time for me to follow your example and get some sleep!

It seems you've now totally figured out you are able to move yourself from A to B on your own. You now basically move all the time and it seems you really don't want to focus on one thing for too long time. All it takes for me is to look at the other way for half a second and you're already in the other side of the room!

Fortunately you're always extremely careful with new things. If there's a new toy you didn't see before, you usually first just gently poke it with one finger first, and then see what happens. Then a little stronger touch, and finally very careful examination. Of course you are a boy, so usually you proceed all the way to the point where you test how much noise the new toy makes if it's smashed against all types of hard surfaces, but the important thing still is that you are careful at first!

It's been quite a challenge to get you eating properly, mostly due to this same reason. You're usually so careful to taste new things that it takes a lot of time and patience to get to the point where you actually eat something. First there's just a little touch by the tongue, then perhaps quickly in the mouth and immediatelly out again, and so on... but you've recently started to eat more and more, in fact you've started showing some real healthy appetite.

Obviously you've all the time grown really well, I think you're somewhere in the top 5% of the babies in your age group, so there's never been any real worry of your eating habits either.

One interesting thing - you'd think that someone who moves and does things continuously would get tired and want to sleep early. No way! Our little Fei is like an Energizer Bunny who seems to outrun both of the parents hands down! I have no idea where you get all the energy but it seems you could just stay up all night if we didn't make you sleep sometimes. Not that we're complaining though. I think you're probably just so excited about everything, and that's a great thing of course!

We had an important mission: we needed to get you diapers that are made in Japan. When you and mom visited China a while ago, your mom somehow really fell in love with this specific brand of diapers. She feels you are much happier wearing it, as it's so soft and good for the skin...

We couldn't find this brand in Finland, and so far haven't found in Switzerland either. However, your grandpa in China went out and bought couple packets of your favorite diapers and send them on the way with a Chinese girl who was coming to Switzerland. She's going to be taking care of auntie Ding's daughter who is studying at a private school in near Lausanne.

We rented a car and drove through the Swiss countryside from Zürich to Lausanne. The trip was very easy - you slept the entire way. Switzerland is quite a small country so the trip also was not all that long, and the highways are in a good condition.

After picking up the diapers we headed out to the city of Lausanne to walk around a little bit. It turned out parking in Lausanne city center is nearly impossible... in the end I was able to find a tiny spot in the tiniest parking carage I've ever seen and was lucky enough to get the car in and out without a dent!

It was getting kind of late so we were pondering whether to stay the night in Lausanne or to head back to Zürich. We basically had to be back in Zürich the following afternoon anyway, so staying the night there would mostly give us a chance to do a little walk in Lausanne in the morning.

You fell asleep so we decided to drive back and let you sleep in the car... bad choice! You woke up when we moved you from the trolley to the car seat. Boosted from the little power nap, you decided to not sleep at all on the way back... and since you were not sleeping, you also were not quite content to sit still in the car seat... oh well.


During the trip I wished many times we had made a different choice and decided to stay the night in a hotel, but oh well... in the end we made it back home sound and safe! The funny thing is, arriving Zürich and driving along the Limmat river I almost felt like returning home. We've only been here for couple weeks, but the characteristic city is very easy to like, and it's easy to feel at home.

You are now almost one year old, and yet another major event has happened in our life. Couple weeks ago we packed our bags, left Helsinki behind and arrived in Zürich, Switzerland!

I'm sure for you it's been quite an adventure. In fact, it's been an adventure for all of us, really. We lived the first few days in a nice Mövenpick hotel near the Zürich airport, and then moved to a furnished apartment near the city center. Unfortunately there will be at least one more move, as we are currently waiting for all the relocation paperwork to be finished so that we can get a more permanent place to live...


You seem to like Switzerland. The climate is equally chilly, but people here are somehow warmer and more open than in Finland. Anywhere we go, pretty much everyone wants to come talk to you. In the department stores the sales people stop whatever they were doing just to come and greet you with a smile. Sometimes even the big and scary security guys cannot hold themselves and flash an adoring smile when they look at you. And you really seem to like attention! The flirt-mode switches on immediatelly when a stranger is in sight.

Congrats Fei, today you're featured in Finland's largest newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat! They wrote a nice story about XIHA Life with photo of you and mentioned your blog in it, too. You and I have a nice little morning tradition where I first read the newspaper and you then destroy it, but this time I guess I will try to save it for you to read later on!

Today was a big day for you - a living proof that Santa does exist! The grand old man himself was at our local shopping mall and you got a chance to tell him what you want for Christmas!

This will in fact be your second xmas but last year at 3 days old you were probably a little young to get too many lasting memories out of it...

You had such a good time at the grandpa's today playing with your cousins Teo and Milja. You guys really seem to get along well! Needless to say my dad was very glad to see you too. We enjoyed a little bit of cake too but for you it seems the main thing was meeting all the people.

You absolutely don't like driving in a car though. One hour each way was about 50 minutes too long! Poor little guy. I hope you will get used to it one of these days as driving is kind of necessary or we will end up being being stuck at home!

Today's the first time you got up to standing on your own, without anyone helping out! Couple days ago we lowered the bottom of your old crib (which you have actually never used before) to see if you'd like to spend some time there. Right from the beginning you started trying to figure out how to pull yourself to a standing position and after two days of hard work you already figured it out. This makes me think you probably would have done it a lot sooner if we'd given you the right opportunity before...

Your first time standing was quite wobbly, but in almost no time you've learned to stand quite well and even attempt to steer your way left and right holding the rail!

It was your first Halloween so we had a little pumpkin carving fun! I think the pumpkin turned out quite nice, and you were a good helper through all of it! 

Last month was quite an adventure for all of us. I spent the month in California while you and mom went to Beijing. You finally had a chance to meet your grandpa, as well as the famous Madame Ding.

Despite the long distance we kept in touch with daily Skype video chats so it wasn't totally horrible. I can only wonder what you were thinking of, seeing dad every day on the computer screen, hearing my voice, but not being able to touch. Your mom was telling me that you always got very excited when she started Skype!

When we all returned back home, it was kind of as if nothing had happened. I was afraid you might be angry at me, or even not really remember me, but you behaved just like the happy little boy you have always been. I'm sure the daily calls helped a lot, so it probably didn't feel like I was so far away. While in China you met with some very famous people, such as Wang Hairong, who was a personal English translator of chairman Mao Zedong. You also got to visit Diao Yu Tai, "King's fishing garden" which is a place in Beijing where very few people have access to.

During the month you grew a lot, and obviously you've learned a lot of new stuff too. You now sit up very well and play with multiple toys, holding different toys in each hand, moving toys from hand to hand and looking and feeling them from all angles.

I've been playing a little "choosing" game with your bath toys. You have these "little people" type of toys, which are basically tiny people with colorful clothes. I usually pick two or three, and ask you to pick a favorite. Out of yellow, green and brown guys you almost every time pick the green. Today somehow you picked the yellow, even though I tried twice... and one day you you simply grabbed all of them. Most of the time though, you carefully move your little hand through all of the toys, gently touching each of them, and then pick up the green guy with a wide smile on your face.

Just yesterday you picked another new skill - shaking your head. When you don't want something you shake your head from left to right just like saying "no". Extremely cute! You also really enjoy looking at mom and dad copy you and do the same.

Oh and what a chance one month means in terms of mobility! You're now pretty good at crawling around, and sometimes almost get up on "four wheels". Rolling is like a snap, and you move great distances amazingly quickly. In the bath tub you can get up and move around in standing position, too. I guess you'll be walking all over the place in no time!

Oh my, it's been a really long while since I last wrote to you. Daddy's been busy you know, as always. But at least we've had a chance to spend some quality time together every day, even if I did't have time to write about it.

So today the big thing happened - you said it loud and clear, and more than just once - "DADDY!"

Over the past few months you've kept growing and you're quite a tall boy already. Your favorite thing these days is use a "walker" to cruise around our home, checking out every place you can. Opening drawers, cabinets, reaching for everything you possibly can! Fortunately the walker kind of keeps you in check and prevents you from reaching everywhere... but of course it's just a matter of time when you start moving on your own.

Something you are not really doing, is eating. You love fruits, you're somewhat ok with oatmeal, but you absolutely hate "real" food. We can only hope you'll learn to like eating later on or you're gonna be a skinny boy... (or, if you keep your taste sweets perhaps I should be worried of the opposite?) Your doctor was saying she's never seen an adult who doesn't eat food so the odds are you'll get over it sooner or later.

Fei, you are a Mozart in making! I remember we let you check out the piano several months ago when you were a little baby but your little hands were not strong enough to even make a sound. All we could do was "walk" along the keys but you were not really excited about that... I guess the strong sound of piano at that time was kind of scary.

Well, things have obviously changed quite a bit! Two days ago when mom was playing you were showing a lot of interest to join in. And sure enough - you're now strong enough to actually play sounds, and that turned out to be a nearly endless source of enjoyment! 

I'm attaching a little video of you playing. As you can see from the video you're basically reading the notes, but I kind of have a feeling you're putting a little bit of your own ideas to the mix! Great job little maestro!

Boy, you're on fire these days! Just as you learned to say "mbah", you took us by a surprise when you suddenly flipped around from belly to back couple days ago. Until now you've mastered the back-to-belly manouver for quite some time but never have I even seen you attempt the other way around. However, now it seems both ways happen at ease, so you can change the position as will.

You're also pretty good at sitting. We mostly sit up in the bath these days, giving you a lot more freedom to play with the water. And we're not settling to that. The favorite excercise these days seems to be getting up to standing position when someone's holding your hands.

Oh, I almost forgot - you have such a goodtaste when it comes to cuteness. Whatever happens, even if you're uphappy and crying, just a peek of yourself in the mirror will bring a smile on your face! We've spent probably many hours in front of the mirror flirting with the "other baby", smiling and laughing!

Wow, Fei! Just as you turned six months you learned a new exciting skill - using consonants! Until now everything you've said has pretty much been "Aaa" or "Eee", but now we're suddenly getting a lot of "MmmBababaa..." as if you're trying to figure out whether to say "Mama" or "Papa" first!

Earlier on you were really interested in listening to talking and carefully watched my mouth in order to figure out how I do it. Somehow for the past one or two months you seemed to lose interest in talking and focused more on gymnastics... but now the passion for speech is back. It's amazingly cute to watch you when I talk to you. The eyes are focused on my lips and your little lips are moving slightly, trying to copy what I do. And when I stop, you start. I guess that's a conversation!

Happy birthday Fei, you're now exactly half year old little guy! As it happens, today is also "juhannus", the mid-summer day celebration in Finland.

We weren't planning on it, but we ended up doing something crazy and drove to Naantali to visit Muumimaailma with you for the first time. A little crazy, because we were just on the way to a local park when we decided to keep on driving. Granted, you're a little young for it but hopefully you got something out of the experience. Muumimaailma is a theme park built around the world of Tove Jansson's Muumi characters, which is perhaps the most famous piece of children's literature coming out of Finland... but I'm sure by the time you are old enough to know how to read this text, you will know all about Muumi's that there is to know!

You're not a car person. The drive from Helsinki to Naantali is only about two hours. Going there was fine, since you happily slept the whole time. But coming back... not easy! It seems you can handle only about one hour of driving and then not a minute more! I've heard some babies love driving, they fall a sleep in a car really easily, but it seems you are not one of those babies...

Anyway, happy birthday dude!

Fei, what a big boy you are! Couple weeks ago you figured out how to roll from back to the belly position. Now you can already sit up pretty well on your own. You've taken your first little bites of solid food this week... it's not sinking down very well yet, but you're always eager to give it a try!

On Tuesday we went to yet another nurse check up and you got your second vaccinations. It's amazing how brave little guy you are - not even a tiny bit of crying! Just a little bit of unhappy face but even that disappeared immediatelly afterwards. I also have a piece of excellent news for you - the next shot is gonna be when you turn one year, so we've got six months to go!

Today we're planning on doing some sightseeing in the beautiful Finland summer. It's truly amazing how thing change here from winter to summer. Fei, I know how much you love trees and flowers so I'm sure you enjoy walking outside now that everything's green and the flowers are blossoming everywhere!

It's not easy to get to places outside of Helsinki without a car so recently we bought a new Mini Cooper Clubman. As a little gift for you Fei, the dealership gave us a "Mini Baby Racer", which is your own little car! It's perhaps just slightly too early, but it'll be a perfect fit in no time!

We've taken a few rides already and even though it's a not easy, you seem to enjoy it quite a bit. You just need to remember to keep holding the steering wheel as it's pretty easy to got out of balance.

When you're a little older we can go outside driving in the park, that should be a lot of fun! The joy of driving is limited inside as there's not that much space... but for now it's enough for practicing!

Fei, your mom got this idea to make magazine cover for each of your monthly birthday... pretty cool, huh? We're later going to pring them as a book for you, which should be a really nice!

...and Fei's book is back! Fei, when you read this later on you will notice there's a month long gap in the updates. I wish I had been able to update this more often but it's been a busy month. Just a week ago I returned from a week-long trip to San Francisco, which is like really really far away. It was our first time to be apart for more than a short time...

Quite surprisingly you seem to have realized what's going on, as your mom told me you've behaved like a big boy! You let her cook, eat and rest without needing the full attention you often command. I was a little worried how it would go, but it turns out there was nothing to be worried about!

I missed you a lot during the week so it was a small shock to get your first reaction when I returned home. The very moment you saw me - you started crying! It's hard to say if you forgot about me and got scared, or if you just protested because I had been away for so long. But I know you usually don't cry with strangers, so... well, who can tell. Pretty quickly you started being happy with me again and now we're like best friends again.

Tomorrow we'll have another appointment with the nurse... fortunately this time there won't be any vaccinations, just a general checkup. You've grown so much, both physically and mentally. It'll be interesting to get the latest measurements. We'll also hear if we should already start on solids or if it's still ok to wait for another month or so...

This past week has been quite a milestone in your life! First you turned 100 days old, and then you had your first vaccine shot. I was afraid how you might react to being sting by the needle, but you did amazingly great. I held you in my lap when the nurse gave you the shot. You cried just a little bit, and in fact it was more like complaining than crying.

Just yesterday and today you've suddenly figured out how to move your little body! It isn't easy and we can hardly call it running but I think for you and I both this feels like a major milestone.

The way you move is interesting. You do this laying on your back. What you do is, you put both of your feet down, press hard to lift your back off the ground and then kick as hard as you can. This sends you off a few centimeters towards your head's direction. It's not getting you anywhere really, but it moves you a little and you obviously seem very motivated to keep going.

I noticed you also try to help out by pulling with your hands if you can get hold off something. I put my hand on the reach of yours, just to try it out. You grabbed my finger and I could clearly feel you pulling it towards you the same time you kicked. Smart!

This week we also finally ordered a new bed. After considering Hästen's and couple others, we ended up with Tempur. We tried it out at Stockmann's and you seemed to enjoy it. So that's decided then! Unfortunately it'll take two months to actually get the bed... but they say all good things are worth the wait!

All in all we spent way too much time at Stockmann this week as it was the "Hullut Päivät" (Crazy Days) which is their semi-annual event. Somehow the craziness got hold of your mom and so we had to check out every corner of the department stores, both in city center and Itäkeskus...

It was fun going out with you guys, so in the end the "Crazy Days" gave us a good excuse to spend some time away from home as well as work... For you it was quite an event, seeing so many people and so many new things, but you did really well.

By the way, it's funny how even at their busiest day Stockmann seems rather quiet compared to a regular day in any popular department store in China. I was worried how we will manage with the baby cart when it's crowded but it was actually not hard at all.

Happy birthday Fei! Today you reached an important milestone of 100 days. I can't believe how big boy you've already become!

Since you're a big boy today we did some special stuff. We took a ride in the subway to the city center. Up until now you've always spent the travel time in the baby cart but today you shared the seat with dad, for the first time ever!

You did really well! We spent the entire trip nicely looking at the view and staring at strangers, but I must say you were not at all happy to go back to the baby cart when we reached our station and continued on foot!

We ate some cake and coffee at Strindberg's which is one of Helsinki's most famous cafeterias right in the center of the city. You are - still - too young to eat solid foods but today you showed some obvious interest toward the food we ate.

Today was also the last day of your grandma's stay in Finland. I took her to the airport while you were taking a nap... so I guess you haven't quite realized she left. Tomorrow you must be wondering where she is... poor you. Let's hope she will be back to visit us soon!


Update: I almost forgot, your measurements on this important day! We did our best to measure your length (they say can't call it height until you can stand up on your own... funny!) and came up with 68.5 cm, which is about 27 inches. We also weighed by me standing on the scale with and without you, and it seems you're about 8.4 kg (18 and half lbs).

Fei, I'm sorry I haven't spent enough time with you in the past few days. It's the same old story, too much work and never enough time.

It seems you're used to having dad around quite much. During those days when I'm too busy to play with you, I can clearly notice how you're getting fussy.

It's very interesting, how you seem to miss me if I'm away in another room for couple hours. You're getting more and more difficult to handle, all the way to the point where nothing seems to make you happy. I sometimes hear your mom wondering if you're having some gas or if your somehow uncomfortable when you just keep complaining and refuse to even eat...

More often than not, when I step into the room, your face lights up. When I talk to you, all the worries seem to disappear and you your eyes are shining. Often I don't even need to pick you up. Mostly it's just enough that I look you in the eyes and talk to you.

Oh, I almost forgot... yesteday in the bath you figured out a new way to splash the water. Somehow you found out that if you put some pressure on your legs you're able to arch your back a little to lift your entire lower body to the surface, and then let go and splash the water all over the place! I must say you were really excited when you realized it. With smile on the face and eyes shining bright you kept looking at mom and dad and doing it over and over again.

Yesterday you laughed out loud for the first time! It was no accident as you've repeated the feat several times today. It's kind of funny though, as obviously it is not easy for you. Sometimes it sounds like you were crying, but your face is shining happy and when looking more carefully it is obviously a serious attempt to laugh!

You're getting better pretty fast. Just a little earlier today you were looking at the dining room lamp and laughing at it quite believably!

In the past two days you've also become to love exercise so much. It's not easy for you to move by yourself, but you seem to absolutely love it when mom or dad gives a little help.

It's a little early for you to be turning around but that doesn't stop you from trying. Yesterday when you were laying on your back, I pulled your hand to get you on the side. You were very determined to proceed from there, swinging your leg and arm in the air until you flip on the belly.

We repeated this for a few times until I thought you must be exhausted... but a little later I noticed something really funny! You were moving your head from side to side, obviously trying to keep rolling... It was very cute to watch you trying to figure out how it happened!

Ever since then, you've been wanting to move your body around almost every second you're awake. You can do quite well alone, but after a while you tend to get frustrated with the lack of progress and want some help. It's a little scary how fast you seem to learn new things. I guess in no time you'll be running around the house!

Dear Fei,

I'm writing this for you to read when you're somewhat older. My mom wrote a little "diary" for me when I was a little baby and I found it very interesting to read. I hope you will feel the same way about my writing!

Today is your first Easter. You are three months and two days old now. That is a little too young to eat chocolate eggs, so I ate a couple of extra ones for you! I also enjoyed a generous portion of mämmi, which is a traditional Finnish Easter food. It looks very much like the stuff that appears in your diaper several times a day, but the taste is excellent! I certainly hope by the time you are reading this you will be familiar with it.

Your mom refused to even taste it. It's hard to blame her as the look is quite interesting indeed. Fortunately your mom's mom is more open to new things. She ate mämmi with a good appetite so I didn't have to finish everything alone!

We tried to get good photos and some videos of you today, but somehow you are quite suspicious of cameras these days. You're always so happy and smiling, but the very moment a camera shows up the smile disappears and turns into a worried stare instead.

Oh well - I'm sure you will get used to being filmed. It may also be that it's not just the camera. Usually you love it when I talk to you. We look each other in the eyes, smile, and talk. Usually I talk more, but lately you have been talking more and more - you will probably beat me to it soon.

Things usually change when I take out the camera. It's hard to focus on talking quite as much... and it's also hard to keep my eyes on yours while making sure the camera stays focused on your face. I know for you it must seem weird, even scary. Let's try to remember to have fun and forget that the camera is there at all...