children's music

There's a whole other world of music out there for children... music to
enhance the senses, make them smarter, sleep better, eat better... we
went into HMV the other day and saw a mini-section on Mozart for Babies
- it's like a 5 CD collection, segmented by age... you mean babies need
different music depending on whether they're 0-3, 3-6, 6-12 months? hard
to believe... We decided to pick up a 2 CD set of just nice sounding
classical music - it comes with an introduction track for each piece
that announces the name and composer. Pretty handy - I recognize many of
the pieces but normally don't know the names - so I'll be learning along
with the baby...

Just came across a new group the other day... has anyone ever heard of
the Doodlebops
?
They're a children's musical group that is going to be showing on
Disney... they look like they'd capture a child's attention, but are
they healthy? Is there any educational value? Maybe we'll stick to the
traditional Winnie the Pooh...

Ann in her made-in-Shanghai jacket

We made a trip up to Shanghai during the Easter long weekend, and over the few days that we were up there, Ann managed to get a tailor made silk jacket... great quality and price... they had to estimate on her post-pregnancy size.

Stem cells - 200 million of 'em...

Just had a meeting with the Stemcord person, talking about storing the
stem cells from the umbilical cord. It sounds like a fairly simple
procedure - once the baby is out of the womb, the umbilical cord is
clamped and cut. The blood in the cord is drained into a receptacle and
processed to separate the red, white, and plasma components - apparently
only the white blood cells are needed - these then placed into 4 vials
and then frozen at -170 C degrees until they're needed (if ever...)

Since the research and real-world applications of stem cells is still
evolving, I feel like we're buying into another form of insurance - not
sure if you'll ever use it, but for the potential benefits, you're
willing to pay the $250 or so each year...

Quick update

Hi guys, yes, we've been busy! Since the last update, we've been busy
getting prepared - the room's just about set-up, the classes are over,
the furniture's assembled and the sterlizer has been tested... yep,
we're all ready! (yeah, sure...)

We just went to the doc on the weekend.. Peanut's already in the right
position to come out... he's healthy, and been busy swimming around and
keeping Ann up at night...