Charis & Charisma

Was at a wedding last week and saw some of my old time friends.

Friend: Hey tracy! Long time no see! This is your daughter? What's her name?
Me: She's Charis.
Friend: Oh how do you spell that?
Me: Charis as in Charisma.
Friend: I see ..she is Charis ..then you must be Charisma (Charis妈)!!

LOL!!! ~~~

Happy First Birthday to Charis!!

We ordered our favorite fruit cake cos we'll eat it on baby's behalf :)

We gave her only the strawberry

Looks like daddy? Looks better than daddy? ^_^

婆婆 says let baby eat drumstick on 1st birthday

symbolizes she will eat many foods in future!!

Hubby and i woke up this morning with a gasp: she's ONE today!

We were filled with nostalgia (as if we had been parents for decades ^_^) as we recounted her growth: how she blew bubbles with her saliva when the nurse laid her on my chest soon after she popped; how she cried the whole night when she was four days old and hubby and i felt like there were 72 hours of night-time; how she cried the whole day when she turned one month that we rushed her to KK past midnight, only that she stopped the din once we walked past the front door and slept peacefully to the doctor and back.

When she was three months old she could only sleep when she laid chest down on our chest and hubby and i took turns to sleep sitting up. The pandas never left our house until the forth month, when we had a fierce battle introducing the bottle. We also fed her the first cereal where I acted like a clown while my maid pushed in what also came out. The biggest consolation was she could clap very well at five months which made us real proud wherever we brought her. At six months she couldn't take formula, didn't drink much breastmilk, pooed up to five times a day and growth was on the decline. Between seven to eigth months she was badly sick for three times by which then i weaned her off and put her on soy.

The ninth month was the turning point: she suddenly could sit up real well, started crawling, pulled herself up to a stand, cruised around, finish all her milk, love her solids, and wave goodbye. Some people say kids "turn around" after a bad illness, and it seems to be true!

Today, she is still smallie in build, but definitely more sturdy and looks healthier compared to previous months. She does her flying kiss, twinkle twinkle little star, asks you to come, waves her hands frantically when she hears music, loves playing peekaboo, lifts her left leg when you wear her left shoe and vice versa, throws everything and anything, looks innocently at you while continuing to do what you said "NO".

We thank the Lord for such a blessed year. As a matter of fact, today looks more like a milestone for me than for her :P Hubby and i enjoyed her very much and as we give thanks, we also ask the Lord for more wisdom and strength as we continue to raise her in the fear and instruction of God.

Happy 1st birthday baby Charis. Daddy and mummy loves you!! ~~

This is MINE! MINE! MINE!!! ~~~~

I Love Biscuit

Peekaboo Fun

Photo Taking Practice

Baby in pink (again) ~

I so love this hello kitty hair clip with the astrociously big ribbon!





I don't think Charis has a winning chance at the baby crawl contest ...

Another saturday, YAY!! :) We always take this opportunity to take some photos, and this time it's practice time for my maid. Since the last time she took photos at the pool, i decided i need to give her more training and practice on photo and video taking ^_^

Not bad, i think she's improving. At least our heads are not chopped off or something! hehe ~

The First Dip

Cutie swim suit given by my sister-in-law

Humf, i'm all ready to conquer the pool!

Mommy, do i really have to go into the water?

Eh, how come my feet cannot touch the ground?!

Arrrrghhhhh save me! ~~~

Thank God for the lovely weather last sunday as we brought wawa for her maiden swim. We borrowed the neck float from Auntie April and was all eager to try it and see how baby would react to it. She loves her bathing time and would always protest when we lift her out of her tub, so we think she would definitely enjoy the swim!

Initially there was a great sense of novelty as we put on the neck float, and baby started to fiddle with this new thingy. Hehe good start :) Next we splashed some water on her body to prepare her for the actual swim. Still smiling away, good :) But after she was submerged into the water, she held on VERY tightly to the float. She looked like she was trying to make sense of what is actually happening!

Shortly, she became very frightened and started to scream! She tugged ferociously at my swimsuit and her legs wound around me like a koala bear. I tried to pacify her by splashing the water around, but she just clung ever so tightly like a piece of velcro.

So the rest of the time was spent carrying her around in the water. You won't really call that swimming haha. Maybe more like a duck ferrying a timid mouse. I guess i started my baby too late. At this time, she already has the concept of fear, she feels insecure being in a foreign environment, and when buoyancy kicks in she must have felt really weird that her body is uncontrollable!

Overall it was a very good learning experience. I hope to bring baby to the pool more frequently so that she can finally really conquer the waters. Mommy frens, some advice i received was that you can start bringing baby to swim after 6 months. Try to start early, to avoid a frightened baby!

I am 11 months old!

Woohoo! ~~~ Just a month away from the BIG ONE! So what's new this month?

Basically nothing! Haha ... yes nothing new to report, though she's getting better at everything she already knows :) She's still crawling, pulling up, cruising, screaming, squirming, smiley, smallie ... hehe ... Baby is developing much of a character of her own now. Once she is determined on something, and you take it away, she SCREAMS and protests till she has her way! Oooh boy, talk about a demure princess *rolls eyes* ^_^

I read in the baby book that toddlers before one still does not have the concept of discipline, so instead of hitting her backside when she disobeys, try to avoid those situations from the beginning (e.g avoid wearing a necklace if you become angry when baby tugs at it).

Just not too long ago baby was but a teeny little baby lying in the cot, but has now sprung up with her head over the rims! Thank God for His grace, mercy and protection for the little one. Looking forward to her ONE milestone soon!

Lunch @ Ikea

Ahhhhh~~~~ Delicious home cooked porridge!

I eat ... and i drink ...

Huh? Porridge so fast finished ah?

Watching pple go by ...

Have i told you i took gymnastics class lately?

The 100% mischievous look

We love Ikea, and we are so thankful for the fact that we are only 10 mins' drive from Ikea Tampines. Even though we do not lack anything, it is still always a joy to shop around and looking at the newest innovation or latest bargain from the mega store. And not to mention the ever tasty meat balls and baked chicken leg!

So here we are one of the afternoons, bringing wawa along to our favourite eating place. We fed her lunch when we had ours so she doesn't drool over our good foods ^_^ She had a great time watching people go by while we had a tough time aiming the spoon to her mouth as she turns her head from left to right and back.

Nice place to chill out; you know where to find us! :)

I Am Sick Again!

KK Triage instructed us to sponge her due to the high fever

So sad, it's terrible to be sick. Sob ~

When will i get well? Sob ~

It's the third time in 2 months, and happens after i stopped breastfeeding. So i'm wondering if a baby's immunity will drop so drastically after being weaned :(

This time it was really really bad. Baby had high fever averaging 39 degrees for 3 days. I had to keep sponging her through the night to prevent her from over-heating. There were no other symptoms and the doctor confirmed she didn't have urinary tract infection. We deduced it could be some viral infection. Poor girl ~~~~ poor mom too .... turning panda ~~~

It's always a big worry for us when baby falls sick. She's not too meaty to begin with, and each time she is ill she loses weight within days which she had so hardly gained in the past months.

One good habit we developed out of this calamity was drinking water. Due to the fever, we were constantly feeding baby water, and even after she recovered we continued with this practice. Initially, baby didn't like to drink, but it's been about 2 weeks now and baby has taken to the habit of drinking every hour or so.

Her appetite has regained since then and we're up on the arduous task of fattening her up again :)

TCC @ Keppel Bay

Our all time favourite - Beef Stew!

Yummy juicy chicken

Anyone would drool over those tomatoes!

The pizza was the only disappointment ... maybe it sat cooled for too long

When i have my teeth i'm gonna sink them into the steak!

Have always loved to go to Marina at Keppel Bay. It's scenic, has nice restaurants and not crowded! Once i had dinner with some colleagues at TCC at Clark Quay and was pleasantly surprised at their palatable servings. I thought TCC was famous for coffee but little did i know they had great foods too! So we're back to TCC, this time at Marina, a new haunt for my mom!

The beef stew was succulent and melts in the mouth. Nicely decorated with giant asparagus, the greens did a good job to complement the strong meat taste. And you don't get a prize for rightly guessing what i ordered :P The chicken came in a tasty sauce and grilled just to perfection! Hubby's beef steak burger was also a generous serving that left him totally satisfied. We had to give special mention to the baked potato side. Very soft and delicious, and totally won us over. The presentation also scored full marks with us! Overall the dishes looked as good as they tasted!

The next time you scratch your head wondering where to have a good meal, consider TCC :)

I am 10 months old!

I can stand now!

Hehe i also started to take my first steps!

I think my double eyelids are back ...it's strange... they come and go!

Very soon i'll be going places! Daddy, keep your hi-fi set!

I feel sorry for my kid as she is approaching 11 months soon but her busy mom is catching up on her blog only now :P

10 months is really a fun time for both baby and us. She's starting to get mobile, pulling up to a stand every so often and cruising around in the cot. I always wonder why she doesn't feel giddy moving round the compound for the n-th time! And for us, it's always such a great joy to see her grown up to be a little explorer all on her own! I'm enjoying every bit of this moment before she starts to walk and breaks my back!

Changing her diapers have become such a laborious challenge. She flips over faster than you can wink your eye and she exerts brute strength to retaliate when you pin her down to take off her pants. Just imagine two desperate women (my maid and I) panting in pearls of sweat all because of a soiled backside! What a task!

I can't help but gasp in awe that very soon baby is turning one! I actually survived motherhood till now! Thank God for His strength and mercy!

Things to Do on a Saturday Morning

1. Doll your child up with whatever hair she has

2. Watch your child make funny faces and blame it all on your husband

3. Teach her a new trick and have her sing along

4. Put on ear plugs and hear your soprano scream her lungs out

I am 9 months old!

A few milestones to capture in this month ...

First of all, i weaned baby off breastmilk (hah maybe this is MY milestone YAY!) and she starts to take soy. Found that she can and loves to eat a wide variety of food - pork, beef, chicken, fish, veg, fruits, potato, sweet potato, cheese, yogurt, egg, bread and biscuit.

Motor development, she can sit and crawl pretty well now. Goes from tummy to sitting position and vice versa. Found that she can pull herself up to standing position TODAY! Achievement reported by the maid and i have not seen it for myself as yet. Will try to take a picture soon!

Continues to clap - has almost become her signature trick that never fails to make us laugh. She has also learnt to make "orh-yi-orh" action by flapping her palms over her mouth while making a "AH" sound (this is very hilarious too). When we say 我 she can pat her chest.

Speech wise, not much difference from last month. Still very noisy and always AH AH AH. For a short period she was saying a lot of BA and MA, and even DA. But now we don't hear that often, and when she's hungry she goes MUM MUM.

Challenges we faced.... stranger anxiety seems to have kicked in, albeit a little late compared to other kids i know. People whom she used to hang around pretty well will suddenly trigger her cry of distress if they tried to carry her now. She would start looking for me or the maid. Also she hasn't cut any tooth, while i heard some of her peers already had 4 or more teeth! Haha we always laugh at her and call her "No-Teeth Girl" (invented by my maid when i call her Naugh-Ty Girl).

Think i'm going to miss this stage. Soon she'll become mobile and i'll break my back running after her and trying to catch her when she falls ... awwww my poor body ....

Fever Strikes Again

Eh, why this very cold thing stucked on my head??

Heh heh heh, i'm not sick, YOU are!

For some reason unknown, a fever that went up to 38.8 suddenly striked the innocent baby one morning. It continued for a day without any other apparent symptom which set the anxious indicator in us rising by the minute. There was no vomitting, no diarrhoea, no runny nose, no cough, no nothing! The stubborn fever just persisted even though we religiously administered the paracetemol and made sure she had plenty of rest and fluids.

Funny thing is though we knew baby was sick, she probably was the last to acknowledge the fact. Baby was all active and alert and continued to smile and play despite the blazing heat on the forehead. We had much difficulty determining if there was anything we should be concerned about looking at her happy state.

The fever still lingered the next morning, and we called and made an appointment with the doctor in the afternoon. High fever without other symptoms could be a case of urinary tract infection. We were all packed and ready to zip to the clinic, when after her morning nap, to our greatest surprise, the fever just *poop* and went off! Just like that! No joke! We thank the Lord for His protection!

As mysterious as the fever came, it also went. Baby continued to be well after that fateful nap. However we found that her appetite did go down a bit, and she also bite her fingers a lot more. We wonder if the tooth fairy had dropped us a visit. We don't feel anything on baby's gums yet, but hopefully the pearly whites sprout out soon!

Happy Birthday Daddy! ~

Big spread of food ... burrrp! ~

May hubby be slim *er hem* like ultraman

Jerry's signature dish - fried mushroom

Apple pie to celebrate the occasion

Bored baby keeping herself occupied

Arrrgh sorry for being out of action for a long time. Have been busy and unwell lately. Can't be in self-denial for too long that age does matter!

And no one understands this more than hubby! We celebrated his special day in a simple but warm manner. Sumptuous homemade steamboat at mom's, followed by the super-cute ultraman cake (it looked great but didn't taste good). We also went to Jerry's BBQ Grill & Bar at Jalan Kayu on the actual day for a supposedly romantic dinner. But to our disappointment the food was just only so-so, and the place wasn't really nice. Anyways we had a great time watching the baby clap her hands every now and then ^_^

May the Lord grant us good health and many more great years to serve Him! Amen!

The Dark Week

Just a week ago, the happy baby still spotted a double chin

Hai, it's terrible to be sick ... the skinnier version

It all began last monday when i came down with a high fever at night. A visit to the doctor revealed that i had a severe flu complete with cough and running nose. I was given multiple types of medication and told to stay home for two days.

The virus must have been passed to the baby since i still continued to nurse her. On Wednesday, baby started to have diarrhoea. We did not suspect anything at first as we introduced a small amount of infant formula and we thought it could be the new milk. The other hideous side effect was a damaged backside with itching red nappy rash, which made baby uncomfortable sitting down and her appetite went down by half. Finally a high fever at 39 degrees broke out on Friday. The baby clinic was full and we had no choice but to go straight to KK.

Diagnosis could not determine the true cause of the sickness, and the doctor attributed to a possible viral attack passed on by me (and daddy was sick too). We went home and continued on regular dose of paracetemol. We also had to feed baby Pedialyte, a rehydrating solution to replace water, glucose and electrolytes (salt) back into baby's body.

We came to another major headache. Baby has to be on a total fluid diet due to the diarrhoea, so that means only milk and the Pedialyte solution (which baby hated the taste and hardly drank any). But since i was badly sick too, the breastmilk supply continued to dwindle. Baby has a lactose intolerance and vomits each time we fed infant formula. The only other thing baby could drink was soy milk, which we had tried feeding a hundred times without success as baby is extremely picky about the taste.

If we could pull out our (or the baby's) hair we probably would. Seeing the poor child running a nasty fever, watery stools, hungry, crying but just refusing to drink the soy, any parent would give a million to reverse the situation. I was literally praying on my knees and crying my heart out to the Lord. The hungry baby would rather bite her pillow with pearly tears rolling down those sickly eyes than to drink the soy.

The night passed on so slowly i woke up every other minute to check if the baby was alright. At the first sight of dawn, i made another feed of soy and saying the most desperate prayer, the baby grabbed the bottle and quietly emptied the contents without a single coercion. I guess this is what we know as survival instinct. The poor baby have gone hungry for almost a day and finally ignored her preference and succumbed to her body needs. I was awestrucked and praised my Lord for this miracle!

The high fever persisted through the whole of Saturday, hovering between 38.4 to 38.8 degress. We diligently fed her medicine, then milk, then pat her to sleep, and the entire routine went on for as long as we could remember. I still said my prayers each time we fed her soy and thankfully she was consuming a reasonable amount each time.

As the day breaks on Sunday, the fever finally came down to 37.4, and going forward came back to normal to 36.2. I really do not have the right words to express our relief and joy! Baby was able to make a little play, respond a bit to people, and we almost caught a glimpse of the naughty baby back into action, biting and chewing slowly on her toys.

The dark week past, and today the fever has said bye bye. While the frequency of stools has lessened but we continue to monitor as the consistency is still watery. Baby can start to eat a little cereal and seems to be getting back to usual. However we found that she still can't smile like before. Probably will need a longer recovery period before the true blue cheeky girl is back.

I am 8 months old!

Our baby is like a doll to us... literally!

Bet you didn't know everyone calls me 娃娃!

I hate to say this but truly TIME FLIES! Unknowingly, i have survived 8 months of late nights and breastfeeding, baby can now flip left right up down center, crawl with a wobble, blabber non-stop, clap when you sing a song, and flap like a bird! It's amazing what babies can do?!

She's quite funny to play around and we have a lot of joy at her expense e.g. making her turn round and round using a toy bait and laughing at her funny reactions etc. The entertainment is quite a good return for my investment haha. So those of you feeling bored, quick go and have a baby la :)

Cornflake Cookies

Karen happily whisking away

Fold in the flour bit by bit

Ta-Dah! ~ Golden brown cookies with crunchy cornflakes!

Karen even got me a heavenly bday cake! Made my day!

Karen came over for our first baking session together, and i must really thank her for this wonderful cornflake cookie recipe!

Just whisk sugar and butter until fluffy, fold in flour and egg, roll out balls onto the crushed cornflakes, send them into the oven and voila! there you have it! Crunchy cookies that melts in the mouth! Cannot stop at one, two or three!

It seems pretty easy to manage and the results are really good, so i will try to make these again on my own. Thank you Karen! And looking forward to more (free) baking classes from the guru!

CORN FLAKE COOKIES

Butter – 1 lb (16oz)
Flour – 1 lb (16oz)
Sugar – 0.5 lb (8oz)
Egg yolk – 4Salt – a little
Cornflakes (crushed - you can also whisk them in a blender) - one box or tray

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius
2. Whisk butter and sugar until white and fluffy
3. Fold in flour, salt, then add egg yolks (i used salted butter so didn't add salt)
4. Roll balls out of the batter, and then roll them onto the crushed cornflakes
5. Send to the oven and bake for ~20mins

A nice aroma will prompt you to check that it's ready and you can try poking it with a fork and it should come out clean. Cookie is not so hard so don't overbake it!

Enjoy! ~~