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 :)