16 months - bye bye playpen

am still getting use to the "wide open space" in our living room now that we have packed away the huge veebee playpen/jail. it was becoming quite a safety hazard since baby is now perfectly capable of getting herself up and over the playpen ledge ... which means she finds herself perched plank-style on the top of the playpen and any way she falls (back into the playpen or out of it) will land her in much pain. it feels great to reclaim so much prime living room space! with the physical living space returning to how it more or less was pre-baby, there's a sense that life is going back to the "normal" before baby arrived although i know that it is far from true. it's just my eyes playing tricks on me :D

baby is enjoying her bedtime story routine more and more now ... she keeps still long enough for me to "rush read" through her favourite books and she actually spends quite a bit of time poring over her picture books, pointing out things that she recognises.

her repertoire of nursery rhymes has grown to include humpty dumpty, wee willie winky, jack and jill, hey diddle diddle  and the grand old duke of york. her christmas song this year is "o christmas tree" which she refers to as "o kis". she does actions for all of them and also knows how to complete some of the lines. it's all great fun seeing how much she is absorbing and how proud she is when she shows us what she knows.

she can count from 1 to 10 in both english and chinese, and in general just loves talking and asking for things. it cracked me up when i overheard her saying "pis ah-pen, no, put back" all in one breath ... the no put back part tends to be a common reply from me to her please open requests. haha. 

need to start psyching her up to go to school from next month onwards ... what a big change!

16 months - monkey

everyday we find baby climbing to ever greater heights, literally ... she's discovered that the higher she climbs the more stuff she can reach, so now she's climbing chairs (she conquers the dining table chairs, sofa and piano stool easily) and then some (tv ledge, my bedroom dresser ledge (see below) and of course the dining table. sigh.

we brought her to the botanic gardens today and she got herself onto the ledge of a little water feature (with fish!) and started playing with the water. my oh my.

i think she has a sense of danger so she doesn't do crazy things like jump off the dining chair etc, but i still worry that she loses her footing one day and lands up like humpty dumpty!

oh and she can climb up and down stairs without holding onto anything ... i don't think babies are supposed to do that until much later!!!

16 months - saturday fun

felt like having a good brunch (with pancakes!!) this weekend and so we made our way to the real food cafe at central. it serves vegetarian dishes only and so was quite apprehensive about bringing the husband there as he is a "meat" person. but i shouldn't have worried since the food was really good and tasty. 

my genovese pesto pasta was delicious, especially with the feta cheese mixed in. the mushrooms that came with the big brekkie platter were very tasty, and the strawberry and banana pancake while not like the usual buttermilk pancakes that i've had at other breakfast places before, was of an interesting chewy texture, eggy, and very very yum!

we got to have our brunch in peace while baby slept and when she woke up she polished off the remaining pancake and pasta because they were THAT good.

we later made our way to liang court for the necessary supermarket aisle browsing at meidi-ya ... but before that we had to pry baby away from a huge teddy bear that was part of the photo-taking set that appears at every shopping mall during christmas time. she makes a beeline for every soft toy she sees ... i wonder where she got this soft spot for them from, as i don't remember being so attached to my soft toys when i was young.

bear-baby separation over, she was all cooperative and chilled in her stroller (miracle!) with her hat on (double miracle!!) while we made our way to liang court. halfway there, we took a detour that led us to the water feature at clark quay which got her all excited and (subsequently) wet ... she was running around from water jet to water jet, while there was another girl who was older that was standing with her parents and refusing to even touch the water jets. it's in such situations that i realise how fearless and daring baby is. she's really game to try anything.

it was a great day out.

bookdepository.com

spent quite a bit at bookdepository.com recently as it stocks many of the books that baby has been enjoying from the library. have been trying to hunt down these books, but to no avail so far. so when a colleague mentioned this site (with free shipping!), i immediately checked it out and parted willingly with my money. 

looking forward to having the hugless douglas series of board books for baby, especially since she loves the "don't worry hugless douglas" hat story and keeps saying "hat hat" when going through her hoard of books even though i have had to return that book quite awhile back. also got a few copies of babywise for sharing with friends who are expecting, and decided to buy some of the julia donaldson books that is ever so popular now. a friend gave baby "monkey puzzle" earlier which she enjoyed, so i got another two books by the same author. not "the gruffalo" though, as i still can't figure what's the big deal about that book.

16 months - medley of songs

baby strings the first line of different songs together as if she needs to show you her repertoire of songs as fast as possible ... so the medley usually goes like this:

"jingle jingle little stars, baa baa black sheep, teapot, bus round and round"

uniquely her.

16 months - durian baby

baby eats durian pengat and wants more! she's more singaporean than i ever was at her age.

16 months - bye bye cot

we dismantled baby's cot about a fortnight ago to make more space for her in her room. we probably should have done this much earlier since we moved her from the cot to the mattress before she turned one and have never looked back since. but i guess i was slow to do it because it felt like as long as the cot was there, baby was still a baby.

well, the room is slowly being rid of the baby-baby stuff while my baby hurtles through the height and weight charts ... they really are small for such a short time! you never realise until you experience it yourself. :(

16 months - more talk

it is quite hard keeping track of baby's growing vocabulary nowadays as she picks up new words and their meanings so quickly. but here's what i can remember for posterity:

tissue 插插 (when she asks for a tissue to wipe up the mess she has made), coming coming, aster (bolster), 安安 (晚安), scratch papa face, pee-ahpen (please open - which she says properly when she isn't excited), ah bash (toothbrush), 跑得快, ah-pers (slippers), shoes (mama/papa shoes), (insert name) 抱抱, elephant, teapot, cup, (diaper) cream, 美美, 衣服 ....

she can sing twinkle twinkle little star (chinker chinker lee er tar) and baa baa black sheep.

she has also started to tell us "no!" when she doesn't want to do something ... like leaning forward so that i can pour water on her head during her bath. she also mimics and preempts my "wait wait wait" when she wants me to do something while i am busy with another thing. it's hilarious.

every morning now she will pound on her own bedroom door and yell for me to open the door to let her out. when she's tall enough to open the door, we are going to be trouble! :p

pre-black friday shopping

let's just say that the baby clothes at carter's are so much cuter than those for toddlers. i am going to be very sad when i can no longer buy clothes from the baby section (up to 24 months) for baby. 

oh, and yes, i have done the requisite black friday shopping already and these clothes should last baby for the next 6 months AT LEAST. :D 

15 months - natter chatter

words and more words! baby is increasingly verbal and can practically repeat everything we say after us. these are just some of the words and phrases she can say while knowing the meaning of now:

where is she, aeroplane, papa/mama sit, papa/mama eat, yi-po, aiyo, papa one, wait wait wait (something i say to her a lot), booterfly, bird 飞飞, teapot, 雨伞, 跑跑跑, twinkle, happy, feet, sweet *sigh*, ball kick, i am (her name), (her name), baby seat, same (she tells us how high chairs in restaurants are the same), open/close (she knows the associated actions for both) ...

ah min min - we have no idea what this means but she is always happy saying it so we indulge her.

it's great how she can follow many instructions - like taking her bathtowel to the bathroom at bathtime, cleaning up any mess on the floor, looking for missing toys (including under the living room couch), waiting for us, returning toys to their proper place, drying her feet and hands after we wash them, taking out the milk carton from the fridge, screwing on/off her tube of diaper cream/toothpaste, brushing teeth, smiling, covering her eyes or ears .... she's all grown up!!!! arghhh!!!

15 months - down under and back

we had a great time holidaying in perth and margaret river, and this trip confirmed baby's love for animals. like LOVE LOVE. she's unafraid of getting up close to dogs, sheep, chickens peacocks you name it, and always seeks them out. she grumbles if they walk away and will chase after them.

perth/fremantle was all about chilling and hiding from the heat, while we spent lots of time outdoors in margaret river because the weather was so cool and comfortable.

couldn't have imagined a better holiday ... even the flight there and back with a super active toddler in tow was manageable somehow. 

we should definitely do this again. soon.

15 months - check-up

hello 11.8kg, 82cm baby! she's top of the percentile charts again.

baby got her 2nd MMR jab during the visit to the polyclinic. two more jabs (chicken pox and another 6-in-1) and we will be done with vaccinations until she is in primary school. hurray!

14 months - and loving storytime

baby can't really sit still for long, so it's a miracle when i am able to get past "once upon a time" without her moving off elsewhere. but this book has managed to keep her well-entertained ever since we borrowed it from the library. 

she is a drama mama when we tell her this story, which is about a little bear who gets his new hat all unraveled and meets various animal friends along the way who try to help him make things better. 

she seems to grasp the idea that something has gone wrong with the hat (and keeps saying UH OH!! very dramatically coupled with hand actions and wide eyes), and says "hat". she also says "mow" (moo) when she sees the cow, and does her very realistic "ah choo" when she sees the bear sneezing in one of the pictures. she also says "pour" at the page showing papa bear pouring out some tea into a cup.

it's been very entertaining to tell the story to her, and a perfect way to end every night. 

14 months - morning at the fire station

we brought baby to the nearby fire station on saturday morning for its weekly open house. she was probably too young to appreciate the tour, and she kept taking off the very cute fireman helmet that was distributed to all the kids. plus she wasn't in the best of moods to start with (yay wonder week), and didn't like that she couldn't touch all the knobs and buttons that she saw. 

BUT she enjoyed the water jet demonstration because of all the water everywhere. and she liked "driving" the foam tender with its big steering wheel.

we will be back when she is older!

14 months - busy at night

barged into baby's room this morning expecting to see baby awake and about as usual but instead saw this sight - 

somewhere somehow in the dark last night she carried all her soft toys including tamago from the mattress to the floor and then fell asleep on tamago. oh, and she must have been feeling warm as the standing fan was blasting away when i went into the room. :D

14 months - so many new words

way too cooool!

baby is picking up new words very quickly nowadays. not only repeating after us, but also saying words on her own accord when she sees the item. the continuously growing laundry list of her spoken vocabulary (where she is not blindly imitating) include: apple, 爷爷, joy ("doy"), 耳朵, 尾巴, 猪猪, amen, dog, dark (the room without lights on), yuck (poop in diapers tend to draw this reaction), 菜 ("tai"), 铁头, where, is, bear bear (her soft toy), meh-meh / sheep (her sheep soft toy), moon, please ("piss"), 姐姐, raisin, egg, baby ("babeh"), mop (when we mop up spilt water), poopoo, goodnight ("night" or "goo-night"), ten, share, open ("pen"), train, pour ...

she is also starting to recognise alphabets, and will say "A", "G", "F" among others, although i can only say for sure that she definitely recognises A for now.

she also will start singing the birthday song ("hap! hap!") with enthusiastic clapping when she sees pictures of cakes with candles. it's hilarious.

and....

she is finally finally saying mama and meaning it. FINALLY! just last night i had slept with baby at my parents' home and she woke me up this morning by kissing me and saying mama mama. best way to wake up at 8am on a public holiday. 

time out!

got to spend sunday by ourselves after my parents "hijacked" baby on saturday evening, and it felt good to have some time to do whatever we wanted whenever we wanted.

i slept in and later grabbed the chance to head to town and do some decent shopping. but i unfortunately could not find anything to spend my plentiful takashimaya vouchers (which we got from colleagues and friends when baby was born. yes, that long ago) on. landed up using only a $10 voucher for yummy carbs (bread) at peck. thankfully the vouchers do not have an expiry date, so i can still take my time to spend them. 

the visit to paragon was more fruitful and i came away with new clothes (including a dress) for myself. also got to try out the very satisfying red velvet cake and banana moscovado loaf with peanut icing from the chalk farm. i will be back for more!

then spent the afternoon watching vettel win yet another GP race and reading and finishing ender's game in one sitting. i gave up a nap to do this! that was how intriguing and interesting the story was. now i need new reading material, as i think it will be awhile before i finish the picture of dorian grey and i need something else to read on the sidelines.

this was followed by dinner and then our usual gogglebox fare - 夜市人生, last weekend's US masterchef rerun, and ANTM season 20.

to think this was how most weekends were spent before baby arrived! 

14 months - cold and sweet

we spent some time today at a full month party for a pair of twins at the daily scoop (at chip bee gardens). 

this is how it is eating ice cream with a toddler:

- after the first few tentative licks and getting used to the cold sensation in her mouth, baby will want to take charge of the cone. and will REFUSE TO LET GO.

- if the cone is sturdy (like the one from daily scoop) then there's less risk of her crushing the cone in her vice-like grip.

- if the scoop of ice cream is cold enough and firmly on the cone, then you have a few minutes' grace before the ice cream starts getting drippy and melty.

- try to gobble down as much of the ice cream despite her protests and screams. otherwise, the mess will be too much to handle. because of this, i only got to enjoy my strawberry shortcake ice cream for all of 2 minutes (or 5 mouthfuls). sigh.

- leave her with the empty cone to enjoy for the rest of 15 minutes or longer. i wonder how long more i will be able to pull this off.

14 months - *hearts* tamago

this is evidence that she LOVES her tamago, especially when her daddy starts on his tamago antics.

14 months - water baby

i think we will be spending a lot of time at the splash park at the zoo from now onwards. baby LOVES it there and she gets to burn off her energy running everywhere in knee deep water.

got to try the huggies little swimmers disposable swimpants that i got from cold storage after the earlier bursting diaper episode and it works very well! it doesn't swell even with baby being in the water for close to an hour. at the rate we are visiting the zoo, i guess she'll be through with the 11 (now 10) swimpants before she weighs 15kg. right, right?!

14 months - changing naptimes

baby is transitioning from two to one nap in the day. i have been delaying her naptime on weekends such that she only sleeps around 1pm for about 1.5-2 hours and is up for the rest of the day. it's been good so far, as i don't have to deal with her fighting her morning nap. and we don't have to wonder whether she will take another nap in the late afternoon. on those days when she is reluctant to nap in the afternoon, i also get a grumpy baby on my hands around 5-6pm because her last nap was too early in the day.

so yes, i am liking this transition and also enjoying the longer break i get in the afternoon.

however it also means shifting around some of the milk and meal times. baby's eating schedule is now as follows:

8am - 6oz milk

9am - some kind of breakfast. either eating what we are having for breakfast (e.g. yam cake, toast, noodles, scrambled eggs from mcdonald's) or cereal/fruit. she also gets soya bean milk or some fresh milk to go along with the food.

12pm - lunch

1pm - 8oz milk (it used to be milk at around 10.30am followed by her nap and then lunch around 12pm)

3pm (when she gets up) - some snack or fruit. am trying to cut out her late afternoon milk feed since she doesn't seem to need it and i would rather her have a hearty appetite for dinner.

6pm - dinner

8-8.30pm - 8oz milk

i like this eating schedule as we can have lunch together rather than consecutively. plus, she eats more at lunch and dinner because we don't fill her up with milk beforehand.

14 months - a day in pictures

visiting the e twins and learning how to share cranberries while we caught up with friends.

having fun at the park (on a rather warm afternoon), swooshing down slides, and learning how to say raisin.

having her first ice cream truck ice cream. go local! go cheap!

13 months - friday goodness

took friday off to spend solo time with baby because i somehow felt that it would be infinitely better (and less tiring) than heading to work. i was right.

work has somehow been wearing me down even though i don't think the workload is heavy at all. have had colleagues tell me on separate occasions in the past week that i look tired (and like crap), so i guess it is true.

so friday was a welcome relief. we spent the morning at the playground and also having a rather enjoyable breakfast of soya milk and steamed yam cake. then it was indoor play time while i whipped up lunch (fried rice, cauliflower, broccoli and carrots) for baby. baby ate lunch without a fuss, and after her bath, she got her bottle of milk and had a 1.5 hour nap when i took some time to catch up with work emails. 

baby woke up at around 2 and we took the train to causeway point as i had to buy some presents. baby behaved really well in her carrier during the train ride. i think she enjoyed the moving scenery outside the windows and observing people in the train. i will definitely miss the convenience of taking her around in the carrier when she exceeds the weight limit (which should be soon! wurh!).

realised that there were indoor play areas at the mall, so baby got to romp around in the playground for awhile. this was followed by mad driving on the barney toy car. shopping was next and i had a late lunch at yoshinoya with baby munching on the long beans and carrots that came with my beef bowl. all in all, we spent 2 hours out of the house and it was all good! so proud of myself that i managed to handle the outing with a super active baby on my own.

when we got home, baby got her late afternoon milk, followed by flipping through books and playing games with her soft toys.

after dinner, we went for our usual jaunt at the nearby mall and the library. then baby spent some time at our neighbour's home before coming back for her bath and bedtime. 

what a great day. more of such days please!

downsized!

i swear i have smaller boobs now than i had before i was pregnant. what happened? the fats probably travelled downwards and lodged in my thighs. gah. #postpregnancybody

13 months - check up

baby went for her 3rd (and last) pneumococcal jab today. apparently it's the jab that is the most painful of the lot, and her crying definitely proved it. she has not cried so much for past jabs.

anyway, her vital stats as an almost 14-monther are 80cm (97th percentile) and 11.5kg (97th percentile). based on those charts in the health booklet, kids are usually this size when they are 2. she's definitely not going to lose out in the physical and gross motor aspects compared to those kids who were born in the earlier part of 2012. 

13 months - sand success!

she finally got comfortable at the sand playground today! at our third try! there was the initial reluctance, but after a few minutes of standing stock still and getting used to the sand on her feet, baby got moving and even started digging up sand using her hands. she was having quite a bit of fun and so getting her out of the playground took quite a bit of effort. couldn't help it as the sun was setting and she hadn't had dinner. we shall have to plan to spend more time at the playground next time. :)

baby is sticking close to the hubby this weekend so i had plenty of chances to catch the two of them together. nice!

13 months - new words

baby continues to learn new things everyday and we find that she's really quick at picking up new words and meanings nowadays.

she knows and recognises/points to the following things or does the action (on top of what she already knew before): cheek, chin, armpit, banana (said it once so far only when looking at a picture book), shoes, star, zebra (in picture books), keys (and specifically the key in the bunch of keys that opens the house door), ah yi (my sis), gugu (my sis in law), uncle (generic), auntie (generic), baby, 眼晴, 耳朵, 鼻子, 转个圆圈 (she turns in circles until she is quite giddy), 再见 (which is a flying kiss), 睡觉 (where she will rest her head on her hand/arm), close eyes, smelly, thunder

she can say the following when she sees it or does the action: wet (like the wet floor after it is mopped), hive (five, and that it comes after 4), eight, hot (when she sees steam or touches something warm like her milk bottle or bath water), amen, bear, bag, popo (grandma), nana (grandma), bye, clock, 花 ...

the list is endless and i don't think i have covered everything. really appreciative that she's being exposed to both english and chinese at such a young age.

baby fever

who would have thought it would hit so soon?!!! i now have full blown baby fever, although i could sense it creeping up on me ever since i packed away the breast pump when baby turned 1 (how easy it is to forget what a chore that part of bringing up baby was!). 

what can i say? babies, especially great ones that sleep through the night early on and never get feverish after their jabs and who dish out kisses and smiles so generously are waaaay tooooo addictive!!

</outburst>

13 months - more fun at the zoo

we took a different walking route at the zoo today and got to see the tigers and elephants that we hadn't seen in awhile. baby finally paid some attention to the tigers this time round partly because they were pacing around and also because she thought they were large versions of the cats she sees around our neighbourhood. we know because she kept going "meow meow!" when we were at the tiger enclosure.

we also spent a lot of time at the kidzworld water play area and got ourselves very wet. it was the first time that we had brought baby to the water play area since she started walking, and once she got used to getting splashed by the various water jets, she was off walking around the water that was higher than her knees and plonking herself in the water and kicking up a storm. she even took all the splashing and water in her eyes that came from being curious about what other older kids were doing in her stride. no complaints, and just amusement and enjoyment written on her face. 

she was probably by far the youngest toddler going about her own business and having loads of fun at the water play area. so proud of her! it's so difficult to believe that she is only 13 months old when i watch her acting all grown up.