My hubby can be pretty sentimental at times. The words he spoke to me surprises me and his actions would sweep me off my feet. Hah! Talking about the sparks that keeps the relationship burning :p That's him, the man I vow in the eyes of our Lord to love and cherish till death do us part. He's still calling me at least twice a day just to say Hi. This has been going on since our dating days friendship days and it has turned out to be a habit for us until this very present day.
Talking about calls from him...here's one..
Hubby called me at work and that's what he said "Eh dear, I realised that we've not taken a family photo for a long long time!". I started counting and counting... Oh yes...the last proper family photo taken was during CNY 2010 and Baby J was about 4months old! Hubby continued saying "We usually take photos of her alone, me and her or you with her... we hardly take any photos of the 3 of us together". So sad eh! Mmm...Hubby insist that he wanted to bring out the tripod yesterday evening to snap a photo of the 3 of us but I wanted to postpone the photo shoot until this coming weekend because I look very tired on a weekday evening. *Oh I'm so vain :p*
I promised my dear hubby that we'll be going for a proper family photo session at the studio when baby J celebrates her 1yo birthday.
At times, we spoke about going to zoos, play lands and fun places for little kids in the near future. We planned trips back to hometown, what's for dinner, teasing each other over the phone and sharing a joke we just heard or read.
I realised every 5-10 minutes conversation during office hours with him could brighten my day, keeps me going and looking forward to reunite with my SUNs....just the 3 of us! *Smiles*
After 3 days of fussiness at night, a drop in her appetite and discomfort on her gums, a tiny little hole was seen on her lower gums. She bleed a little and I believe its the teeth trying to cut its way through. Today, a white rough dot was seen. Praise the Lord, since that day...we can now go back to sleep peacefully at night :)
A lazy mummy like me will always think of short cuts :p...especially when we've to run errants or to do some SHOPPING during weekends. Today, hubby thought instead of going to 1Utama (as frequent as 2-3 times/month...*yawn*), we decided to head down town to The Gardens, Mid Valley.
To save more energy shopping time, I've done a very easy lunch for baby J today. It's mashed P&P.
Boil and mash 1 tiny little potato.
Boil some sweet baby peas
Once the baby peas are cooked, I've blended the peas until smooth. Add into the mashed potato and mix them up. I did not add any water into the mash because my baby loves it thick & gooey. You may add abit of water or milk into the mixture depending on your baby's preference.
Scoop the mashed P&P into the vacuum food container and we're ready to go! Its fast, its healthier and wayyyyy cheaper than bottled baby food ; )
That's how hubby & I looked like right now as I'm typing this post for the day! :)
My sleeping beauty no longer sleeps through the night. For the past 3 nights, she woke up a couple of times complaining with her eyes closed. She's mumbling and grumbling while chewing on her pacifier. She even call out "dada" & "mama" as she rolls in her cot trying to fall asleep. I know lah... teething is a normal process but it wasn't a happy sight to see my precious little one in pain. She's still a bubbly and talkative little baby during the day. I believe the pain and irritation is worsen at night.
Her lower gums are slightly swollen now with rough surface on the lower gum. I pray that her teeth will come out fast so all of us can have a peaceful night rest once again.... Errrr...how many milk teeth does a child develop? 20 ?!? *faint*
I've no choice but to send my precious gal to a nursery as young as 3 months old. After 2 months being with her 24/7! Argh ..it was truly a torture for me especially the first few weeks of transformation. Often times, I tried to wake up early in the morning just to spend more time playing with her before sending her to the centre because baby J sleeps at 8:30pm every night! Though the separation is only from 8:30am-6:00pm, Monday - Friday, I often felt that time passes so slowly at work! It took me weeks to get used to my new schedule and guess I was facing separation anxiety back than :D
Anyway, 8 months and 1 week has passed. Baby J is indeed very happy at the centre because my little social butterfly loves learning & playing with her little friends at the centre. A happy baby makes ME a happy MOMMY :)With all the fun & learning she had at the centre, no wonder she's so tired whenver she returns from nursery.
The nursery also provide parents a 'Progress card' via emails. The mail arrives in my inbox every Saturday morning. A good way to start my weekend :) I just got to know from a friend that in New Zealand, all caretakers are required to go through courses to qualify to be an infant care giver. Not only that, they're also required to provide a "progress report" to parents once a week. WOW...a requirement? Guess the infant centre baby J is going to now practises the same method.
Here's the teacher's weekly progress report for Baby J. From now on, I'll be keeping her progress report her for keepsake :)
A photo taken by her teacher when Baby J was at 5 mths+. Photo is abit blur but I love the smiles of the 2 girls having a fun during play time :)
Janice’s learning to smile and vocalizes to mirror image. She is also learning to babble speech sounds and understands basic words (“bye-bye”). Extremely alert little girl, she turns her head fast towards sound. Noticed Janice enjoys two-way verbal exchanges and can imitate facial expressions like sticking out her tongue and trying to roll it too. She is beginning to combine syllables like “da-da” or “ma-ma”. Suggest you also teach her some words like da-da (daddy), ma-ma (mummy), por-por (grandma) or kung kung (granddad).
Thinking/Cognitive Skills
Ha, Janice can hold arms out to be picked up when in her cot or stroller. When she is in the toddler’s room, she loves to explore big and small items (especially those that rolls and makes sound).
Self-Help Skills
Janice is now sitting in a high chair for her lunch, a bit difficult but still trying. She is distracted easily with the environment, turning her head left and right, trying to get up too. To distract her from moving, have to give her a small bowl and spoon with some porridge in it. She seems to enjoy it but very messy though.
Gross and Fine Motor Skills
Janice can transfer objects from hand to hand and rocks back and forth on hands and knees. Now she is learning to stand up. Bears almost all weight while standing supported. Even learning to sit down after standing but can see the fear in her eyes. Well, she seems to get it right but will ask for help if she is stuck.
Socio-Emotional Skills
Janice is always a bubbly and cheerful girl. Smile to everyone she sees including parents. Smart girl, she can sense moods of others, like when I am angry with her. She will either put her head down or on the cheeky side will try to smile and show funny face to make me laugh.
Yay! As I'm writing today's post, Baby J is already 8 months and 1 week old. How time flies... I remembered during these time of the year in 2009, I was only 6 months preggy!
Taking care of baby J has becoming more and more challenging now because she's a very active and curious baby. Hubby & I literally keeps an eye on her like a hawk. Just a blink of an eye, she would've crawled towards the kitchen, touching the TV buttons or even chewing on something that she isn't supposed to chew! She is now standing with support, crawling EVERYWHERE around the house and she can now stand with a little support. At times, she will stand with just 1 hand holding on to a table. Daddy has made the house BABY PROOF.
She is eating 2 solids a day, 1serving of fruit puree and at least 5 bottles of 6-7oz of milk per day! She's still very petite and I'm wondering where did all the food go!
Baby J could say "DADA" when she wants daddy and lift both arms whenever she wants a cuddle. Her favourite colour is now green. She used to like white when she was younger.
Lately, there's lots of noise and merry making at our little home. Baby J will be throwing her toys from her highchair to the floor and the next thing you know, she'll be searching for the toy. You picked it up for her, she will do it again and again. It's amusing for her and a pretty good exercise for us...so no complains :). She hits her toys on the table and giggles when you turn on her favourite Baby Einstein CD. She loves it when we start to sing "TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTLE STAR" to her. The minute you say STAR, she will start repeating the word "TA TA TA TA TA" like a broken record.
There's so much love around the house. Pretty tiring but FUN!
Baby is currently on 2 meals of solid a day. Her nursery will serve porridge for lunch while mummy prepares her dinner. Here's my recent experimental recipe I made and baby J loves it to bits.
Wash baby spinach leaves. I usually soak fruits and vegetable with a few drops of vinegar.
Chop chop chop until super fine
Cube 1/4 of a russet potato and boil it in very little water until soft. While waiting for the potatoes to cook, I've steamed a piece of fish fillet in another stove. For this recipe, I've used a match box cut size of a Marbled Goby (soon hook). You may use Kurau or any other fish fillets.
Mash the potatoes and returned the mash into the sauce pan. Add in the chopped spinach and cook for a few a minute until the spinach is cook. Juice from the steam fish was added to the sauce pan.
Lastly, the steamed fish was mashed and added into the mash potatoes and spinach.
We went marketing last weekend and saw some cute little sugar apricots at RM9.90/box. Since baby J has a sweet tooth like me, I believe she's gonna love the fruit.
Mini sugar apricots. They're as big as a ping pong ball & they tasted like sugar! Yumsss
I diced 1/2 a gala apple & 1 sugar apricot
Throw the cubed apples & apricot into the blender. Stop the blender when the fruits turned into puree.
Steam the fruit puree for 5 minutes and baby J's dessert is ready :)
Baby J has started solid 2 meals a day since 7.5mths of age. I've been rushing like a headless chicken on weekdays, leaving office at 6pm, picking my baby J from her nursery, rush home to give her dinner latest by 7:30pm!
To cut down on cooking time, I'll usually set the timer to boil the soup base in the slow cooker the night before. The next morning, I'll remove the meat from the soup and pour in the rice, reset the timer to start cooking in the late afternoon. By the time i arrive home, I'll just add in vegetables to the pot, give it a quick boil and "Abracadabra", dinner will be ready for baby J. Sounds easy isn't it? Its actually T-I-R-I-N-G!! It would be even more tedious if I wish to serve her fish or vegetables that I'm not able to add into the pot too early.
One fine evening, my dear hubby decided to take over the kitchen to cook fish porridge for baby J. Can you imagine... a man who can't differentiate between a Bombay onion and spring onion said he wanted to cook for his daughter leh!! He gave me a call to ask for the recipe. I gave him a simple step-by-step instruction and hope for the best :p. The minute baby J and I arrived home that evening, to my surprise..........this is what I found in the crock pot!!!
Woahhhhhhhhhh Pumpkin & Tread fin was cooked to perfection sitting on a bed of brown rice porridge!!!
That evening, dinner for baby J was served 30 minutes earlier because now DADDY CAN COOK!
Thank you dada! Yumssssssss
L'abeille said : Hey loukong! When are you going to cook for me eh? :p
I was surprised when I arrived at Baby Village to pick up baby J last Friday. Aunty Jessy shown me a row of photo frames with our babies on each frame! They're to be given to the dads for Father's Day.
Aunty Jessy's 2 beautiful twin daughters made all these! Each frame were painted and decorated beatifully.
Baby J presenting her 1st Father's Day present to her daddi! Sweet!
Daddy & Mommy brought me to Toys R Us last weekend. It's actually my first time they allowed me to pick the toy that I like. They shown me some noisy rattles, stroller links & some other fancy educational ones.
The moment they show me this doll by Playskool, it was a love at first sight!
Daddy & mommy continued their shopping spree that day and I don't feel bored anymore because I've DOLLY to accompany me.
I've been practising my kungfu moves silently in my cot for months to strengthen my hands! That's usually in the morning when mommy & daddy is still lazing on their big bed.
Besides exercising my hands, I also include some leg exercises to strengthen my legs. Haiyakkkkkk...*split*
Soon, with the strength I've gained after drinking many many bottles of milk & days of exercising, I started to sit upright and peep what's going on outside my crib.
During my 1 week school holidays, mommy spotted me doing the monkey swing when I woke up from my afternoon nap.
After a while, I discovered that I can actually stand with support. Yippyy!
I'm standing tall at 7mths 1 wk old. I was actually singing doing my goo-goo gaa-gaa when mommy took this photo.
Mommy dressed me up to SLEEP at 8pm on a Friday night and told me it's time to go for a car ride. Confusing!
Daddy said we'll be driving back to Ipoh for the night and we will go to a cold cold place the next morning.
Early next morning, I'm back at my car seat heading to our holiday destination while yiyi trying to teach me how to do a HIGH FIVE.
Look! The weather outside looks cold eh? Daddy said we're heading towards Cameron Highlands
Tadah! We arrived & our first destination was the Organic Vegetable farms See how cheeky & happy I was? Didn't I tell you I love cold cold places? If you ask me where's mommy... I would like to tell you she was monkeying around eating Cherry Tomatoes & Japanese Cucumbers. She also harvested a whole pumpkin there at the farm so that I could have a super fresh organic pumpkin porridge when I go back to KL.
This aunty owns the organic farm.Mommy said she is a very kind lady.
Next destination, we saw beautiful desserts served at a cafe. Mommy said she wished she could enjoy all these dessert but she didn't. She said she's on diet wor...
By noon, everybody went for their lunch and I was already in my singlet. Its so HOT up there!!! Mommy said when she was a little girl, she remembered Cameron Highlands was so cold, she need to wear layers the entire day! Uncles & Aunties, can you all stop chopping trees already?!?
After lunch, we check-in at our apartment and poh poh gave me a surprise she bought at the souvenier shop.
Since that day, I've been wrestling with my fluffy little strawberry pillow. iLike :)
I had the most wonderful nap that afternoon as the cool breeze blowing through the opened windows touches my face.
That's me & my kongkong pohpoh. I discovered I've a tongue lately, so I would be seen sticking out my tongue often during photo sessions :p *Plufffffft*
That evening, we stayed at the apartment everybody had BBQ dinner. My yiyi was the chef of the day.
That's the amount of food my mommy had... ok ok I was JOKING!
They gave daddy a surprised bithday party. Kongkong couldn't find any candles so he uses a lighter instead. Hehehe...
The next day, we headed back to KL and I slept thru the journey....NOT!
I am at my teething season now and I'd to stop daddy's car twice to clean my poo! Wahahhaha... FUN!
That's how I started off my 1 week break. Mommy & Daddy took turns to take care of me during the week and I had so much fun. More photos and grandmother stories coming up soon! Stay tuned :D
