::BABY:: Milestone!

This week we celebrated D's birthday. I am talking about his first OFFICIAL birthday, not one of those half birthdays or quarter birthdays that papa and mommy threw on their whim and fancy just for the sake of celebrating. :D

 

I made these and sent them out through FB and whatsapp.

 

 

ONE

How did that happen so fast?!

We were just grasping around in our new roles and playing along with the parenting part. We've had our tears and laughter, agreements and disagreements, the good times and the bad times.

But each month, we look forward to the new surprises that unfold before us as D grows older. He keeps our endorphins level high with his new-found tricks!

So our days easily became months and those months just turned into a year!

 

Happy ONE YEAR OLD baby!

I really like this photo

D was playing peekaboo with the dining napkin over at a friend's wedding

::BABY MILESTONES:: Tamper tantrums

We didnt know what we signed up for when we went into a Joint Venture.

Each month, a surprise or surprises unfold themselves in front of us in the form of this little human being, which make us laugh and cry all at the same time. Oh! The wonders of parenting!  

Thankfully there's google on hand to equip ourselves with the latest information on what to expect during each month's developmental milestones! And hey! It is actually not so bad!!! Not so bad when you understand what you have just experienced, how long you are gonna experience it and that your baby's behavior falls under the the normal category according to general statistics!!

This month, we got the TEMPER TANTRUM!

Or maybe it was our little drama king at work -_-"

Nonetheless, we did get some form of ugly screaming, wailing, flailing, stiffening and kicking.

When that happened, we tried ignoring him and sitting farrrrrr farrrr away from all the drama. Ended up getting a baby who ended his drama..............and who then crawled over to our legs and begin his drama! lol! I didnt know to laugh or to cry! That's papa, sitting calmly in the background of all that drama, and mummy taking snapshots instead of pacifying him. I even got the act on face time to show the gramps! That's how we chose to deal with it - IGNORE. We want him to learn that throwing a tantrum doesnt get him anything!

 Here's what a parenting site has to say! 

Eleventh Month Baby Milestones: Communication

Eleven-month-olds realize that they’re unique people. They have a strong sense of their likes and dislikes, and they’ve learned to use their emotions to get what they want -- like throwing a temper tantrum when you try to take away a favorite toy. Your baby may already have discovered the word “no.” If so, you’ll probably be hearing it a lot.

Communication begins to take on a more mature rhythm at 11 months. Babies at this age can engage in a regular back-and-forth conversation. When you ask a question, you’ll get a response, although you probably won’t understand most of that response. When you name something -- like the family dog -- your baby can point at it. You’ll also probably notice that your baby has a longer attention span and can focus on you or a game for more than a few seconds at a time.

Source from: http://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby/baby-development-11-month-old

That's exactly what we experienced during the 11th month! :)

::BABY:: Sunburnt

I would have considered myself as an experienced mummy after being one for almost a year. I see to most of D's needs personally to make sure he is cleaned, bathed, groomed and fed. They may not always be on schedule, like how we would let a sandy D nap on our bed before he gets a bath or how we would let him scratch his face before we decide it was time for a nail trim. But thing is, they get done. Medically, we have even upgraded ourselves with enough knowledge to not have to run to the PD whenever.

 

But last weekend, we let our son become THIS.

 

I actually only found out hours later when I got him ready for a bath when I saw 2 shades of skin tone on him -_-" Talk about being an experienced mother! heh! Luckily he is still quite a happy baby under that painful lobster exterior. He didn't even fuss a bit! I just applied aloe vera gel very liberally over the night and the sun burnt miraculously disappear the next day!

 

It actually started as a happy occasion in the morning, where we brought our 2 babies to ECP to meet the other furbabies. 

 

There were a total of 4 furbabies, D and a 5yo. We got busy attending to the babies' needs, and chasing tails because every few minutes or so one of them would go wander off from the pack that, no one noticed our alfresco dining table was getting hot with the mid-day sun.

 

The doggles were smart and were already hiding under the table most of the time.

 

I remembered borrowing G's portable fan to cool D down, wiping off beads of sweat from his head on top of trying to feed him, hydrate him and picking up his minion which he dropped so many, MANY times.

 

Here he is being caught red handed trying to throw the minion (which we just picked up) back onto the floor again!!

And I also remembered looking under the table and having mild panic attacks when I did not see this baby several times! 

 

So at the end of the day, we had 2 very tired babies - Good thing being under the sun tire them out!

They KO for good amount of time that day!

 

And now we also know to keep a cap and the baby sunscreen handy at all times!

::BABY:: The Scary Green Monster!

When the only thing between him and mummy was the scary green monster that sucks things through its long black nose >.<

 

 

He crawled and paused several times in front of the monster.

And then plucked up enough courage to get past it! 

But when he decided to give it a go to get to his favourite person on Earth right now, it was a ZOOOMERANG and he went past the thing without stopping!!

 

That's my boy!!

So cute and hilarious watching him grow up like that!

 

Development Milestone:  Developing fears! ;p

::BABY:: Matchy Zebra Outfit

It's always harder to dress up the male specimen.

Boys' clothes usually just occupy a smaller area in the shop and I always find myself 'accidentally' browsing into the girly racks, only to have to retract back to my tiny shopping space.

 

But I figured since I am already deprived of the endless possibilities of dressing up a real life Barbie, I might as well milk the best out of what I have.

 

So besides the usual rompers, tshirts, jeans, shorts and jumpers, we have actually increased D's wardrobe to include superhero outfits (that's mostly male exclusive! err, yay!!), and recently, some animal outfits ;p

 

Before he gets too old to object having a dog cling on to his ankle, like this:

 

 

Or having a ridiculous animal tail on his butt, like this:

 

Outfit from Chatuchak market

Soft toy from Mothercare

 

AND COINCIDENTALLY,

Almost squealed when I realised how mitchy matchy we were!

Never thought you could do a mitchy matchy with a son right?!

::BABY:: Tasting Strawberries!

It's always nice to find ourselves in a baby-friendly restaurant whenever we have our little diner in tow. We make do with his pram otherwise, but it's always a bonus when he gets a high chair and be seated at the same level with us at the table.

 

DA PAOLO pizza bar is definitely very baby-friendly in this aspect!

D got himself a kids' menu, a colouring pencil and paper, a cup of cold water with straw - all of which he couldn't appreciate right now because he's too young for a kiddo sized meal (and I brought along his jar of Heinz food), cant hold a colour pencil yet and hasn't learnt how to drink from a straw (and who gives a baby icy cold water?)!

 

He also got A LOT of attention from the waitress, which he didn't reciprocate after a while and finally some free strawberries from the chef!

 

I figured the only thing my son could do to at least show his appreciation was to eat the strawberries! After all, that's something he is very adept in - EATING!

 

BUT. 

 

My little man didn't quite appreciate the strawberries too!

Excuse me while I go teach my son some manners ;p

::BABY:: First Swim!

From a baby who hated his baths during the first month, D grew to love the waters.

These days, bath time takes a little longer because we will have to do the splash splash splash and the kick kick kick. His mood takes a change when we put him in a tub. He doesn't even mind when we pour water over his head. There was once papa accidentally let him slip under the water in the tub, and he frantically pulled the submerged baby up only to find a grinning smiley baby. ;p So hubs had a theory that babies know how to hold their breath under water! But of course I didn't allow him to test out the theory any further! grrr..

 

Anyway, so we thought D might be ready for the pool!

Babies can swim from the moment they are born. A lot of baby spas offer a clean and controlled environment for little babies to swim in. But we didn't want to pay that kind of money. So we waited until he was old enough to go to a public pool.

 

Here's our happy little man, decked in his BATMAN swimsuit!

My man's got a charming smile! :)

 

D practising his kicks and grabbing on to his favoritest bath ball.

 

The water was cold but he didn't mind at all.

So I think we have would be doing a lot of this on a regular basis! :D

::BABY MILESTONES:: At 10 months

D's development this month had been nothing short of amazing!

 



1. Sit up from a rest position

He started doing this occasionally a few weeks ago and must have mastered it perfectly while staying at the gramps place for a week (while we nursed and quarantined a case of adult HFMD at home). I had no idea when I collected back my baby until it was bedtime and I had a hard time pinning him down to sleep. The whole of last week, he slept at 10pm instead of the usual 830pm because bedtime routine now involves some sort of wrestling to pin the sleepy baby down. Repeatedly. Or until he's drained from all the struggling, flipping and sitting, which usually takes forever.

 

2. Pull up to standing position from sitting/stand holding to someone or something

This month, he started doing this more confidently. And he looks like he's going to start cruising soon! Uh oh! I smell trouble!

 

Which brings us back to the new bedtime routine mentioned in point #1.

"Hello Mummy! *waves bear bear* You thought I was sleeping??"

 

3. Clap hands
We found him clapping his hands spontaneously last week while he was in an extremely happy mood one evening. It's not on cue yet though. He only does it when he feels like it.

4. Stand momentarily
He loves it when he is able to do that. And gives us a proud toothy grin whenever we start praising him for that few seconds of 'performance'!

5. Babbling
His dictionary consists of only dadada, mamama and dehdeh at the moment and it is not directed at us. Sometimes we thought we caught him repeating certain word after us, like 'flower' but it happened so fast and only once, we can't be too sure.

6. Crawling
He still crawls with the backside, but we saw him once or twice doing the doggie crawl!

::BABY FOOD:: Salmon Pasta with Asparagus

From 8-11 months, babies should be able to eat mashy food.

We have been giving D mostly pureed food and porridges which are easy to swallow. Even the treats we give him are the melt-in-your-mouth kind which doesn't require much chewing.

 

Made him some mashy food which required him to work his jaws over the weekend.

 

The macaroni wasn't soft-cooked enough, so I put them into our blender and it achieved a desired semi-mashed form ie not pureed

 

Found him doing some gummy chew for the asparagus which was quite cute to watch! Buy me some time for my own dinner while feeding him that night ;p

 

With the same ingredients, I added cooking cream into our portion.

 

And made a thin-crust pizza from leftover ingredients we had in fridge!

 

The new-found trick for a thin crust scored big points in the household! 

 Baby Salmon Pasta with Asparagus
(Prep and cook under 30 minutes)

Steam salmon and asparagus for 15-20 mins. Use only the top part of the asparagus as the surrounding skin is thinner and easier to chew and swallow. Save the bottom 1.5" for the adults.
Boil macaroni for 8 minutes. Blend.
Serve

Adult Salmon Pasta with Asparagus
(Prep and cook under 30 minutes)

Blanch asparagus
Boil pasta for 6 minutes
Pan fry seasoned salmon - we used salt and pepper and salted butter instead of oil
Put everything together and stirfry. Add cooking cream and salt pepper to taste.

I like to give D fresh food daily so we don't do bulk cooking, pureeing and freezing unless absolutely necessary. I feed him from the jar occasionally to prep ourselves for travels. With the limited time on hand to handle D and make meals, this is a good quickie to settle a meal for both baby and parents! :D

::BABY:: Celebrating 9MO!

We braved the haze on last week to have a mini celebration for D's turning 9 month-old!

It was a mini celebration in a Japanese-Italian fusion restaurant in CCP - we saw that they have a cake that looked reasonably 'baby-friendly' on the menu.

 

D's 9 month-old Strawberry Cheese Souffle!

He couldn't stop staring!

 

So I held up his spoon to catch his attention for the camera!

 

I want to eat cake!

 

He was making a lot of noise after we finished the cake. I had no more tricks up my sleeves/no more snacks in his bag. But there was pineapple at the salad bar...SO...

 

D had his first taste of SOUR!

:p

::BABY:: Yoghurt for Babies!

I remember seeing shelves of baby yoghurts in Woolsworth and thought why we didn't have any in Singapore.

 

But see what I found when I came back!!

I was actually trying to find a high calcium, plain normal yoghurt for D, but spotted this lying amidst the major yoghurt brands! It was just a little tray of about 12 cups and very easy to miss! And I didn't see any plain yoghurt that says they are hi-calcium. So....spent a little bit more on this - anything marked 'baby' usually come at a more premium price -_-"

S$1.55 for a cup

This was his 2nd cup and he still prefers the apple flavoured one!

 

D's food list at 9 months old:

Vegetables

1. Carrot  2. Broccoli  3. Cauliflower  4. Potato  5. Sweet potato  6. Pumpkin  7. Spinach  8. Chyesim 9. Sweet corn  10. Parsnip

 

Fruits

1. Apple  2. Pear  3. Banana  4. Papaya

 

Meat (Protein)

1. Beef  2. Cod fish  3. Threadfin  4. Salmon  5. Chicken  6. Pork  7. Seabass  8. Toufu

 

Staple (Carbohydrate)

1. White rice  2. Brown rice  3. Barley grains  4. Bread  5. Chwee Kueh

 

Dairy

1. Yoghurt  2. Cheese

 

Rubbish/Snacks/Food from our table

1. Yoghurt drops  2. Durian  3. Durian cake  4. Cheese soufflé  5. Ice cream

6. Pineapple (Cant give this fruit as it is too acidic. We gave him a bit to taste 'sour')