Huirou @ 16months

The most amazing thing happened this past month. Huirou -from a mumbling, crying baby- turned into a real little person overnight.

Growth, Food Intake and General Well Being

• This month we don’t have to visit the doctor. Yea! In fact, I would like to stay away from that place until March. That’s when our next appointment will be.
• She now eats most of what we are eating now.
• She has always been once of those magical babies who sleeps quite well at night. Now she can sleep even longer, often for 12 hours at night. She may wake but seldom so awake that I feel sleepy during the day.
• She can consistently take 2-hour daytime naps too.

Physical Development and Communications

• She has been working on her 2 lower 1^st molars, and one has erupted just yesterday. I hope after they have both erupted she would start to sleep even better.
• She can now walk really well and can catch herself if she’s about to fall.
  
• When a fall is unavoidable she tries to break her fall using her hands; I know this is not the safest way to break a fall but that is her natural response.
• When walking around the house, she try to move our furniture around too (yes, that makes for an even messier house)
• However, she’s willing to help me pick up her toys when it is bedtime already.
• She understands a lot more of what we are saying now. Some new words that she understands now are orange, sit down, I figure she could easily understand about 30 words or so?
• She now helps to dress and undress herself. She will look up when I powder her neck and put her hands through the sleeves. She will even request that I do her hair when we go out.
• When I am lazy and want to just set aside her diaper, she won’t allow me and will keep pointing to put it in the trash can…
• Whenever Hubs is outside hanging out the laundry, she likes to ride on her toy car outside and keep him company.
• She can play pretend now. Her favourite? Pretend to eat !
• She is also getting very good at her shape sorter.
  
• And she can tell tales now. Whenever something goes wrong (no matter whose fault) she goes uh-uh holding her index finger up right next to her nose.
• She can identify her hair, eyes, nose, ears and belly button.
• An ambulance to her is woooooo; and a dog is hoho.
  
• She also make choices by shaking her head whenever she wants to refuse something that we offered.
• She is able to use the correct “tool” for the job eg, comb to hair, spoon to eat etc.

Character and Temperament

• I’ve always though that she is aggressive and impatient; maybe she’s just frustrated that we don’t understand her.
• Because as soon as she is able to make us understand her by pointing, grunting and shaking her head, she becomes generally happier.
• Whenever she does throw a tantrum, we can still easily distract her.

Huirou @ 15 months

My greatest joy comes everyday when I pick her up from daycare. My greatest pleasure is seeing her unfolding personality. Just this morning, she woke up and promptly scoot over to my side of the bed and gave me a big fat "Good Morning" kiss. Now, who won't sayang (adore) a loving personality like that?

Growth, Food Intake and General Well Being

• We've been unable to get an accurate weight reading because now she recognizes the pediatrician and will not let us put her on the scale. So she's still about 9 kg, we think.
  
• Last month she got sick twice. Fever. Then bronchitis. Caught it from me probably, though I had no symptoms. Lucky for me, she rather enjoy her meds.
• After 2 months of dangling between 1-nap and 2-nap days, she's finally switch to doing just 1 nap a day.
• Most probably because we changed to a new baby sitter. The new place is much quieter.
• Speaking of which the new sitter cooks! Yay. Which means I don't have to wake up at 5.30 am anymore.
• So she will have 1 meal and occasional snacks there and dinner with us in the evenings.
• These are the foods that she loves. bread. pasta esp in bolognese sauce. anything that is on our plates even if it's actually the same food that she's eating.
• As for fruits, her current favorite is the dragon fruit and if that's not available, oranges will do.

Physical Development and Communications

• YES. Finally she can walk now. but I am still nervous about that. I keep telling Hubs that if he doesn't take videos now then we won't have videos of her toddling. She'll be walking in no time.... So y'all who knows him, help me out abit?
• She can now stand from her squat. No hands.
• So since she can now walk abit what does she do about stairs? she try to ascend and descend them like us. no more butt first when coming down. Really scary.
  
• She now points to her toy car and says "de de" trying to say "cher cher" like me.
• When I ask: Where's your "ya ya" She grinds her teeth.
• She also knows the fan, lights, tv.
• She especially likes her "shoe shoe". Because whenever I say that, it means we are going out where she can walk around.
  
• She can be persuaded to help me turn on/off the lights
• She will also now gladly throw away "rubbish" So now whenever she picks up any, I just ask her to toss it away. No snatching from her. No tears.
  
• And she looooooves to throw her own diaper away. Big help.

Character and Temperament

• It may seem impossible but now she's much less velcro-y to us.
• She plays alone, and when asked to wait, she can do so, unless she's sleepy.
• At the new sitter's house she learnt to pretend to fall down. Obviously we are not fazed and just laughed at her attempts to garner sympathy.
  

If everything goes well and if our prayers are answered, Huirou will soon be a Che Che next year. And since I haven't got a good picture to show, I figured if I show a 2nd bad picture and some good news, it's a good enough post?

Budding Green Thumb

What do you do when it's rainy and the baby wants to go out to play?
What do you do to distract a baby when mom's (i.e. me) cooking?
What do you do when you are lazy and you don't have a garden to let the baby run loose?


That's right. Hubs takes Huirou gardening. Now before our evening walk at the park, she insists on a little detour to her pot. (yeah. I know those are empty pots) and since then she's had to pick at the grass, leaves, twigs and pieces of paper (aka trash)that are lying around the park. She also insist on squatting by the drain to watch the mosquito larvae swim. Aiyah.....

Huirou @ 14 months

Umm well... at 14 months 1 week cause it gets harder to back track the longer I procrastinate

Growth, Food Intake and General Well Being

• Has EIGHT teeth already.
  
• We are moving her to 2 meals plus a mid afternoon snack since she seems to lose interest in her food already.
  
• So I've begun to be really creative in what I feed her (and hence the sporadic posts :) )
• Her naps are still alternating between 1-nap days and 2-nap days. It seems like she cannot make up her mind to move on to 1 nap a day :)
• Have ALL her immunizations completed already.
  
• last month I bought her a pair of size 3 shoes and now I've just bought her a pair in size 4! Her size 3 lasted 3 weeks!! So I just bought them in the same design (Lazy to find lar!)
  

Physical Development and Communications

• She's walking, NOT. she may take baby steps on her own but she's not gain a sense of balancing yet
• but the funny thing is she can get up on her own by sticking her butt in the air and then push off her arms to stand straight
• And of course she can squat for a long time now
• Her pincer grasp is great, being able to pick up grains of rice now.

Character and Temperament

• She's also developing a headstrong personality; when she's angry she grinds her teeth o_O and I didn't teach her that ok??
• She's also rather impatient and will whine endlessle if made to wait

Huirou loves the outdoors. She gets especially excited when I tell her that we are going to the park ( the playground just outside our house). She knows the Jusco near our house and when we are near it she show us her cute face :0

Huirou @ 13 months

Growth, Food Intake and General Well Being

• Her 6th tooth finally sprouted. This tooth was a particularly difficult one to grow. I think it took 3 months maybe?
• She gets 2 full meals a day, usually including dessert (fruits). Sometimes I will pack along a snack for her to the sitter's house, mostly fruits that keep well. On top of that she gets all the breastmilk she wants.
• She's finally had a taste of some salty foods, but she will eat her slightly bland food when I forgot to salt. (She's been salt-free for the past few months, and I sometimes forgot to season her food properly. I know, bad momma)
• She loves to eat breads, especially the crusty heel of a baguette.
• She prefers rice over her rice porridge (congee), perhaps because she perceive our food as tastier?
• She takes 2 short naps during the weekdays and usually only 1 longer nap at home. Unsurprisingly because we have airconditioning and a very quiet room compared to the sitter's :P

Physical Development and Communications

• This girl can roll around and laze in bed *grin*
• Although she enjoys walking with her hands held, She is still rather suspicious of walking on her two feet alone. She does enjoy leaning on walls and furniture to stand... This is so that she can hold items in both her hands
• But she's learnt to squat for extended period of time. She can also pull to stand from her squat.
• She will pick up objects from the floor and inspect them rather carefully; she especially loves the cracks and crevices in out floor/wall.
• She is also rather apt an getting on and off furniture and stairs but we watch her like a hawk.
• Her pincer grasp is developing rather well that she can hold onto her cookie tightly
• She likes the tar tar song. It took me a while to figure out it's Twinkle Twinkle Little Star! No wonder she was opening and closing her palms. Aiyaaa...
• She will also point to the sky when I say birdy and to the faraway ground when I say dog.
• She says
• She understands that I want her to sit down zhor zhor but complying is another story ...
• She learnt how to pray when we say paipai (pray pray: meaning the altar). She will hold her palms together and move them up and down.
• When I ask her finish up her cookie by saying aaahm, she will put whatever is remaining in her hands into her mouth. even if it is a rather large chunk of food.
• She will tug her shirt when asked if she wants to bath bumbum
• She regularly tells us hmmmph hmmmph that she needs to use the potty; however, she cannot differentiate yet how to say poo or pee. She will also say the same if she went already o_O

Character and Temperament

• This month we see some personality developing! Oh gosh.
• She is willful, always wanting to do things her way. She will thow a tantrum when she doesn't get her way or when some thing is taken away from her. So we try not to take anything from her, not because we spoil her but because we want to teach her that it is not ok to take by force.
• When asked nicely she will hand you objects with a Nah. Cute
• Her persistence in hide and seek will send her looking for a hidden object for a full 15 minutes.
• She's very loving. She will frequently approach us to kiss or hang onto our legs for attention. Sometimes she will just look up and smile while playing.

I started this post being very angry at her because she was spitting out her food (She's had enough) the entire evening and then asking for more food. Then she bit me and when I scolded her she threw a fit and refused to be comforted. I even told Hubs that I have nothing to blog about and she has not grown at all. The amount I have written surely is an indication that she's more angel than devil, and usually only devilish when provoked or tired. Come to think of it, I myself behave crabbily when feeling tired.