Our Family

33 week checkup

Today I went to the doctor's office for an appointment. Baby is now 2.2 kg. We tried for some time but couldn't get a picture because he was sleeping, hugging his umbilical cord.

Huirou @ 21 months old

That’s 1 year 9 months old for people like me who are not very good at counting in months.

Growth, Food Intake and General Well Being

• Huirou is growing taller but I don’t know by how much.
• We weighed her on the adult scale and she’s now 11 kg. She refused to be weighed at the paediatrician’s office
• Bedtime is now “officially” 10 pm.
• We let her have sushi for the first time. I thought she would not like the taste of sushi vinegar but she enjoyed picking up the rice balls and the taste.

Physical Development and Communications

• The major achievement this month for her is stepping. Now she gets onto raised floor surfaces and our bed (which has a ledge around it) easily. No hands.
• She has also begun to jump. Just slightly. When we help her “take flight” she squeals in delight.
• She’s also into the habit of walking up the stairs herself, adult-style. She will only allow Daddy to carry her upstairs or when she wants to go up fast she will let me too. All other times I have to inch slowly behind while she pulls herself up with the help of the railings.
• Since I don’t know when (2 months ago maybe?) she can screw and unscrew bottle caps. Her shu shu (ch: uncle) taught her that.
• She now likes to dictate what we do around the house. At dinner she arranges each of us into the seats that she likes. At bedtime she wants Daddy on her right and I on her left.
• There was once she felt cramped and wanted Daddy off the bed by saying repeatedly buyao buyao (ch: no) and zhou (ch: go).
• I tried to introduce her to a few potential loveys but I think she has since picked her pillow for when it’s near bedtime she will hunt for her zhentou (ch: pillow)
• And yes, you read corrrectly, she now communicates in short phrases. They are mostly 2 word short phrases such as mama lai (ch: mama come) or repeated words such as yummy yummy (meaning: cow’s milk)

Character and Temperament

• She’ not afraid of a lot of things. not bugs. not thunder. and never papa or mama. but she’s afraid of noises like the vacuum cleaner.
• She seems to be more aware of her surroundings and can sense a lot more danger than previously. If the doorbell rings, she runs to one of us before wanting to look out to take a look at the visitor.
• When she’s mad at me, no amount of persuasion will make her give me a kiss; but when she’s in a good mood she can literally shower me with kisses.

Update on my pregnancy
Check-ups are now every 2 weeks and that means I am not too far away from my due date. Baby weighs 1.8kg at the last check-up, so he must be at least 2 kg by now (2 weeks later). Huirou loves to hunt for my belly button now and poke at it and kiss it. She seems delighted to know that there’s a Baby in my belly. I hope the goodwill feelings will be there once he arrives.

Huirou @ 20 months old (and some from 19 months)

Growth, Food Intake and General Well Being

• There are teeth aplenty this month. All of her four incisors came in at once, making her total teeth count to be 16. I think it's just 4 more to go before she gets all her primary teeth, right?
• Food intake remain consistent.
• Sleep, however is a different story. For the past 2 weeks or so, she has been trying to push her bedtime later and later. So now she sleeps at 10-ish, if I am lucky.

Physical Development and Communications

• Huirou has discovered the power of nodding and shaking her head.
• She started to address her sitter as ahhn-tee
• Her speech is improving. there's just too many to blog about here so perhaps I'll do that in a separate post.
• She can understand when asked to wait.
• She can identify most of her body parts and can differentiate between her own and other peoples'.
• She can also identify the correct key to open our front door.
• When playing with a ball, she can throw it forwards, upwards and roll it around. When she wants to she can kick it quite far too.
• During mealtimes, more of her self-fed food is on-target (ie her mouth) than off-target (eg. tray, floor, herself, me etc)
• Potty training has only just begun at home. The sitter don't seem too keen to start so I am just letting her go before bath and when she asks. However, she really enjoyed the pouring away (dao diao) and flushing of the toilet (la sui)
• 
  

Character and Temperament

• Stranger anxiety for her has begun to wane. On our recent trip to Granma's, she even asked Granma to hold her. Wonderful, isn't it?
• She has been really good the past few weeks. only making a fuss when she's too tired or when we instill some disipline eg, when Hubs won't let her play with the TV remote because she might damage it.
• otherwise she's very loving. Most nights when Hubs come back from work, she will run to him demanding to be held. as soon as he does that, she will then rest her head on his shoulders. This delights Hubs to no end. As for me? She never does that to me ...... sigh. Well maybe it's because I'm not the one to give her fruits, prunes, Yakult, bring her to Jusco or let her ride on my back etc etc etc....
• But then she also likes to pick Hubs to help her put on her diaper and clothing, it seems like mama is only good for nennen only ....

She may seem aggressive and extroverted at times, but at heart she's really cautious. If she sees something or hear something familiar, she will point it out to us. Otherwise she usually runs to either Hubs or I for safety. When meeting unfamiliar people she tend to just want to look from the sidelines. Hence, it usually takes more than half a day for her to warm up to people (not 15- 30 minutes).

When playing with other children her age, she is usually friendly and is willing to share toys. When a tussle for toys starts among her peers, she will very quickly give up what is in her hands and look for other alternative.

Update on my pregnancy
Baby's growing fine and we are still doing the monthly check-ups. I now have a prominent belly and people have started to notice. The baby moves quite a bit and seem to recognize the voices of me, Hubs and Huirou. esp. Huirou. either because she's loud or her voice is the nicest among all of ours :)

Huirou @ 18 months

Huirou is in the "NO" stage now. She will refuse anything that we ask of her.

Growth, Food Intake and General Well Being

• She went through a rather long teething stage and now have 4 molars. That's 12 teeth in all that she has now.
• Now that the teething is done with (temporarily) she sleeps better now at nights. not that she doesn't wake up hunting for me ... ...
• Teeth brushing is now a regular part of our routine now. She knows to spit out the water and seems to like her brushing time.
• Also, the teething made her chew through some nipples (artificial ones lah...not mine!) and I am seriously thinking of gradually weaning her from the bottle because she's now an expert using the straw and we are working on her drinking out of the cup without spilling.

Physical Development and Communications

She decides that she will work on her language skills this month.

• First of all she's learning to take control by refusing our requests by shaking her head.
  
• She seems to enjoy that a lot and me? I've been getting al ot less hugs and kisses from her :(
• Then she surprised me one day when Hubs told her that we are going shopping and she said aak-co. That means Jusco if you're not smart like me, and cannot understand baby-talk.
• After that I caught her saying ang-POW!
• Yesterday she wanted to sleep and decided to ask her father (aka Hubs) to turn off the den den (chinese :lights)

Character and Temperament

• How should I describe her temperament this month? Maybe I can only use bi-polar here. One moment she's a sweet little baby, then the next moment she spits out her food and throws a big tantrum.
• The new baby sitter's place is not that good for her. and we are thinking of placing her back to the old sitter.

Since last month I've put her on half mother's milk and half cow's milk. My milk supply is getting low and sometimes she's frustrated that there's not more coming out. That has made her cling to me even more. But lucky for me, she still enjoys comfort nursing with me and after the teething was over she never bit me. She may or may not wean in time for our next baby to arrive but we will cross that bridge once we come to that.