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.

Huirou@17 months

Huirou likes to observe what we do around the house and imitate us. She will stand by me when I cook, fill the water bottles and when Hubs clean the car porch or wash his car.


Growth, Food Intake and General Well Being

• We've finally gotten her "official weight" at 9.3 kg.
• She now have 10 teeth, including 2 molars.
• Her day-to-day eating and naps seems to be consistent now. so she eat most meals with us plus snacks. Naps once (athome) or twice (at daycare) and consistently sleeps through thte night
• On certain nights (twice so far) she keeps waking up in the middle of the night that I find no reason for, so I am attributing it to teething.

Physical Development and Communications

• Even though she's not that stable in her walking yet, she is already trying to run!
• She loves to play catch-me-if-you-can around the house with us.
• Her other favorite activities seems to be slamming doors and cabinets shut.
• She will also help me in the kitchen by closing the fridge door and bringing dirty dishes to the sink.
• She helps daddy sweep the driveway by pushing around a broom.
• She understands me when I ask her to squat, wait or to hand me things.
• She is also able to comprehend me when I tell her something/someone is behind, beside or in front of her
• She can be asked to go to sleep, where she will happily close her eyes for 3 seconds.
• She loves to wear her BigGirlPants, which are actually pull-ups.
• Whenever I go to the toilet she wil say shh shh,
• but when I put her on her own potty she will stand up immediately, look into it, and mentioned ohh? while signing the no more sign signaling that there's nothing in the potty. So I guess she's not yet ready for potty training.
  

Character and Temperament

• This month seems to be defiance month for her.
• There is no way now that we can substitute an object that she wants;
• However she remains as loving as before when she's in a good mood.
• Recently I taught her to say goodnight to Hubs by giving him a kiss on both cheeks and waving bye and finally to blow him a kiss.
• After which she will gladly point to the stairs to be taken to the room for her bath and to bed.

We are thinking that for Huirou, The Terrible Twos will definitely come early :)

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?