11 months

One more month to go before the big monumental milestone of Spud turning ONE!

At 11 months, Spud is a far cry from that once a helpless little baby she used to be. In fact, she has beefed up quite a chunk; my arms and shoulders ache each time I carry her.

As Spud acquires more dexterity in her motor skills, her thirst for exploration grows as she gets more curious with the things around her. She has been quite a busy little baby practicing her new found skills and with that, comes tripping and falling as well (mostly banging up her head against something again. Yikes!)

Now at 11 months, I am pleased to announce that Spud has officially started walking! Just a tad wobbly, but walking. This kid is a wriggly little worm. She just cannot keep still…not even while she is sleeping!

It’s amazing to see how fast she is developing, though. Just about two weeks ago she was only crawling on her feet (not knees - which made her look ridiculously funny), cruising along the furniture as well as feeding herself with her own sippy cup when she feels like it.

(It also seemed like a long while back since we battled it out with the bottle and get her onto the sippy; when it had actually only been TWO months!)

Her nap routine has gotten much better, too. These days, she gets 2 naps  (one in the morning, and another in the afternoon) for at least an hour at a stretch. She goes down without a fuss when we put her in her cot and leave her to put herself to sleep in her own bedroom. No longer do we need to be carrying her around and shush her to take that much needed 15 minutes nap she used to do. Spud is certainly a far cry from when she was younger. What a milestone, indeed.

Recently though, she has shown some disinterest and impatience to being fed her solids. What used to take 5 minutes for her to wallop all her food, will now take us, especially me forever to feed her – assuming she wants to open her mouth at all after taking a few bites! (Yes, it includes cauliflowers!)

While according to the Nanny that Spud always finishes all her food and does not give the Nanny a lot of grief, for us though, the experience of feeding her on weekends when we are at home has been quite the opposite! Not only does she start whinging, she has actually begun not to finish her food altogether, opening her mouth for only 3-4 spoonfuls of solids, and most times, nothing more than that. She gets really upset if we pressed on.

It actually makes me wonder if the nanny is lying when she said that Spud’s okay when it comes to feeding her solids whilst we are away at work. But, I really have no reason to doubt as I have seen her fed Spud and it seems like Spud does co-operate better. While Spud does try to be difficult, I guess it helps that the Nanny has such insurmountable volume of patience. (And I generally don't)

All I can say is that it can be such a dreadful chore to feed her when she simply refuses to co-operate. Other times, she may co-operate if I act silly enough to amuse her while feeding (the scoop here is that I have to take very deep breaths to keep myself really calm, and repeatedly tell myself not to get mad! Not the easiest thing to do). But like any other times she has been difficult, I hope this too shall pass!
Up until now, I have not really quite realised that that a parent’s job description included that of being a perpetual clown. Amongst other silly things. In the same breath, I have also been wondering if she is ready for adult food as she seems to be showing great interest to what we eat.

Apart from being difficult with when it comes to feeding, she is actually quite pleasant to be around with these days,and I swear her cheeky streaks are starting to show.

So. That is just Spud being Spud and here we are, counting the days and waiting in anticipation for the rest of her developments as she nears a ripe one year of age in exactly 30 days!

Baby Food: Steamed Cauliflower

Here's a recent batch of newly introduced food which I have painstakingly prepared for Spud...

...which happened to be just a bunch of the not so appetizing steamed cauliflower, roughly mashed up and ready to be frozen.

The kind of food that I, as an adult, do not like to eat ....but for some reason, Spud has shown a great interest to it. Dare I say, actually, love 'em cauliflowers!

It's bizarre how I am actually feeding her stuff that I don't eat myself; things like pumpkins and celery to name a few.  Well, rather her than me, I'd say! 

Digressing to another topic here, I thought the picture quality taken with my Canon Powershot S95  turned out great!

(Ok. the picture, I admit looks quite weird and I don;t know why; perhaps a little out of place with angle experimenting. But it still is a sharp image though!)

Nursery Rhymes

Singing some of those nursery rhymes to Spud, I realised that there certainly is something very wrong or sadistic about how these songs were penned for children.

I mean, just look at the lyrics of Rock-a-bye Baby:

Rock-a-bye, baby
On the treetop
When the wind blows
The cradle will rock
When the bough breaks
The cradle will fall
And down will come baby
Cradle and all

First off, why would anyone, god forbid, place a baby on the tree-top? Not a very smart thing to do, me-thinks. I mean, come on, isn’t it just tragic that the cradle fall along with the baby too? WTF?

And then there is this one which seemed to have been written about drunk person:

This old man, he played one,
He played nick nack on my drum
With a nick nack paddy whack,
Give a dog a bone;
This old man came rolling home.

 And he apparently played till ten. Seriously. Why was he rolling home again?

And here’s one which makes absolutely no sense:

Hey fiddle diddle
The cat and the fiddle
The cow jumped over the moon
A little dog laughed to see such a sport
And the dish ran away with the spoon

I can see, how in a weird, abstract way on how the cow would want to moon the moon (I did say abstract), but somebody please tell me why would the dish want to run away with the spoon? It absolutely does not make any sense. I bet you the lyricist may have been a bit of a stoner on this one!

I am sure I am not the only parent who thought about such things though, and I am sure that there probably are dozen of other similar posts on this. Funny despite all the realisation on the "unhealthy' meaning of the songs, we parents are still singing these crazy, manic songs to our kids, generations after generations.

And get this, we sing them with such a happy sounding tune too! Big smiles, animated gestures, laughter an all...

You know what's the worst thing about this? Sometimes I caught myself humming to these songs while I’m working or walking or doing something else that has got nothing to do with baby stuff.

Ahh...the joy of parenthood. Talk about being brain-washed.

Bizarre.

Quote of the day

Saw this sign in one of the meeting rooms I was in not too long ago:

"Ice cream is happiness condensed"

Ahhh....! So true.

Especially if they come in the flavours of chocolate chip mint or sticky chewy chocolate or macadamia nut brittle or orange vanilla and a whole lot of other flavours...

You get my drift. I am a sucker for ice-cream and I am just bummed I cannot have any of them at this very moment.

Almost eleven months...

This update came just a tad too early right before her 11th month update, simply because we wanted to share this first-hand. The scoop is that we managed to capture Spud "live" when she took her first few (more than 4 steps!) rather confidently on the 1st of July:

I'd say that is quite a milestone!

Only about 10 days ago did I witness Spud taking her first 4-5 steps completely unassisted and without using anything for support. She smiled at me the moment she finished her few strides before she crashed her bum on the floor! I guess it really will not be too long now before she starts strutting confidently as it is clear that her crawling days are now numbered.

Already she is showing signs of wanting to climb by lifting her legs up high each time she sees an elevated object…

Watch this space for more updates soon.

Shoot or not to shoot (the bear)?

This was a brilliant viral campaign which was launched sometime last year.

This video allows viewers to create their own personal ending as to how the hunter interacts with the bear. Sources said that they have recorded more than 50 video responses..."dirty" words included!



Actually, you are better off if you go to this link here for a better interactive experience.

Here's what I got when I typed "slaps":

Tiny feet!

I had to take a double-take as I passed by our shoe-rack when I saw this from the corner of my eyes:

Tiny little pair of sandals for tiny little feet placed amongst several pairs of not so tiny shoes…I mean.Wow. Just wow.

OK. Actually, very WOW.

I realised that not only it looked quite strange to me (hey! I never have baby shoes in my house before!), it was also an image I am not used to. It felt so weird being jolted by such a sight that I actually stopped short in my track, widened my eyes and smiled, thinking; “How strange. Where does THAT come from” to “I really have to get used to this one!”

It took a while to register all of that, but as soon I got over that fact,  the realization of Spud’s reign of babydom being almost over, hit me soon enough. In my head, she’ll soon be this bumbling toddler, whose presence will be more ubiquitous (not that it is not already!) as she claims the right to every single square inch of space in our humble home.

Gosh.

Spud, our once-not-so-easy baby is about to step into toddler hood. An over-active, talkative, bumbling toddler who can be quite the drama queen will soon be making her mark (not that she has not already). More bruises and bumps and exciting times ahead as the house may be transformed into some manic chaos.

But I digress. I was talking about tiny little shoes. I had to buy them last weekend as Spud has shown great enthusiasm to walk and walk and walk. She likes being walked and she enjoys gripping your hand, walking wobbly with her stomach and butt both tucked out.

I figured, given her penchant of going around outside the house bare-feet, it is about time we get Spud a pair of really soft shoes!

What surprised me was how expensive a pair of baby's shoes can be. I saw this brand called "Peds" acclaimed as baby's best first shoes, and they will set you back by almost 3000 baht! (~SGD 120).  That is just insane money for something that can only be worn for less than a month.

While I do agree "Peds" seems like a good brand to start with (it felt soft, and sturdy and all), I still think it was crazy money. I ended up with something from Mothercare instead. It was on sale and it cost me no more than 400 baht! (~SGD ~16)

And it looks quite funky. Reminds me of my TEVA. My favourite pair of outdoor sandals which I believe have been taken off th emarket for quite sometime already as I cannot find them anywhere anymore!