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You are currently browsing the archive for the Milestones category.
Hannah has certainly come a long way learning how to eat with chopsticks.
Using a pair of regular chopsticks fixed together with chopstick holders (to enable kids to learn this skill), she eats her slippery udon this way. Personally I find it more difficult to use the chopsticks with the holders, compared to her training chopsticks at home, but Hannah seems to be able to master it pretty well.
She’s always asking me if she’s holding the chopsticks correctly too!
Scrap Credits
The Endless Love kit from K Designs
Cozy Alphas from retrodiva {designs}™
Amazing how this tiny little bundle of joy is totally dependent on me for everything! And it’s equally amazing how much I love her so…
Weight
9 lbs 4.5 oz (4.21 kilos). Suffice to say, the infant carrier Emma *travels around* in is getting heavier by the day! Her weight gain is excellent, and she is right on track, gaining approximately 1 kilo since she was born a month ago.
Height/Length
22″ (55.9 cm)
Motor Skills
Others
Food and Feeding
She is 100% on Mommy’s milk. Occasionally I give her 1 ml (400IU) of Vitamin D drops (as prescribed by doctor) because babies who are exclusively breastfed and who live in the higher latitudes are advised to be supplemented this way.
I am truly thankful that Emma has been a relatively calm baby. She cries gently, except when she needs to be changed IMMEDIATELY or if she is unbelievably HUNGRY, but other than that, she cries only when she needs to. I believe this might be due to the immediate skin-to-skin contact after she was born. We had a one-hour bonding session right after she was born, and that could possibly be the reason why she is a calm baby.
I am truly thankful that Emma has been taking a few naps in the daytime, which allows me time to cook and clean and do the essentials around the house. Unfortunately the popular adage, “A mom needs to sleep when the baby sleeps” does not hold true here, because only when the baby sleeps, do I find the time to do the important things that need to be done.
I am truly thankful every day because even though Emma keeps me up throughout the night, waking up every 1-1.5 hours for the past few days because she is currently in one of her growth spurts and hence cluster-feeds all the time, I would not be as sleep-deprived as I would be had I not chosen to breastfeed. I cannot imagine how zombie-fied I would be if I had to wake up and mix up a bottle of formula or even wake up to sterilize my breast pump to express milk. So even though I am sleep-deprived, I am still thankful.
I am truly thankful that on the several occasions we have taken Emma out, she has been behaving really well. She wanted to be fed a few times, but it was nothing this Moo-mie could not handle. Hey, I make milk, remember? 🙂
I am truly thankful that Emma has gained a good amount of weight, taken at her 2-week checkup. She was a healthy 7lb 4 oz at 2 weeks and we shall see how much she weighs soon, at her 1-month checkup. For the record (and also from our observation), she definitely looks more BULAT now. 🙂
Can’t wait for her to grow up and play with Ethan and Hannah! 😀
Last Saturday, my little sweetheart of a little girl turned FOUR!! She had been looking forward to this day for a long, long time, and she had already started the countdown to this auspicious day after Ethan celebrated his birthday about a month ago.
Being a little paranoid and worried that my third little bub might arrive on that same day, I had a contingency plan in place for Hannah’s birthday cake. Thankfully, this year, Hannah requested for a cake that did not require much shaping and moulding on my part. So the backup plan in case I was not around was that Pete go get a store-bought cake and then decorate the top with my ready-made cake topper.
However, in the end, since my third little one decided that it was still more comfy in Mommy’s womb, I still got to bake and decorate Hannah’s cake….and a whole lot of fun I had!
Hannah’s crazy about Princess Jasmine and the song from the movie Aladdin: A Whole New World, so it came as no surprise when she’d requested for a Princess Jasmine-themed cake. I ordered the edible cake topper online and only had to bake the chocolate cake and decorated it with chocolate ganache, frosting, chocolate rice and some orange slices. The addition of the fruits was Hannah’s idea too.
And afterward, because the weather was not-too-cold, she took her present for a “test drive”…or “test ride”.
It was the first time Ethan took his scooter (our Christmas present to him) for a spin too…and boy, did we have fun!
Definitely an awesome way to spend a birthday! Happy Birthday Hannah!
Last Sunday, as we were driving home from lunch and grocery shopping, Ethan suddenly announced, “Mommy, Mommy, my TOOTH just fell out!”
I turned around immediately and true enough, he was holding his tiny little incisor..yes, the one that had been wobbly for a little over 3 weeks now. He was just telling me a few minutes before the incident, that he felt his tooth was going to fall out any time that day. Apparently he had fiddled with it and it fell off!
I took the tooth from him and wrapped it in some tissue and then gave him some tissue to dab his gums of whatever blood that was there. It did not hurt him because he had waited for it to fall off on its own, and he was so excited after that. He didn’t have a toothless grin because his permanent tooth had already half-grown in the place of the baby tooth which had fallen out. And he says he can now chew properly again. 🙂
When we reached home, I washed his tooth and put it in his tooth pouch. Look how tiny the little tooth was! 🙂
Ethan wrote a short note for the tooth fairy and I put the pouch and the note under his pillow before he went to bed.
I had asked Ethan what he hoped the tooth fairy would give him in return for his tooth, and he said, “Ummm….maybe a little gift or a treat?” (I was pleasantly surprised and proud that he didn’t say “some money” :))
However, at close to 2a.m. Ethan awoke and excitedly told Daddy the Tooth Fairy had paid him a visit! He had woken up and checked under his pillow! LOL
But Daddy managed to ask him to go back to bed first and get a better look in the morning….so here’s his little Tooth Fairy treat! 🙂
Our boy is now looking forward to future Tooth Fairy visits. He’s wondering when his next tooth is going to wobble!
I’m already 36+ weeks along, so being paranoid that I would not be able to do a simple birthday celebration for Hannah in school with her friends (when she clearly wants to), I made arrangements for an early celebration on Valentine’s Day.
As was the case with Ethan’s school, we were not allowed to bring in any food items, so I managed to get a cute craft kit for the kids. Every kid in class would get a giraffe-shaped foam piece which they would then decorate to their liking using stickers and such, all provided in the kit. Cool or what? 🙂
Hannah was absolutely looking forward to the Giraffe craft and kept on talking about it right till the day I had planned for it. We did the craft with her friends in the morning, and all the kids had fun creating their own version of their giraffes.
It was the perfect way to spend Hannah’s birthday in school and also a kid’s Valentine’s Day and I was so thankful to be a part of it. Hannah’s teacher was also very thoughtful and had taken a few pictures of the activity and then compiled the pictures into a little ring booklet, which I thought was so cute! And of course, Hannah was beyond jubilation to take home her very own giraffe, which she named Sandy. 🙂
She’s now counting down the days to her actual birthday! 😀
It just dawned on me that I have not been updating the progress on Hannah’s days in school. She’s currently in pre-K now and she goes for the half-day sessions, which is around 5 hours every day. I normally drop her off at about 9:00a.m. after I drop Ethan off at school, and Hannah will be at school till about 2:30p.m. or so. She takes lunch in school and sometimes even has a short nap before I arrive.
Of course, for security and privacy reasons, parents aren’t allowed to take photos of the kids in school, but we do get pictures of our kids sent home, and I always welcome these because it just goes to show how much fun Hannah has in school! We’ve also enrolled her in the Phonics Adventures program which introduces and teaches phonics to early readers like Hannah. So far, we are pleased that she enjoys her 1:1 phonics sessions, which she has twice a week.
Here are some of the activities she has been up to in school…the photos aren’t very clear, because I had to take a photo of the photo printouts that were sent home.
Yesterday, my little Ethan turned seven. I still can’t believe how much he has grown. I told him that now when someone asks how old he is, he can say, “I’m seven years old!” instead of his usual “I’m six…but I’m gonna be seven soon!” 🙂
Here in Massachusetts, schools are very strict about food being brought into the classrooms in view of hygiene and food allergy. So instead of edible stuff for the kids, I prepared little birthday treats for every one of Ethan’s classmates, so that he could pass it round during snack time. His teacher(s) had suggested something practical and useful for the kids like a pencil or a fun eraser, so here’s what we prepared:
The kids helped me with the packing and arranging. The treats were just something very simple and useful: A mini memo pad and a cute little pencil. The memo pads came in 5 different colors and the pencils were just fun-looking and colorful. Ethan told me he had a great time passing these round to his friends, and they were thrilled to get them.
Back on the home front, we had a little celebration of our own. What would a birthday be without a birthday cake eh?
That’s right! I made him a Captain America shield cake! 🙂
He’d been consistently asking for it for a year and thankfully, it wasn’t too difficult to make, but I ran into a few minor glitches when I realized that I had left my cake leveler, fondant smoother and offset spatula back in Penang. So I had to just make do with whatever I had here, which explains why some parts of the cake were a bit uneven.
Ethan didn’t seem to mind though, and was really looking forward to blowing out the candle and eating the cake.
Yesterday morning, while I was in the midst of waking Hannah up, Ethan happily rushed into the room after brushing his teeth and washing up, and excitedly announced, “Mommy, Mommy!! One of my teeth is wobbling!!”
Yes, he had been anxiously awaiting the day when his first milk (baby) tooth would fall out, and he knew, as well as I did, that that day would be soon. Most of his friends already had a few teeth out, but so far, Ethan has managed to keep all his milk teeth.
He opened his mouth wide and I checked his teeth, and true enough, one of his bottom right incisors was wiggling. In the evening, I used a flashlight and saw the permanent incisor already sprouting, right behind the milk incisor!
It’s won’t be long now for the tooth fairy to visit us! 🙂
My precious kids make me even more proud of them each and every day, and this week was no different. This was a very eventful week for all of us, especially for Ethan and Hannah. After more than a month since we moved here, the kids are finally officially starting school!
It had been a rollercoaster of obstacles we had faced in getting the paperwork and submission sorted out, especially in Ethan’s case, but we’re glad it’s finally completed and Ethan and Hannah were so excited to be going to school at last. 🙂
On Wednesday morning, after much persuasion, Hannah woke up bright and early and got ready for school. She would be in the pre-kindergarten (pre-K) class, and she was really looking forward to it. There was no hesitation from her at all when we arrived at her classroom, and she immediately hung up her bag and jacket and joined her class (but not before she gave Mommy a big HUG and KISS).
I then took Ethan to his elementary school to submit the last of the paperwork needed. There were some delays due to the long year-end holidays, but thankfully, we managed to get everything done and sorted out that morning. Ethan would be in 1st Grade. 🙂
Before we left the elementary school, we met with the one of the English language specialists in the school. It was her job to assess foreign students on their English language proficiency via a simple assessment test on English reading, writing and comprehension. We were with her for about half an hour and Ethan did really well on his test. 🙂 The English language specialist said that he reads very well and that he would be placed in an appropriate level.
I then confirmed that Ethan’s official first day of school would be on Friday, and he was to arrive by 8:45a.m., where his teacher would meet him at the front office and then take him to class.
On Thursday, Hannah went to school as usual and Ethan and I stayed home. Ethan did tell me that he was a little bit nervous about his first day of school the following day, but he was also excited to be meeting new friends. I reassured him that it was normal to be a little nervous, but he could always ask his teacher if he needed any help.
Fast forward to Friday, and we thankfully managed to get the kids up and ready by 8:05a.m.!
