Milestones

Weight
At least 9.5 kilos, though Pete and I have reason to feel like he has definitely gained a whole lot more weight after the visit to Dr Jessica.

Height
At least 75cm

Teeth
Last month I noticed 2 pramolars appearing at the bottom gum surface, but now believe it or not, they are gone!  So total teeth count is now back to 8.

Food
Ethan is taking almost everything we take now, i.e. adult food.  He actually prefers rice to porridge, and I no longer cook porridge for him during weekends.  If we eat out, he takes whatever we take, and if I cook at home, he’ll take the same food as we do.  I am pleased to say that he LURVES Mommy’s cooking! 🙂 Last week, I cooked Too-Thor-Th’ng(Pork Belly Soup) and he gobbled it down with glee!  He’s also recently been introduced to a host of other new foods, among them siew-mai and yogurt, which he absolutely adores!  I found the full-cream yogurt that is suitable for kids (Fernleaf CalciYUM), and bought them for him.  Believe it or not, he even knows how to request for it!  He will come over to either Pete or me when we are eating our yogurt and go, “Mum mum mum MUM MUM!!!” while reaching for ours!

When we go to Innira’s, I’ve also given him his rice with just an teensy bit of curry and he is okay with it too.

One thing Ethan dislikes though is baby food from jars.  He will have absolutely none of it.  No pureed pear or prunes, no juice and certainly no yogurt from jars.  Our little boy is selective and only wants freshly prepared food.

Highlights

• Ethan is finally able to drink from a straw, and does so with gusto, although lately he has sometimes been rejecting the straw, preferring instead to drink from a normal adult cup.  Yes, I’ve been training him to do so since a few weeks back, and since we haven’t gotten him a cup of his own, I let him use my ceramic one.  It’s kinda heavy so I have had to hold it for him while he drinks.  He spills just a little of the water on his front while drinking and would you believe it, yesterday, he even grabbed the whole cup from me, and held it to drink all by himself!

• Ethan can walk pretty confidently now, teetering on the brink of running.  No more careful stances with extended arms trying to balance himself whilst walking.  Nowadays, he loves to walk while swinging his arms.  And he even knows how to steady himself if he is about to fall!
• Calls me “Ma-meh” and calls Pete “Di-deh”.  Ethan is blabbering a lot these days and is showing signs that he will talk very soon.  He loves forming syllables with his tongue and can carry on a “conversation” with us, albeit very funnily 😛  He has learnt to say “mai” (“don’t want” in Hokkien) – when I try to brush his teeth, he will say “mai mai mai“.  Last night in an attempt to give him water instead of milk when he woke up at 11:00p.m., he pushed his sippy cup away and angrily said “mai mai mai!” SIGH.
• Knows his way around our house very well now…errr…too well, sometimes.  He loves opening cabinets (note to self: need to fix the cabinet stoppers this weekend) and finding interesting stuff inside.
• Every morning, when Pete has his breakfast, Ethan will walk over to him and place his head lovingly on his lap, as if to wish his Daddy “Good Morning!”
• When Pete plays the tickling game with him, Ethan will walk really quickly in an attempt to escape.  He will hide behind me or behind my legs.  Sometimes, if he is cornered by Daddy, he will bend low in order to avoid being tickled…or…he will move behind Daddy so that Daddy can’t see him to tickle him.
• Ethan is learning to share 🙂 When I feed him pieces of bread for example, he will peel off portions of the bread and tries to feed me.  He will pass an item to Pete or me (for instance, a greeting card or toy block) and smile while doing so.  Pete and I will reply, “Thank you!” and Ethan will repeat the entire process all over again.  When I give him a drink from a cup he will gulp down several sips and then push the cup towards me, motioning me to take a few sips too!

We took Ethan to see Dr Jessica yesterday after work.  It was his routine 13th-month visit and he had his chicken pox vaccination too.  Apparently the chicken pox jab does not 100% prevent the child from getting chicken pox, so Dr Jessica said that beginning this year, a second booster chicken pox jab is being introduced and would be administered when the child is 4-6 years of age.

Ethan protested and screamed for a while when the shot was given, but was okay almost immediately after (shot was given on the arm).  Dr Jessica again asked us if we could already tell if he was a rightie or leftie, but we were still unsure… I jokingly said “ambidextrous” – heh heh…. anyway, the doctor gave him the jab in the left arm.

And on the way back from the hospital, he fell asleep in the car.

Ethan spent a major part of his 13th month receiving angpows during the Chinese New Year festival and a minor part of it battling a cough.  During Chinese New Year, he had loads of new clothes to parade in, almost one new set each of the fifteen days of the new year.  We also bought him his first pair of sandals (this one’s easier to wear than his Adidas ones because this one’s got velcro).

Weight
9kg.  He lost 100g when he was sick, but gained back the weight as of last week.

Height/Length
Not sure, but more than 73cm, since he can reach the ground on both feet on tiptoe when he gets on his toy train vehicle.  I don’t have a photo of him reaching the ground on tiptoe *yet*, but here’s a photo of Ethan on the train 🙂

Teeth
Still 4 in total: 2 central top and bottom incisors.  4 more incisors on the top and bottom are fast appearing.  Either the whites are visible or the tooth can be felt through the gums.

Motor Skills

• Ethan can now walk pretty fast, although in a wobbly manner.  He is learning and exploring the entire house, moving from room to room.  He is not afraid of the dark and if he finds himself in a dark room, he can move to the door and open it.
• Ethan can squat very well (signs of really strong quadriceps and hamstrings).  I have even caught him squating and reaching for an object (while squating), then standing up and then returning to squatting position.
• Throwing things is the highlight of the day.  When we take him home from the baby sitter’s, he will trash everything in sight… all his toys will be thrown around the floor, and Pete and I are resigned to picking them up over and over again.

Communication & Social Skills

• Will clap his hands whenever he hears any music, whether from his music toys (he has a toy piano and a toy banjo), or if someone sings to him. 
• Will wave bye-bye when prompted.  But even when the people he is bye-byeing to is out of sight, he will still be waving.
• He is ticklish when I kiss him on the tummy.
• He has started showing some signs of independence, and sometimes will crawl to avoid Pete or me when we attempt to pick him up.  When we do pick him up, and all he wants is to be free to roam on the floor, he will make a quick diving motion, and if we still resist letting him down on the floor, he will attempt to bite us.  Yikes!
• He has begun to thrown tantrums when he does not get what he wants.

Food

I introduced some legumes and honeydew, besides introducing “Ikan Jenahak” – not sure if it is “Kalat-hoo” but he loves it all the same.  The one item that he absolutely loves though?  CHEESE!!  Our boy will wallop a whole slice if we allow him to.

I’m still providing food cubes to Mrs Tan, our baby sitter, to make it easier for her to cook Ethan’s porridge.  So in my freezer, I have ice trays filled with food cubes such as fish cubes, tomato cubes and vegetable cubes.