Milestones

Our Ethan boy is now 10 months’ old! Pete was just commenting that his age is now a 2-digit figure… heh. It seemed like just yesterday he was just a tiny bundle in my arms and now….he is Mr Bulat.Here’s a short report of how our boy has grown thus far:

Weight
8.6kg as of a week ago, should be about 8.7kg or so now

Height/Length
69.5cm as of 3 weeks ago, he should be at least 70cm by now.

Teeth
2 bottom central incisors

Motor Skills
• Crawling: Ethan is now able to crawl on his hands and knees, and it is his preferred mode of mobility as opposed to commando or bear crawling.
• Assisted Standing: Ethan can pull himself up to a supported standing position with tremendous ease and speed. His favorite areas for supported standing are:
o The TV cabinet
o Inside his cot
o Our leather sofa
o His Stand-up Ball Blast toy

• Waving: Ethan can wave bye-bye now, and sometimes does it “his” way, flapping both his arms and legs
• Pincer’s Grip: He can exhibit Pincer’s grip now with finesse. I first noticed him doing that when he began pulling his own ear lobe.
• “Pointing”: He can make his fingers in the shape of a pointer, but instead of pointing, he uses it to dig his nose (gasp!) and make blubbering sounds on his puckered lips!
• Cruising: Ethan can move from one end of the cot to the other whilst holding on to the cot railings.
• Sitting after Standing: Ethan is now able to lower himself to sitting position after he has stood for a while. Previously the poor guy will stand there and just didn’t know what to do next…

Communication & Social Skills
• Say Mum-mum-mum…., nen-nen-nen….. but sometimes just says it for the heck of it, not cos he is hungry. I think he calls me Mum-mum for now.
• Say Daddy (or something that vaguely sounds like it), and most of the time, actually refers to his Daddy when he says it! Yay Ethan! Well, sometimes it sounds like Dadada…..
• Other repetitive syllables: yayayaya……, wawawa…., etc.
• “Inform” us when he is about to pangsai or pangsai-ing by showing us his pangsai face:


Food
Ethan takes two solid meals a day of porridge (lunch and dinner). His porridge is cooked with some meat (chicken, fish or pork) and vegetables (spinach, lettuce, pumpkin, carrots, corn, etc).Sometimes I will give him some fruit in the evenings or some oats. During weekends, I occasionally give him a meal of breakfast too; usually it’s oats with EBM and some fruit (bananas, apples or pears).

Ethan had his first hair cut today. We took him to the Brothers Hair Saloon at Sungai Dua in the morning (when he’s less fidgety and in more of a good mood) to do the honors.

First we brought him into the saloon to familiarize him with the surroundings. Since Pete was also due for a haircut, I carried Ethan while he watched the skillful barber cut Daddy’s hair. Ethan was extremely excited with the new place and looked very inquisitive. He was smiling from ear to ear and flapping his arms in his usual cheerful self, so this was a good sign… hopefully he would be curious enough to try what Daddy is doing. Heh heh…

Once Daddy had finished his hair cut, we put Ethan in his Bumbo on the saloon chair and the barber proceeded to do the deed. Our Ethan boy has really fine and little hair (inherited from Mommy, nonetheless!), but it was growing too long and unruly, so we decided to shave his head.

He was (surprisingly) VERY cooperative during the entire experience. I held his arms down, just in case he started to cry and protest, but I was very proud of my little boy, who sat through the entire procedure calmly, with only a few instances of him turning his head left and right abruptly (biasala….)…. Nothing Mr Barber could not handle.

The shave only took about 5 minutes, but as it was finishing, Ethan got restless and started wailing… Thank goodness we had only a few more touch-up shaves to go!

We initially wanted a crew cut hairstyle for him (short stubbly hair on the scalp), but in the end, it was virtually BOTAK. Surprisingly enough, at night, Pete and I noticed that his hair had already begun growing! Talk about fast growing hair! Now his scalp feels like Astro Turf…

Here are some memorable shots to capture the moment:

Ethan has achieved another milestone by being able to clap (with sound). All this time, he has been attempting to clap his hands, moving his palms together in a clapping motion but although he is able to do it quite well, he wasn’t quite able to produce any sound just yet.

Today, he totally nailed it. While sitting in his bathtub taking his bath, he just started clapping and clapping. So adorable… simply music to our ears.

Our Ethan boy can stand aided now!We just got back home from our short trip to Ipoh and Taiping over the past 3 days, and when we reached our apartment, Ethan’s face immediately lit up!

I put him in his playard while I brought in our other stuff from the corridor. Next thing I knew, when I checked on him, he was grabbing the edges of the playard, standing away happily! He played with his toys and he looked SO CHEERFUL. It was as though he really missed them all, and he especially missed his home sweet home…

One funny thing I noticed is that Ethan is a very “ai-bin” (eksyen in Hokkien) little fella. He would grab the edge of his cot, stand up and then release one hand and look at us, as if to say “Ta-daa!! I can stand now! Applause please!” A confident young man in the making, perhaps?

Ethan has said his first word.
It ain’t “Daddy” as was expected. And it ain’t “Mommy” too. There ain’t no “dada-baba” sounds either.
Our boy has uttered his first monosyllable word and it is becoming apparent that it is most definitely…..“Where?”

During playtime, we would inadvertently hear him go “Where?” over and over and over again.
Ah well… shows that he is a curious child anyway….. actually more like kepo. Heh. Wonder whose trait he took after.