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Little Miracles · Growing Up
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Growing Up

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A First for Ethan and Mommy

May 3, 2007 in Ethan, Growing Up, Milestones, Parenting | No comments

Pete was still down with the flu yesterday, and I had to go out to get a few items to cook.  So I decided to take Ethan along with me to the minimart near where we stay.  While opening and locking the door of our house, Ethan was really intrigued with the padlocks which I guess he hasn’t seen up close before.  I loaded him into his car seat and we were off.  Carrying him on my right and fumbling to pay the shopkeeper with my left hand was quite tricky, but since I did not buy a lot of stuff, I managed. 🙂 Although he could already walk, I did not put him on the ground for fear he wander without my noticing.  We were out for about half an hour and then came back home.

That was the first time I had gone out all alone with Ethan…perhaps a first of many?

Attempt at Weaning

April 27, 2007 in Ethan, Growing Up, Parenting, Sleep | 2 comments

Lately I have started becoming slightly conscious of attempts to wean Ethan from my breast (I say *slightly* because I think subconsciously I am not even sure myself if I want to wean…but eventually my boy will have to grow up, right?). 

Every evening when we come home from work, Ethan will play with his toys for a moment, before he realizes he misses me, and then he will come over to me and ask for comfort suckling.  Sometimes he will drift off for a short nap before he wakes up and takes his bath.  But sometimes he will just sleep through and miss his bath entirely.  That’s all right too, cos his baby sitter has started giving him a late afternoon bath as well nowadays, because he is so active that he sweats a lot.  Anyway, when he is ready for bed, I will breastfeed him and tuck him in when he is done.  I tell you, he looks so preciously adorable when he is fast asleep… angelic, even…

Previously when he wakes up during the night, or about midnight, I will breastfeed him again, a surefire way to get him back to dreamland.  But a few days ago, when he woke up around 11p.m., I took him into the kitchen and gave him a drink of water.  Ethan can drink from a normal adult cup now and loves doing so, but since I have yet to get him a lighter one he can hold himself, I still need to hold the ceramic cup for him now.  After a few gulps of water, I took him into the room and laid down with him on the bed.  Miraculously he fell asleep immediately!  So he was just thirsty!  And he slept till 4:30a.m. – which is good judging by Ethan’s standards okay? 

Apart from water, I’ve also tried singing and rocking him to sleep sometimes.  In fact most of the time, when he wakes up during the night, it’s not because he is hungry but more so because he feels lonely or perhaps just thirsty.  So there you have it.  My *feeble* attempt at weaning.  May not be much thus far, but it’s a start.

Ethan’s New Baby Sitter

April 23, 2007 in Ethan, Growing Up | 3 comments

Ethan has a new baby sitter, however the baby sitter is only available in our house.  Check it out: 

Look at how much he enjoys playing with it!  Hehehe… that’s the wooden educational toy we bought for Ethan from Ikea…psssst! Great for adults too!  Pete set up the toy on Saturday night and we introduced it to Ethan on Sunday.  He was intrigued immediately and was playing with it quietly for a good half an hour while I took my shower and did some household chores.  And after we came back from church, Ethan immediately headed for that toy and began playing with it intently again.  We’re not sure how long this craze will last, but for now, it’s as good as a baby sitter at home.

Visit to Dr Jessica

April 21, 2007 in Ethan, Funny Moments, Growing Up | 2 comments

Yesterday evening we took Ethan to Dr Jessica’s clinic for his 14th month checkup and pneumococcal booster jab.  Ethan was so excited when we arrived at the hospital, especially when he saw the escalator.  While waiting for our turn, he just could not keep still and kept walking around, much to the delight of everyone around him.  Watch this: I took this out of boredom…

We were ushered into the doc’s clinic very soon after.  His height and head circumference was still the same as last month, but his weight had increased to 9.5 kilos.  And then it was jab time… as soon as Ethan saw the syringe, he kept saying “mai mai mai“.  But after the quick jab, he was his usual cheerful self again.  Our next visit would be when he turns 18 months.

“I want to play!”

April 19, 2007 in Ethan, Funny Moments, Growing Up, Parenting, Sleep | 1 comment

I don’t know what got into Ethan last night, but it was SO difficult to put him to bed.  After his warm bath at about 9p.m., I breastfed him.  Under normal circumstances, he would be in dreamland in about 15 minutes or less.  Last night, he decided that he still wanted to play.  He hopped down from my lap after he had his milk, then he walked over to his toys and began playing with his colored blocks.  I cajoled him to go to bed, but he refused.  Instead, he chose to walk around the house babbling incoherently, eyes wide awake, mind you!  After some time, I decided to take him into our room and make him sleep there instead (this plan worked before).  But instead of falling asleep on our comfy bed, he preferred to roll around, crawl around and even walk around the room… so much for my plan!  I had to wait for him to tire himself out, I thought.  I even asked Pete to pretend to sleep on the bed with Ethan and I to see if our boy would want to sleep too.  But Ethan was adamant he wanted to play still…. so Pete decided to take him out into the living room, while I did the laundry and some cleaning up.

Finally, we noticed that Ethan had a hint of eyebags which denoted he was ready for bed, but still he was *conversing* with us loudly and excitedly.  I took him into the room anyway, and he fell asleep after 10 minutes! 🙂  It was already past 11:00p.m. then.

Ethan woke up in the middle of the night, but I was not stirred from my sleep at all, until Ethan called “Mommeeee!” clearly.  That got me right out of bed – well, Pete brought Ethan to me la.  Hehe… well, actually I had no recollection of the incident in the middle of the night, except for the “Mommeeee!” part.  Pete, who can wake up at the drop of a pin, was the one who told me what happened.

Pooling Around with my Water Baby

April 17, 2007 in Ethan, Exercise, Growing Up | 5 comments

Last Thursday, after work, we took Ethan for a dip in our apartment’s swimming pool.  The weather was warm with just a hint of sunlight.  Perfect swimming weather…I checked from our balcony that there was no one in the pool, so off we went.

We dressed Ethan up in his new swimsuit, which made him look like a mini scuba diver.  We bought this suit a couple of weeks back because Ethan looked so cute in it, we could not resist it.  For the first time also, we fixed the arm floats on him to allow him to float in the water.  These floats are the kind that had just a band at the bottom and was not “floaty” all the way round.  This was to enable more movement whilst in the water.

I took him to the edge of the pool and began playing with the water.  I splashed – he giggled… so I took him into the water.  Gingerly I let go…and to my amazement he began paddling doggie-style!  Unfortunately he paddled away and I was behind him, so he suddenly realized I wasn’t in sight and began struggling and crying.  When I hugged him again, he clung on to me for dear life, and he even wrapped his legs around my waist.  SIGH….next time, I’ll make sure I am within his view.  We hope to go again sometime this week 🙂

Passport & Haircut

April 12, 2007 in Ethan, Growing Up, Miscellanous | 5 comments

We took Ethan to get his passport done today.  We are planning a trip to Singapore (maybe) soon, so we’re just getting everything ready first.  My own passport had also expired last year, so I did mine at the same time.  This is Ethan’s passport photo, taken a few days earlier.  I placed him on my lap and he was facing at a right angle to where I was facing.  Leng-chai or not? 😉

After that we hopped over to Standard Chartered and opened an in-trust savings account (Young Savers Account) for Ethan with the moolah he received from Chinese New Year angpows.

We had lunch at New World Park and then it was haircut time for our whole family! 🙂 We drove to Prangin Mall to the hair salon we frequented mainly because of the head massage thrown in :P.  Pete had his hair cut while I breastfed Ethan in the baby room in Parkson.  Ethan fell asleep soon after and I placed him in his stroller and pushed him to the hair salon.  While he slept, I had my hair cut and washed.  He woke up just in time as Pete had just finished his hair cut about 5 minutes before that.  So after I finished my hair cut, we asked the hairdresser to use the shaver blade #2 to shave Ethan’s head.  As expected, our boy struggled and screamed, because as you know, he hates anything on his head.  Thankfully, it was all over within a space of 5 minutes or so.  Results?  Handsome leh…..! 🙂

 

Separation Anxiety all over again

April 10, 2007 in Ethan, Growing Up, Parenting | 4 comments

On Monday when we were walking towards Mrs Tan’s house and Pete was carrying Ethan, Ethan cried in a manja manner and wanted me to carry him.  When we reached Mrs Tan’s doorstep, Ethan cried slightly louder and protested to being left with Mrs Tan and wanted to stick to me like glue.

Luckily Mrs Tan quickly interjected by saying, “Where’s the bird?  Where’s the bird?” (She’d hang a birdie toy in the doorway of one of the rooms and it sang a song when touched).  Well well… Ethan immediately looked toward the direction of the birdie toy, seemingly distracted.  Pete and I said our goodbyes and made a quick escape.

I was kinda sad leaving Ethan at the sitter’s because he apparently knows now that he is being left with someone else while Pete and I are at work.  🙁 Mrs Tan says it happens to all babies.  I can only pray that Ethan will understand…

Easter Weekend

April 9, 2007 in Ethan, Growing Up | 2 comments

This Easter, both my parents and Pete’s parents together with SIL were here in Penang.  Ethan again, of course, was the prime of all attention.  On Friday, my Mom and Dad made their way to Mrs Tan’s place to have a headstart playing with Ethan, while waiting for us to pick him up after work.  Ah Ma from Ipoh brought Ethan some new toys, among others a Rock-N-Stack toy, which Ethan took to immediately…. errr…. well, sorta…

We went for Japanese food for dinner on Friday with Pete’s parents at Soba Yoshi, where Ethan again had the time of his life, relishing each morsel of his chawan mushi and after dinner, he went roaming around checking out the restaurant.

On Saturday, we all went to Gurney Plaza.  While Pete and I selected Ethan’s studio picture shots for his album, Ethan busied himself (and also his Ah Mas, Ah Kongs, Ah Koh, and Ah Chek) by walking around the mall.  Certainly looks like he had a great time! 

Pete and I were spoilt for choice with the photos he’d taken just last week.  In the end, we had to choose an additional 2 more shots for the album (otherwise we would be stuck in the photo studio shop for hours!)

My Mom and Dad had to go back to Ipoh on Saturday itself, so after we dropped them off at the ferry terminal, we made our way to New World Hawker Center at Swatow Lane, where history was made: Ethan had his first taste of hawker food in the form of Wan Ton Mee.  There were no baby chairs around at all, so he had to stay put in his stroller.  He appeared to like Wan Ton Mee a lot, because he kept requesting for more. 🙂  Hehe… Wan Ton Mee lover, just like Mommy.

The following day was Easter Sunday, and we went to church at The Cathedral of the Holy Spirit.  It was jam packed but thankfully we managed to find a seat.  Ethan just could not sit still and insisted (rather loudly) that he wanted to walk by himself all around the church.  At the end of the church service, Pete and I were thoroughly exhausted, after chasing Ethan practically all around the church!  But Ethan was still a feisty as ever… spreading the Easter spirit to everyone!

14th Month Progress Report

April 5, 2007 in Ethan, Growing Up, Milestones, Parenting | 3 comments

 

In a blink of an eye, my little boy is now 14 months old.  And yes, I am still breastfeeding.

Weight
9.1 kg as of his last visit with Dr Jessica.

Height
76cm as of his last visit with Dr Jessica.

Teeth
8 in total: 4 incisors top and bottom (bottom side incisors growing quicker than top ones).  Makes for a really cheeky grin.

Motor Skills

Ethan can walk as fast as he can crawl now, and lately I have been noticing that he is trying to step up stairs too, for instance when we were in church, he would try to step up the steps leading to a wooden door.  Sometimes I have even caught him trying to stand on one foot…. yeah, like a stork. 😛

Oh yeah…and did I mention our boy can make music?

Ethan likes to play with his toothbrush.  No no…not brush his teeth, but hold the toothbrush up in the air and babble incoherently.

Pete: Ethan, toothbrush… toothbrush (pointing to the toothbrush)
Ethan: OOohhhh  bebababa..tatata……

Communication & Social Skills

  • Will try to join in the conversations we have, but what Ethan says is mostly babbling.  Ethan voice is really loud and when he wants something, he will shriek and scream.  We are trying to teach him to NOT scream but to converse properly when he wants to communicate something – no luck so far.
  • Whenever he sees Pete and I hugging, he will want in on the hug too, and will toddle towards us and hug our legs.
  • Every weekday morning before Pete and I leave for work, Pete would carry Ethan out and head towards the car.  Lately when we are about ready to leave, Ethan would walk really fast towards Pete and hug his legs, requesting to be carried.
  • When I am taking my shower, sometimes Ethan would ask Pete to take him to our room (where I am in the bathroom), so that he can bang on my door :).  Sometimes Pete would relent, but at other times, when Pete is busy watching ESPN or something… Ethan would walk over to my room door and bang on it himself 😀

Food & Eating Habits

We’ve been pretty lenient with Ethan’s food the past month and he has had the luxury of enjoying an array of outside food, among others, char siew pau.  Last weekend, we were at Soba Yoshi’s and since I didn’t bring his porridge out, I tried (again) to feed him chawan mushi with some calrose rice.  I tried giving him chawan mushi a couple of weeks back, but he was not very keen on it then.  This time, the little fella walloped it like nobody’s business.  He’s just a chip off the old block eh?

Since we gave him spaghetti at Friday’s a couple of weeks back, he has also taken to eating with his hands.  We would feed him porridge, for example, and sometimes, he would put his fingers in, taking out chunks of porridge and whatever is in it, look at it, and then put it back into his mouth.

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