Kaitlyn's 22 months update and Christmas!

Height: 83cm
Weight: 10 Kilograms

Kaitlyn started saying 3 syllable words! Her best efforts at the moment are "position" and "abacus". She speaks proper sentences with correct grammar in English and in Mandarin. She is still a bit confused about You and I, for example, sometimes she will say "mummy feeds you" when she meant "mummy feeds me." She actually knows she is not getting those right, so to get around it, she substitutes any references to herself with her name, it's quite cute really.

She apparently has a thinking sound/gesture. At night, we go through flashcards of objects and nursery rhymes with her, and sometimes when we ask her to tell us what something is, she taps on the card when she thinks. She knows all the words in the flashcards and most of her books now. I think it may be time to buy her different cards (maybe numbers and alphabet?) She can repeat the entire alphabet after you, i.e. you say A, she will say A etc. and besides W, she says all alphabets correctly. She actually counts without prompting now, and does 1-5 in Mandarin very well. Actually, she counts to 10, except most of the time, she forgets 4 and 6... LOL

She is phasing out her afternoon nap, which is making life a little harder on my parents as dad needs to do more work after he gets home, so can't take care of her if she's up, and mum has to cook. Good thing I am on maternity leave, so hopefully can look after her a bit more

Oh, she started posing for the camera. Whenever she sees the camera, she gives a huge grin where you see her teeth but can't see much of her eyes, and she wrinkles her nose when she smiles.

Her hair is getting a little longer too. I don't know if I would take her to get it cut. She was bald for SOOOOO long, I just don't have the heart to even shorten it now that she has SOME hair. It's still a pale brown colour. Her eyebrows are starting to be more visible now, and have changed from very blonde to light brown.

The BIGGEST news of the month though is that she FINALLY reached TEN KILOGRAMS as of tonight! I thought it'd take another few months seeing how she gains a couple hundred grams and loses a few hundred grams from week to week... But the last 2 weeks, she's done quite a bit of growing, gained about 500 grams and gotten a little taller too. 10 KILOs! I think a celebration dance is in order LOL...

She popped SIX teeth in a week, so was a bit of a little terror last week and didn't eat very well. I am very relieved that she made 10 KILOs though.

Her tantrums are still more or less under control. She does whine and cry when things don't go her way, but she calms down in a couple of minutes when everyone just ignores her. She sometimes throws things, which annoys me. When she does that, she gets a loud "No" from us, and she runs off to whoever in the house that didn't "yell" at her, and cries for a couple of minutes and gives the "yeller" dirty looks. She behaves very well generally when there's only one adult in the house watching her. But she plays us against each other when there are more than one person in the house. She especially know how to have my father do the dirty work for her and get him to yell at anyone else that had been "mean" to her. It's amazing how manipulative little toddlers are...

She's very creative/artistic. She loves to draw, particularly fascinated with rabbits, cars and little people. She draws lines very well now. She likes orange coloured pens. She also sings quite well. :)

Kaitlyn seems to think I could fix anything. The other day, she picked a flower from our garden. She accidentally broke one of the pedals off the flower. She walked up to me, holding both the flower and the fallen pedal and looked at me expectantly, "flower is broken" and handed me the flower and pedal. It was sort of a "aww" moment for me... to know how the kid things we could pretty much do anything, and also know that there are and always be things that breaks that no matter how much we want to help, still wouldn't be able to fix...

4 more sleeps until baby #2 joins us... We have most things ready and have been trying to prep Kaitlyn as much as possible about the new arrival. I think she sort of understands, but she really wouldn't "get it" until the new baby comes home and then she'd have to share our attention. I worry and don't know how she would react. I do hope the kids will get along and Kaitlyn wouldn't be too traumatised.

Christmas this year has been very low key because I am so hugely pregnant and we have so much to do to get ready for baby #2. It was still wonderful to watch Kaitlyn open the presents and how her whole face lights up. We kept some of the presents we bought for her birthday because we thought 5 pieces were more than enough. She got the following for Christmas:

* An wooden abacus
* A doll that she can dress/undress and would open/close the eyes. She loves the doll and carries it everyone, kisses it, hugs it and pretty much just mothers it.
* A tea set, she likes to pretend she's drinking tea and making tea (with tiny stuff animals LOL)
* A toy frying pan with toy foods and spatula, bottle of "oil" and bottle of tomato sauce. She actually knows to put in oil first before putting the food in.
* A very large coloring-in activity book.

She handled Christmas and crowds very well. I took her to work Christmas Eve and we took her to a BBQ Christmas night. She didn't throw any tantrums at all. She just acted stand-off-ish, which is her norm outside of the home anyways.

20/21 months update

Kaitlyn is almost 21 months and mummy has been busy/slack so, only just catching up on the update:

Height: 81cm (28%)
Weight: 9.5kg (3%, still a very very skinny girl)

• She now knows cause and effect very well, such as pretending to be crying will get grandpa to do anything.
• She knows to use tools. Getting a stool to climb onto high things, using her flower to get things from under the sofa etc.
• She sings and actually has a tune now
• She uses adjectives, such as "very", "many", "too", colours (green and red), sizes (big, small), temperatures (cold/hot)
• She tells you how she feels, "scared", "tired", "happy" etc.
• She talks to herself and sings herself to sleep. Seriously, this girl has full on conversations on her own in the cot, sometimes literally for HOURS. I think she may be talking with her pillow. She has these little pillows that looks like the head of a baby animal. She cuddles it to sleep most nights. Well, either the pillows or she has an imaginary friend or 10...
• She has preferences to food and people and will now request for them. Her favourite foods include fish, dumplings and plain old bread. This girl can chew on a plain bread roll ALL Day if you'd let her
• She addresses baby #2 by name, although the pronunciation is still a bit off
• She finally transitioned to the bath tub! It still took her a week before she went from standing to squatting in there. She still refuses to sit down.
  
• She's afraid of certain noises, including motorbikes, law mowers, chainsaw/tree trimmer, any cars with that terrible loud noise coming out of a fancy exhaust, vacuum cleaners, and blenders. It's all similar sounds. She drops whatever she's doing and run to someone, clinging for dear life every time she hears these noises. We don't know why... maybe it's just a phase?
• She prefers to feed herself and makes a huge fuss if you don't let her do it. Yes she makes a mess, but I think it's necessary evil...
• She dresses her toys, puts sunglasses, hats and other accessories on them

It just seems like everyday she's saying more and more words, phrases and sentences. She's constantly surprising us. Yesterday, she said "bread is yummy, do you want some?" (full sentence, in Chinese).

Her hair is finally long enough at the back to be tied up and she asks for it to be done most days. Her hair is getting a little curly when it gets long. She may have wavey light brown hair by the looks of it.

We are starting toilet training. We bought the baby toilet seat with steps, and some nappy pants. Let's see how long it will take... I hope we could get her toilet train (at least for day time) before baby #2 arrives.

Some other cool/cute stuff Kaitlyn is doing

• She takes off almost every kind of clothing items on her own now. I think we may need to toilet train soon or she may leave us some "present" in the bed one of these days...
• She loves her pillow now, but she will only play with it in her cot and won't take it out of her room
• She climbs up and down the stairs unassisted while counting the steps
• She could count 1 to 5 in English and Mandarin. She counts steps, blocks and her fingers
• She sings 2 Chinese nursery rhyms
• She rarely fuss for more than a few seconds. When she's frustrated, or fell over, or upset, she tells herself, baby don't cry, it's ok, baby smile. And she smiles.
• She talks to her dolls and when she puts one down, she tells it to "behave"
• She makes lots of different animal sounds, she'd say for example, dog says woof woof.
• She will praise herself when she's done something new or difficult, like putting 6 different megabloks together to form some sort of shape, she will say "well done" and claps her hands
• She's very stubborn and will not let anyone help her until she attempted something for quite some time.
• She's very independent. She could entertain herself for HOURS as long as someone is close by
• She comes to tell you when she needs to poop
• She does this really funny dance where she waves her arms around and turns in circles.
  
• She loves music, any music and will dance to it
• My mother bought some sweet potatos and lay them out side-by-side in a basket. Kaitlyn goes over to the basket everyday and stacks them on top of each other. My mum will move them again to be side-by-side, and Kaitlyn will go back there and stacks them again. It's quite funny to watch them both fussing over the sweet potatos using their own "system".
• She hates the heat, but doesn't mind the cold. If the weather is slightly warm, she strips herself down to a singlet and nappy when we put her to nap even if we put her in 2 layers of sleeping bags to try to stop her from stripping
  

An visit to the Ophthalmologists (eye specialist)

So mum and I took Kaitlyn to the Ophthalmologist today to find out if Kaitlyn has a squint (turned or lazy eye). We had to take the taxi to and from home because no one could drive us today. Kaitlyn didn't like unfamiliar child seats and fussed a little bit.

The appointment went much quicker than we expected. The nurse (I think that's what she is?) checked Kaitlyn's vision first. I always wondered how they check tiny kids' vision. Well, they use a LOT of toys that make lots of noises, and giant picture cards. Then she put eye drops in Kaitlyn's eyes twice to dilate her pupils. We sat around to wait for the drops to work, then the eye doctor checked her out, using more toys, and funny glasses that you see optometrists wear. This eye guy reminds me of the doctor in Patch Adams. He was very nice.

Kaitlyn behaved very very well the whole time, and only cried for seconds when the eye drops went in. Doc kept commenting how good a little patient she was.

Anyways, the verdit: her eyes are perfectly normal. The reason her eyes appeared slightly crossed in some photos is because she has what the docs call a pseudo squint. This is caused by the large epicanthal folds (folds of skin cover the inner part of the eyes). Apparently this is very common in Chinese babies. I am hoping she will grow out of it, when the bridge of her nose grows more.

19 months update

I have been rather busy lately with the new job, going to NZ for a work conference, and being pregnant with baby #2. I do feel guilty for not posting enough updates, and I constantly feel so bad for not taking enough photos of Kaitlyn.

She turned 19 months last week and she's definitely not a baby anymore. She talks in sentenses in Mandarin and English. She now says no (way too often). LOL.

Her personality is really showing through now. She's quite a stubborn little girl and such a girlie girl. She picks and chooses her outfit each day. If she doesn't like something we try to put on her, it's almost impossible to make her wear it. I think the terrible-twos had started. Although I am counting my blessings as she will still listen when we try to reason with her. If that fails, we could try to distract her and that generally works.

She eats everything now and can chew most things. She has 2 molars now and her first canine is trying to break through. She is not as picky with food as with her cloths. :D

She now plays with Mega Blocks and can put them together quite well to make different shapes. She also likes to take the blocks out from one container and put them into another while counting them.

The sillest thing she's doing right now is that she likes to sit in boxes/buckets/other larger containers and then puts her toys in there with her, especially her dolls. Sometimes she gets a bit frustratetd when she couldn't fit herself in the containers after putting all the toys in. It's quite funny to watch.

She likes to talk to my tummy every night and will say love mummy, love little brother. :D I just hope she still says that when the baby actually comes out and competes with her for our time and attention.

I think that's about it for this month. I have moved all the new photos into one folder, now I just have to find the time to sort them...

1.5 Years Old!

It's so hard to believe Kaitlyn is now 1.5 years old (18 months). She definitely no longer look like a little baby. When you have a child, you really feel how fast time goes past and you have very tangible visual proof of it going past, in your growing child...

Anyways, Kaitlyn:

She's decided her name is Kaitie. Whenever we asked her what her name was (in English), she says, "Name... Kaitie." Whenever we point at her door, which has her name spelled out, and asked her, "what is that?", she says, "Kaitie". We tried to correct her tell her "NO, it's Kaitlyn." She just looks at us seriously and says "Kaitie." Ah well, guess Kaitie she is then.

She also refuses to address my tummy as brother. She still insists that it's a sister. When we tried to get her to say Hi brother, she just goes Hi baby instead. Very stubborn girl she is.

She now speaks in short sentences in Chinese. For example, when she sees us at the door after a day at work, she asks (in Chinese) "Who is it?", then claps and smiles and asks for hugs. Then goes, "Yuan Yuan, hug." and pats our back.

She decided that she has had enough of congee (wouldn't blame her LOL), and now wants only big people food. She will only eat something now if she sees us eat the same thing. She still doesn't chew very well and sometimes she would hold the last bite of food for ages after a meal. But she's getting better. She also likes to feed herself and wants to hold the spoon herself all the time when being fed. All the big people food sometimes make a her a little constipated though, so occassionally she cries when she had to strain to poop.

I think she's close to being ready for toilet training now. She comes to us and tells us that she is peeing or pooping. Then asks us to change her nappy when she is done with a poop. I think we will start toilet training when the weather warms up a little.

She runs everywhere now and climbs the stairs. So we installed baby gates on the stairs.

She finished (knows and can say the words) all the cards in the 3 packs of flashcards we got her (everyday objects, body parts etc.) I am not quite sure what's next, so I am singing to her before bed. Maybe she'd pick up singing full songs soon.

She has a rabbit that she only gets to play with upstairs. And that is a manner rabbit. :D She knows she needs to say please and thank you, to get to the rabbit. It's quite cute.

She was sick for a week this month and now back to being skin and bones (9kg). She was unable to eat anything solid for a week and had a rash all over her body. The GP thinks it's just a viral rash. It did go away after a week and she was back to her normal self. My skinny little girl. When you tell her she's too skinny, she'd puff out her tummy and show you she's not. LOL She eats a lot normally, so I have no idea why she's so skinny.

She will have her chicken pox vaccination next week. So fingers crossed that she will have very little reaction to it. She's also due for her 18 month checkup... I need to find a day to take her... mmm... She has an eye specialist appointment end of September for her "squint". I might try to make the appointment for the check up on the same day if I could.

I put in the application form for UTS Childcare to put Kaitly on their waiting list. Maybe she could start childcare in a year or 18 months.

We will be attending open days for a few schools in the next few months to decide which school to put her in. She's definitely growing up too fast...

17 Months update

Kaitlyn was 17 months yesterday. She's growing up way too fast.

She's talking up a storm now. She talks in phrases and a few sentenses. She sometimes surprises us with wordss we didn't teach her. :D

She runs around the house on tippy toes, climbs onto everything. She likes to purposely run her pusher into things. She also climbs the stairs unassisted and started going back down the stairs backwards unassisted.

She talks to my tummy every night before bed and kisses it good night. She says hi and bye to the "baby". She calls it "sister" all the time. She's going to be disappointed if it's a boy LOL.

She says A-B-C-D-E.. can't quite get F yet.

And she counts to 3 in English and 7 in Chinese.

She's back down to 9.2kg again. :( and is chewing on everything and anything... I wish her teeth would come out soon so we can be done with that phase...

We know she's gotten taller but it's been impossible to measure her as she won't stand still for anything.

Getting decent phots of her has become very difficult as soon as she sees the camera, she runs to it and grabs for it. :(

She's a wonderful child. I really cannot ask for a better kid.

Brett is now converted about "Baby Plus" (we called it Thump Thump because it makes that loud thump thump sound). I asked him if we should stop using Thump thump with baby #2, he said, we shouldn't risk it, and should keep using it LOL. Just in case it contributed any to Kaitlyn being such a wonderful child. :D

16 Months Update

Kaitlyn turned 16 months yesterday and I almost lost count.

She's 8.9kg again now, finally gained all the weight back from being sick last month. I hope she keeps gaining weight, my skinny little girl.

She has 7 teeth now and last week, she started brushing her own teeth. And I am proud to say she's doing it quite well.

She talks a lot. She sings and dances even better now :)

She really started the whole "fake cry" thing now. :( She has my dad wrapped around her little fingers. Every time she does a fake cry, my dad runs to her "rescue" and yells at everyone else. She has a tell-tale sign when she does the fake cry, she fans her face as if she was hot. LOL Another little gripe that I have is that she likes to point and go "eh..eh... eh" instead of saying what she wants. She could, she just sometimes chooses not to.

She says "please" (more like 'peez') and "thank you" (in Chinese). :D

She walks up and down the stairs with very little assistance. I think it's time for baby gates.

She's such an independent little girl. If she's trying to get something done, even if she's struggling, she won't let us help. If we asked her if we could help her, she just keeps shaking her head. She fiddles and fiddles with it till she gets it. Then she claps and says "yay"! Absolutely adorable.

She has a place for all her toys. The soft toys/dolls go in one basket. The blocks/puzzles go into another, and the miscellaneous bits into another, and her books goes into a box. She sorts them and puts them away before she goes out or goes to bed!

She also started to "draw" with crayons, and to stack her blocks. She made it to a stack of 5 once, without them falling over.

She LOVES animals and animal sounds. She thinks everything except a sheep, goes "woof woof". When a sheep appears though, she goes "BAAAAH" VERY loudly. :D

Oh, and as a family event, we all watch Funniest Home Video Show. She loves that show, she just snuggles up to me and watches it.

She walks around and does her own things most of the time, and occassionally, she will look around for us, then comes to us, asking for a hug, kiss or cuddle. :) She's so adorable when she's cuddling up...

To shave or not to shave...

So, Kaitlyn has very little hair, STILL and she's now 15 months. She has some hair really, but it's quite light and very fine, so it really doesn't look like she has much.

As a result, she gets mistaken for a boy ALL the time! Everywhere we go, we get "oh your boy is cute." Even our neighbours think she's a boy, and we just couldn't be bothered correcting people anymore. Ok, I do occassionally put her in gender neutral colours and I CAN see how easy it is to think she's male...

It's a Chinese tradition that babies get their heads shaved, at 100 days after birth. Well, at 100 days, Kaitlyn had NO hair worth shaving! :D Now that she finally has some hair, my parents are harping on getting her head shaved, because supposedly it will make more, darker and thicker new hair. Riiigght. I am not convinced of it. I am not even sure I want her hair to be darker and thicker. I happen to like her hair the way it is, and the colour that it is... Although I wouldn't mind her having a bit more hair and probably to have enough hair that we can make into a pigtail one of these centuries.

So to shave, or not to shave, that is the question... What do you think?

The abortion debate

Dr George Tiller, one of the few doctors in the United States that provide late term abortions, was shot dead yesterday during church service.

Abortion, is a very controversal issue indeed...

When I was about 5, I vividly remember standing on the street, watching a heavily pregnant woman being dragged away by 2 men, while she was kicking and screaming and pleading. I found out later why she was being dragged and where she was going. She already had one child, and it was at the height of the "one child policy", she was not allowed to have a second child. She hid away but was still found out. And that day, she was being dragged away to have an abortion. I don't think I would ever forget the look on her face when she was being dragged away, I think i could still hear her pleads for help, for her unborn child. I think that early memory determined that personally, I would never have an abortion and will never allow anyone to pressure me into one.

A couple of decades later, I was travelling around China, and what do I see plastered everywhere, on billboards, behind the seats on public transports etc? Ads for painfree aboortions, with a smiling teenage girl on the ad, same day service, takes about 10 minutes, you continue on with your life as usual... Then I read in newspapers that teenagers are having multiple abortions, lunch time procedures, straight from class, chatting, laughing and joking with their friends while there. Just when, and how does a matter of life and death become so rountine and blasé?

All that being said, I do believe abortion should remain legal.

How I see it, abortion is about the individual woman that is making the choice, and having to live with that choice for the rest of her life. While it saddens me to see the statistics that such high percentage of abortions are done due to social or psychological reasons. However, I would like to still believe that for most women, that it's not a routine choice. It is often done as a last resort when all else failed.

I know women from both sides, one that carried a child that would not live beyong birth due to non-existing kidneys, to full term, and one that had 2 routine abortions in a matter of 6 months as a teenager. I KNOW that both women are in pain. The first had to watch her new born son die in her arms only hours after birth, and the second, years after the abortions, only just starting to feel the weight of her decision.

Abortion should remain legal, so that women can have a choice to terminate pregnancies that are medically necessary, such as congenital deformities that would result in neo-natal deaths, or cases that would cause the mother to die in child birth. I believe there should be a choice. Surely, like every choice in life, some people take them lightly, and yes, it can be exploited and abused. But without the choice, is it fair to make mothers watch their new born babies die after knowing they will, months before hand? Is it fair to make mothers risk their lives to give birth? Comparably, would it be justifiable to take away the c-section just because there are people who do it for convinience, while there are many who NEED the procedure to save their lives and the lives of their babies?

Whatever reasons a woman choose to abort, she is the one that lives with that decision for the rest of their lives. It needs to be her choice, either way. She definitely shouldn't be dragged to a clinic, kicking and screaming. But she shouldn't be forced to go to dodgy illegal abortion operators and risk serious long term damanges to her health or even death either because the anti-abortion crazies killed off anyone who is brave enough to provide the choice for the women.

Kaitlyn 15 Month update

My little girl is 15 months today.

She's walking very well now and started to try to run, although keep tripping herself over. Her knees are always bruised from all the falling, but they don't seem to bother her very much.

She's talking a lot and learning new words everyday. She knows all of her visible body parts and most everyday objects. She loves to sing and dance and her "tunes" are starting to sound like songs.

She's a wonderful toddler. She's almost always happy and smiling. She loves to cuddle and kiss. It's great to come home and see her smiling brightly and toddling up to me to offer hugs and kisses. She rarely wake up cranky. When she wakes, morning and after nap, she chats to herself or sings to herself for a while until people notice she's up. She's very independent. As long as there's someone familiar in the room, she can happily entertain herself for ages, reading, going through her toys etc. She loves to read and loves to bring you a book to read to her.

She cleans up after herself. Every night before bathtime, she will pick up all of her toys, and put them into the toy baskets, and puts all of her books into the book box. She now does this without even being asked.

She has 2 obssessions, hair and socks.:D She's fully awared that she doesn't have much hair, so she is obssessed with everyone else's hair. She's always reaching for people's hair, touching and pulling. Just this week, she started to insist on wearing a cap or a beanie to cover her head. I hope that's not because she's feeling insecure about not having much hair? She love socks and when she "helps" us with sorting/folding the laundry, she always grabs for the socks and tells us that she has the socks. She loves socks so much that she insists that they are to be worn OUTSIDE of her pants. Not a great look, but it keeps her happy. :D

She only has 6 teeth still, and no molars. But she eats everything now and is eating all day. She finally put on a bit of weight this month, and is now at 8.8kg. She's still skinny, but I am just happy that she is gaining weight.

I will post a few photos on the weekend.

Pillow Phobia

We found out yesterday that Kaitlyn has pillow phobia!

She's trying to pop 2 to 4 molars (I can feel quite a number of them right under the gums), so she's been a cranky, clingy little girl for more than a week. She cries herself to sleep and everytime she wakes from a sleep cycle, she cries. So I haven't slept a full night for more than a week either.

Anyways, my father, once again, in his infinite wisdom decided, oh, let's introduce a pillow and a quilt for her, because she NEEDS them. Apparently he thinks it stunts her growth without a pillow and a quilt. It's the "unwrapping" saga all over again... (for those who doesn't know, check this blog out). After a week of him nagging non-stop, I gave her a pillow. Lo-and-behold... One night after sleeping with a pillow, Kaitlyn refuses to even go into her cot. Everytime I put her in her cot, she screams bloody murder, with real big drops of tears and everything. So we took out the pillow, and she's fine again. She definitely didn't like her pillow.

Moral of the story? I wish my parents will just butt out on how to raise MY daughter. They had their chance with their daughter, i.e. me. They may not like the way their daughter had turned out, but it's no reason to try to force their ways on how I should raise MY daughter. /shrug.

I need to get my Master Degree done, and pop the second baby out as soon as possible, so we could get out of their house...

Kaitlyn's Vocabulary and Other development, at almost 14 months

Kaitlyn says the following words and knows the meaning (pointing to the right person/thing)

	English	Mandarin	Cantonese
Mum	√	√	√
Dad	√	√	√
Grandma	√	√	√
Grandpa	√
Cat	√	√	√
Dog	√
This		√
That		√
Full		√
Flower	√	√
Melon		√	√
Car		√
Hat		√
Horse		√	√
Here		√
There		√
Milk		√	√
Food			√
Bath Time	√
Bed	√
Book	√
Picture	√
Rabbit	√
Button	√
Tummy		√
Ball	√
Doll		√
Sock	√	√
Duck	√
Bear	√
Pat	√
Light		√	√
Bear	√
Quack	√
Woof	√
Meow	√

Here are the extra words she understands and responds correctly consistently in English:

In, Out, Up, Down, Open, Close, Sit, Come, block, Give, hug, kiss, Bye bye, Hi, Where is…, Are you…? Do you want or ?

She can correctly point out:

Nose, Mouth, Eyes, Ears, Hair, Foot, Hands, Fingers, Tummy, tongue, mouse, block

She also:

Blows kisses, does the “metal Horn”, points at objects that we ask her about, opens and closes her hands when I sing “twinkle twinkle little star”, dances, climbs on everything. At meal time, she drops what she’s doing and comes to the high chair, and climbs on it. At bed time or bath time, she drops whatever she’s doing and comes to the person taking her to bath/bed, and waves good bye to everyone in the room.

She just started to actually using the remote controls. She turns on the cd player, and can fast forward songs that she doesn’t like. She also turns on the dvd player and opens the dvd tray. She turned on the computer today too. My kid is a geek…

I know I probably think of some other things soon as I finish this blog. Ah well, will update next month if I miss anything. Oh, her current weight is 8.6kg (not much improvement still) and she is cutting a molar VERY slowly.

Stay at Home Mummy for a week

So I've been home for 4 days straight now and I feel like I could get used to this whole "Stay at home mum" routine. It is however, still more exhausting, being home taking care of Kaitlyn than being at work. Kaitlyn has pretty predictable schedules which is a good thing. The whole changing from Day Light Saving messed her schedule up a little. She gets so cranky and tired an hour before she should go nap or bed. I feel so mean keep her up but I am not used to having her going to sleep by 7pm and fully up by 7am either... so hopefully she will adjust in a few days.

I haven't had a chance to do the 13 months update. Kaitlyn hasn't put on any weight, again. As the doc didn't seem worried, I am going to TRY to not be too worried either. I did get a specialist referral for her eyes as I still think they are crossed at times. She's gotten taller, but it's been impossible to get her to lie or stand still to take measurements. Her pants are all looking shorter on her. She's walking on her own a lot more now and today she even walked on her own with socks on!! This is the first time she didn't try to pull the socks off. She still only has 5 teeth although she's been chewing and biting things a lot. She's saying more words and expresses herself quite well. We pretty much know what she wants most of the time.

We took some photos... but as usual, they are not sorted. :( I have hundreds to sort... but I just never seem to have time for some strange reason...

Kaitlyn, the little performer

"Mother says I was a dancer before I could walk
She says I began to sing long before I could talk"
-- Thank you for the music, ABBA

Well, that pretty much describes my little girl. She has been dancing whenever she hears music by swaying her bottom from side to side and waveing her arms around. It's very darn cute. She also started to make up "songs", sings them and dances to them. If she's sitting down when she hears music, she taps her feet to the beats and sometimes waves her arms around as if she was conducting.

She loves music, songs, as well as any rhymes and poetry.

Kisses, many many kisses

Kaitlyn is such an affectionate little girl. Lately her favourite things to do are hugs, pats and kisses. Whenever I get home from work, she breaks out BIG smiles, waves her arms around excitedly. When I picked her up, she gives big bear hugs and pats my back. Then, she will hold my face with both of her hands, and plants big kisses all over my face making loud mmmm... maa... sounds while she does it :)

She also blows kisses with her hands. At night before bed, or in the morning, before I go to work, she likes to cuddle up to me, just looking at me... melts my heart really.

I must say, all of these make my day, every time :)

cwrawlking

Kaitlyn started doing this weird crawl/walk thing today. One of her leg is crawling and the other leg is trying to walk. It looks hilarious. :)

Kaitlyn update, 12 months

I have been busy and then slack the last few weeks and didn't write any update about Kaitlyn.

Our baby turned ONE on the 21st February. She walks, says words in Cantonese, Mandarin and Cantonese. She sings, wiggles around and screams. She is getting better in telling us what she wants and is definitely very skilled in telling us what she does not want. She throws occasional tantrums. Most of the time though, she's a happy girl and quite easy to care for. She now has 5 teeth and is teething right now, I think it's her molars trying to come through because she holds her cheek and whimpers in pain at times. She had her 12 month vaccinations and she only cried for a couple of minutes and didn't get sick at all this time.

Oh, she's starting to show memory and comprehension. This morning, she tripped over and got her first ever bruise/bump. It was a big bump on her forehead. Anyway, she cried and cried for a while and refuse to go to Brett after that (because Brett was watching her when she fell). Even after a few hours, she still cried when passed to Brett. So I had to sit down with her and tell her daddy didn't mean to let her fall, it was an accident, daddy still loves her etc. After talking to her for a few minutes, she turned around and reached for Brett with a big smile on her face. /sighs... my baby's growing up so fast...

She eats a lot but still doesn't put on much weight. Her stats at 12 month were:

Height: 75cm (30 inches)
Weight: 8.4kg

Oh, she is quite a climber, she climb on and over everything. She's such a cautious girl most of the time, but when she climbs, she has absolutely no fear. She gets herself on and off the sofa and sofa bed with precision and speed. :)

And she loves books. Now that we no longer breastfeed before bed, she demands 3 to 5 books to be read to her, before she will eat her last bottle and be put to bed. We are still breastfeeding once each day, early in the morning before I go to work. She's way too distracted to breastfeed any other time in the day. I am very proud to have breastfed for this long, considering the very rough start. I have a feeling she may wean herself completely soon though.

That's all I can think of right now. I will try to sort out the photos this week and post some.

Lite N Easy, week 4 - Day 1, Weigh in time...

Weight: 48.8kg (-0.8kg, -3.2kg Total)

Another 0.8kg and I am all done, at my ideal weight. I think the 0.8kg is not bad for this week, considering I had an average of 3 hours sleep each night, and had done my own breakfasts and had lunches and dinners with the family quite a few days. I have been trying to phase out the Lite N Easy and I think I am doing ok. :)

I've learned:

* to understand hunger. When feeling "hungry", try to drink a glass of water first. If still hungry, then eat.
* Eat slowly and chew and taste and really enjoy the food, whatever it may be and however amount it may be.
* Eat till comfortably full, not over full.
* measure the serving sizes. A metric measuring cup is your best friend.
* read the nutritional information label for everything. Enter everything you eat (including dressings) into CalorieKing.com

Lite N Easy, week 3 - Day 1, Weigh in time...

Weight: 49.6kgWeight: (-1.1kg from last week, and -2.4kg total)
I lost my tape measure, again, so cannot do the other measurements.

I have been flat out this week thus far so, I don't have have a chance to do Kaitlyn's birthday blog yet. Will catch up next week.

Black out

We had a black out tonight. I was in the middle of my shower and end up having a cold shower... lucky it wasn't a cold night. Kaitlyn got very excited about all the candles. She had her bath in the kitchen and she found that very interesting as well and was splashing water everywhere. I am so proud of her, we did our usual bedtime routine without any problems, and she didn't even cry when I left her in her bed to sleep. She's a good kid...

Lite N Easy, week 2 - Day 1, Weigh in time...

The last few days has been very chaotic so no updates... the only things to note is that the Mac and Cheese Bake is very salty, same with the Terriyaki Chicken. So guess I won't be ordering those again.

Weigh in this morning:
Weight: 50.7kg (-1.3kg)
Waist: 29 inches (-2 inches)

We are making progress. If I could lose 500gm to 1kg a week, I am extremely happy. I don't think I will be listing everything I eat each day. I will only note down things that I need to remember for later. :)

Lite N Easy, Week 1 - Day 5

Day 5:

Breakfast: Bircher Muesli with half a cup of skim milk, A piece of fruit toast with marmalade
This is my first experience with Muesli and it was a good one. The serving was small, I barely had enough muesli to cover the bottom of a small soup bowl. But it was quite yummy. Fruit toast was nothing special. I was surprised that the tiny tub of marmalade had 40 calories. And also such a small-ish breakfast actually had the same calorie content as the big dinner last night.

Morning Snack: Red Apple
78 Calories, eaten with lunch

Lunch: sliced turkey and marinated mediterranean vegetables served on a leafy salad. Fruit cup
2 pieces of round sliced turkey, 1 small tub of marinated mediterranean vegies including olives, capcian and some orange slices of some sort. and a salad mainly of various lettuce. The turkey tastes really nice. I also ate the yogurt date bread from 2 days ago... I think I over ate, was rather full.

Afternoon Snack: Nutty Muesli bar
Didn't eat this. I still felt full after the gym, from lunch.

Dinner: Mango Chicken
Delicious.
2 pieces of chicken and some asian vegetables. I loved it. It actually tastes like mango chicken LOL.