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...