Sherrie kissed me!

To savour the moment, I am noting this down.. Sherrie kissed me twice tonite! I was hugging her when she was on her tummy in the quiet moments before she fell asleep and she turned her face to my cheek and planted the first slobbery kiss on my cheeks! Then she looked at me and gave the sweetest tender smile. After that i asked her if she kissed me and she kissed me again.. as if to say, yes! :) :) :)

I was so touched I cried. She is sooo sweet! I love my baby.

First accident!

Sherrie fell off the bed on Sat morning, to my utter shock! I was getting ready to pump and suddenly heard a thud from next door followed by loud crying. I knew my worst fear had come true. V was so tired from duty that he had fallen asleep while patting her and without realising, she rolled over the blanket barricade (not much obviously) I had made and landed, according to him, face down. I was so terrified to hear her wail and quickly ran into the room, to see him comforting her. Of course, she was crying and wailing very loudly, but after a few minutes of cuddling, she calmed down and promptly started rolling again. I was so worried that she might suffer broken ribs or concussion. Thank God that she is ok... no vomiting and she is eating and playing normally. With her increased mobility, we have to be extra vigilant and never allow this to happen again! Poor baby.....

She is also constipated, i think, from eating too much rice cereal and not drinking enough water. She doesnt' want to take water from her sippy cup and only wants to have it through the spoon. So everytime after having solids, I feed her water. She takes it but is not interested in it for long... so I think i've got to give it to her through her bottle. Probably fruit juice diluted with water will work. She's fussy about fruits so far, so hopefully that'll work. We've also bought prune puree from Gerber so hoping she will take to it and bomb tomorrow. I don't mind cleaning up the poop.

Last weekend, I didn't write, she had rather bad diaper rash, and we had to put her on cloth diapers for a few days. What exhausting few days those were! First she couldnt' sleep on her cot cos she would roll and spill her pee, so she slept with us. Then she peed about every 45 mins so I was constantly changing cloth diapers and applying thick coats of Desitin. Lack of sleep plus extra changing and extra laundry did not make me a very happy mommy at all. Boo. We are now very cautious to ensure it doesn't happen again.

On the positive side, now that i've gotten all the -ve things out, is that she has crawled forward! I think it was on Friday that she did so. She wanted to reach her blue teether and lunged forward, using her legs to propel her and she got it! Today i tried it using my handphone and she did it again! I think she will crawl soon. She doesn't much like sitting up, but she can do it. She needs a mood for it I notice, but she loves to stand and be on her tummy, propping up her legs. She has also started grabbing the railing of her cot I think she wants to use it to pull herself up... we gotta pull up the rails soon.

She has started to imitate some of our words. Like the other day I said 'Hallo!' and she said 'Ah oh' and then some other things we said today, she repeated in her bb language. I think she will get the hang of talking soon. She is making so many sounds. Oh yes, when she sees the bowl thati put her cereal in, she will go 'Hair hair hair (sounds like hair anyway) and flap her arms, showing her excitement. It's so cute!!! She will want to grab the bowl and spoon. Today, we had Mcdonalds cone ice cream and when i showed it to her, she immediately reached out and touched it, resulting in some of it landing on her fingers.... so sneakily fast!! When she likes something, her hand shoots out soo quickly!

She is certainly skilled in responding to her name already. When she is in the playpen, I duck and call her name and she will look around trying to find me. And she now notices that i'm below and have not actually disappeared! Haha... Very cute playing peekaboo and hide and seek. She is very curious about words, esp when I read the words on the mat aloud to her. She enjoys it very much and looks down then looks up and me.

Recently she has become very much more attached to me, because V has been on duty 10am to 10pm. She rolls towards me and wants to cuddle next to me. When he hugs her, she doesn't respond the same way and keeps fretting. Of course it makes me feel super close to her. Aww... so sweet. And i simply cannot get upset with her cos she wants to be close to me! Hee...

She is still not sleeping through the nite and we are wondering how we can do something about this. It is very disruptive to our sleep and I end up with blacker and blacker panda eyes. Not very desirable and not to mention, I am exhausted at the end of the day. So is V cos he has to work. In the long run it's really not very healthy for us. I guess we have to try something drastic (cry it out??) or just be resigned that she will definitely wake up once.

Ok I hear her. she doesn't like the pear juice! I dunno why.. it's sweet... this baby likes yams and sweet potatoes! I hope she takes to the prune or else she will be constipated for too long and will need an enema. Boo.

Growing growing growing

Sherrie is growing real fast! I dunno how heavy she is now, but her motor abilities certainly are much more varied than before. She now points at things she wants and we will walk towards it and then bend her body almost at right angles (if it's on the floor) or lunge both arms towards what she wants. It takes alot of energy to manage her when she is bent over. When we sit, she wants to bend her body to her side, arching her body to see whatever it is. I just put my arms in a ring and she moves freely. Sometimes she will lay her head on my shoulder to look up too.

When she is on her tummy, we turn on the christmas lights and she will arch her head backwards. It takes alot of effort on her part but she tries so hard! It's so lovely to see. She is still crawling backward but sometimes when she is stuck and both feet are against the wall, she kicks and moves forward a bit. Guess it's a matter of time before she gets the hang of it. You'll be surprised how much distance babies can cover by rolling and crawling backwards. She has to be supervised at all times!

She can also spend alot of time in the leapfrog now. Her favourite toy on it is the page turner. Even without the music, she can play in it for half an hour or so, frequently standing up on her own and then taking a break when she is tired by resting in the chair. Tonight she was so frustrated because she wanted to open a flap but only knew how to close it. She squealed and squealed... haha...

Food wise, she has officially accepted sweet potato (mixed with breast milk). We bought it from cold storage and steamed it. Surprisingly she loved it! when I ate it, I knew why! It is sooo sweet and doesn't hv the raw taste carrots have. I still wonder though, why she doesn't like pear. Maybe it's too tart? Anyway, we will try pumpkin, yam and avocado next. The 4 day rule means we can only try one thing at a time. Meantime, milk and cereal are enough. :) I enjoy feeding her cereal because i can see her face to face and she is so patient when eating. Sometimes, though, she gets distracted by the colourful playmat on the ground, so i hv to shield it with the pouffe.

We've also started taking her out more. Like today, Mum and I went down to CK Tang cos we wanted to look for a coffee machine for Su's wedding. We didn't find it at CK but mum wanted to carry her to show her things and she kept her hand out most of the time, wanting to touch things. Of course, knowing how expensive the things there are, we didn't let her.... soon i think she grew tired (even being carried need energy) and we settled her in her pram and made our way to ION to check out the Nespresso machines. We were treated to a demo of how the Citiz & Milk machine works and also a cup of espresso and i had a decaf latte. Nice! She took a nap till we got home.

Last weekend, we took her to the beach and let her feel the breeze on her skin, experience it turning from light to dark, see bicycles and roller blades, a small ferris wheel and market atmosphere. She was so tired she slept very well that night. We were of course pleased. :)

As for talking, she has begun to say 'ma', 'ba' but they are not deliberate. I do encourage the sounds when I hear them. Occasionally she says something that sounds almost like a word that matches the occasion - that fascinates us and we wonder if it's coincidence... :P Other than that, her babbling is really cutie cutie and i have videotaped them to remember them cos once they start talking we'll not hear them anymore. Not to mention the whining!!!

6 months!

Sherrie baby is 6 months old!! She can do so many things and is really so much fun to play with. For starters, she has started to sit up quite well on her own (with support left and right)to play with toys. She does so enthusiastically. i think she will sit without support come her 7th month. Really on the dot with all her milestones. She can also stand with her two feet on the ground while we hold her by her armpits for quite a long time as well. When we do so she is so excited because she gets a different viewpoint of the world around her. She giggles and screams to show her delight.

Aside from this she has also started crawling.. backwards! She pushes up on her arms and then it moves her backward. She now can move around my bed in super fast speed and not by rolling! Quite scary to wake up and see her at the foot of the bed. Thank goodness the cot is on the side blocking her from falling off and i am on the other side. Else i don't think i'd be able to sleep peacefully. Today she crawled backwards on the mat and almost covered it from end to end! Very tiring to play with her, but as i said, super fun! I can also do aeroplane with her i.e. hold her in tummy time position and move her parallel to the ground like a plane.. whoosh! And then since she is much stronger, I don't have to handle her so delicately anymore.. which makes it very fun. She likes to be lifted into the air and particularly likes the word 'down' said in a very dramatic way.

She has also started on rice cereal, which she likes. She takes 3 tsp per day and i'm thinking of increasing it because she doesn't seem to be full at night.. still waking up for a night feed. Really cracking my brain as to how to prolong her sleep at night so that we can get some time for ourselves!! Hopefully the 2 cereal feeds a day will work. We also tried bananas, which she positively disliked. Her disgusted face spoke millions and while I know it was probably an awful experience for her, it was very funny for us when we watched her because she was so genuinely disgusted. haha.. We also tried carrot, which she seemed to like much more than banana but not as much as her cereal. The next thing we're going to try is avocado and pumpkin. I think there's a high chance she will be ok with these 2. :) Very fun!

Now she is actively showing her wants to us. When we take away something she wants, she will protest. When she wants something that we are holding she wil reach out her hand or shake her legs. When excited she will laugh/giggle/squeal - all very delightful. Oh yes, she also is making sounds that sound like whispers but not particular 'words' seem to be coming out... just whispers. Haha... And her babbles sound like 'oo', 'ha', 'ba'.. a little more like words. She can also be very manja, lying on me when she is tired and hugging me when she wants to.. but she hasn't learnt to kiss. Hopefully by the next post she would have. Am looking forward to that...

Trying out the sippy cup to see if she wants to take water/milk from that, so that she can progress to holding her own cup/bottle to drink milk. So far she thinks it's a toy and puts her mouth to it and chomps on it ,but hasn't realised that she can also suck the spout. I shall try milk in it tomorrow.