Post fever

Sherrie is much better now, thank God! She took about 5 days to fully recover, with sponge baths and paracetamol syringes (which she of course hated). I am so happy that she is back to normal i.e. drinking formula milk and eating cereal. I was getting worried because my milk supply was dropping and she was only wanting bm.

Everyday I spend with her, I feel that she is very smart! I hope I am not biased and thinking that just because she is my baby, she is clever. But, she has done certain things that make me feel so. Here are some examples.

1. After a few demonstrations of how to play with a new toy, ie the gumball machine, she knows how to throw the balls thru the top and press the lever (though she still prefers to topple the tower).

2. She held onto a spoon and licked the food end of it and smiled; then flipped it and licked the other end and gave a disgusted look. She knows which end brought her the food and after flipping the spoon a few times, stuck with the food end. When she had licked all the food off her spoon, she dropped it.

3. She used the spoon once and now wants to feed herself. Same for the biscuits (though Mum & V get quite nervous about her feeding herself. It is very cute to watch her do so.)

4. I put her in the leapfrog when I pump and now she has gotten used to being next to me that she doesnt' want to play with the things on the frog but wait for me to entertain her. Just because I did it a few times. When she was far away from me, she would entertain herself... Boo.

5. She knows that the moment she comes in front of the computer, she can pull open my drawer. I didn't teach her that but she did it, so now it's almost impossible to do that because she will reach for it and it is dangerous (she might hurt her fingers if they get trapped).

6. On the toolbox, she knows that she can pull the lever and the ABC song will come out. Promptly she will sway her body to it (very cute). If she doesn't hear the song, she will keep pulling it until it starts or she might start to get frustrated.

Other than these examples, she has also grown abit. Taller, leaner and less chubby. But still very cute. She has started propping herself up on me and after going her knees, goes onto her feet. She is constantly searching for higher ground where she can pull herself up! I think she will be standing holding onto something on her own quite soon. How quick is that! The question is does she want to? She can be quite lazy..

She is still not so interested in story books, but she listens whenever we describe something to her. No 'words' yet but some of her sounds sound like 'hello' and 'hi'.. So i take it she is greeting us. Sometimes there is a some semblance of a wave so.. we'll see. Maybe soon she will associate waving with the hello. :)

Can't wait for her to toddle though i know i will be even busier.

Sherrie had a fever

Over the weekend that has just past, poor Sherrie had a fever. It all started on Fri night, around midnight.. She was feeling a little warm and when we took the temperature it was 37.1 deg. I took a cool towel to wipe her down and she went back to bed. When she got up in the morning (Sat), she was feeling much warmer, so we bathed her and decided that we'd take her to the ped. Not realising it was Deepavali, we took a morning stroll and found the doors closed..... thankfully a clinic next door had a sign that it was open at 1pm and it was a family clinic.. so off we went back for home.

At 1pm, after she had been bathed several times and wiped down, we brought her to the clinic. It was pretty crowded with other children and the consultation was $30. After waiting about half an hour, we took her into see the doc. She was burning up and the temperature at the time was 39.2! So scary for me.. he suggested giving her a rectal suppository to bring her temperature down. Thank goodness, because it worked very well! Of course, he checked her ears and her lungs etc and found that everything else was fine.. Phew, i was so worried!

Anyway, the whole weekend was spent taking care of her, sponging and taking temperature and keeping her cool. It was heart breaking when we had to feed her the fever medicine cos she obviously didn't want it. We had to pin her down and syringe it into her mouth, followed by water. Poor baby... thankfully it worked and she is now better. However, she is refusing her solid food. I guess being sick does something to your appetite cos her milk intake is also reduced. Unless... she is goin on a diet cos everyone says she's like Michelin!

On another note, she can now pull herself up using the railing of the cot! I walked in last thus to see her doing it, so promptly had to ask V to lower the mattress. The playpen is no go now unless with supervision. She will put both hands on the rails and pull herself to kneeling position. Scary if she is unattended, so the safest place now is the cot and the leapfrog. Yesterday when we held onto me and pulled herself up to kneeling position she was so happy, gleefully smiling away at me. New skills so I guess she wants to keep doing it. Oh yes, she now wants to crawl over things. Like me, for instance. Also, on the bed, she goes for the highest points! Somehow she knows that she can stretch herself doing so... so the pillows and cot become targets for her... and the wood carving on my bed post.. dunno why she likes that so much.

She is also waving objects about, as if to see how it responds when they are shook. Also she likes to drop things on the floor, just to see how it reacts/sounds. I guess all babies go through this. Very cute though sometimes troublesome! I think she might wave to us soon!! Hoping for that...

No kisses for the moment, though she did fall asleep on my shoulders yesterday night. What a sweetie! I love!!

Sherrie is crawling!

My baby has learnt to crawl quite proficiently! She can cover the mat too quickly and i'm afraid she has outgrown her rocker. She cannot be left alone in the rocker for even 30 secs because she promptly rolls over in it and can drop off. How scary is that! Also, in the playpen, she has started to put her hand on the railing to look over.. she could easily prop herself up and go flying down too. Hence, the safest place is in the cot, where we can raise the railings or in the pram, next to me.

Her crawling is really quite deliberate now. She looks for something she wants, then very determinedly crawls towards it, raising her hands in the air (one hand on the floor and one hand in the air) and then moves it forward, one at a time. It's really so cool to see her development day to day. Aside from crawling, she is also sitting up in her pram. She didn't use to even though she could, but now when out, she will sit up and look around, observing her surroundings. She really is very curious at this stage. The best part is that she can sit for quite a while by herself, looking around, giving us time to eat out. I love my baby!

Vocally, she hasn't said much, but is still squealing and babbling. I guess all babies have their own timetable. I am encouraging her by saying mama and dada and also reading the picture books to her. At this stage, however, she seems more interested in perfecting her motor skills instead.

In terms of food, we've introduced prunes into her diet because rice cereal tends to be constipating.. also avocado, which i discovered has alot of soluble fibre, so it helps her to poop too. She likes them both, thankfully. have not tried reintroducing pears but will do so today.. adding to her cereal should be a good way to get her accept it.

She really is a blessing to us because she is so well behaved. At Su's wedding recently, she was mildly frightened by the sheer number of people but she was so sociable, smiling and allowing so many people to carry her. Of course, so many people touched her cheeks.. we couldn't prevent that! We also brought her up to Su's new studio apartment and she rolled on the bed so happily. During the church service, she slept. At the dinner, she was also very good, sleeping for the most part, through the extremely loud music. I don't know how she did that!! But she has received nothing but praise from everyone and all cannot wait to spend time with her!