Yoga Baby

Starting around 5th month, baby Valerie has a new pastime. Yoga! Hah! I read from website, around this time, babies start to discover the existence of the feets and hence like to touch them, hold them and yup... suck them!!

Despite all the alarming No-nos from daddy or grandpa or grandma, baby Valerie paid no attention and happily sucked her toes. She started with one toes and then two toes. As days went by, she progressed to putting more and more toes into her mouth. In the end, you could see the whole foot in!

Some days, she would be so greedy as to try to suck both feet at the same time. So left and then right and the left. Tried to put both in but mouth too small. Then gave up and just chose one foot.

Nanny called this her yoga time. After her milk feed, she would usually spend about 20 minutes just doing yoga and this freed my poor nanny for a while. For me I found it quite convenient too as whenever she's doing her yoga time, I knew I would have about 20 minutes to do whatever I need to do while she's busy at it.

One of the most embarassing moment was when Valerie decided to do yoga time in her stroller while at a shopping mall. One weekend while we were pushing her around at Sunway, she suddenly pulled both feet up and started sucking. As we were so used to it by now, we just let it be.

But not the passer-bys. Nearly everyone who walked passed her either look startled, let out a 'Urggh.. look at that baby' or.. 'Ewwwww'. After about the third stranger doing that, we stopped and took a few minutes trying to get Valerie to stop. We even put on her booties but she continued sucking her booties as well. After a few more glances from people around, Ivan had enough. He carried Valerie in his arms while I pushed the empty stroller around.

So much so for being the proud parents of a cute baby. We just couldn't accept criticism for the first time :P

The 'Almost' Naked Series

I wanted to post a naked series of baby but Ivan protested again showing anything more than what was below. So we managed to snap these right after her morning bath.

My Baby Can Turn!

At about 4th month, Valerie started turning to her side, mostly to her left. But it was not a full turn. She'd just turn to her side and lie there for a while. This got mommy and daddy pretty excited. We thought Valerie was going to turn soon. But this didn't happen until about 2 weeks later.

It happened in the middle of the night. Baby Valerie suddenly woke up about 4am and refused to go back to sleep. And there we saw her stretching her body to the fullest, trying to turn. But she didn't know how. We waited for a while, but nothing happened. Mommy tried to pat her back to sleep but Valerie cried in frustration.

Somehow she was determined to turn that morning or she's not going back to sleep! Desperately, daddy gave her a light push near her feet and then.. voila... she turned!! You should see the glow in her eyes when she managed to turn. She was very very pleased with herself. And immediately after that, she went back to sleep! Hah!

The next morning, she tried to turn again. This time, she managed to do it without daddy's intervention. Not that well yet as one of her arm still stuck underneath. She has yet to figure how to release her arm.

But like the saying goes "Practice makes perfect", Valerie kept turning more and more the next few days. Soon she mastered the skill. Within seconds she would flip both her legs to one side, giving her the momentum and then turn and look at you. And soon she figured out the release arm part. Mommy was so proud :D

At her next doctor's appointment, the paedi did the usual examination and then asked me, "Can Valerie turn yet?". But before he could finish the sentence, Valerie already lying on her tummy and smiled at him. So, that answered his question. Hehe...