Baby Day Out @ Look Out Point

Ivan was away at London the entire week, so just left me and baby Valerie alone. Thankfully she was such an angel, fell asleep by 9pm on most night and this gave me time to do bottle washing and housework. I even had time to use the massage chair and read a book before going to sleep :D

Come weekend we didn't have anything on so my sis came over and suggested we try out this spot called 'Look Out Point'. She told me the evening view is very stunning but since with a baby, it was more convenient to go in the afternoon. We brought mom along, this was also a pre Mothers' Day celebration. Hey, I'm a mommy too :D

When we first stepped out of the car, we noticed how windy the place was. It's not just windy, it's very very windy!! And the branches were swaying with a hush-hush sound. Valerie couldn't keep her eyes off the trees. We sat down for a western meal and I was very pleased to see Valerie kept giggling whenever the wind blows. There were a few occasions where she stretched out her hands, trying to catch the wind. I have never seen her this excited! I'm definitely bringing Ivan back to this spot :)

Look at her happy face. Can't even see her eyes!
My sis and baby Valerie, still smiling...
My mom, sis and baby
Taken from Bread & Olives restaurant. Still showing her broad smile
View from Bread & Olives
My mom and baby on the sofa

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...

The Bumbo Sitter

Valerie really loves to sit! At the age of 2 months plus when she could only lie down, she would coo her way to being carried. Once put on a sitting position, she would happily look around without disturbing you.

This is also a fun time to bring her to Starbucks. I just order a drink, put her on my lap and enjoy my coffee time with Ivan. What does Valerie do? I have no idea, she just basically sit there and look around I guess. No fuss at all. So much fun that Starbucks becomes our weekly routine. I felt we are like cool parents, who still have time to go to a nice coffee place and enjoy a chat or read magazines.

Because of that, I am so tempted to buy her the Bumbo Sitter. I've read all about it, how it fits perfectly on infants as soon as they can hold their neck up. And I've observed, Valerie could hold hers up pretty well close to 4th month.

So armed with the idea, I brought her to a baby shop to try out the sitter. The salesgirl was so amazed how well she sat. And me, being the proud mommy (after being told how well her baby could sit), bought the sitter without thinking another second. After I got home, I realised how expensive it was but still.. it's the fun of seeing Valerie sitting and she seemed delighted. And for once, I didn't have to carry her. Talk about splurging... Hehe... :P

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

This is baby Valerie's first Chinese New Year. Look at my baby all dressed in red. We went over to grandma's place early in the morning for the CNY gathering and stayed around till evening. Nothing exciting happened, except just sat around watching TV, eating yummy food whole day and receiving lots of angpows (on behalf of Valerie of course :P ).

Oh yeah, this was also a stressful day because for the first time, baby Valerie refused to feed from her Avent bottle. No idea why, she just moved the bottle teat left and right without really sucking in and then chewed on it and fell asleep. In the end, poor mommy has to breastfeed her instead. I had planned to start bottle training her daytime as a transition to going back to work. Looked like the plan failed miserably. In the end, only Ivan's 2nd sis aka 'Lai Ku' managed to feed her.

At night, we lit the 'Guo Min Deng' up to the sky which was pretty fun. I really admired the Chinese who created this more than 2000 years ago. A simple theory, by lighting the candle, it produces enough hot air to push the paper lantern up. (Sorry if this doesn't make sense, I scored a C in Physics :P ) Apparently it was not easy to set this up. We needed 2 persons to hold the balloon parallel on both sides and a third person to light the candle. And we had to be really sure there was enough hot air before gently releasing it up to the air. Failing to do any of this and the paper lantern will fail to launch.

More CNY pics for the occassion... Mommy and baby ang ang...


Note: After a week of battle getting Valerie to take her bottle (we did the "if she's hungry enough, she will eat" theory, means starving her on a few occassions), we found out the root of the problem. It was because the flow was too slow for her! LOL! Silly mommy, never thought of upgrading her bottle teats when she's already 2 months plus, still using a newborn teat. Sorry baby, for starving you the whole week and labelling you as a 'chou' baby...

2nd Month

2nd month was no fun at all. Mommy took over the full-time job of caring for baby Valerie, and boy.. was that hard work. The constant back and shoulder pain due to carrying the baby most of the time, coupled with sleepless nights make me slimmed down 3kg in a month. There was also no time to eat or even go to toilet. It was just the monotonous job of nursing, changing diapers, bathing, then more nursing and more changing diapers and washing her daily clothes. Gosh, makes me wonder how did my mom survive in her days? There was certainly no free time to cook. So Ivan just tapao lunch for me and night time, we went over to MIL place for dinner.

The first week we took over (her 5th week), we couldn't get Valerie to sleep at all throughout the day. I read babies are supposed to sleep for 20 hrs, my Valerie was barely sleeping 12. Because of her lack of sleep in the daytime, she was very very tired by evening and that became even worse. She would startle at every single sound. She would fall asleep like 15 mins and then wake up again. Later we learned a 'sarong wrap' which swaddled her very well and that helped her to sleep through the night.

But that lasted for a week. By the time she was 6th week old, she was getting smarter. Her arm would wriggle her way out of the sarong wrap and minutes later you would find both her arms released. So our sarong routine ended. She then adopted a new routine where she slept throughout the day and woke up around midnight instead. From midnight to 7am, she would sleep for a while, wake up and wants to chat with you (Oh yes, she's very chatty, saying anggugu already this young). But the daytime was great, I had so much free time to do house chores, read a book and even went online.

We tried a new strategy on the 7th week. Since Valerie loves to explore and look around, we brought her out shopping in the afternoon instead. This didn't allow her to sleep during the daytime and thus she learned to fall asleep in the evening instead. Slowly Valerie started sleeping by midnight and woke up noon the next day. It was an achievement for us but then, the daytime was tough for me as I now have no free time to do anything. She just want to be held ALL the time. But still, this was better than her getting her days and nights mixed up.

During the 2nd month, I went into exclusive breastfeeding (except for 1 bottle of expressed milk a day during dinner time at MIL). This helped me to cope as I find this approach very workable. I didn't have to run around preparing milk and washing bottles when she cry for hunger. Plus, no need to be fully awake for the night feeds. I just need to held her close and she would get her milk while both of us continue to sleep with her in my arms. Cool eh..

The poo-poo was still pretty frequent, about 4 rounds in the day and 3 at night. Her feeding was about 2 oz every 2 hours. She would smile a lot and very chatty with her non-stop ang-goo-goos... Grandpa simply adores chatting with her; him with his 'Ni yao pao pao arr?' and hers with her 'Anggoo... Anggoo...'.