Lego time!

Lately, I have graduated Ethan from his set of wooden ABC blocks to the more sophisticated looking blocks; the good old Lego Duplo. We have been building airplanes, somewhat-giraffe-looking animal, a green-man, and incomprehensible objects (well ,my husband calls it "building out-of-the-box"; hmm, that didn't sound too bad really) just to name a few.

Anyhow, just when I feel so proud after constructing something interesting looking, my engineer-in-the-making will seize it away and de-construct them, each one of them into pieces, back to its original shape … after EVERY ONE MINUTE of play. Speaking about short attention span. Never thought my effort could last only a minute?!?

I can only do less than 10 minutes each lego session and I have obviously run out of objects to impress him.

I think we need new toys.

Gee, I can’t wait to see him construct his own objects because obviously I can’t wait to de-construct them!

Ethan at 18 months

Can I say Ethan's development is growing... exponentially? Gee. He is amazing us with new tricks, words, behavior, and smiles everyday. Just yesterday, we found out that he could put together two/three words together... ie
daddy car
car key
yiyi car
kick ball
cut cake (yiyi has been baking and icing for the past 4 weeks and therefore we had to cut and eat her beautifully decorated cake for the past month)
a, d, she
one, the, tee
a, d, she, d,e, e, g…

We found out that he is able to self feed, but seriously messy. I think we should be making him feed himself more often. And the one time when we gave him a spoon to scoop some mini ice cream cup, he took it with his left hand...uhoooo. so we kinda think he is a leftie.

He loves to eat... we're not really sure if he eats well and if he is eating enough... but sometimes he does eat my kind of portion. On a typical weekday over at the grandma's, he would start off the day with a bottle of 200ml milk, then a huge bowl of cereal for breakfast. For lunch, he would either get a huge bowl of ABC pasta, soup noodle or porridge. He has tea between 4-4.30 and he gets 2 mini pods of yogurt, and 1 kiwi fruit or a banana or sometimes a slice of bread with cheese. Then for dinner, he gets another huge bowl of pasta or porridge.

That's alot isn't it? I don't think I eat as much and as frequent.
Anyway, the drama happens when are on the dining table.


For example:

Eating Mangoes.
Now that it's the mango season.. not sure it is but we have been getting good mangoes, my little champ and I have been feasting on mangoes.

Last night when I asked if he wanted mangoes ... and he started saying ango, ango ango... angoooOOOOOOOO, angoooooooooOOOOOOOOOO, ANGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO... and so

I took out the mango, showed it him and he went ANGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO..

And so I had to say WAITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT, mummy cut and give! And he replied... "pissss".

10 minutes later he was giggling.

More dramas...


Butter Cheese


Last weekend, hubby and I thought we should just have the old fashion favourite breakfast at home before we head off the day with heaps of activities lined up - back to back! We tossed 2 slices of whole meal bread in the toaster, I had a cup of coffee while hubby had a cup of tea. Then I took the butter dish and a bottle of strawberry preserves to go with the toasts. Ethan was on his highchair next to us eating his cereal. When we opened up the butter dish, he looked at the dish and screamed cisssssssshhh... cisssssssssshhhhhhhhhh... reached out to the dish and screamed cishhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! Hubby and I looked at each other, and we looked really puzzled because there weren't any cheese on the table. And for the loudest time, he looked at the dish and yelled CISHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH..... and then hubby and I cracked and laughed... Our smartest 18 month old wanted to eat a block of butter because it looked like a block of creamy juicy cheese! And obviously he didn't get the any cheese or butter that morning!

Bedtime stories


So far, we have been quite lucky with this little dynamo because he can actually sleep anywhere, at anytime, and at any position when is tired. And so we learned the trick. To have him do all sorts of activities to zap off his energy during the day and so hubby and I could have some quite time at night. And right now, his bedtime routine will start off hubby giving him warm wash and wipe down, change into his pajamas and finally he gets to choose a book for bedtime stories. Sometimes we will all jump into bed together for bedtime stories. I love it when daddy reads "We're going for a bear hunt"! Funny thing is it's ideal that he goes to sleep (or rather we all go to sleep) after ONE book... but hey no. Our part-time night owl sometimes insist we read the same book a zillion times before he hits slumberland. So what happens when daddy is zonked and mummy is busy ironing, we just chuck in one of his favourites and he will be "reading" his book, and I mean "reading" out LOUD. And sigh, after ironing a mountain load of clothes, I find my tot snoring, with the book next to his mouth and half of it wet! Obviously he has been experimenting if he could potentially chew up the book and swallow it like one of his teething biscuits.

My son.

18 months and counting...

apricots and still holding on

Very unfortunate, my dear husband has been unwell for the past few days. Symptoms are very close to the much dreaded dengue. Well, he had his platelets count this afternoon, white blood cells are pretty low and that means he is fighting a virus. We are praying that it is a viral attack rather than dengue. The last dengue attack he had, it was horrifying. High fever, rashes, lost of appetite, fatigue, and yes, you name it. The list goes on.

Simultaneously, Ethan is down with some kind of viral fever.

We took his temperature last night and it was a whooping 39! Panicked, we started him on paracetamol. Fever came down, phew. And apparently, Ethan was talking in his sleep the whole of last night. Hubs heard him talking most of the night as he couldn't sleep due to terrible aches and pains. And this morning, he woke up with a deafening scream. I looked out the window, it was still dark. Checked the clock, 5am. Urghhh... I held him close and he was feeling extremely warm. So we gave him another dose of paracetamol. 10 minutes later, he gave this awful look that he was going to throw up. He did. And obviously he felt much better after that and went back to sleep.

Later this morning, he was again having another round of fever. We decided to bring him see the pediatrician. When consulted her, she discovered that his right eardrum was a little red/flushed. And therefore, she concluded that he might be having an ear infection? That was something I never expected... I was expecting to hear something along the lines of.. hand, foot and mouth disease (as both our God children Ethan Zac and Kristen are down with HFM) or even dengue. Nevertheless, we are rather thankful should it be just a mere ear infection. We will confirm this in the coming Saturday because should his fever persists, we will need to draw out some blood for platelets count. Poor boy.

And so, to make sure that he is well hydrated, we kept the fluids going. In the evening after dinner, we gave him half a cup of diluted juice, an hour later half a cup of milk and another half a cup of water. In the midst of that, he was eyeing on my tub of apricots which I happened to be munching on. And he was eagerly asking for them! So I gave him a bite, and he asked for another, and another and soon it was 3 apricots. I was utterly shocked to see him like apricots.. and he calls it, a-pi-cot.

And while I was out hanging dry my washing (the stained sheet compliments of Ethan), I could hear him shouting and screaming in the house. To my surprise, he was prancing and dancing in the house with daddy. Clowns!

Anyway, the lights are out now but he is still pretty much awake in his cot. I'm dead tired but still holding on. I thougtht I should pen this down to remind me that motherhood is not all about laughters, joys, and apricots. It's really testing during times like this. I feel like breaking down but I know i will have to hold on. I trust that the Lord will provide just right and i'm hoping and praying that both hubs and Ethan will get well real soon.

I'm secretly hoping to watch the Spain vs. Germany game later at 2.30am but I'm already half asleep. Looks like I'll have to resort to the 7am news tomorrow morning.

Mannn, I'm loving motherhood.

the reunion

Thanks guys for your concern and smses. Yes, finally it's the reunion of Ethan and his "clan". Uncle Zuhun very efficiently coordinated and fles a family of the Sabahan Probosis Monkeys all the way from Kota Kinabalu. And yes, it was choirs of angels every night every since! So dramatic... well ok, it was that dramatic!!! (NO MORE screaming and yelling matters) and it was all smiles and kisses before bedtime!.

We got this huge box one afternoon and when we opened it up, to our surprise there were five of them!!! You won't believe how we have waited, prayed, hoped for some miracles to happen. And this was the miracle and Uncle Zuhun was St. Nicholas for the day!

Just to satisfy your curiosity about the Sabahan Probosis Monkeys...

the ABCs of motherhood?

It was one of those ‘rush’ days where we had 95 things in our to-do list for that day. And of course, preparing Ethan’s dinner was one of them. So, I threw in a fillet of chicken, chopped some pumpkins, and brought the water to boil. Walahhh…, that wasn’t too difficult!

When it was time to put in the pasta, I spilled them. I was horrified, screamed on top of my lungs, flung one of those ‘swear’ words and thought, what a mess I got myself into. Feeling really annoyed with myself, I quickly looked for a cloth to clean up. But while scrambling looking for that piece of cloth, I stopped and looked at those pastas. Hang on, those innocent looking pastas don’t deserve such rough remarks. Also, I was making them for Ethan, and he loves his chicken pumpkin pasta. I shouldn’t be so nasty about the whole cooking for Ethan. After all, it was me who insisted he should have at least one home cook meal a day.

Isn’t that motherhood?

Goodnight

goodnight...



moon...

Goodnight moon.

We stayed with Ethan's Tata and Neh-Neh till he was one because it was too taxing for Ethan and us to do the whole traveling every morning to grannies place and to be picked up in the evening. Therefore, we chose to stay during the weekdays and come home in weekends. At one point, the little boy was getting confused, didn’t know where he actually belonged. We didn’t have any choice since hubs and I both had to work, we had to settle for what’s best for all of us.

At about 5 months when he was trying to recognize faces and places, we were traveling to and fro (grannies and home) quite a bit. And the poor boy was at our mercy, he had to come with us, wherever we went.

However, one thing he found comforting was this magical book, “Good Night Moon” by Margaret Wise Brown. I remember one night when he was acting up quite a bit, we read him this book. It calmed the weeping eyed almost immediately. And in one of those pages, it reads:

Good Night Kitten

Good Night Mitten

To my surprise, I heard this cutest chuckle when I ended the 2 lines with “Good Night Ethan”... That was magic!

And henceforth, we will get the sweetest smile from him when we do the:

Good Night Kitten

Good Night Mitten

Good Night Ethan!

We bought this book even before he was born and it’s been his best friend even till now. He somehow finds comfort from these reassuring words in the book and he has never once said no to his cow jumping over the moon.

p/s: I had to read him this book, cover to cover for almost 11 times at 3 in the morning that night. I swore, I will never forget...

Good night moon!

ethan loves the guitar

Ethan absolutely loves music and he is really fascinated with daddy's guitar. When Ethan kicks a fuss, daddy will try to distract him by either strumming a lullaby or just plucking tunes. Lil E will sit down and watch daddy attentively, as if he was in a concert.

When lil E gets excited, he will move closer to daddy and try to pluck or strum the guitar strings. (Yes, he is getting pretty restless)

Speaking about that, grandpa came home with a flyer for Kindermusik one day. And we thought for a while, Ethan doesn't need to attend Kindermusik, really. He will attend music lessons with daddy! That will save us some money considering infants can only probably do listening and clapping at this stage. We will enrol him eventually; when his motor skills are more developed and he has better control of his hands coordination.

Separation Anxiety

I just found out why Ethan was crying profusely yesterday night when hubby and I were attending a wedding dinner, while grandma and Ethan's yiyi babysat him in one of the restaurants in the Hotel.

When we first left Ethan to the both of them, he was find indeed. Apparently, after we have left him about about 30 minutes, be began his whole crying saga and both grandma and yiyi couldn't understand why he was behaving that way.

And only much later (in fact now) that I found out that he is at this stage (around 7-8 months) where he becomes aware when we are not around. Technically, this is because children at this age haven't yet grasped the concept of object permanence -that you exist even when you're not with them.

Apparently this anxiety can last well past his first birthday. Sigh, will let you know if he is one of the "bad case".

Anyways, I found out that there are some ways of dealing with separation anxiety. Looks like mummy and daddy will need to pay special attention to these pointers:

1. Keep things familiar
If possible, have your child stay in his own home with someone he knows well -- grandparents, a caregiver. If he has to be away from home, don't separate him from his siblings, and make sure he has his favorite blankie. Routine is especially important for younger babies. A 4-month-old is too young to comprehend why Mom isn't with him, the most you can do is keep his daily routine the same.

2. Tell baby what to expect
Children really need to learn to trust you, so forecasting and then doing what you say you're going to do is very important. For kids under 3, a heads-up one or two days before you go is plenty. And don't skip an explanation because you think your child is too young to understand. Your tone of voice and your attitude send a message to your kids before they understand all the words.

3. Build anticipation
Whether he'll be going to the zoo with grandpa or baking cookies with grandma, emphasize how much fun your child will have while you're gone. It's also good to acknowledge his anxiety. You could say, "I know you're going to have a really good time with Grandma -- but it's okay if you miss me. You can tell Grandma you miss Mommy, and I bet Grandma will give you a really big hug."

4. Rehearse
Before your first kid-free trip, try some short practice runs. You want to help children gradually learn to tolerate separations. Try going out without your child a few nights a week. If that sounds unrealistic, an occasional overnight visit at Grandma's or a few afternoons with a babysitter can also help prepare your child for longer separations.

5. Always say good-bye
A baby can better adapt to separation if he sees Mommy and Daddy before they go. If he is sleeping or distracted when his parents leave, he may wake up, notice that you're not there, and start crying.

6. Leave a reminder of you
Leave something of yours behind with your baby. She could watch a video that you're in, look at a large picture of you, or sleep in one of your unwashed T-shirts.

7. Have a countdown until you return
Sometime after his second birthday, the child's sense of time improves. He may enjoy crossing out days on a calendar while you're gone, or marking them with stickers. Another idea is to give your child a box or bag of small gifts when you leave town. Then each day you're away, he gets to take out one gift.

8. Stay in touch
Consider sending postcards to the toddler before you leave so they'll arrive early in your absence. E-cards can also be written ahead of time and programmed to arrive when you choose. And of course, for children of all ages, phone calls are very reassuring. If your child starts to cry during your call, it's time to say good-bye -- and perhaps have the caregiver take him outside for a change of scenery.

9. Prepare for changes when you return
Many kids -- eager for your attention -- will act a little funny when you arrive home. Often you'll see a bit of regression/ It might be thumb sucking when they haven't done that for a while, or they may slip up in their potty training. But just like your child's fear of your leaving, this too shall pass.

Oh my, looks like we really need to prep him way in advance because our little boy is showing some signs that he is not happy when mummy and daddy are not around.

Ethan - Starting Solids

When Ethan turned 6 months on the 1st June, I was really excited wanting to see how he'd react when this alien spoon reached his tiny mouth with some white gluey paste in it. We have been training him with the spoon for the past month, feeding him just water using a baby weaning spoon.

We follow strictly the recommended time when solids should be introduced, and according to the WHO, it is best to introduce solids to infant at and around 6 months old because the iron stores that baby gained will begin to run low and a full term baby will need the iron from other sources. Therefore it is important for the little one to gain a balanced nutritional intake. Also, it is a perfect time to start him at this point because he is showing massive signs that he is ready for solids (he drools a whole lot, puts everything and anything into his mouth, sucks his thumb profusely). I was told by my pediatrician that the danger begins when we deliberately start him much later (after he has shown all these signs but we still insist on not starting him on solids until much later) will do more harm than good. And if infants are not introduced to solids after 6 months, they will then to rely on their milk intake only. This is dangerous as milk alone will not be able to sustain a growing infant’s nutrient requirements.

Therefore, we started him right on the dot when he turned 6 months old. This little champion took us by surprise because it actually turned out quite alright as I was expecting him to throw out 50% of his baby cereal. He really did made us proud by showing us that he can eat, and I mean eat properly. He did not kick any fuss, but welcomed each spoonfuls of cereal by opening up his mouth and launching himself forward excitedly every time when he sees his food coming close to his direction.

Referring to a little note written by his pediatrician:

1st week : Baby cereal anytime between 5 - 7 pm
2nd week : Baby cereal anytime between 7-9am and 5-7pm
3rd week : Mashed fruits and vegetables

I am at week one! 2 more week sto go... What kind of mashies should I start?
Carrots, avocado, Carrots, avocado, Carrots, avocado, Carrots, avocado, ... Avocado!

counting down

I got these colourful baby feeding spoons, ready in time for Ethan's first solids which will be a week time. Have been standing, squatting, leaning, sitting along the aisles of these infant/toddles department reading each of these usage instructions.


However, what was eye catching and somewhat consistent in most packaging were the "BPA Free" baby products. I later found out that BPA stands for Bisphenol-A which is a hormone-disrupting chemical considered to be potentially harmful to human health and the environment. It has been known that scratched and worn polycarbonate feeding bottles will leach this chemical into liquids.

Urghs, didn't help much though when I bought Ethan's full set of Avent bottles "BPA un-free". However, after finding out his has definitely made me more aware of the conditions of his bottles and will have to painfully discard his bottles away once signs of deterioration.

Anyways, 1 more week to go... What should I start him with?
Carrots, avocado, Carrots, avocado, Carrots, avocado, Carrots, avocado, ... Avocado!