Monday, July 30, 2012

10.5 Months

Another 6 weeks or so and my baby Olivia will be celebrating her first birthday. Where has all the time gone?! So much about her to blog about, but sadly, I just couldn't find the time to do so more often.

Though I am not new to baby's development phases, I still can't help celebrating whenever she does something new. :)  Just can't resist jumping with joy and shrieking with excitement. Much to my boys' amusement. :P

Oh Olivia understands so much! I know, I always say that babies are born geniuses, but still... it excites me to no end to discover everyday, the big and small things that she understands.

Cutest thing she started doing recently - she nods!! When I ask her if she wants something, she seems to understand my 'yes?' and will nod. A few weeks ago, her nodding was just random. Recently, she started nodding to mean 'yes' and would shake her head to indicate 'no'. Just thinking of her doing this makes me smile.

She has also started baby signing. I began signing to her a few months ago, introducing only the few common ones that I used with the boys when they were infants. (I never bought any book or resource on this and had just depended on a few websites for some introductory signs, which was good enough for me.)

A few weeks ago, she started signing 'all done' whenever she was full up at meal times or when I said to her 'all done' after feeding her the last spoonful. This week, she started the 'milk' sign. The first time I saw her sign 'milk', I exclaimed. She laughed. She signed again. I exclaimed again. She let out a happy shriek. Signed 'milk' again and nodded vigorously. Hee hee.... I LOVE babies!

She has been waving for a few weeks now. Nowadays, she will wave happily when she hears us say 'bye-bye' or 'hi'. Whenever I return home from errands, she always waves and claps with mega smiles and would usually shout repeatedly to get my attention.

After showing her how to give a hi-five, she got it after a few tries and now, would always oblige with a giggle.

She calls me 'mama' and everyone else 'eh'. Haha.

Whenever she sees me eating, she mumbles 'mum mum' repeatedly until she gets her share. Hee hee..  Very strange though, since I have never taught her to say 'mum mum'. Not wanting to disappoint her, she has been snacking a lot with me, since I munch throughout the day. Her Organix baby snacks, a few Cheerios, banana or brown rice grains.

Though she has only two teeth, she has learnt to eat fairly chunky food and seems to prefer coarser textures to smooth purees. So I have been adding mashed up food to her thick homemade purees and ensuring that she gets different textured meals with wide variety of tastes everyday.

A sample of her meals:
Day 1:
Lunch - wholewheat pasta with carrot and tomato puree, served with cod (poached in whole milk)
Dinner - thick puree of brown rice with stir-fried pork, apple and spinach

Day 2:
Lunch - thick puree of millet with chicken, peas and pumpkin, served with mashed silken tofu
Dinner - thick puree of brown rice with stir-fried beef, broccoli, corn and portobello mushroom

Day 3:
Lunch -  Cheesy red lentils with mashed sweet potato
Dinner -  Steamed mixed wholegrains, served with cauliflower and tomato puree and mashed egg yolk.

She is a wonderful eater who eats every mouthful delightedly. Ok, 99.9% of the time. Besides water, which she sips from her sippy cup, usual plastic cup or spoon, her only other beverage is breast milk which she takes from the source.

Despite her good appetite, she weighs a petite 7.54 kg and stands 71 cm tall. So yes, she is fast losing every ounce of her previous chubbiness. Boo hoo!! I blame the (good) genes for her high metabolic rate. At least I know that she eats well and is achieving all her developmental milestones, so I am trying HARD to care less about this growth issue which has tormented me for a good part of the past 7 years because of the boys' feather-light weight. But like what a friend said recently in good humour, it is always better to be a petite missy than a sumo wrestler. :P

She understands some simple instructions and carries them out accurately. She will pass whatever she has in her hand to me when I say 'give mama'. When she hears 'come to mama', she crawls to me.

We have been playing 'peek-a-boo' games and recently I realized she understands the instruction to 'hide bunny' and possibly the concept of taking turns, though I am sure the latter is too advanced.  She would hide bunny right under a pillow or blanket, whichever is closer to her. And almost immediately after hiding bunny, she will retrieve it from the hiding place and give it to me, as if to say, it is my turn now.

When I ask if she wants to read books, or mention any of the usual book titles or just the word 'book', she will look around the room for a book. In our bedroom, I keep a stack by the window sill and she always looks in that direction when I mention 'books'. Her face never fails to light up when she hears me reciting lines from her favourite stories. She freezes and stares intently at my face and gestures whenever I sing her favourite rhymes. Yet another reminder of how rewarding it can be to spend quality time with babies. :)

Her attention span is good enough to last through 3 books now, from cover to cover. Sometimes, she will just quietly flip a book by herself for a good 5 min, examining the details and occasionally pointing at them. A few times, she was seen pretending to 'read' a book aloud, pointing at the illustrations at each page. Too adorable! But I have yet to be able to capture this on video. Must try again.

She moves swiftly from squatting to standing and back to squatting and has been seen repeatedly standing up in the middle of the room without support. She explores confidently, alternating between cruising and crawling. We are guessing that she will walk in under 2 months, most likely about the same time the boys took their first steps.

Now I need to find time to upload all the photos that we have taken of her in the last few months.




3 comments:

suz said...

Awww! How time flies! You must post some recent pictures! I too get excited when Baby does something new. One would imagine that after three kids, it would be like, been there done that...but Inactually think it's the opposite! You treasure it more because you went through it before and know how fleeting that moment is.

Happy birthday to Olivia, and great job Mummy!

Anonymous said...

Wow! Olivia is eating very very well and a lot of variety in her daily mail! You are wonderful!

DG said...

Thanks Suz. I totally agree. Fleeting moments indeed.

Vegepiglet, thanks. Hopefully Olivia will continue eating well and I can keep up with the varieties.

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