nat is now 16mths old and she is starting to display confidence in walking and learning to carry out tasks independently. She helps Sunarti with her chores by pushing the chairs in after someone has left the table. She would throw her dirty clothes into the laundry basket. Keep her toys after use.... and insist on returning the milk bottle to the kitchen after her night feed before she falls asleep.. it's amazing the things she could help with and each day is a new chapter for us.
Nat is also good at manipulation to get the things that she wants. Usually big fat tears would do the trick with her Grandpa and Daddy. Helper simply follows her bidding or tries to distract her with something else either a toy or blueberries or cookies. Grandma believes in disicipline and has on serveral occassions not spared the rod. I am not for physical punishment, but being firm and showing her the rattan when she gets cheeky does help to send the right message across.
Nat is the commander and chief when it comes to dealing with her dog. She simply loves ordering Junior her best friend around.And has no qualms about disciplining him. She would mimick grandma and holds the rattan as she speaks to him, telling him where he can / what he cannot do in her baby gibberish. She sometimes shouts at him to keep quiet and stop barking; raises her voice to tell him off when he is naughty; tells him to follow and return home after the walk. She interacts so well with our pet that he has become hers...And she knows he belongs to her. Hopefully one day she would take on the responsibility of feeding and bathing him! Can't wait for that to happen! Then I can relinquish my role as Junior's sitter... since his 'mummy' ... Rachel.. hardly is home to care for him.
You know.. it's really weird, and perhaps absence does make the hearts fonder.. Junior still recognises Rachel as the mummy in spite of her absence.. There is a huge difference in terms of attitude whenever he sees Rachel versus welcoming us. He'll do the whole 'hula jump' .. up and down.. up and down and his entire body exuberates joy! Telling everyone Rachel is back and he finally could be the star for the day.. and for the moment, steal the limelight away from Natalie.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Nat at 15 months
Time flies and with the lack of time to even sleep it's getting harder to keep up with frequent updates on the blog. Hopefully things will turn for the better and I will let you know why in the next couple of months =).. keeping you in suspense for now.
Nat is quickly growing up. She has started to walk and PD, Chris and I are certain that she could walk on her own unassisted, but just lacks the confidence. PD recommends to let her play around the coffee table with sofas as side support to allow her to slowly build up her confidence and slowly shift the sofas wider away from her each day. She is still pretty much relying on crawling as it's quicker to get to places , but we could tell she is getting there... Could now take couple of baby steps unassisted. Actually I dreaded the days where she could all of a sudden run and finds herself in control. Judging from how insistent she could be when it comes to getting her way.. I have no clue how I should go about disciplining her! Just yesterday, we were at Tanglin Mall and she wanted to go a seperate direction from daddy and mummy and threw a tiny tantrum at us for not giving in to her. She was quickly coaxed by distractions ahead. However, we could tell she is going to be a stubborn one.. just like the daddy hehehe. Better teach her about the naughty chair concept early. Both Chris and I are really soft hearted and tends to give in to her when she sheds her big fat tears and looks at you so pitufully with a pouting mouth.. our hearts just melts. It's so tough being a parent!!
Due to the hot and unpredictable weather, my hopes of tying her hair had to be postponed. Grandma trimmed her shoulder-length hair away whilst she was sleeping one evening. This little Nat is real sensistive when it comes to people touching her hair. She is also unable to stand the ends of her hair as she perspires, scratches and itches in the day. We tried tying her hair up but she simply hates it ! I suspect it might be sunarti who did not treat her hair gently esp when she removes the bib. She uses one hand and may have accidentally tugged on her hair at the same time! As a reult, Nat hates to wear a bib and hates us to touch her hair!! So we had no choice. Chopped it off to prevent her from scratching her neck. Now her hair is relatively short.. Rachel warned me about how I looked when I was a kid .. cause our hair was cut by mum and both of us look so mushroomy !! Imagine a bowl placed on your head as you get a haircut.. and that's exactly what you'll get! A mushroom head !! No way am I gonna let Nat look like that =D.. hmm better not leave the trimming to your grandma else history may repeat itself =)
Teeth wise Nat now has 6 upper milk teeth and 2 lower front teeth. Am now longer pre-preparing her vege in Ice-cube form. One of my colleague taught me to use a thermal cooker to prepare her porridge. This definitely saves sunarti alot of trouble as she could prepare Nat's lunch whilst she is taking her nap. The thermal cooker would continue to keep the food warm and porridge taste softer as well after it has been 'thermally' cooked for a while.
I have started to wean her off at 15 months. After getting a bottle and formula that she likes she has adapted well to 'artificial feeds'. Terrible as it may sound but with the formula packed with unaccountable ingredients like DHA & AA, Omega 3 and 6, Iron, Taurine, Choline and Zinc Lutein+, calcium together with 100% vegetable oil, I was really quite apprehensive about feeding her with manmade products. It was an adjustment for both of us and Daddy too, as he now plays an extremely important role of waking up and preparing the milk for Nat at 12 and 5:30am. =) WOnders of parenthood ! Never thought we could do with so little sleep and still be able to function the next day!
Btw remember we were advocates of Gina Ford's method? Doesnt quite work now as Nat refuses to sleep at 8ish..and drags her play time till 9ish and sometimes 10ish!!! How can babies sleep so late?? One Australian mother whom I knew said this is a Singaporean phenomenon... mothers work late, babies or children wanted to wait up as they won't fall asleep until they see their mommies. And I see a lot of truth in this. We are the cause for our babies sleeping late! Look at shoppers with kids, children awake and still running about at 11pm.. is defintely not a rare sight in Singapore. Sometimes I look at the mothers and I felt that they are so irresponsible and really felt like telling them off. How can a stroller feel more comfortable than their beds??
Although I may sound so indignant, it really is difficult on work days to reach home early enough to put your kids to bed.. something which Chris and I would have to work on really hard to get home before 7pm each day!
Nat is quickly growing up. She has started to walk and PD, Chris and I are certain that she could walk on her own unassisted, but just lacks the confidence. PD recommends to let her play around the coffee table with sofas as side support to allow her to slowly build up her confidence and slowly shift the sofas wider away from her each day. She is still pretty much relying on crawling as it's quicker to get to places , but we could tell she is getting there... Could now take couple of baby steps unassisted. Actually I dreaded the days where she could all of a sudden run and finds herself in control. Judging from how insistent she could be when it comes to getting her way.. I have no clue how I should go about disciplining her! Just yesterday, we were at Tanglin Mall and she wanted to go a seperate direction from daddy and mummy and threw a tiny tantrum at us for not giving in to her. She was quickly coaxed by distractions ahead. However, we could tell she is going to be a stubborn one.. just like the daddy hehehe. Better teach her about the naughty chair concept early. Both Chris and I are really soft hearted and tends to give in to her when she sheds her big fat tears and looks at you so pitufully with a pouting mouth.. our hearts just melts. It's so tough being a parent!!
Due to the hot and unpredictable weather, my hopes of tying her hair had to be postponed. Grandma trimmed her shoulder-length hair away whilst she was sleeping one evening. This little Nat is real sensistive when it comes to people touching her hair. She is also unable to stand the ends of her hair as she perspires, scratches and itches in the day. We tried tying her hair up but she simply hates it ! I suspect it might be sunarti who did not treat her hair gently esp when she removes the bib. She uses one hand and may have accidentally tugged on her hair at the same time! As a reult, Nat hates to wear a bib and hates us to touch her hair!! So we had no choice. Chopped it off to prevent her from scratching her neck. Now her hair is relatively short.. Rachel warned me about how I looked when I was a kid .. cause our hair was cut by mum and both of us look so mushroomy !! Imagine a bowl placed on your head as you get a haircut.. and that's exactly what you'll get! A mushroom head !! No way am I gonna let Nat look like that =D.. hmm better not leave the trimming to your grandma else history may repeat itself =)
Teeth wise Nat now has 6 upper milk teeth and 2 lower front teeth. Am now longer pre-preparing her vege in Ice-cube form. One of my colleague taught me to use a thermal cooker to prepare her porridge. This definitely saves sunarti alot of trouble as she could prepare Nat's lunch whilst she is taking her nap. The thermal cooker would continue to keep the food warm and porridge taste softer as well after it has been 'thermally' cooked for a while.
I have started to wean her off at 15 months. After getting a bottle and formula that she likes she has adapted well to 'artificial feeds'. Terrible as it may sound but with the formula packed with unaccountable ingredients like DHA & AA, Omega 3 and 6, Iron, Taurine, Choline and Zinc Lutein+, calcium together with 100% vegetable oil, I was really quite apprehensive about feeding her with manmade products. It was an adjustment for both of us and Daddy too, as he now plays an extremely important role of waking up and preparing the milk for Nat at 12 and 5:30am. =) WOnders of parenthood ! Never thought we could do with so little sleep and still be able to function the next day!
Btw remember we were advocates of Gina Ford's method? Doesnt quite work now as Nat refuses to sleep at 8ish..and drags her play time till 9ish and sometimes 10ish!!! How can babies sleep so late?? One Australian mother whom I knew said this is a Singaporean phenomenon... mothers work late, babies or children wanted to wait up as they won't fall asleep until they see their mommies. And I see a lot of truth in this. We are the cause for our babies sleeping late! Look at shoppers with kids, children awake and still running about at 11pm.. is defintely not a rare sight in Singapore. Sometimes I look at the mothers and I felt that they are so irresponsible and really felt like telling them off. How can a stroller feel more comfortable than their beds??
Although I may sound so indignant, it really is difficult on work days to reach home early enough to put your kids to bed.. something which Chris and I would have to work on really hard to get home before 7pm each day!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)