Let's Go Shopping, Ian

Hubby's effort in training Ian to walk with his shopping cart has paid some efforts finally. Today, we managed to capture it on video.

My Mom always says that a baby's milestones are: sitting at 7 months, crawling at 8 months, and walking at 1 year. So far, her prophecies have come true for Ian's case. I sure hope that Ian will walk when he turns 1 year old next month.

Gifted Babe

I am not praising my son, but he has just attended a trial class at GUG which named the programme for 8-18mths babies as such.

As I was not feeling well, hubby attended the entire lesson with little Ian while I peeped into the classroom via the glass panel in the door. According to him, Ian did not pay attention at first, when the facilitator just started talking. However, when they turned on the music, it caught his attention better.

Some activities include story-telling, singing songs, phonic games, gym exercises in the music room, and painting with hands.

Perhaps the duration is too long for a young baby, because Ian started to become cranky halfway through. During the short 10mins break, we quickly fed him some milk to quell his hunger.

It was a good experience though, but perhaps, we are not ready to add on another weekly commitment. For the time being, we shall stick to Ian's Sunday classes at LNT.

Omega Goodness

New food for Ian, packed with the goodness of Omega-3 essential fatty acids and DHA.

#1 - Flaxseed

Grind 1 tsp into powder and add immediately into porridge or cereal.

#2 - Salmon

Steam and flake it, then serve with broccoli and brown rice porridge.

Now that I have introduced food for EFA and DHA nutrition, next in line will be cheese for its calcium, protein and other sources of vitamins. It can be cooked into cheese sauce for other recipes too.

His First Steps?

This week, Ian made his first step on our mattress. He was cruising along the wall as usual, and to our surprise, he turned around, let go of both his hands from the wall, and stepped towards me. However, his first step ended quickly onto the floor as he lost his balance.

He made a few other attempts, and his record was 3 steps. It was funny to see him walk, because the steps were short and quick as he tried to balance himself.

Finally, we have also seen the use of the shopping cart as he started to know how to push it along. Previously, he was using it as a dumbbell since he was lifting the cart by its wheels instead of pushing its handle.

Go, baby, go! We are behind you!

Please Feed Yourself

We hope that Ian can feed himself soon and hence, let him have a practice during one of the weekends.

Our preparation work:

#1 - Sippy cups with hard spout. The shape is supposed to be easier for toddlers, but so far, Ian is not too keen to hold it himself.


#2 - A dining chair for Ian - fully plastic for easy wipe up.


#3 - Utensils for Ian's little hands. We are only letting him use the spoon for the time being.

It was pure luck that a friend passed us some cereal that his son has outgrown. Since they were not Ian's usual diet and expiring soon, we decided to use it as a training material for self-feeding. We mixed a little cereal into the Ikea's suction bowl, which was stuck onto the dining tray and let Ian try eating on his own. It became a real messy affair, and ended up with Ian using his fingers to eat after he had thrown away the spoon.

Here is Ian enjoying a bite from the spoon.

It was a blessing that we had purchased this bib from Ikea as the cereal was all over Ian by the end of the session. As for the chair, hubby just put it under the tap in the toilet to clean it up.

Cough, Cough, Please Go Away

Ian has been infected by our flu virus again. Both of us were on the verge of falling sick of the last few days and while we have recovered, it was Ian's turn. And this time, he was really sick.

He has been coughing for the last few days, with a leaky nose. However, things seemed to have gotten worse last night. He coughed quite badly till he vomitted his meals out, not once, and not twice. We freaked out when he vomitted the 3rd time and rushed down to the Thomson Medical 24hr clinic, at midnight.

The doctor was not too worried about his condition though. He diagnosed that Ian had too much phelgm and he tried too hard to cough it out. He prescribed medicine for the running nose, phlegm and his cough.

We had to keep our Valentine's Day activities to the minimum because of Ian. He seemed much better and so we went along with our original plan to bring him for a haircut (actually it was Daddy who needed one). Afterwards, we had wanted to have a buffet dinner at Marina Square. Who knew that after queuing for quite long, the waitress came out and told us that they only accepted guests with prior reservations! What a waste of our time. Because we wanted to go home soon, we settled for a simple Japanese meal downstairs. Anyway, hubby promised to make up for the meal.

Ian, please recover soon!

10..1..10...1

As of 10 months and 1 week, Ian weighs 10.1kg. It came as a nice surprise, because only 2 weeks ago, he weighed only 9.5kg at the PD's clinic. A gain of 0.5kg in 2 weeks when his weight gain should be slowly down?

As a side note, Ian's upper incisors are sprouting. A white line has been noticed for a while now. Soon, he will not be just a 2 teeth baby!

The End of BBB?

My last parcels from the States?

Feb 6 is such an eventful date. 14 lucky souls had a windfall from the Toto, and Borderlinx decided to increase their shipping fees with effect from this date.

I thought it was really good luck that all my items arrived at their DHL base on 5 Feb, and I had avoided paying an extra S$30 on shipping.

However, the year of Ox is indeed not-so-good for my zodiac. One of the parcels came pretty badly damaged and one side was opened. Thankfully, only a case was cracked, but otherwise, the items are in useable shape.

It was also bad luck that Amazon, for the first time, shipped a wrong item. I had ordered the Multigrain cereal, but they shipped the Brown Rice to me. *Sighs* Perhaps, I should be thankful that they did not ship the Oatmeal one to me, because Ian does not really like it. But thumbs up for the service at Amazon, because after I wrote in to them on the mistake, they gave me a full refund for the cereals. That meant, the 6 tins costed only $26 (just shipping). Although I had wanted to give the multigrain cereal to Ian, but for the time being, we will stick to Brown rice.

Thanks to the price hike, is it a good time to stop my BBBs? Or can another shipping company win me over?

What A Scary Car Ride

Yesterday, on our way to visit GDBaby for the advanced class, Ian gave us a little scare. When the car stopped at the junction of Lentor and Yio Chu Kang Rd, I turned around to checked on Ian and saw his head just over my shoulders!

I had a shock and my yell, in turn, gave Hubby a shock as well. We could not imagine how Ian had managed to climb out of the seatbelts and stand up on his car seat. However, Ian must have thought that this was fun, because he kept smiling when we turned around to look at him. I hastily grabbed him over and let him sit on my laps since we could not put him back onto the seat. I guess it is time to switch the carseat around to face the front?

Hold Your Own Bottle, Ian

At long last, Ian held his own milk bottle without my help and drank on his own. It happened suddenly tonight, when he reached out for the bottle, held it towards his mouth, and drank. For a long time, we have been teaching him to hold his own bottle, but without fail, he always dropped his hands or pushed ours away when we held his little hands. It may not be a big achievement as some other babies have been doing this for a long time, but I still feel a sense of gratification.

Ian Is 10 Month Old

In another 2 more months, Ian will be blowing his 1st birthday candle. It is indeed joyful to see him growing up, day by day.

We got a little scare from a neighbourhood GP who found Ian a little slow in some aspects of his development, because he was not able to wave goodbye, not able to call Papa or Mama, and seemed very restless during the clinic visit at his 9th month. However, a recent visit to the PD at Sembawang reassured us that he is doing fairly well at his age.

Some of the common milestones for a 10 month old that Ian has achieved:
- Able to sit independently
- Able to stand by holding onto something or pushing against a wall
- Able to cruise around
- Able to babble in baby language
- Able to use pincer grasp
- Able to suck from a straw

He is also able to put on his NUK pacificer on his own now, with the right side facing up.

We have been teaching him sign language for the last 2 months, for common words like "milk", "Daddy", "Mummy", "eat", "drink", "cereal". However, we are still waiting anxiously for him to start using the signs so that he can express his needs better. For the time being, he seems reluctant to use his hands to hold his Magmag bottle to drink water, and to wave goodbye. But thankfully, he is able to feed himself his baby biscuits.

Ian, gambatte ne!

Ian Is Sick (-.-")

The lunar new year did not exactly start in the best way, with Ian falling for the flu bug. He woke up in the middle of the night for those few days, got cranky easily, and had a running nose. We visited the PD at Sembawang on the 3rd day of CNY (Wednesday), and gotten him a nose drop, a medicine for phlegm and also one for his running nose.

The medicines worked pretty well and his running nose stopped within the next 2 days. However, we stopped giving him the medicine too early, thinking it was alright since he seemed to have recovered. He started coughing quite frequently on Friday and we brought him back to Dr Goh on Saturday morning. He was given another medicine to clear his airway. And Dr told us to continue with the medicine even though there was no symptom, and gradually decrease the dosage after a few more days.