just some tings.

to sorta welcome in the new year, our family took another trip to Melaka (our 3rd in 2012!!) , opting to drive in again.

All this while, Ollie had been using the infant car seat up till Christmas. He still can in fit in there, it is jut that it is a weee bit too snug for him, and he doesn’t get the leg room he probably needs. My mom had previously used some petrol points to exchange for a front-facing car seat, so we thought we’d trial it out a day before the trip. He looked so much more comfortable in the car seat! View’s different, the air’s different (it gets a little hot in the rear-facing one) and there’s more room to stretch his feet. The question was how he was going to “survive” the almost 3-hour drive up north.

Aaaand he did pretty well. Only because he was too zonked out from either being woken up early (drive there) and he was too zonked out from being sick (drive back). Hey, works fine. His grandma was happy to entertain a semi-happy Ollie (“as long as he is not fussing”.) I think the box of toys that we brought along for the trip saved her sanity as well as ours during drives and dinner time. Mobile baby = need lotsa hands!!

It was a pretty relaxing trip. With a sick Donald, a semi-sick me, and a soon-to-be-sick Ollie, we weren’t doing or eating much. We checked out new places for food (awesome Teochew food at Teo Soon Liong Chan, nyona fare at Restoran Aunty Lee) and grocery shopping at Giant for Ollie’s birthday party. Hahah..I know, we are such cheapskates. Oo..and our massages. Mine probably lasted for a day before it got all knotted up again haha. Better than nothing lah. And I reckon grandma had a novel time eating durian at a road by the beach between two cars!

Our new year was fairly quiet. Donald was still feeling crummy and went to bed early. Ollie was so tired he slept through the fireworks. Me? I heard the fireworks..but was too lazy and couldn’t be half-arsed about it haha. The only thing that made it different and special was having the little one sleeping between the both of us.

We’ve been busy planning Ollie’s birthday. Some of the invites have gone out, and the goodie bags are half done. Sometimes I try reminding myself that it’s not about the details, but about the time spent with Ollie. Is he going to remember what happened for his first birthday? I don’t know, but as much time it may take me, I just feel that I want to make it special for him. Baking him the cake/ cupcakes, doing the invite myself, doing the goodie bags, printing photos, and decorating the place. All fully hands on. Donald and I had been fully hands on with the wedding preps, from the invites, to table decorations, to menus. They had been extra special memories for us in a lead up to our wedding, and I wanted it to be the same for Ollie’s. Just at least for his first.

Ollie’s been doing some growing lately too. Firstly in height! Donald realized yesterday when Ollie couldn’t walk under the table at his grandparents without having to bend his head. Hahah. Previously, he could walk under with a couple of mms to spare. We’ll know how much he has grown in height later this month. He’s also grown teeth. Gah. All 8 are out and the amount of drool is insane. He has been chewing on his thumb and fingers to sooth his gums. The chewing has caused some of the skin on his thumb to flake. Thankfully he is not a chronic thumbsucker, and we’ll have to just wait for the skin to grow back.

He is still trying very hard speech wise, and there has been some successful signing, for sleep, singing “twinkle twinkle little star”. But his way of communicating is still predominantly via gesturing, pointing at the items he wants, the direction he wants to go to, or just gesturing to ask a question. He does understand when we ask him to pick up a toy, or give, locate..etc.

Last month, we have been trying to wean Ollie off one of his midnight feeds as we suspected that it was more comforting nursing to sleep than being hungry. Ollie’s bedtime is at 8.30pm, and we have gone from a feed at 12mdn, 3am, 5am, to feeds at 2am, 6am. And last night!! He slept right through till 6am! I had heard him coughing over the baby monitor and thought he would have woken up then, but it seems that he went back to sleep. Well, the thing is I don’t know if it was the meds that knocked him out or if he really slept through on his own. Hahah. But at least I know that he doesn’t really need a feed throughout the night, and I might wean him off the 2am feed if he goes back to waking for feeds after he recovers.

Waaaahhh..I can’t believe he is growing up so quickly! ='(

On another note, this would be another huge year of change for us, as we plan to try for another kid. I consider myself fortunate to have quite a fair bit of time to do some cooking, baking, sewing and still have time for blogging (except that I procrastinate ALOT). It will be interesting to see how I will handle a future 2nd pregnancy and a child. Hah.

Wish me luck.

Ollie turns 8 mths last week. That’s 2/3 of the year gone.

How quickly the year has passed has been the subject of my conversations with Donald recently. Ollie has grown taller, more talkative, is doing belly laughs and has progressed so much with motor development and cognition.

Motor development

Ollie started cruising around in the play yard right around early September and is pretty confident at it now. He has started extending the amount of time standing without holding on to anything, and basically started to let go of holding each time he has stood up. Last count was 11 seconds! Yikes..I have been keeping an eager eye out to see if he takes his first steps. Haha. Excuse this over eager mother here,

Recently, we moved Ollie’s play yard to my parents’ place as our new neighbours were doing some renovations to their flat. With the additional pairs of hands, Ollie’s had a field day crawling round their place on tiled floors. He sweats alot, making it slippery for him sometimes, but I do agree it is a change of scenery for him. He has taken to climbing up his mattress on the floor, commando crawling under the sofa, and crawling under the dining table.

With climbing up, he has no issues. But his depth perception..oh man, either he has not developed depth perception or he thinks he is a superhero. He is happy to try and crawl off the 5″ mattress without hesitation, and faceplant himself on the floor. Not only do we then need extra hands, try extra eyes as well.

Cognition

It is much easier to sorta communicate with Oliver now. New words that he has understood are: “feed”, “give”, “nose”. Basically words that we can do actions to.

Out of the blue, he has decided that he knows how to play catch. *sigh* After bath time routines are never going to be the same again. Usually after his bath and putting his diaper on, we would go into the bedroom where we would moisturise him and put him in his PJs. One evening, after putting him on our bed, he gave me a look, squealed, crawled off over the pillows and bolsters before flopping himself on the pillows and looking at me before repeating it when I reached for him. I was like..WTH? I figured that Donald had given him some lessons or something.

A couple of days later, I asked Donald about it when the same thing happened to Donald. No, this is the first time it is happening to me! sez Ollie’s dad. I have to admit it is quite funny. Thought I didn’t expect the “Ting Chieu Heng Oliver, come back here!” to start that early. *wry grin*

Just last night we had a crawling-catch session, with him belly-laughing and squealing away at my parents’ place. It was nice to see everyone laughing at his antics. We did bring home a super sweaty baby though.

He has also been doing a lot more belly laughs over the slightest thing. His great grandma came over to visit and had fun making him laugh just by using his hands to poke at the curtains. Curtains! Now why do we buy all those toys for?? haha. Believe me, that thought has crossed my mind several times when things like the strap from the baby carrier, tissue paper, paper, pieces of cardboard, and crinkly plastic wrap can keep him entertained for ages.

We are currently planning another trip up north to Melaka again. Hah. Donald reckoned that it might be cheaper than staying in a fancy schmancy hotel in Singapore for a stayaction. We will be driving up this time, and it’s gonna be interesting to see how Ollie handles this trip. And it will be interesting how WE will handle this trip if he is able to walk then.

Harumph. Well…he may have a point. The cendol and laksa, and many many other awesome food will make up for it. =D