Sitting and other milestones

Mei Xi is getting more independent every day. Her eye-hand coordination is improving, which means that she's better at reaching for and grasping things (and then putting them into her mouth). In fact, she often has her fingers stretched out, ready to grasp whatever object within reach. Got to be careful now when carrying her as she'll easily swipe things off the table top.. and she's strong too!

She's also had some practice sessions sitting unsupported - it's still a fun thing for her to do:

And she'll be mobile very soon. She's been rolling all over, and starting to creep and crawl around too (albeit it's a backward rather than forward motion sometimes). See her in her butt-up, ready-to-move pose:

Unfortunately, all the physical activity makes a stinky, sweaty baby =(
P.S. She even woke up in the middle of the night to practise crawling!

Jabs

Mei Xi had her 2nd round of vaccinations today - poor girl! The clinic certainly isn't her favourite place. Each time she's there, she gets so tired of all the waiting that she's invariably in a grouchy, wailing mood by the time the nurse and the paediatrician are ready to see her. Oops.

New Food

We introduced a new food to baby and she is taking it excitedly:). So at the moment, she has a grand total of 4 food in her diet, namely, breast milk, formula milk, rice cereal and mashed carrots.

First wifey tried feeding her:

Then she got excited and wanted to feed herself:


Apparently, she couldn't keep up her appetite with one spoon and needed another one.

At first she was puzzled:

When she got the hang of it, she was one happy messy baby:

Growing Up

The 'little bad egg' (Xiao3 Huai4 Dan4) has been keeping me busy and tired the last 2 weeks, so I haven't written much. But here's a wordy, wordy update on what she has been up to:

(a) Physical
Both bottom front teeth have emerged. But now, the top ones are irritating her, so she has been quite 'high-maintenance' this week, needing lots of hugging, cuddling and comforting. And I threw in a few nursing sessions as well, both to soothe her and to provide more nutrition since she didn't like to suck from her bottle this week. It didn't help that Mei Xi was quite clingy to me, which, while endearing and helped me to develop strong arm muscles even without pilates or yoga, meant I had little chance to rest unless she was sleeping. Don't know whether this is a more difficult period for her or for me. Thankfully, she seems better these past 2 days and has been more cheery, talkative and playful. She smiled at me quite a lot too. Hee!

(b) Socially
Mei Xi is still a super-friendly little creature, smiling at every stranger she chances to meet, and thus winning them over with her charm. Human faces and voices interest her a great deal, so I try to bring her out for a daily walk, whether it's just around the estate or to the grocery store, so that she gets to hear and meet other people. She likes to smile at her own reflection too, and it's a good way to distract her when she is crying or whimpering. Of course, she doesn't know that it's herself she's smiling at... And there's one day when I carried her in front of me in the Snugli carrier and looked into the floor-to-ceiling mirror in our gym. She started smiling at herself, then smiled at my reflection in the mirror. After that, she kept staring at my reflection and looking up at me, as though she couldn't quite reconcile how I could appear in the mirror and be carrying her at the same time. Ha ha!

(c) Play
More milestones: First, Mei Xi was able to roll from her back to her side, and to sleep on her side if she so desired. Now, she is able to roll over at will, both from tummy to back, and from back to tummy. Unfortunately, this means she wriggles more during diaper changing time, and I've to try to get her to keep still by distracting her with a rattle or some other toy. When she is in an active mood, she makes some motions with her legs to proper herself forward. It doesn't always work, though, so sometimes she ends up spinning around the same spot like the hands of a clock!

In addition, she is gaining better control of her hands - more able to hold her rattle, book and teething ring herself. She has also been reaching out for her toys, so if I put something within her reach (e.g. on the ground when she is on her tummy, or on her tummy when she is lying or sitting down), she would grasp it. As she seems to be ready to hold her own cup soon, we've gotten an Avent 'Magic Trainer Cup', which comes with a two-handled attachment for her to hold. Can't wait to let her try holding it. Once she can hold it, getting it to her mouth shouldn't be a problem, since everything that she grasps these days goes into her mouth pronto! Her favourite toy at the moment is a fabric book. She can spend at least half an hour gumming the book, crushing the pages and flipping the pages. For some variety, we've bought her another one of such books, but it comes in more vibrant colours and has teethable rubber surfaces at the corners of the pages. Yum!

(d) Reading
We've started reading one Tang poem or Song lyrical poem every night. That's for her 'Chinese literary education'. But she doesn't seem as interested (maybe the book doesn't have interesting pictures and big words)... so I'm still sticking to singing Chinese songs to her and conversing with her in Mandarin. Of course, we talk to her in English quite a bit too. Tried reading her chapters from the Bible too, as that's the longest English book in our house, but that too, didn't capture her attention much =p Not as much as various kiddie books I've borrowed - they aren't designed for babies, but they at least have colourful pictures and few, big words to captivate her. She also likes to read women's magazines, which has colourful pictures and pretty people, so we spend some time every day flipping through the magazines when she is a bit tired and willing to sit still for a while. Minhui borrowed a book that gives ideas on teaching babies to read, and he suggests we could try some of those ideas too to occupy baby's time. Okie, we'll see how that goes!

Baby Teething

For some time now, Mei Xi has been drooling a bit and getting cranky. So finally her first tooth (bottom front one) appeared, growing about 1mm above her gums. Yay!!! Seems like the greedy piggy can't wait to sink her food into yummy food and that's why her teeth came out so soon. Her second one is akan datang i.e. more crankiness. And she seems to hurt even from sucking from her bottle, so she would at times choose to go hungry. Poor baby.

Spoon Feeding

Mei Xi had her first taste of non-milk food today. It was a bit messy feeding her the rice cereal and her bib probably ate as much as she did. Still, she seemed to enjoy it and got the hang of eating from a spoon quite fast.See one happy diner:

Please Feedback!!!

Dear all in blogosphere, we intend to submit Mei Xi for a baby competition. Please comment which of the following is the most photogenic so that we can send it in for competition. Thanks!

Charleston

We took advantage of the long weekend to go Charleston, SC. Although me and wifey have been there before, it was more of a sort of double family outing with Leonard and family as well.

We set off in the dead of the morning at around 6 am as Charleston was about 2 hours away. Our first stop was Magnolia Plantation. This is one of the many plantations that dot the South Carolina's landscape, remininscent of those pre-emancipation days. See the Drayton family mansion who owns the plantation.

Of course baby was dressed for the occasion in her pink romper and explorer hat:
The plantation used to be a rice field till approximately 1910 when a hurricane struck Charleston and destroyed the levee that separated the sea from the padi field. (Yes, just like the way Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans) The padi fields were never restored for agriculture and this is what's left - a big bad alligator infested swamp:

Of course parts of the swamp has been converted to a garden to make it more of a tourist trap. Here is one of the defining image of Magnolia Garden:
Here is a picture of the whole family in downtown Charleston:
An interesting pineapple fountain in downtown Charleston:
Maybe it has to do with Spanish Moss???: