Size Matters!

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Atlanta

We spent a week in Atlanta, the state capital of Georgia. Atlanta is a a good place just to roam around the different blocks, without having to worry about drifting to the wrong side of town. The sun was blazing we had baby in the Kelty carrier with a parasol attached. The parasol attracted more attention to baby she normally would.


This is the city emblem, adopted by the city of Atlanta in the 1800s. Notice the phoenix:
This is baby walking down Freedom Hall, which is next to the Martin Luther King Jr National Historic Site.

This is baby sitting impishly on a sofa in the Courtyard Marriot. We got a pretty good deal for the hotel, about US$55 per night for a three star hotel.

Yummy yummy

Our little person is getting more proficient at feeding herself with a spoon or a fork. Of course, we still have to load the food onto her spoon or fork for her. When the food is yummy, she's very eager to feed herself and eats quickly. When the food is not to her taste, she sometimes refuses to feed herself, dawdles, plays with her food and throws the spoon away =(

Since she's generally been quite a good girl during meal times, I bought her a new feeding set - 1 unbreakable baby blue plate (with a polar bear design), 1 bowl, and 1 fork and 1 spoon. Now, meal times are more enjoyable (for me at least) because of the aesthetically pleasing feeding set. Hee.

Baby is starting to comprehend more of what we say, provided she's paying attention. When I ask her if she wants milk (nai2 nai3), she gets very excited and crawls to me immediately. Sometimes, I get the same reaction when I ask if she's hungry and wants to eat (e4 e4, chi1). She also understands 'Where's Miffy/Big Bird/ba ba/ma ma?' - she'll start searching for the person/item. And if I gesture to her and ask her whether she wants to be carried (bao4 bao4) or come to me (lai2), or stop what she's doing, she understands and can respond appropriately too. In addition, she's starting to be able to wave 'hi hi' on cue, instead of just randomly. So fun!

Baby Cruising

Baby is getting more and more proficient with the Playskool Scooter. These days, she loves cruising around the house on the scooter. She has not learnt to steer around yet so whenever she meets an obstacle, she will yell for help. Take a look.

View this clip on Vimeo

There's so little space in the house for her to scoot around, so we have to shift aside the furniture. I got tired of having to rescue her each time she got stuck, so I even brought her outside the house to play the scooter on the paths in the estate garden, but she ended up crawling on the ground as she was more fascinated by all the twigs and leaves! Dirty baby! (But the latest scientific research highlights the benefits of exposing babies to some dust and germ... so there - we may be doing something good for her after all. Heh heh heh.)

Baby's day

This is what baby's typical weekday looks like:

• Rise and shine (unfortunately for her tired parents, she tends to be an early riser =p)
• Breakfast (milk, with any combination of bread/puffed wheat/cereal/fruit/cheese)
• Playtime
• Morning walk (since the mornings are warmer and more pleasant now) to enjoy fresh air, to listen to bird songs, and to watch the ducks/squirrels/birds
• Snack/drink
• Nap for 1 to 1 1/2 hours (so endearing when she drapes herself across my tummy!)
• Lunch
• Playtime
• Outdoor time (e.g. walk to collect mail and/or get groceries, sit on lawn, play on lawn, dip in swimming pool, relax by pool area)
• Playtime
• Milk and snack/fruit
• Nap for 1 to 1 1/2 hours
• Bath time
• Dinner
• Playtime
• Wind down for the night - bed-time milk, story time, family time... then zzz zzz

There's some day-to-day variation in the exact hour at which these activities occur, and we're seeing if she can sleep later and wake up later.

Currently, her favourite games are:

(i) 'Where's Miffy?' - We hide her beloved bunny and get her to look for it. She enjoys this tremendously and can't get enough of it. Sometimes, she'll even hide and find Miffy herself.

(ii) 'Hide and seek' - with mummy/daddy/Miffy.

(iii) Tumbling blocks - I build a tower of blocks for her and she whacks it down.

(iv) Little Miss Tidy - Ask her to put things into boxes or other containers. (Particularly useful when she has made a mess of things or pulled down a stack of magazines or pulled things out of my handbag.)

(v) The Passing Game - Ask her to give an item (laundry, toy, letter, etc) to mummy/daddy/a soft toy.

(vi) Animal Farm - Show her pictures of various animals and make the corresponding sounds for her.

(vii) Treasure Chest - Introduce her to a box/bag of things and she'll happily take out everything inside and play with them.

And of course, she always enjoys gumming her toys =p