The 8th Tooth

The 8th one on its way out!

The 7th Tooth

Eruption of the 7th tooth.

Evening Walk

This is a boy who loves to go to the park and I am sure he does not mind to spend the entire day there, chasing birds and monkeys. Jeremiah gained his independence through walking at a relatively young age and is now very proficient walker. Watching Sofia running around gives him the inspiration to chase after her and he does so, while we hold our breathe and clench our fist while watching him.

We gasped when he loses his balance but he would just plonk his two palms on the floor to break the fall and up again, after Sofia's tail. He does not like us to hold his hands for safety, running is fun without any "conditions" attached. Of course when he is going way too fast, then the unforunate would happen. But nothing stops him.

Sometimes watching him makes me feel that I am losing him soon, just like a baby bird who has learned how to fly, he will be out of the nest and taking on the world soon.

Ana

Ana has been a great help around the house eversince she came and even more so after Jeremiah was born. She learnt very quickly from my mum the way to bathe him, feed him and kept him company. She even managed to established a sleeping pattern for Jeremiah. When Jerry was very young, Ana made sure he took a nap every two hours and that went on for quite a while till when he was older, he took a nap every three hours, even right now. Jerry took to her very well too and she was like an elder sister to him. We were all absolutely happy with her around and I could run errands without worrying about Jerry when I need to leave the house. There were even a couple of nights where we put all the kids to bed with Ana and Daddy and I could sneak out of the house for a date.

Ana's contract is due in mid-Nov and we have spoken to her about extending her contract but unfortunately her mum is not well and she would need to go home in Nov. We are going to miss her a lot and I am sure Jerry is going to feel a bit lost too after she leaves us. We surely hope there will be another chance for her to come and help us again in future.

In the meantime, the search is ON again for another domestic helper.

Pig's Hair?

Jeremiah is sleeping in the hammock during day time and he never fails to wake up with his hair at the back of his head looking like this. He used to have very soft and fine hair when he was a baby but all that was history after his haircut. He continues wears this "out of bed" style for the rest of the day until his evening bath, Ana says it feels like pig's hair because it is so coarse!!

Berd, Baerd, Bird

I was not paying much attention to it actually. Jeremiah was all babbling round the clock unless he is sleeping and I got so used to it so it just went in one ear and exited the other ear. Until yesterday, I was clearing up the pile of magazines in the living room and he was standing at the window babbling and yelling again. I heard something that made me sit up.

"BERD! Ahhhhwatishbabababooooo ... AH!AH!AH! BERD!!"

I thought somebody said "bird"?

So I joined him at the window and true enough, there were some sparrows lingering around in the garden looking for food. I pointed to the birds and told Jeremiah,"Yes, these are birds.!"

Again, he responded with "Berd!". Sometimes, it sounds like "baerd".

First step and first word ... many more to come.

More Teeth

Two more teeth making their way out for Jeremiah.

Milestones

Jeremiah reached one of the major milestones a week after his 1st birthday - walking. Days just before his birthday, he was still reaching out for chairs and tables for support while on two feet. Shortly after, he took two, three steps on his own. I think he was thrilled and the cheers for everyone gave him great support. So we pushed him further by enticing him to walk a few more steps with toys and food. And there was no stopping.

Before we knew it, he was cruising around the house effortlessly, delighted at his newly acquired skill which enabled him to reach for "new" toys. We started to put more things aside again and had to be more cautious about things we left lying around.

One of his favourite item is the cordless phone that is often left lying around. The backlight gets triggered when he starts punching the keypad and if pressed correctly, the speaker would be on and the "sound effect" will double his fun. I just hope he would not accidentally press "999" again, it had happened once and I was in time to end the call. That was NOT fun for me!

1st Birthday

We celebrated Jeremiah's first birthday couple of days ago with a simple chocolate cake at home and just the five of us.


I think he was more fanscinated by the flickering candle on the cake more than anything else. It did not matter to him the birthday song we were singing to him or the three cheers we gave to him. The candle mattered most. Perhaps if I had let him burn his fingers, he would have thought twice, or thrice?


The happiest person in the party got to be Sofia again, because it is her favourite chocolate cake! She ate and ate so much cake, like it was the last chocolate cake on earth.


I also brought Jerry to the hairdresser to chop off his baby locks, this is him, before and after. Doesn't he look like a smaller version of Daddy now??

Sleeping Through

Jeremiah is finally sleeping through the night now without asking for milk at night BUT he has developed another sleep disruption habit.

He seems to have a very punctual body clock which goes off at 5am which triggers him to wake up and look for me. If I do not attend to him, he will sit there and scream the whole house down. If I go over and coax him, he would want me to CARRY HIM AND SLEEP, as if I am nursing him!!

Last night, it irritated me terribly, he still refused to sleep on his own after carrying him for half an hour. So I just let him cry it out. And cry he did! He screamed, shouted, yelled, hollered at the break of dawn for half an hour. When he realised no one is coming to his aid afterall, he shut his mouth and laid down to sleep on his own. I was relieved the torture was only 30 mins but I am sure my neighbours were cursing me for waking them up at that unearthly hour.

I plan to do this again to help Jeremiah kick this bad habit, hope it does not take too long.

March Events

It has been such an eventful March for us, many things happened and some have probably already slipped my mind ...


1. Jeremiah has finally started teething with 4 teeth at one go, there were a couple of nights in a row where he woke up every hour. It was the ultimate test of endurance for me. Fortunately my mum came over this month to lend me a hand and I could catch some sleep during the day when Sofia napped.

Despite all the night wakings, the boy was still his usual cheerful and energetic self. Jeremiah was also down with a chesty cough and cold for 2 weeks and after it was all gone and done, the finale came with a fever and skin rash. During this period, he broke his own record with a record 5-hour morning nap. We were so very worried if he was alright cos he has never took a nap this long! After the nap, we were all relieved to see him playing and eating again, phew!


2. Daddy has been travelling a lot again so my "single-mum" days are back again. Sofia misses Daddy a lot when he is away, she will always ask me "Where is Daddy?" and "Let's pick up Daddy from the office?". So when her hero is back she will be all over him, tailing him wherever he goes.

Daddy will try to come back with presents for her and here, she was trying to cover Daddy with her new clothes.


3. Sofia and Jeremiah loves to bang on the piano together. I don't know how my neighbours take it, they are probably very disturbed by the noise pollution we create day and night. Sofia loves to sing and dance too and the best part is Jeremiah loves to join in. He would stand, hold on to something and sway with the music, or sometimes, he would go "WAH BAH BAH BAH BAH! MAH MAH HOO!" , which makes everyone laugh!



4. We celebrated Daddy's birthday as well with Jeremiah in the picture now. When Sofia saw the cake delivered to our house, she was so excited over the birthday celebration that she kept singing the happy birthday song over and over again! Of course she could not wait too, kept asking me to take the cake out and cut it, arrrghhhh!!



5. I also came to know my good friend, R, is going back home for good mid-April. It came very sudden due to family reason and everyone has little time to react. We will spend some time catching up before the whole family moves, hope we will meet again soon.

Girl Next Door

Jeremiah is a seasoned crawler now and all over the house he crawls, to explore, play and disturb whoever he finds.

He was exploring again his morning, from the living room, up the split level, up to the bedrooms upstairs, gave me a squeal when he saw me as he entered the master bedroom. The windows and blinds were up today and he made his way to the windows, reached for the grille and pulled himself up. There he stood, helping himself to the view outside, neighbours watering the plants, stray cats strolling by, cars passing by.

Unfortunately there is no baby girl of his age living opposite, otherwise I could possibly help him sing 阿牛's song:

对面的女孩看过来

看过来,看过来

这里的表演很精彩

请不要假装不理不睬

对面的女孩看过来

看过来,看过来

不要被我的样子吓坏

其实我很可爱

寂寞男孩的悲哀

说出来,谁明白

求求你抛个媚眼过来

哄哄我逗我乐开怀

(嘿嘿嘿,没人理我,嘿!)

我左看右看,上看下看

原来每个女孩都不简单

我想了又想,我猜了又猜

女孩们的心事还真奇怪

寂寞男孩的苍蝇拍

左拍拍,右拍拍

对面的女孩看过来

为什么还是没人来爱

无人问津哪,真无奈

对面的女孩看过来

看过来,看过来

寂寞男孩情豆初开

需要你给我一点爱

(嗨----嗨----!)

我左看右看,上看下看

原来每个女孩都不简单

我想了又想,我猜了又猜

女孩们的心事还真奇怪

我左看右看,上看下看

原来每个女孩都不简单

我想了又想,我猜了又猜

女孩们的心事还真奇怪

爱真奇怪!

唻唻唻......喔哎噢!

唻唻唻......噢----!

His Sour Face

Jeremiah likes to purse up his lips like that when he is not happy. But instead of getting the standard response he is expecting (Oooohhhh, what's wrong baby?), we find his expression so darn cute and funny and we start laughing at him.

THAT pisses him even further and his face gets more annoyed and he will start waving his arms to protest. It is so amusing and we laugh even harder ...

Of course it always ends with us giving in and showering him with lots of hugs and kisses and that makes him a happy boy again.

All I want for New Year

All I want for New Year is my two front teeth, my two front teeth.

Then I can wish you Happy New Year!

CAN SOMEONE TELL ME WHERE ARE MY TEETH??

My Big Boy

Jeremiah has been growing steadily since birth and the pd now classify him under the "big" catergory. That comment would make a typical mother HAPPY, somehow all mothers like their kids to be BIG and HEALTHY and CHUBBY. But I was worried too, is he a little TOO BIG? I nervously posted the question to the doc.

He assured me Jeremiah is not overweight for sure, since he is on TBM. It will not lead to obesity in adulthood. PHEW! The baby is now 8kg at 4.5 months (90th percentile).

Pneumococcal Vaccine

We decided to give Jeremiah the pneumococcal vaccine though it is not compulsory in Malaysia. There are just one too many virus around now a days. He was pretty brave about it, just a little cry when the needle went into his chubby thighs and out again.

He is 3.5 months today and weighs 7.2kg.

Grandma & Grandson

My mum has been here since July to lend me a hand and she has since won Jeremiah's heart. She is so good with him that he can just sit there and respond to her with all the "Ooooohhss and ahhhhhs" when she teases him.

My mum is really good with kids, she can talk and sing to him for half an hour without running out of topic. Me? I will do that for 5 mins and my mind will start wondering elsewhere ... With all the good times they have together, Jeremiah gives my mum the widest smile when he sees her and chuckles the loudest when she sings.

As for me, Jeremiah kicks the hardest and opens his mouth the biggest when I carry him in the nursing position.

My Sleeping Preferences

After 2.5 months of trial and error, we have more or less understand Jeremiah's prefered style of sleeping during different time of the day.

First, when he is sleepy, he would make it known by crying in short phases with his eyes closed. On good days, he may take a 2-hr nap or rarely, a 3-hr nap during mid-day.

During day time, he likes to sleep in the car seat, or

the day chair. In the afternoons, he may stay awake on bad days or take 15 mins - 30 mins naps now and then.

About 2 weeks ago, Jeremiah started knocking out at 9pm but these days, he chose to knock out at 8pm, which will give me enough time to put Sofia to bed.

This is how he sleeps at night, on the tummy. But he does not sleep through yet, he still goes on a 3-4hr feeding cycle at night. Hopefully this will improve as he grows older and we can do with just one or no night feeding at all.

Desperate Housewife

No, I am not a fan of this show, in fact, I have not even watch a single episode. But I find the name so close to my heart now. Yes, I am desperate, extremely DESPERATE ... for Jeremiah to get more sleep.

This baby of mine is a SUPER light sleeper, if I would ever so gently put a blanket over him after he fall into deep asleep, he would still stir. Furthermore he sleeps on his tummy so I am covering his back and he knows! I know putting him on the tummy increase the risk of SID but it was almost my last resort already. He has been sleeping on his back for about 6 weeks and none of his nap lasted more than 15mins continuously due to baby's moro reflex. And patting him does not make him go back to sleep, I need to carry him and rock, then he would fall sleep again. Sometimes rocking does not work so I have to walk round and round the house to lull him to sleep. If that does not work, I dance or waltz with him. This can take 15mins to half an hour and he would wake up barely 15mins after I put him on the bed. HELP!

This fella loves to drink milk. Most babies fall into a 3-hr feeding cycle by the second month. Jeremiah started off with 1.5-hr feeding cycle then 2-hr cycle when he turn 1 month old. No matter day or night, he was just as punctual. The first month was really tough, I barely slept, my mind did not work properly at all. My only reflex that worked was just putting the baby to my breast when he cry. And he loves to sleep and nurse at the same time, perhaps that is the time he catch up on his sleep. I could not nurse and sleep at the same time so many times I was dozing off while nursing. After nursing, burping and changing his diaper, Jeremiah would then be wide awake. Hey, I thought babies would sleep after being fed? Arrrghhhh ...

Swaddling ... I could not bare to swaddle him when we brought him back home. Sofia was being swaddled for one month and I think that helped her to sleep well. But my emotions got the better of me and I did not swaddle Jeremiah. BIG MISTAKE. When I tried to swaddle him at one month old, it was too late, he ended up being angry and even more awake at night. So I tried letting him sleep in all sorts of places, from the bed to the baby recliner to the car seat ... nothing works. When R visited me two weeks ago, she suggested sleeping on the tummy and showed me the way to do it. R even taught me how to burp him on the shoulder and put him on the tummy from there. The first night was bad cos he could not turn his head so I woke up every hour ... to turn his head ... feed ... turn his head ... feed ... turn his head ...feed. It was a LONG night. I persevered. By the fourth night, he could actually turn his head himself and slept two hours straight till the next feeding, phew!

Sleeping on the tummy does work for the night but somehow, he does not sleep much during the day, even on his tummy. I decided to try the hammock over the weekend, it is my LAST resort. It has been two days and he cries real badly when I put him inside, I do not know what else I can do ... can someone please tell me?

Statistics

We brought the duo to the PD today for vaccination.

Sofia weighs 13.5kg now, at 29 months while Jeremiah weighs 4.4kg at 5 weeks old. One is still a breeze to carry while carrying the other is a back breaking task now.