Chili Con Carne & Meatballs

Hi Baby,

Over the weekend we made chili con carne for dinner, protein packed full with beans and minced meat. Daddy had his with lots of jalapeno peppers and bread, mommy had it as is, and you had it with pasta tubes.

Normally you don't last that long at the dinner table, you'd take bites, smear some on and under the table, wave your arms around, pick things up and let it slip out of your hands onto the floor, spill some water, repeat. But that dinner, you ate purposefully. You'd grab what you could and stuff it into your mouth. Some food still managed to slip out, but majority of it went into your mouth. Mommy daddy had already finished eating but you hadn't. Mommy was amazed, it was the longest you have ever sat in the chair. Daddy had to clean you up after you finished eating and he kept on asking if you're done yet. Told daddy to just relax and leave you be since you seemed to be really enjoying the meal. You ended the meal when there wasn't any more to eat in your bowl, you emptied it out. Your face and hands were smeared with the sauce, so was your outfit, but you were happy.

Mommy forgot to have the camera handy...

After daddy whisked you away to clean up and change, mommy was left with cleaning up. Cleaning up routine after every meal was to pick up all the solids that was on the table, chair and floor. Then wipe the table down and disinfect, wipe the chair down and disinfect, and finally wipe the floor and disinfect. Done.

After the success of the chili mommy decided to try you on meatballs with organic rice pasta swirls. You ate, decimated your food as you usually do, but mommy didn't realise you were also tired, which was why you weren't that interested to eat much until with your tomato-ey saucey hands decided to run through your hair, pull your ears and rub your eyes, your signal of being sleepy. Ack!

Got you out of your chair, washed your hands, went upstairs, stripped you down and gave you a bath. Removing bits of tomato, pasta and meat. After getting dressed, you nursed and fell asleep on the sofa bed. So mommy stayed with you and waited until either you wake up or when daddy gets home before I could clean up downstairs. It was almost a full two hours before any of that happened. I bet you if the cats were home they'd probably finished up your dinner, but they weren't. And good thing cleaned up before the ants got wind of there's food available...

Wonder what to try you on next....

Love,
Mommy

Baby Led Weaning Take II

Eating spaghetti, with a piece of broccoli, a slice of roast pumpkin and a piece of lamb
somewhere under there at the dinner table with the family.

Hi Baby,

Since picking up the two books, Baby Led Weaning and Baby Led Weaning Cookbook by Gill Rapley & Tracey Murkett, when we were on holiday, mommy feels much more confident putting food in front of you to attack now that I know the guidelines, and after flipping through the BLW cookbook to give mommy an idea what foods to feed you, you can eat just about anything.

What makes sense about BLW is that you learn how to chew, learn what safe sizes of food to have in your mouth before you swollow, learning how to move your jaw, practice the dexterity of your hands and fingers and eventually learn how to use forks and spoons.

You can have anything, with a couple of rules. Like no salt in the cooking, that way you get to eat the food we're having, and if the non babies want salt they can add it themselves while at the table. babies are only allowed a maximum of 1 gram of salt, anything over is bad for the kidneys and some babies die from eating salted food, scary...

Mommy is rereading the book again, see if there is anything I missed...

What you have eaten so far:

Avocado
Watermelon
Rock Melon
Honeydew
Mango
Apple
Pear
Papaya
Banana
Starfruit
Kiwi
Broccoli, steamed
Cauliflower, steamed
Pumpkin, roast and soup
Carrot, roast, boiled and soup
Cucumber
Roasted Red Bell Peppers & Zucchini tossed with minced garlic, red onion and unsalted butter
Baked potatoes
Roast leg of lamb
Grilled Salmon
Salmon cakes
Spaghetti bolognese
Fetuccine carbonara
Chicken soup
Mushroom soup
Home made Fishballs
Eggplant and Olives dip

That's all I can think of so far...

Now that mommy had a look at the list, you've eaten quite a variety already, yet I feel not varied enough yet in terms of taste and flavours. There are some food items which you haven't been introduced to like eggs, daddy is sort of allergic to it. But you have had egg products, like the salmon cakes mommy made with just the egg yolk since it says allergies come from egg whites.

Mommy planning on making mini burgers for you this weekend, as long as I remember to take the mince out from the freezer.

Eating out is somewhat easy, fail safe is to just bring your broccoli florets which you'll happily munch on. it'll be great for you to eat what we eat, but mommy is worried about the amount of MSG there are in foods at some restaurants. MSG affect the mental developments in children.

Trying to establish healthy eating now so it will benefit you when you get older. You'll learn what food is good to eat and what to avoid, or not eat as much, as you won't develop the taste for the not so beneficial foods for you because there is no way mommy is going to introduce you those foods.

Drink wise it's just breast milk and water, juices is just sugared water no matter what they say.

Also you got to learn how to brush your teeth first too, got to keep those milk teeth healthy as possible, seen too many kids below five with bad teeth, so not good...

Love,
Mommy

8 Months Old!

Hi Baby,

Today is your 8th month birthday, in the morning we went out for dim sum with daddy's family, nini noi kept on wanting to hold you, auntie lin kept on trying to get that cute baby picture of you, auntie maricel entertained you as always, you drank water from a chinese tea cup, everybody else had 'ye sang' to bring forth the good luck for the year, you slept in daddy's arms in the sling as he shopped around a bit afterwards.

In the afternoon, we went to one of daddy's colleague's chinese new year open house and you tried to make friends with a little boy who was twice your age but the same size, but the little boy was too shy and hung on to his family amah for dear life.

In the evening you napped twice and rest of the time hung out with mommy when not in the studio or with daddy when he's not sorting out the comic books, and before bed all three of us was in bed playing when daddy eventually fell asleep and mommy nursed you until you did too.

Sweet dreams baby...

Love,

Mommy

The Second Emergence!

Hi Baby,

Today mommy confirmed the appearance of your upper teeth, well, I felt the sharpness of one upper tooth the second one isn't far behind.

A couple of days ago mommy noticed how white your gum were at the site and I had my suspicion and today mommy managed to slip in a finger to feel, and yup, there it is, a day shy from being 8 months old.

And you are crawling properly now, on your hands and knees, unless it is something you are interested in then you'd crawl some distance, apart from that, you're happy to just take two steps forward, and one step back to sit down.

Mommy and daddy caved in and bought you this big flouncy hair piece yesterday, everybody said you looked like a present waiting to be opened... go figure...

Love,

Mommy

Whistling Baby

Dear Baby,

I don't know where you learned or how you learned to whistle but you're doing it anyway. It's not the loud shrill whistling but it's still whistling, you were able to purse your lips in such a way that when you blow through your mouth you make that whistling sound. So cool!

The first time it happened was when mommy was talking to nenek and you were crawling on the floor. Whistling sound was heard, nenek looked at mommy, looked down at you, and asked, "Is that coming from her?" with a puzzled expression, yup, the sound came from you. Mommy wasn't surprised, I don't know why, maybe I have already heard it coming from you, don't recall when though...

So far your grandparents on both sides have heard you whistle, daddy heard you whistle and I can't remember who else. Mommy is going to google up whistling baby to see if it is a common thing or you're one of the rare few. Either way, it's cool! Heheh...

Love,
Mommy

7 Months Update

Dear Baby,

Well, we're half way through 7 months. In the past few weeks, you went from wobbling on your arms leaning forward to crawling around, sitting up on your own and pulling yourself up when in your crib (when mommy saw that happen it was an automatic, "The crib needs lowering!")

Now that you're even more mobile, you're on the floor more often (good thing mommy had the carpet cleaned, will need to clean again, got to call the Danken people to come in), you get to explore more, and now that you learned how to sit up from a lying down position it's a big deal. Mommy cheered and clapped with every development progress you've achieved and you go all hyper happy and very proud of yourself, waving your little arms in the air, woo hooo!

You're still practicing lifting up your hips when crawling and from the looks of things and the way you progressed it will be soon to full speed crawling on your hands and knees.

Sitting up on your own is a very new thing, past few days only. And pulling yourself up, around the same time.

So, like last time, it seems that you develop a bunch of stuff in one go. So does that mean you'll learn how to walk, run and jump at the same time too?

Weight wise, since we don't have to go to the clinic until March, used the digital weighing scale at home, and you clocked in at 9.2kg this month. I think now that you're mobile your weight gain will be slower. No clue on height, maybe one day we'll just head to the clinic to use the scales just to find out what your height and weight is...

Love,
Mommy

Baby's Cloth Diapers

Hi Baby,

These are just some of your diapers, some colours are missing as they were in the wash and one you're wearing. As you can see, we don't have that many quantity wise compared to some cloth diapered moms, from my understanding anything below 40 is conservative, you can get away with just 15 pieces even. Heck, we started with just 5. Then mommy and daddy found them rather convenient and got more.

I think in total we now have about... I'm not sure, will have to do a count, less than 30 I'm guessing. Enough for mommy not to bother washing until two to three days later for a full load in the washing machine.

Then comes a dilemma of a sort, soon we're going to fly off for our first family holiday! We're going to be gone for at least 5 days. The question is, how are we going to diaper you without having to use disposables that takes 500 years to break down....
Fortunately there are forums that mommy's been reading and they had recommended to use Grobaby. They are disposable but it'll only take 2 to 5 months for it to break down and it compostable! (is there such a word?) Granted it cost twice as much as regular disposable diapers but the guilt impact wouldn't be there. If we're going to stay at a place that have washing machine access we'll probably just bring your diapers, but since we'll be staying at a hotel, not really.

Mommy have tried out a couple on you just to see how you'll react to it just in case, and how much it can hold, 4 hours ish, so for day time it's alright. Now the next thing I have to figure out is how to diaper you at night when travelling...

Love,
Mommy