Week 31 - 7 months

Charlotte is in a state of flux these days.  What was once a routine of bottle feeds, naps, and overhead play gyms has evolved into more exquisite meals (er, purees), more vertical play, and erratic overnight sleeping.  This sleeping bit has me in a bit of a tizzy and a grumpy mood, as it is a reminder that my arthritis is not yet over.  Blah.  Luckily Matt is pinch hitting and doing quite a bit of night waking, taking one (or several) for Team Mom and Dad.  Thanks Matt.

Charlotte has her first official shiner.  A bruise courtesy of me - she fell off a bed eighteen inches and boy did it suck.  It wasn't such a bad fall (she fell so softly I did not immediately realize it) but I felt like crap afterwards.  All I was thinking is please don't tell my parents.  So if you read this blog please don't tell Kwang and Ock.  Thanks.

I really wanted to try baby led weaning but I really enjoy making purees.  I love my pressure cooker and my 1000 watt blender!  The other day I put white rice in with some chicken thighs in the pressure cooker, blended it up and I have lunch and dinner for a while.  I thaw these with carrots, squash, spinach, and (as of today) broccoli.  Charlotte has yet to balk at any food (or show any allergic reaction to date) and is very good at the spoon fed puree process.  Sometimes she gets bored (ok, often she does) so I sometimes throw Elmo on youtube to finish a meal.  Her open mouth smiling throughout provides a nice venue for a plastic spoon to enter. :)

Charlotte is having a growth spurt of sorts.  Three meals a day and 5 bottles of milk?  Christ that is a lot of food.  We weighed her this week and she is 21 pounds.  Yikes.

Charlotte is sitting up without falling backwards (so we noticed as of today) and has one tooth!  The right bottom one peeked through!  Hopefully she can start sleeping better...

Working on perfecting my aperture mode photography this week as well...

I love this Blabla top.  Thanks Larry and Paul for this!


Baby Gym in the park (Thanks to Thomas and Em for the gym!  It is quite squishy and good):


That darn sky!  Again!


Relief after spinning with Daddy:


Happy with Daddy on the slide:


Baby led weaning - with her toys!


Kvatching:


Cheerful with Ling, Lilith, and Gwen:


Ok - this is a Bucky shot.  But he looks angelic in this light, no?


"You are a handsome bloke, daddy!"


"Whoa.  Marina Bay Sands IS impressive.  Good job Mom and Dad!"


Spinach face:


A cute video of Charlotte loving her turtle, again:

Week 30 - Sort of a routine

Back to boringland of no visitors or visiting.  Charlotte seems ok with it.  Every day can't be a circus can it?

Matt has spent 2 nights in Bangkok (heh!) and Charlotte has miraculously slept through both nights.  Coincidence?  I hope not, or Matt will need to move out.  I even stayed up till one on both nights, as the idea of getting up at 12:30 to go downstairs, retrieve a cold milk, and come up to the middle floor was enough to do my head (and my crap arthritis) in. 

Speaking or arthritis - I went to the rheumatologist and waited an hour and a half to see her!  Bloody hell.  Why is it you always have to wait to see a doctor in Singapore?   She was covering for another doctor as well so.. why didn't I get a call?  "Hi, the doctor is behind schedule if you would like to reschedule or come in later."  So I roamed the hospital a bit, took a survey about my thoughts on a hospital marketing magazine (that I had never seen before) and scored a thumb drive for taking the survey.  Yea, the highlight of my day.

In other Charlotte news - I have started to make baby food with a pressure cooker and an immersion blender.  It is fun!  This week she has had squash, carrots, bananas, avocados (which she didn't like), prunes, and oatmeal.  All homemade (well, the prunes came from my mom from America).

Charlotte is a total chatterbox.  Seriously when she is talking a language we understand she and her cousin will get together and it will be a meeting of the motor mouths (I mean this from a very loving place).

Here is Charlotte laughing at Bucky over her first oatmeal dinner:


Charlotte - precocious reader:


Excited about her first band onesie:


Practicing for her first Thanksgiving gorge food coma:


Looking crotchety with Toby in the Radio Flyer in the park today (but oh, how she loved that Flyer!):


Charlotte - touching Toby's hair shots (could it be first love?):




The newfound skill of head rotation:


Charlotte discovers her tongue:

Week 29 - overall restlessness

So Charlotte is officially getting up at night.  It was twice a night until a few days ago so now it is once a night.  Either at midnight or at four.  She awakes for a little milk top up.  I have read in Dr. Weissbluth's book that this is ok, normal even, until she is nine months.  These wakings cause me some stress and aggravates my arthritis which I thought was done and gone.  We are soon to buy a mini fridge to keep in the middle level, adding to the cavalcade of crap to get rid of if and whenever we leave idyllic Asia.

We are trying to expend her energy by putting her in the walker that she loves.  She is a speed demon and can negotiate corners better than I can (let us hope the whole depth perception thing is a trait for Matt's side).  We even take her to the park with it.

I have, on more than one occasion this past week, contemplated the road not travelled, e.g. going back to work.  Do I want to go back to work?  Not entirely, but the constant social interaction (and its spin off of personal identity) I do miss sometimes.  But I do remind myself it is not entirely about me anymore.  It is about giving Charlotte the best possible start in life.  And for us that means having a parent at home, just like Matt and I had.

Feeding is more consistent.  She is loving winter squash and rice cereal.  I want to try baby led weaning but want to take a baby CPR class first.

Halloween has come and gone.  We did not dress Charlotte up but she did wear a T-shirt.  Matt and his sis are astounded at my lack of pumpkin carving history.  It happened once - my parents carved a monstrous one in Stone Mountain and put it on the washer in the public use bathroom of our apartment.  I was so scared of it (at age 4) that I did not even want to use the toilet and had to have someone go with me.  So maybe I am just traumatized.


Here is Charlotte roaming around our local park:


Yummy purees (fed by Imee):


More food shots:





Halloween gestures with Daddy:




Like (narcoleptic) mother, like daughter:


Charlotte discovers the sky:





Happy:

Week 28 - Busy body

Ok, not such a wordy post this time.

En route to going out to Dempsey Hill to meet a girl Matt grew up with.

We are busy - just got back from Hong Kong.  Negotiated a stroller on the MTR there.  Totally sucked.  Bjorned it the rest of the way.

Saw friends visiting from the US in Hong Kong because Disney is now 5 years old there.

Charlotte is still sick ever so slightly and had black mucus from Hong Kong air.  Yucky.

We think she is talking - saying OK starting yesterday.  It is funny.

Charlotte is crawling backwards.  Or according to Matt pushing backwards.

We stopped solids while in Hong Kong, although we did feed her some cantaloupe (as per the video below).

Charlotte has been getting up once a night for a week - around midnight.  She eats some and then goes back to bed.

We hope this is short lived.

We are knackered.

Sherry and Larry are visiting from Macau.


Here are some pics and video.

Crawling/pushing backwards:

First Hong Kong skyline photo:

First tram ride:

Makeupless Mom and sleepy baby at Flying Pan:

Eating cantaloupe for the first time:

With Daddy at Stanley:

With Christian and Margo at Dim Sum:

Meeting Janet for the first time:

Loving the Bjorn (tall perspective) on Uncle Larry:

"So let me tell you about what's going on with the Joneses..."

Week 27 - Under the sweltering weather

Pardon me if this post is a little jumbled.  Charlotte is a bit ill and we are all a bit grumpy and tired - getting up at 3 AM for 3 nights becomes none of us.  Charlotte has a runny nose (and a surprisingly sunny temperament).  We had the pleasure to take her to the doctor twice in 5 days - one for her 6 month jabs (a minute of crying and then all was well) and the second for her general stuffiness.  We got some medicated nosedrops and Doctor Mark says it should be gone in a week or 2.  Blah.  Blah.

She is 8.64 kg (19 pounds!), 67 cm tall and has a head circumference of 43.5 cm.

In other news - she loves her walker.  I know that these walkers are really out of vogue in America - but a supervised few minutes with her happy and rolling around (e.g. tormenting the dog) is good for us.  We started feeding her solid foods - rice cereal which she likes.  We attempted to change her formula (to NAN HA - locally available) but it happened when the sickness happened and well, we needed to change one less variable, so we are asking assistance of our American friends to bring over some Alimentum till we can stock up at Xmas.

Here is some updates.  I am off to try to sleep to anticipate another 3AM morning..

 Charlotte cruising in Chris's walker.  Bucky is getting more treats as he resigns himself to being run over a few times a day...


"Grandpa's Girl" T-shirt.  She is out of focus because she can't sit still!


A vision in purple:


Catcher:


Homegirl:


Channeling Elmo's brainwaves:


Walking again:


Still learning the gender neutral sippy cup:

Week 26 - 6 months old!

Ok, Charlotte really turns 6 months tomorrow...

Matt is in disbelief that 6 months have passed and so am I. 

We bid adieu to Aunt Laurie and Matt had a business trip in Hong Kong for 2 days this week.

Charlotte seems to grow a lot when Matt is gone - I don't know if I am more mindful of it becuase of his absence.

She is walking - well with the help of Imee.  She goes really fast - I can tell she will soon be annoyed at Mama for being a slow walker.

She also seems like she is close to crawling - she can lift her belly (with the help of a leg kick) and rotates around on the axis that is her belly. 

We haven't started solids but will this week.  We did put her in a high chair at TGI Fridays - she did great.  Her flailing is somewhat controlled by the seat belt.  We also put her in a booster seat that Laurie got us.  She is ready - but are we?

The bugs have gotten to her (and to us).  I bought 2 bug lights this week and decided to put mosquito stickers on her back all day long.


Also - she has this George Constanza hair - long on the sides and short on top (kind of an inverse mullet).  It is too cute.

I am feeling better - but still have a cough that will not relent.  The arthritis was flaring up with the recent illness but I am better with both the sickies and the arthritis.

On with the multimedia:

This is an awesome video - Charlotte in her new baby pool with daddy - she had the major giggles..


Charlotte walking (sorry this is sideways):


Charlotte in a pink hat:


Charlotte in a red hat and outfit (I laughed when a Chinese man asked me if she was a boy or a girl while wearing this ensemble):


Charlotte on Daddy Mountain:


Charlotte posing with Imee:


In a borrowed F1 walker (thanks Jisun for loaning it to us!):


Pretty in Pink:


Walking with bunny shoes:


In a high chair and a balloon:


With Aunt Laurie at Arteastiq:


With mom at Arteastiq:


Laughing with daddy during a Saturday lunch: