Now this post might bring on some smirks and such, but I just feel the need to write about our parenting ’skills’, if u can call it that.

Before Ayra was born, during my pregnancy I read this just to know what is happening to my body and how the baby inside me was growing. I tried to follow as much as I can on the expert’s advice. Then after she was born, I got this book, to give me an insight on how to take care of my first baby and what to watch out for etcetera. During her first few months of life, that book was my bible. I referred to it for every single thing every single step of her life. But then, after some time, I realized we gotta establish our own parenting style and the book is just a guidance (yeah that’s what they said in there too hahaha). And after some time, as I got busier ‘parenting’ and she didn’t sleep as much, I just stopped referring to it at all, only occasionally opening the index to look for words like ‘eczema’ and ‘allergy’*.

*Ouh by the way, on that, we discovered lately that Ayra has an allergy to chicken. I tried to switch her diet from fish porridge to chicken porridge just for variety but she developed rashes on her face, especially under her eyes. She had this puffiness and redness and dark circles under her eyes and some rashes on the rest of her face. Poor girl looked so pitiful! To this day we don’t know for sure if it’s chicken but the doc said chicken is more allergen than fish and so once switched back to fish, she seems fine and the rashes are gone. My girl’s skin is soooo sensitive! And poor her for not being able to eat chicken. Looks like it’s fish for a long time to come :(

Anyways back to the story. You could say our style is more of a relaxed style. Let’s see if I can list down some stuff. This can really lead to some people disagreeing with me but then again it’s our child and our choices hehehehe. I am just writing this down for my own remembrance and just so maybe one day Ayra can read on how she was brought up, 1 year into her life.

• Don’t take your child out when she’s too young, there’s too many germs and viruses around. We took her with us almost everywhere we went, starting from right after confinement (and maybe twice even during hehehe). Of course we’re freaked about the viruses and germs and all, but a bigger part of me don’t have the heart to leave her at home and no way am I myself gonna get cooped up as well just because. And I believe, maybe because of this, she’s sort of forced to build up her immunity system. After all, too much of a wall built around your child can’t be good eh? Yeah I get the “Oh my God ur baby is soo tiny and yet you already brought her out??” But I just smile and went on my way. Thank God, no harm came to Ayra on that.
• Teach your child to sleep on her own after about 6 months coz she doesn’t need the night feedings already. This, I know is actually for the parents’ own benefit. But this is also another thing which I just cannot do. I pamper and ‘baby’ her to sleep, each and every night right up till now. I know the best way to teach her is to let her cry it out but I. just. don’t. have. the. heart. I am such a softie hahaha. I let her nurse till she sleeps, I let her ‘hang’ on me for hours on end. It’s not her fault she can’t sleep on her own. It’s mine. And I shove my nips into her mouth the moment she wakes up in the middle of the night, thus encouraging night feedings. Yes, even now. It does get tiring after more than a year of no good night’s sleep but still I put her needs above mine and I can’t (or won’t) wean her off. I worry if I don’t feed her at night, my milk supply will dwindle (though it already is) and I am not done and not ready to NOT nurse her. So, I am sacrificing my rest for this. Seriously I want her to sleep on her own and through the night but but but but. Gahhhh. Hehehehe.
• Wash every single item and toy that your baby plays with and do not let her pick up things from the floor. Germs! Hahahaha. We are also very relaxed on this ruling. Not that we let her crawl on dirt or put dirty stuff in her mouth la, but we do not wash every single item that has fallen to the floor. That is, if we’re confident the floor is somewhat clean. We close one eye when her toy has fallen to the floor (ok I have to stress this is only if the floor is in the house and clean, don’t wanna seem like we’re pengotor), and we just pick it up, dust it off and give it back to her. Of course her not using a pacifier helps and of course if she does I will wash it! I won’t let my child suck on a pacifier with dust stuck on it! But I have to mention this, taking word from my sister who has 2 boys. She babied the first one so much, washing every single item that comes into contact with him. As a result, he is soooo prone to germs. If he comes into contact with a dirty item, he gets sick. But with the second one, she was more relaxed and he built his own immunity. So there hehehehe.
• Don’t feed your child what you eat! It’s not healthy!! I used to cringe at this. Since she was 5 months old, Ayra was being fed cereal but only occasionally. I used to cringe coz EVERYONE else in the family thinks she can already be fed with whatever. So she started getting tastes of ice-cream, chocolates, sweets, various snacks, biscuits, even rice. And they do it when I wasn’t around. I used to be pretty pissed about it but of course, they’re family and they actually mean good by saying “kesian dia tengok orang makan, kasi la dia rasa“. After she turned 8-9 months, I relaxed a bit, coz by then I am confident she has stronger digestive system and such. And so, even we started doing it hahaha. Now she gets to taste almost whatever we’re eating unless it’s spicy. She ate whole pieces of Cadbury milk chocs, half my ice-cream, and I even let her taste my Slurpee once. Most of that ended up on her clothes and mine coz she opened her mouth in shock at the coldness of the drink hahahaha. Now since she start to ‘ask’ for what we eat and seem very very curious (to the point that she will come climb up into our laps and just take a quick bite at whatever we’re holding in our hands), we let her taste more. But I put the stop at things that she can’t easily mash or big pieces of food. Coz this little girl, doesn’t even attempt to chew. She just swallows everything in her mouth. Malas betul.
• Regulate the room temperature appropriately around your child. Our paed’s advice was, 24 degrees when it’s hot, 26 degrees when it’s cold. Our whole house is air-conditioned, save for the maid’s room. During the day she sleeps in the maid’s room and hence will use the fan. Alas, this girl sweats A LOT and gets her hair washed twice a day. Her parents pulak, can’t bear to see her sweat. We set the temperature according to her. If she sweats, down the temperature goes. At night, both of us sleep under thick comforters and she can sleep spread-eagled without any covers and still SWEAT. This results in a very very manja child tsk tsk. Once she enters a non air-conditioned room, she starts sweating, no matter if it’s not hot at all. And her parents usually only take her to malls. Tsskkkkk. Susah bawak balik kampung ok…
• Read to your child often. This is good for their speech and language development. Now this, we attempt to do, even now. Thing is, Ayra loves books. To flip the pages, to gawk and point at the pictures, and especially to chew on. BUT, not to be read to. Hahahaha. She will pull the book from you, throw it away and crawl off the moment u attempt to sit in front of her with an open book and read from it. She prefers to do it on her own, at her own time. I will still attempt to do this one.

I guess that is all I could remember for now. And seeing all these points reflects back to me on how I’m bringing my child up. It’s nobody’s fault but ours that she is soooo manja isn’t it. We’re being much too relaxed and treating her like a princess, letting her have her way most of the time! Now we’ll wait another year and see how we attempt to discipline her next. Oh boy, the journey of parenthood….

Now see Ayra, how much we give in to you?? You better be grateful you don’t have a constrained baby-hood and we let you take advantage of us!!!

In a magical turn of events, I am now able to access the network using wifi :) Nope I haven’t gotten my laptop yet (and franky, I now think I can do without la, love the freedom of not having to lug that thing, take care of it and also the expectation of u doing work at home), but I did get myself a usb wifi adapter. And for free too at the recent W.C.I.T. Hehehehe. Soooo I can now access my blog at work! Yippeeeee!!!!

Anyways, the post today is about us taking Ayra to the playground. Actually we’ve taken her there about 2-3 times already. Thank God the one near the hse has baby facilities, like the bucket seat thingamajiggy for swing. But this is the first time we took the camera with us.

Now I don’t know if Ayra is happy or not at the playground. She has no facial expression when we put her on the rides hahahaha (unless of course, I make some funny face at her, then she just smiles at me). She doesn’t mind the swing, in fact I swing her quite high, but she neither cringes nor smiles. She just looks nonchalant, like nothing is new and looks left and right at other kids playing. Maybe she just enjoys the wind on her face and in her hair.

Here’s some more pics of Ayra at the playground.

And right after this, she sort of slipped in the tunnel, and her gums bled a bit. Her worried parents of course took her straight home, but she was unscathed. No physical wounds detected.

And her parents are still wondering la, does she like the playground or not????

*for some weird reason, my pics wouldn’t be centered no matter what i do, unless i insert the html tag one by one which I am of course too lazy to do. they look fine in the visual editor but not when published. oh well, can’t be too particular. heh.

Lo and behold, the little girl is fast zooming into toddler-hood. Today, she’s 13 months old. I still can’t believe she’s 1 hahahaha.

Life became so much fun-ner (yeah I know no such word) since she turned 1. The interaction, the way she amuses us, the walking babbling entertainer that she is melts my heart each and every day. I can’t wait for each new day to see what she learnt today and just to see what she will be up to. It’s almost impossible to list them all here but I am just gonna try and list down whatever I could remember.

• She simply cannot see anything stacked up or lined up nicely anywhere. She is one little mass of destruction hahahaha. She will pick up and destroy any stacked blocks, cups, or anything else. Her favorite has got to be the stack on DVDs in the tv rack. She will take each and every DVD out of the nice stack and throw them to the floor.
• Next, she has learnt to put things in and out of containers and such. She will empty her toy box, not to play with the toys but just to make the box empty. Same goes with her diaper stacker (she will remove ALL diapers in it one by one). She also knows that small things can be put into bigger things and love to uncover little stuff we always hide in bigger stuff, i.e. hiding the ball under the cup.
• She also loves to hand over stuff to us with a little exclamation, which sounds like “uhhh”. Like the DVDs and the diapers she takes out of their respective places. She will hand them over to any one of us one by one, without getting bored till it’s all empty. She is not stingy coz she will hand over anything she’s holding no matter if she’s playing with it, if u just put out your hand and ask her nicely. That said, it’s a great way to get her to hand over dangerous stuff to us coz she will gladly pass it over. Snatching things away from her doesn’t work.
• She knows how to squat down now and it’s just so cute to watch!
• She can climb up and down of sofas and low beds. This is great coz she knows how to go down feet first without falling head first, but it’s also dangerous coz she’s always climbing somewhere!
• Walks a lot more, but chooses soft surface like the bed, carpet and mattress to walk (and run) on unguided. She’s much more careful on the floor and prefer to walk while holding on to stuff.
• She’s learning speech, slowly but surely. If we say “Daddy” she will say “dadadada” and if we say “Mommy” she will say “mamama”. It will come :)
• Waves goodbye when we say “bye2″ especially when carried
• VERY ‘manja’ and still in separation anxiety phase
• Can play on her own for longer periods now, just as long as somebody is in the room with her
• Learning ‘flying kiss’. She can put her hand over the mouth and make the “muahh” sound. Almost there hehe
• She still picks up small stuff from the floor and puts them in her mouth. The only good thing is she will open her mouth, stick out her tongue and say “aaaa” when we ask her to say “aaahhh”. Makes it easier to pick out things that is not supposed to be in her mouth hahaha.
• Knows how to press buttons on her musical toys to make the music/sound come out
• Claps her hands when we say “yeayy!”
• Puts out her legs when we wanna put socks on her and sticks out her hands when we wanna put on her mittens at night (yes she still wears mittens to sleep coz she scratches her eczema in her sleep till they bleed). Good thing is, she doesn’t protest but instead obliges happily and claps her hands amusingly when we put on her mittens. But yeah of course sometimes she gets them confused and sticks out her hands when we wanna put on her socks hahaha.
• Will try to put her feet into her shoes whenever she can get her hands on them

That is all I could remember for now. All I can say is I think her development is simply amazing. I know some babies can already talk and form words, some babies are running at her age but then again I am not bothered about this. I’m just letting her take her own sweet time and develop at her own pace and let her enjoy her transition into toddlerhood. At least this way I get to enjoy her baby-ness more :)

Our little girl is getting to be sooooo manja nowadays. She is still primarily breastfed (and yes I am still pumping at work) and today I would like to share the story of how she shows her manja-ness and her down-time with me.

Everyday when I get back from work, she will scramble from wherever or whatever she’s doing and walk/crawl fast towards me and lift up her hands for me to pick her up. Likewise if she’s being carried by anyone else, she will put out her hands for me. I will usually lead her to play with her toys or bring her for jalan-jalan or something. And after some time, she will again put out her hands for me to carry her and she will whine while pulling at my shirt. This is usually the signal that she wants to breastfeed. I will then take her to the bed and open you-know-what.

This is the funny part. Unless it’s her bed-time and she’s really tired, she just won’t lay still. She will take a swig, turn herself around, somehow clamber out of my hug and crawl or walk away. She will go to some other parts of the bed, play a while, and you would think she’s done with feeding. But noooo. She won’t allow me to put her ‘pacifier’ away just yet. Every once in a while she will crawl back to me, and drop her whole body on mine some way and direction or the other and suck for a while again before moving away. She can do this more than 10 times!!! I call it freestyle-nursing. Of course it hurts as she pulls in all directions hahaha but then it is just soooo cute to watch and ‘layan’. She will ‘tonggeng’ lah, lie down la, sometimes just stay on all fours, sometimes she will just sit and bend down to suck. I will just keep up with her until I get tired and then I just get up and put it away lah hahahaha. She will keep doing it till she’s bored of the bed and whine to be let down to play with some other things.

Of course I can’t put any pictures of the action right hahahaha but I just wanna put this down for my own remembrance.

Yesterday she did something new. Both hubbs and myself was lying down on the bed and she was in the middle. We asked her to ’sayang’ us (which she usually does by putting her open mouth over our cheeks and lick or just lay it there for a while) but this time she does it differently. She went back and forth between the 2 of us and put her open mouth over our noses instead!!! Hahahaha this is just way too funny. She does it nonchalantly and even lick at times. No matter how we turn our faces and point to our cheeks, she will still go for the nose and leave it wet with her nice-smelling saliva hahaha. Very very cheeky girl!!!

Damn am I gonna miss all this when she weans off. My cute little ‘manja’ girl. One day, she will outgrow this phase and not want to have any down-times with us anymore. *sigh*

If your child gets upset when you leave her now, she’s right on schedule. Twelve to 18 months is prime time for separation anxiety, a psychological term that means your toddler can’t bear to be without you. The best way to handle painful farewells is to keep them short and sweet: Say goodbye with a quick kiss and head out the door. Your toddler’s tears will subside soon after you’re out of sight. It’s hard not to feel guilty, but in the long run you’ll help your child become more independent. - from Baby Center mailers

The bittersweet thingys of being a parent. Ayra doesn’t do this much; most days she will still be asleep when I head out the door (but Daddy always gets to play with her in the mornings hmmph!). This is fine with me, but I just love her in the mornings. The sleepiness still in her eyes, the messy bed-hair, the ‘masam’-ness of her neck and face! But she never fails to show u that smile that sweet smile even with half-closed eyes. No matter how hard it is to get her to bed at night, she (usually) wakes up cheerful.

But there was 1 occasion lately when she was up early and she and Daddy was seeing me out the door. I carried her for a while and kissed her goodbye but then she refused to be passed on to Daddy and clinged to me and criedddddddd her lungs out! I had to leave, I was already late then, but tears welled up my eyes leaving her crying like that (yeah yeah Mommy is a bit of a cry-baby also lah).

Ayra never had problems with the maid. The maid adored her and vice versa. Sometimes, she WANTS the maid even though we’re around. When we have our dinner, we always put Ayra in her high chair and usually she sits still. That is, until she sees the maid walk by hahaha. Then she’d want to be carried. In other words, she has never refused the maid before. But this morning she did. When I tried to pass her to the maid (I left for work late), she clung to me and again, cried when I pried her off. It’s so hard to leave the house when your child cries out for u huh :(

We gotta work on the separation anxiety issues, as it’s affecting me as well. I sooooo don’t feel like going to work on days she cling to me :D