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

We had Ayra’s first birthday party on Saturday. It was our first time hosting a party of any sort on our own and planning it has been tiring but then so much fun! We had fun preparing the guest list, party packs (thanks to Hetz for the ideas), food for guests, decoration etc.

I think all in all we had a total of about 100 guests including kids, of which about 70 turned up. The house was so full of people and kids! Food menu was baked macaroni, roti jala with curry, laksa kelantan, egg sandwich, finger food like nuggets, drummets and cocktail sausages. Desserts consists of watermelon, cuppacakes and brownies made by MIL. And of course, the birthday cake itself which turned out just beautiful and yummy too!

We decorated the house with balloons (hung and loose on the floor), some confetti thingy and a birthday banner thingy. But this is the only pic of the decor hahaha.

We had ample toys for the kids and babies in the house. We also cleaned and put out a small plastic toy hut, a slide and a trampoline under the shade outside the house for the older kids to play in. But the trampoline ended up being used as a table instead hahaha.

And some pics of our distinguished guests and Ayra’s friends

I’m not gonna post any adult pics over here, after all the party’s for the kids yeah? (And so as not to invade anybody’s privacy here)

Our usual photographer wasn’t around, neither was ted so we asked a good friend to become our photographer. But because of the busi-ness and ‘kecoh’-ness of the day, there was sooo many pics we forgot to take! Like there’s no food table pics, no pics of the 3 of us only, no pics of us with each of our guests! Isk isk isk if only I could turn back time, I would have taken all these pics as memory. Butttt, if there was no one to take pics, there would be even lesser pics yeah since we’re too busy entertaining guests and making sure there was enough food on the table. So I guess it’s fine that at least we have pics of the day :)

All in all, I think (and hope) the party was a success. It was great to meet up with old friends, great to make some new ones (as in bloggers I’ve never met before who came!), great to see everyone mingling and talking and taking pics (Hubbs commented that so many mommy-bloggers are into SLRs!). No kids wailing, the house was buzzing with conversations and laughters. The kids sure had fun I think, playing and running (and even pulling each other’s shirts and hair). Too bad there’s no pool for them to take a dip in! I tried to make sure everyone I invited know at least 1 other person there but I see they ended up making some new friends too! I only hope no one got bored as I was soooo busy running around I didn’t have much time to stop and chat with everybody!

Ayra behaved really well throughout too, she didn’t cry (much) but she insisted on being carried most of the time. Maybe she’s overwhelmed with all the people in the house. I’m just thankful she didn’t scream her head off. She even had her nap while being carried in the sling!

She had loads of presents consisting of toys, books and clothes. I think there was equal amount of all the items and her parents are happy for them too! Hahahaha. (Now mommy gotta refrain herself from buying any of those items for the next year as there’s plenty!)

To everyone who came, THANK YOU. We had fun throwing the party and we hope u as guests had fun too (and wasn’t bored to death).

The day after, Ayra’s youngest uncle had his party at Kids Zone in Hartamas Shopping Centre. We went and checked out the place with Ayra and let her have some fun too. Ok, this post is already too long. I’m gonna let the pictures do the talking now.

All in all it was a really fun and fulfilling (and also tiring) weekend for the 3 of us. Now I wonder if we will have the same capacity for Ayra’s 2nd birthday hehehehehe.