Updates at the 1 year mark

I can't believe it. Caity will be a year old this Thursday.

 

We celebrated twice over the weekend. Once at Vin's parent's place and once at my grandparents place. The reason why we had to have 2 parties is a long and complicated story. The thing is both of us almost killed ourselves making the parties happen. I have been so busy at work, Gary had to remind me to call everyone from the Lai side of the family. I'm glad he did. My grandparents seemed to enjoy themselves, M sok enjoyed cooking for everyone and I enjoyed seeing Brannon play with Caitlin again.

 

Spent the weekend cooking 2 cakes in 2 days. The first cake was completely over done and shall never be repeated ever ever again. It was a 4 layer tower with cream cheese icing in between  and decorations around the side. I even made 2 mini cupcake versions without nuts for the baby guests like Brannon and Billy's kid.

 

Poor Caity was so tired from the first party on Saturday that she fell asleep in the car on the way to the second party on Sunday. When she finally woke up, she was grumpy and not in the mood to socialize. It wasn't until later when she was playing with Brannon in the bedroom that she warmed up and started to enjoy her own birthday.

 

Such a darling little girl. Everything she does is a delight. I'll ask her, "Baby, where's your nose?" And she'll pinch my nose. "Where's the cat?" and she'll go "Kker". She says "cgoo" for "cold" when I bring a glass of cold water to my lips. "Shake" and she'll shake her head. She even dances in front of the TV when Kelvin's going at his guitar hero. She'll shake her head and twirl her hand in the air.

 

I love my little girl.

 

She's starting to have an opinion and she's very particular about food.

 

Breastfeeding is still going on. I'm giving in to her more because she's sick at the moment. She still wakes up at least once a night. More out of habit than anything. My dirty little secret is that I don't want our special time to end. Completely weaning her would mean that I can start living more of my own life. However, most of my life revolves around her anyway. I don't even remember what it was like before. Vin and I still sneak away from time to time. We try to spend some time together, just the two of us.

 

All in all, Caity's developing well and she's healthy. I would like for her to be a bit heavier and have less allergies but I'll sure she'll come along.

 

 

1st week back at work

Some updates:

Caitlin's been rather busy lately. More teeth are coming out so she's trying to bite everything and drooling over everything else. Sleepwise, she's down to 1 night feeding half of the time. If her gums feel really painful she'll wake. If not, she can and has slept through an 8 hour stretch. This means she can put herself back to sleep.

Caitlin's eating consistently 2 meals of solids a day. It ranges from 6 to 12 teaspoonfuls of porridge. If she's sleepy or not in the mood, she'll eat maybe 4 teaspoons. So far I've made her carrots, broccoli, sweet potatoe, peas, fresh corn, cauliflower and spinach steamed, strained and frozen back into ice cube trays. Then 2 kinds of veges are popped into the daily porridge of either fish or pork at my mum in law's place. Recently, I've started adding wolfberries. If I don't go over to my mum's I'll feed her the veges straight.

I've decided to stop pumping out my milk cuz it just takes too much time at work. I plan to cut down the breastfeeding to once in the evening, at night before bed time and once more in the morning before work. However, I've also decided not to rush the weaning process. I think when Caitlin's developmentally ready, she'll wean herself. So far, we pretty much follow her needs. If she wants more, she'll ask for it. Sometimes, she's just breastfeeding for comfort and will "nibble" rather than really drink her fill. Honestly, I remember fighting so hard to breastfeed her in the beginning; hating it at first. And now, I almost don't want to give it up. I can't believe that I've spent almost 9 months doing it so far.

Work will be tough. Every morning I feel so guilty leaving her for the office. Then at work, there's just so much to be done if I want to do it right. Well, being a stay-at-home mom is not really an option right now so I'll just take it year by year.

Sitting up for the first time

The maid called me in a really excited voice and I immediately went to get the camera. Most babies can sit up on their own by 5 or 6 months. That's why I was so excited when she finally could balance her upper body over her hips. Yeah!

7 and a half months

Caitlin's 7 1/2 months now. It's amazing how time has just flown by and now she's such a big baby. I'm amazed at how much she already knows. She's able to pick up small objects with her thumb and index finger. She can sit up by herself for a couple of minutes. She's able to pull herself up holding on to my hands and push with her legs to a standing position. When I clap my hands and tell her "up" she'll reach up with her arms and lean forward. 

She's still not keen on solids and we have to coax her. Perhaps it's partly my fault. She's expecting me to feed her. Today however, I participated in getting her fed so she got the message that Mommy wants her to end solids rather than drink breastmilk. A friend of Kelvin gave her a sippy cup with a handle and we tried it out today. She was able to hold the handles with both hands and tilt the cup up and drink from it herself. Of course she only did it for a few seconds and there was water that dribbled out. I'm impressed because she's not supposed to be able to do that till she's a year old. 

I think she's said her first word too. It was "meow". There are lots of cats at the void deck of my block and every time we come home, I make it a point to show Catilin the cats and say the words "Cat" and "Meow". One night, she said "meow" twice after I said "meow". I was jumping up and down with excitement. Okay, technically "meow" isn't a word but at least she understood. Sometimes, Grandma Dolly will say "meow-meow" just to test her and Catilin will actually look down on the ground for a cat.

Today Caitlin is suddenly afraid of strangers. Usually she'll smile at everyone and she's okay with anybody carrying her. Today, she just started bawling when Grandma Dolly had visitors and she wouldn't calm down. It took her a good half hour to warm up to one of the strangers. At the same time, she's extremely curious about everything and everyone. If she feels safe because I'm carrying her, Caitlin will reach out and touch total strangers. Yesterday, she reached for a neighbour's cake in the lift. It was too late to stop her. The poor lady ended up with cream on her blouse.

Took these four pictures with my handphone. These two (on top and below) are recent. She's such a delightful child. Admittedly, I may be biased because she's my offspring but it's so great that she's happy and smiling most of the time.
Brings back such memories. This was when she was about 3 or 4 months old and she just refused to be put in the baby carrier. I think it was because she had to sit in a separate pouch thing that clips on to the harness. She didn't like it because by this time, she was used to being carried and liked the sensation of skin to skin contact. However, I've seen lot of babies being carried in these harnesses and even falling asleep in them. spent $120 on this thing too. In the end sold it off to a friend for half price. 

She was really upset with me for strapping her up in the baby carrier. This was only after 5 minutes.

Caitlin's first visit to the zoo

The zoo is an overwhelming place for a 7 month old baby. Caitlin found the animals interesting if they were big enough for her to see. Mostly, she just stared blankly at us when we pointed at stuff. It was too hot for her to enjoy herself very much and in the end, we left after about an hour because she fell asleep. Caitlin had fun with her Daddy who pretended to drop her into the stream at their feet.

The zoo looks totally different from what I remember as a kid. I wonder if the bird park has changed very much as well.

In the end, the best kind of animal is the "zebra" hugging Caitlin.