Birthday pictures

Caity at the second party enjoying her walnut-less birthday cake. I'm so glad I made them both. Many babies only get to smell their first cake.

The second cake I made (above and below). This time I sensibly only made one cake tin and cut that in half. The sprinkles were also haphazzardly thrown on top.

I wanted to hire a professional photographer but Vin insisted on veto-ing the idea. He said he would take pictures of me instead.

This monster is two cake tins worth of carrot cake (this time I used a machine to grate 700g worth). Both cakes are cut into 2 so there are 4 layers of cream cheese in between. The "one" candle was bought by Aunty Djin again. Vin's idea to put the cup cake on top. I thought it was cheesy to do that but apparently, it turned out quite attractive.

My first ever carrot cupcake that I made for Caity. The sprinkles were bought by Aunty Djin and they actually come in many different colours all mixed up (below) but I arranged them purple-pink-orange-yellow-white. Yes, I admit it, I'm anal.

Why non nutty birthday cake

Yes, baby's are allergic to nuts. There's many many things that we can't feed Caity yet. In fact, I was taking a risk with the cake because even though I didn't put walnuts in it, there was still ground nutmeg. Also whole eggs which you're not supposed to give baby till they turn 1.

Window of opportunity

Caity has now started picking up words really fast. She will respond when we say something and repeat it over and over.

 

In 2 days, she's learned how to "kiss". Yesterday she was reading with Daddy and kissing every page. The day before she started kissing me when I asked her to. Of course she can't yet purse her lips so the kiss is a open mouth slobber.

 

I wonder when's the right time to bring her for classes. Initially we planned to do all of her developmental learning on our own--both teachers right--but now I wonder if we have the energy left over after work and tending to Caity's basic needs.

 

The new maid's not too bad. However, there are some things I take for granted which are totally alien to her. This morning she put the blender on the No. 2 setting thinking that "2" represented 2 minutes. Hence, she was waiting for the "timer" to run down. It makes sense right? the setting was represented on a dial and not on buttons. Luckily Vin came along caught her staring blankly at the blender. Sigh!

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.