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Saturday, October 24, 2009

O.N.E. (looong post)

After blogging about our daughter turning half a year old in April, time has really flown and today marks Rosabelle’s first birthday (Whistles! Toot toot! Clap clap clap!). I will post more about the birthday party we organized for her yesterday, inviting the kids in the yard, and another post about how we celebrated today, but thought I'd do a quick recap of the months passed that have brought Wayne and I nothing but joys and surprises (well, some panic attacks at times!).

This is how our girl has grown through the months, and though I miss her chubbiness and fat, fat, fat looks, I take heart in the fact that she is crawling well, and learning to toddle along, making her burn up loads of energy (not to mention her perpetual screaming and dancing when she hears music).

Given that I've already covered summaries from her first six months, I will only recap her seventh month onwards...

At six to seven months, it marked Foods Galore as we started to wean her, with her first foods of safe stuff like cereals, carrots, spinach...and got her her own high chair as she could sit unaided already, and a Avent sippy cup. Slowly, she started wanting to hold foods of her own (like bringing the whole big apple to her face, or holding her own cup), and preferring to drink direct from the bowl.
She also started learning how to 'dance', moving her hands and legs up and down in tandem, willing to perform only if there was an audience. Perhaps that's why she also started picking up more (and louder) sounds over this period, with alot of 'ahhh'-ing. Another first was starting to call 'Papa' and 'Mama' (most times 'M..mmmu....M...mmmu').

She also managed to 'stand' for the first time, balancing on the sofa for 30 seconds, maybe aided by the hard surface of the huge playmat we got her this month. No way could we leave her unsupervised on the bed - she started rolling in succession henceforth, so we got her her own cot bed as well.

At this tender age, she started to exhibit signs of jealousy whenever I played with or carried other children in the yard.

As summer was heating up, and also because her baby hair was getting rather unruly, we brought her for her first (RMB120!!!) haircut. Very importantly as well, her cradle cap finally cleared - yaay!

This month also marked the first time Ye Ye and Nai Nai met Rosabelle dear.
@ 6m - Height: 69.5 cm, Weight: 8.7 kg
@ 7m - Height: 71.5 cm, Weight: 8.7 kg

At seven to eight months, she started her make-adults-pick-things-up-till-they-cry trick, wanting to drop anything and everything just to see the cause-and-effect, and also knew how to recognise household objects, for example, looking up at the light if we asked her where it was.

When my family was in town for a vacation, we realised that her below two teeth were coming out. She also learnt alot from watching Simon Ge Ge and Marianne Jie Jie at play, enjoying the game of peekaboo even more. It was also her first try at being a 'model' as we arranged a family shot with our photographer friend, and of course also 'climbed' the Great Wall with us. She actually bade farewell when they left by saying 'bye bye'! Another new word this month was 'car'.

It was a starting phase of 'monkey see, monkey do' as she began to imitate alot of our actions, like following my Tweety Bird lips, my nail-cutting action, and wanting to press light switches on/off.

Her great sense of rhythm was spurred by her ability to stand and balance herself on our tummies as she indulged in her dances - maybe this contributed to her sense of balance as she began to be able to prop herself up by balancing on all fours, getting ready for crawling position.

It also marked the first time ever that she had a runny nose...sniff, sniff...
Height: 72 cm, Weight: 9 kg

At eight to nine months, her imitation skills were further honed when she started to mimic our sneezing and coughing sounds, learnt to click her tongue, repeated sounds made by the cow, dog, and lion, waved hello/bye bye, give flying kisses, as well as indicate 'thank you'.


She started to exhibit a strong love for animals, in particular dogs (getting all excited when she sees one), using her newly-acquired finger-pointing (not in a vulgar way, of course) skills to show us animals like the monkey on her mat, or the different animals in her cot bed.

She was able to stand and pull herself to position by leaning on something, and knew how to come down safely from high places by landing feet first. Very surely, she was also exhibiting signs of testing adults' reaction by looking at us cheekily when she wanted to reach out and touch our books or electrical wires.

New words of the month included bird, ball, button (or actually, just 'ba'), A-man (a girl in the yard), and most amazingly, a four-syllabled A-man mama!

She started to crawl at this stage, and maybe it was because of the cold floor, but she got a case of the runs for the first time ever.

She got her second hair cut, courtesy of Daddy dearest in the comfort of our home, haha!
Height: 74 cm, Weight: 9.2 kg

At nine to ten months, she discovered new territory when she picked up cruising skills, being able to dance on her feet (whilst supporting on things, of course). She learnt to clap her hands, and to imitate the action of bouncing a ball, augmenting her love for all kinds of balls.

She also took her second flight ever to visit Wayne's family in Zhengzhou, marking her first stay in a hotel, her first ride on a merry-go-round, and the first time ever to see Wayne's grandparents.

However, she developed a 39.8 degrees high fever after the trip (upper respiratory tract infection) and had a cough/cold as well, so we had to use the cold towel treatment on her and give her medicine, the poor girl. She was also diagnosed as being anemic, and during this period, suffered her first fall ever when she fell whilst on a bike another child was pushing. We could see that her parlour wasn't too good, and she looked thin.... sob...

New words of the month included Baobao, Fei (kids' names), Pu (as in grape), and Jiashiqi (as in humidifier).
Height: 75 cm, Weight: 9.34 kg

At ten to eleven months, her fever relapsed when we were in Singapore (rash outbreak after that), and we had to use the suppository to make the fever stay down. It was the first time I took a flight alone with her as well.

Her anemia was confirmed at KKH, and we had to adjust her diet to include more vegetables and meats, marking her first time trying 'outside' food when we ate out in Singapore. Maybe it was because she was cutting four upper teeth over this period, but she only wanted to eat when fed from the hand.

She began to learn how to make car vroom-ing sounds, and indicate 'one' when asked how old she is. She also knows routines like throwing my spectacles and scrunchy to me in the mornings to get me to put them on and wake up.

New words of the month Popo, apple, Ge ge, Jie jie, Ayi gei gei (as in give), and shuibei (as in cup).
Height: 76.5 cm, Weight: 9.6 kg


At eleven to twelve months, she started her dose of iron supplements for her anemia (her first visit ever to a local hospital as well), and began to be more 'big girl' like, knowing how to self-soothe if she knocked against things, liking her new sippy cup, even attempting to undress herself by pulling her pants and socks off.

She is also more sensitive to our requests, knowing how to wave 'cannot' and 'no more', indicating correctly most of her facial parts, patting herself on the chest when asked where she is, giving high/low-fives, and even teasing us by drawing back items after pretending to want to give them to us.

She can also do a mean imitation of making phone calls, and use her hand to wave and make woo-woo sounds of the wind.

Almost overnight, she began to be able to walk unaided with the walker. This month also saw a bout of food overdose as she vomited and had runny stools after too much grapefruit.

New words of the month nana (as in take), nen nen (as in milk), Di Di, teddy bear, gou gou (as in dog), png png (sound of thumping), Nai Nai, and circle.
Height: 76.5 cm, Weight: 9.8 kg

I joke that October 23 was the last night ever I had a solid 6 hours of sleep, and I've never looked back since. Time really flies when we are having so much fun with Rosabelle, and I shudder to think what I would have missed out on had I gone back to work and missed all her developmental milestones.

Our girl has really grown, and most importantly, we wish her good health always. May you be our happy baby always, dear Rosie. Mummy and Daddy love you loads - Happy Birthday!
P/S: Today also marks Meibao and Roy's girl, Sophie's, first birthday - Rosabelle is only older by a few hours. Happy, happy birthday, sweet sweet Sophie!

PP/S: Tomorrow marks Vanessa and Tim's girl, Rachel's, first birthday - too bad the Choons are in Shanghai and we cannot celebrate together, sigh! Happy Birthday to our darling god-daughter Rachel!

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