What are you up to?

Rosabelle's day is pretty predictable (but I wished she had more predictable and earlier sleeping times so I can be less house-bound), and I thought I'd share with you what some of you might be wondering she gets up to (or how occupied I can get in a day with her to-dos day in, day out...)

She wakes up (depending on what time she slept the previous night) anytime between 7+ to 11 am, and I normally leave her to roll around in bed/play with her blanket/toys first before I attend to her (if I have not yet washed up or had my breakfast... IF she can wait).

She normally does not wake up hungry these days, so I will first change her diaper (I change her diaper less frequently at night nowadays, so she can sleep undisturbed, though she can thankfully sleep through a diaper change). After cleaning her up, I then do a simple body massage (learnt from books) for her, and a simple song of 'heads, and shoulders, knees and toes' with her (she will always close her eyes at the song as she will anticipate me touching her around her eyes, heh!).

And then she wakes up and plays with some of the toys in the house whilst we wait for the sun to come out fully and it's less cold before we head outdoors.

She always loves going outdoors and can anticipate the outing when the adults get changed, and we start piling on her clothing - she will flail her arms excitedly and at times shriek (like my sis says, like Jurong Bird Park birds).

Once outside, she is quite happy to sit in the Quinny Buzz and look around, play with the toys on her pram, or eat her bib. The nanny and I will then take the chance to buy groceries, bread, run errands at the bank etc. Sometimes, we will just stop and let her sit in the shade of the sun, and look at the windmills (though the strong winds might suddenly come, or we will leave due to some inconsiderate idiotic dog owner or smoker around us).

Or if she's tired anough, she will take a quick snooze (below is in Rachel's pram we borrowed when we went their house for lunch and took Rosabelle out for a quick walk in the park):
If she does not snooze outside, she will then come home and snooze for awhile and we will quickly try to grab our ordered lunch. Whenever she sleeps, I will do things like clipping her nails, rubbing olive oil on her cradle cap, doing some reading, or updating my blog/going online (or once in a blue moon do some pampering of myself!). The Fisher & Price chair that the Choons loaned us has been most useful in placating her whilst we all eat our meals together. If not, she will want us to entertain/play/carry her - phew!
She will at times make noise if I don't give her the food we are eating, or the cup I am drinking from, so I have had to resort to buying her her own cup and also putting water in it where she will slurp noisily and dribble incessantly from it.

After our lunch, it's a round of play again (cloth/cardboard books, stacking cups/rings, hanging mobiles...anything goes!), and nowadays, she refuses to sit - she will flex her knees and tip her toes so she can stand up - how tiring for us adults as she will trample all over my tummy!

Backtracking slightly, in Singapore, she would similarly be entertained with loads of toys and activities:
If she sees me at the laptop, she'd be very interested, and will come sit on my lap and bang away.

Once in awhile, we get visitors like Vanessa and Rachel, or these days, home interviews with the new nannies.
If all goes on track, she will take a long afternoon nap, and we'll then do a round of bottle sterilization so she can take the next feed of expressed breast milk (EBM). If she wakes up early enough and it is not cold yet, we go down for an evening walk.

I've been giving her one round of EBM every day (unless we're out for the day), to get her used to the bottle, ever since she was 6 weeks old. However, she is often distracted and does not take well to it, crying incessantly at times. However, as I was planning on going back to work, it was important that she get used to having someone else feed her using the bottle. Now that I have quit my job, it is still necessary so that I can afford to be away from her if the time calls for it, and she won't then go on a nursing strike.

We've found that the trick to getting her to drink without any violent protests is to distract her first with the TV (yes, I know it's bad) - DVD of the day now is the 'Wheels on the Bus' series that has her hooked, courtesy of the legacy of Marianne Cheh Cheh (see her trance-like state below - when she watches TV, it's only about the only time she pays scant attention to me).

After her milk and a rest of the tummy, we then bathe her (below pix were taken in Singapore - my mum used to bathe her, and here, I do it myself so I obviously cannot take pictures). She enjoys bathing and is always very excited when we start undressing her, and would at times cry if we scoop her out of the bath. In Singapore, we would bathe her after lunch as it was hot, but here, to get her into a conducive mood for bed time, we bathe her in the evenings.


We then will feed her 5ml of gripe water (to prevent wind and for relief during teething) which she laps up happily (stops drinking if we offer plain water after that as gripe water is nice and sweet).

We then prepare for dinner (nanny's been cooking for us this week), and Wayne comes back and plays with her as well). After-dinner games are more sedated, like reading nursery rhymes (she slaps the book excitedly), or Daddy-bonding time (literally, when he binds her with her stacking rings!).


After she has had her fill of fun and laughter, she will give us all (or me) this look to indicate it's time for her good night milk (she will have this look any time during the day if she's hungry or wants to look for me):
If we are lucky, she sleeps after this feed - if she still wants to play, she will struggle to sit up after she's had her fill, and shriek excitedly to indicate she is not in the mood to enter Slumberland. And we will have to entertain her till past 12 at times. If the above day sounds easy enough, add to that sleep interrupted by night feeds, diaper changes (or at times, poo accidents when she does big job and it shoots out of her diapers onto her clothes), at times crankiness from lack of enough sleep, and you get....bliss. And happiness. From having such a lovely daughter to occupy your day with and it's all worth it.