Fall Fashion

With the Beijing weather getting chilly at times these days, I've been decking Rosabelle up in thicker clothing and layering up. There are alot of hand-me-downs from Simon and Marianne, some that we got here in Beijing, and some given by my friends.

This is her looking boy-like - the only give-away are the flowers on the pair of corduroys, and the girly shoes. I got her two pairs of shoes (one from Mothercare, and the other from Osh Kosh) in Singapore, in anticipation of her first step, and so she will not get chilly feet in the cold weather. The sweet-looking shoes have met with alot of oohs and aahs from the other mummies in the yard, but I get heartache when I see her dirtying/scraping them when she crawls on the benches, or even stepping on her own toes when standing. Ho hum - that's what shoes are for anyway, huh? And then there's the furry bunny top, which makes her look oh-so-girly like. But the other day, she got into a screaming match witha two-year-old boy. She likes looking at/playing with Mai Dou, and was sitting in her stroller, eating dragon fruit, when Mai Dou appeared in front of her on a bicycle and started screaming. Our girl also started her screams, albeit with fruit in her mouth that dropped out at times. This to-ing and fro-ing screaming went on for at least 6 to 7 times, much to the amusement of many other on-looking kids and mummies. They are known as the screamers in the yard now.

I like to layer on thick dresses, but you'll be surprised with the occasional 'Is this a girl or boy?' question I still get when I dress her up like this. (Cue roll eyes...)

A perennial favourite with the crowds in this hooded cape that makes her look like Little 'Red' Riding Hood. It makes her so soft, cuddly, and warm to carry when she dons this.

On Wednesday, we visited our ex-colleagues in their swanky new premises at China Life Tower, and the Mercedes Benz account team even gave Rosabelle a small car model - nice! Surprisingly, she only put up a slight protest when Maggie, our ex-HR Manager, wanted to carry her. She (Rosabelle, not Maggie) was donning a woollen H&M dressfrom my ex-colleague, but it was prickly for her chin whenever she looked down. Not as comfy, I guess.

Finishing the topic of fall fashion, and on to falls...well, not yet, luckily. Yesterday was the nanny's day off, and since Yours Truly was the chef, Rosabelle had simplier meals, but I made sure she still got her dose of soups, meat and vegetables with items like chicken/vegetable cereal, instant fish/potato puree, and fish floss, which she tried for the first time and I added to the cereal. Breakfast was a simplier affair, with her enjoying buttered wholemeal bread with yogurt that Vanessa recommended I get from Jenny Lou's.

However, I realized only yesterday she has now cultivated a bad habit of standing during the course of eating, so she will suddenly stand up and rock the chair, or even clamber onto her table and want to reach out to me or the dining table. Me, with my hands already busy from having to hand-feed her the food at times, almost lost my patience a few times with my numerous 'Cannot!', 'No!', and 'Sit down!', until Wayne told me he has noticed the nanny holding onto one of her ankles at times to prevent her from standing up. That worked! Well, at least for awhile, until she got all distracted again.

She now has yet another wierd habit of spitting out her food at times, or even sticking her fingers into her mouth to grab the food out and mash with her fingers. So. mes.sy. We had to mop the floor twice yesterday as she first knocked down the carrot soup I was feeding her, and later knocked down the cup of water Wayne was feeding her. Sigh! We had to ask the nanny today to take only two days off during the upcoming October holidays, or the whole house will turn topsy-turvy!

Yet another hilarious thing that happened during meal time this week was when Wayne called me out to look at Rosabelle whilst I was in the midst of expressing milk. Apparently, she had fallen asleep midway through dinner, and the nanny was calling 'Yue Yue! Yue Yue!' as she gently patted her cheeks, but her eyes remained glued shut as she sat in her high chair, with food still in her mouth. It looked pretty funny, but I had to wake her up and called out to her and she opened her eyes after about 1 minute of snoozing, and of course cried for a few seconds until she was pacified pretty quickly by toys, heh!

Our little girl can now comprehend the little instructions we give her, like when I asked her to let Wayne see her book, she called 'Papa!', and then pointed at the spider when I asked her to 'show Papa the spider'. She will also wave her hands in a 'cannot!' fashion when she goes near the DVD, or when I tell her not to touch the boiling kettle as it's hot, or warn her about clamping her fingers in the back door of the army toy truck. Similarly, she will roll her wrists in a 'no more' fashion when we show her an empty bowl, or when something (e.g. a dog) goes out of sight.

She has strong imitation skills now - when I teased her with a toy during dinner just now by putting it out of her reach whenever she came near, she also did the same thing to me by extending the toy to me, then pulling back when I went near, complete with cheeky grin. So fun! Whenever she wants something these days, she will break into a '拿!拿!' (Take! Take!) to get at it. For milk-time, she will start chanting 'nen nen nen nen nen' (to refer to the fact that she wants a feed).

It's all quite amusing to see her progress and understand us, as well as making herself understood, with each passing day. Our girl is really growing up so quickly I don't know where all the time has gone...