Bouncing Gym Ball!

She's really getting a kick out of the big purple gym ball that we have. She used to be sooo small next to it, but now our little one has grown up (a bit) and can stand next to the ball, using it as support! Sometimes when she's frustrated a little, she'll hit it. Sometimes the ball rolls back towards her and gives her a little scare! hehe.

This shot was taken just after she had a hearty, full bellied laugh, when I was bouncing the gym ball on the floor. Ha ha ha... I thought she'd get a tummy ache from all that hard laughing! Now.. to find out how to put videos in this blog.

She's also getting naughty now. Showing tantrums and anger when she doesn't get what she wants or when interrupted in the middle of her plans. We now have to put extra safety measures around the house as she is mobile now. She likes to crawl up to the cabinets and TV and even play around with the speaker volume nobs on the compo!

Samantha, when you grow up, you'll see this! - Daddy. 

Little Traveller... KLCC review

Here's a recent trip to Suria KLCC, the shopping complex at the based of the Petronas Twin Towers, the second tallest building in the world! Malaysia Boleh! Okay, okay.. I'm doing my little bit of patriotic duty. (I wonder if Google Ads will pick this up and display some relevant ads) hehe.

KLCC was all decorated for the Deepavali and Hari Raya celebrations.

Photographed by SuperMommy

One another note, Samantha seems to be inclined towards music. We recently went to a music store to check out some guitars and the helpful sales guy played a little tune on the guitar and even the keyboards. Samantha had that open mouth expression of amazement. Or maybe it was just looking at someone new. Hmm.. something to plan for the future.

Photo updates!

I've updated a few past entries with photos! Finally got them off my Ixus and onto the blog! Do check them out and let me know what you think.

More photos! Hooray!

With a strawberry hairclip. Hmm.. not much hair to clip now :)

Young Explorer!

She had her second swim at my brother's condo pool! This time we didn't have her tweety bird float so I had to be her floatation device as we swam in the big pool!

Fascinated with push toys!
How do I look in my new swimsuit?

There's so much water...

Also, her cousin has lots and lots of toys! My mom kept showing her toys to play with and she couldn't stop exploring! The little one really likes to explore! Her stroller is aptly named CitiSport EDT (Explore Discover Together!)

She now also has a favourite ramble.. something that sounds like ba or bub (as in bubble). :) Occassionally she says 'mum' or even 'mummy'.

Time to get her into some photo or baby contests!! She's a winner in my books :)

Clapping, pointing and assisted walking!

You lookin' at me?

This week she's learnt how to clap (more like putting hands together) and point to things she wants! Cool!

She's also playing with a new toy, a rocket like musical toy from Vtech. 3..2...1... Blastoff! Pop! and 5 little blocks come out from the bottom! She can explore music, shapes, numbers, sounds, etc from this little toy!

What a blast :) hehe

She can now 'walk' along when we hold both her hands up. Somehow little ones like to push children chairs to walk.. hmm.. her Disney Tomo walker should be quite useful from now on. See pics from last week.

Cheers!

All better now...

She's all better now. Back to PJ this week.
Here's our current wallpaper! Enjoy!

3 years and counting

It's our 3rd anniversary today!
My heart belongs to my family.

Fever no more

I'm glad to say that she broke her fever yesterday evening. We're all very relieved and she's looking much more active, displaying some tantrums when it's time to get her medicine. She now recognized an oncoming spoon! Having to eat bread for the past few meals must not be too fun for her. She still has some symptoms of her stomach flu though. The medication shall continue..

The day before she was 8.6kg. Some of the previous (tight fitting) clothes seem to fit much better now. Has her weight gone down slightly? I guess so.

Anyways, I'm very happy she's better!

Her she was last week, before her tummy flu.

*Many thanks to her daddy's friends at work who got her a really, really useful convertible plaything! :)

Fever (2)

Samantha is still not well today. It's been 3 days already. We're worried.

Fever

When it comes to little ones, any fever should be considered serious and looked into! She had a high fever yesterday night till this morning. She was literally a hot little one. Hands and feet were very warm too. I was very very concerned and worried. A GP said that she had picked up a stomach flu probably after eating something that I gave her. Medication from the doctor initially seemed to work but then she burned up again. She was even wearing the Bye-bye fever patch most of the evening and we had to sponge her with a wet hankie into the night. Poor little one.

I had to leave to come back to PJ. Will visit her the next day.

A visit to the regular specialist early this morning, and thankfully she is much better now.

Thank you Lord.

One the way to...

Time for another car trip...Where are we going?

We are going for a swim!

Hooray!

Are we there yet?

Better get some rest before I swim...

BlogThis! can't really blog this...

Apparently BlogThis! doesn't upload multiple pictures! Here's a collage created by Picasa2 of the Little One (pictures taken Oct 8).

She's 9 months now! Gee...

The first few steps

Here's the little one at home. This blog is entitled the first few steps as she had taken her first few steps! Maybe it was by mistake as she though there would be a couch there for her to support herself on! Anyways, three little steps and she was on the floor. What a good start!

This blog had not been updated for some time. Sorry babies ;)

Another first... now we're using the new Picasa2 with the BlogThis! feature. Very easy as you can select photos from Picasa2 for the blog and upload it directly! No more searching for file names and directories when uploading pictures! This is what I call neat! Try it out yourselves and do let us know your blog address.

Samantha waves bye-bye! 

Mid week visit

It's Tuesday again and a great time to visit them. Actually anytime is a great time to see the both of them. Today I went over with my mom. My mom loves the lai sar yu (buttered fish) from a restaurant here. I guess we'll be having that for dinner or supper then!

I wanted to get another photo of her in the same position on the couch. Trying to keep her still and look into the camera was more challenging than when she was younger. Younger? Hmm. the little one does indeed grow up really fast! With her sitting in my lap, I can read to her. She now has a couple of books that she can flip through. Cardboard-thick and hard pages in her little My First ABC and My First Colours books (more like booklets) that we picked up from Popular. She does have a preference for certain colours and items. Reading to her and pointing out pictures like "flower" and "fish", gets her nodding and a first "umm" from here. That's great! She's trying to talk. While she cannot say the words, she does try to talk!

At the blue wall of the playpen is a zip. This side of the wall can be 'opened' to allow for access. I unzipped this wall while playing peek-a-boo with her! She's so excited at this new entrance!!

Small screams and squeals followed. Her Patrick doggie in the background is her favourite (smell/chew) toy now. I'll have to get a spare when this one is in the wash. Cute she is. Attack the doggie, she will ;)

Here's my mom with Samantha. Kids just love to play with handbags. This time she was playing with my mom's bag and also her lipstick case.

Hey Samantha, there's plenty of time before you even start to think about lipsticks! :) hehe



Ummph!

She also now have 6 little teeth. The 4 on top are out now! Here she is holding and eating a Baby Bite rice cracker. More like a baby version of the yummy Bin Bin rice cracker ;)

Bye bye... she now knows how to wave.

Swim time!

Sunday morning, the little one went for a little swim.. but this time, it is in an inflatable pool that I bought. It's only about 3 feet in diameter and about 9 inches in height. We also got her a swim tube/seat (for babies) with a Tweety on each side of the outer tube.

As I was in PJ, I didn't see this event. "Regrets, I had a few..". Lines of this song pop into mind. I promised myself to never let work get in the way again, if I could make the difference.

Pictures and video was taken with another camera. I'll repost them here when I get a copy!

Teh o ais limau

Teh o ais limau, or more well known as Ice Lemon Tea. Well, that's what you get when you taste lemon for the first time ;)

The day before, we planned to bring Samantha swimming! This would be her first swimming adventure. We've already got her a little swimsuit from Tesco and had also received another suit from her mah mah (my mom got it from the UK).

I even got her some swim diapers. Curious to how they would work, I bought a pack of these. The packaging mentioned that they are suitable for water play and do not bulge up like regular diapers. That would be a good thing, so I thought! So we got her ready, put on the Huggies swim diapers and got her ready for her first swim adventure!

We were supposed to go to Aunty Anne's place (not the pretzel place) for a swim. The weather however had other plans and it rained, and rained and didn't stop raining. We went to Mid Valley Megamall instead. That is where I realized that the swim diapers did not really absorb anything. The little one's car seat took most of the wetness and we had to change her before hitting the mall. So, lesson learned. If you want to use the swim diapers, wear it just before you enter the water!

At dinner we ended up at Nando's and that's where the Ice Lemon Tea came into the story. Samantha did indeed like the soup and even some of the rice. As for the lemon, you can tell by the picture! :)

The little things in life

Hello there! Here I am peeking out of the playpen and having a good taste of the side edge as well!. Hmm.. that's something we've got to discourage her to do. She's fine zooming about the playpen but since she's teething, at times she likes to bite the edges with her little teeth. The top row of 4 are emerging right now, which makes the little one a very lethal one if she manages to sink her teeth into your skin! hehe. She doesn't bite... much ;)

Time sure really does fly by! She's coming up to 9 months already and it seems like just yesterday that she was wrapped up like a pink little bundle in the hospital. A tip for all, make the most of everyday. Take photos, capture memories, they speak a thousand words. One day, this will be a great gift for the little one. Her adventures as she grows up.


That's more like it! No biting! If you do notice, she's now on the other edge (green edge) now. She's getting to be braver and even tries to go from corner to edge without using much of the hand support! As you can see, the picture is a little blurred as it is rather difficult to capture the little one in action using my phone camera.

This is just an excuse for daddy to get a new toy. In due time. There will be a time for that. :) Prioritize!

Standing tall. Earlier this evening she managed to stand up again! From a sitting position, she can get up and stand! Right now, the current record is 15 seconds! This still amazes me. As she stands and tries to balance herself (wobbling back and forth and side to side) she'll break out with the warmest genuine smile of achievement! This is then followed with a squeal of delight! Thinking about this makes me want to squeeze the cute little one already!

She's now all ready for bed. Supermommy is ever present to guide the little one through her daily adventures. Time indeed does fly by if you don't take the time to live. Getting caught up if trying to make a living isn't a very good excuse. We all should live and experience the small things. After all, it's the little things that make up the bigs things. I'll be her teacher as well.

I love them both with all my heart.

Around the pen.. part 2!

On Sunday, guess what? She can zoom around the playpen! When I hid around at one end, instead of coming down, and crawl to my side of the playpen, and climb again.. she prefers to walk around, holding the edge of the playpen.. with speed too..

She lets out some little squeals of delight when I play peek-a-boo with her! Now.. where was my camera!!

Cute, she is.. no question.

That evening, she even managed to stand up (on the bed) for about 15 seconds!!! Balancing like a little pro surfer. Amazing!

Amazed, I am. Surprising, she is.

Saturday around Alamanda

Alamanda... what does that mean? Anyways, we were at Alamanda last Saturday. I was there since early morning as I had a bowling tournament there. Melissa and Samantha arrived and met me there later that evening. We had KFC and then went around the mall ending up at Carrefour!

Although I was exhausted from a long long week, the sight of both of them gave me renewed energy!

Here's some pictures of our trip. What do you think? Samantha is in the secondary baby carrier we have. It's simple but it works. :)

She also had a fun time in the shopping trolley! Looking around and playing with the coin lock. When we reached the toy section, I had to find the Elmo Boom Box! There is only one that I found from all the stores before that played the full Elmo's World Song! Why is that? the rest cut it short! "La la la la, la la la la, Elmo's World, la la la la, la la la la, Elmo's World, That's Elmo's World!" But wait.. where' the part about loving his goldfish and crayon? Seriously, there's only one that really has the full song! Anyways, she still loves the tune! :) Take a look!!

Later that night, she was up till 2! Whether it was too much excitement or waking up late in the morning, she was pretty active till she dozed at 2! She's cute even as she sleeps...

Good nite y'all... zzz

Around the pen

Tuesday evening, we took her to the clinic. This is for her little cough and we wanted to see if she had fully recovered. She did have a little wheezing sound from breathing last weekend. This also gave us the opportunity to check her growth. 8kg! Her previous measurement 2 weeks ago as 8.2kg. Well, I think she's hungry now, thats why ;)

She's really active now and loves to climb around the walls in her playpen now. She can now play peek-a-boo when we hide behind the playpen. She's also tall enough to stand up and peek over the wall to see everyone or even the TV!

Wonder how she is

Samantha is back in Semenyih this week. Dropped her off on Sunday. I wonder how she is. She's begun to recognize people earlier and needed to warm up to even some relatives of ours she hasn't seen in a week. She does recognize mommy and daddy though. What a clever girl! :)

Oh yes, if any of you ever had decided to get a playpen, please please please check it out first and try to open or close it before buying it! The one I have (brand name shall not be disclosed here) is soooo hard to open or close. I'm tempted to leave it the way it is.

Elmo's World

La la la la.. la la la la.. Elmo's World
La la la la.. la la la la.. Elmo's World
Elmo loves his gold fish
His crayon too
That's Elmo's world!!

Sammi is totally into this. If Elmo does have this effect on all children, it is true.. it is really Elmo's World! Almost bought a Fisher Price Boom Box that plays Elmo's hits today. This tune is stuck in my mind. The picture here is taken when Samantha was 4 months old when she first met Elmo and a certain cookie loving monster. Elmo is still her favourite!

Check out the fun things to do with Elmo and here:
http://www.sesameworkshop.org/sesamestreet/elmosworld/

Here's the wiki on Elmo's World:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmo's_World

What does it take to raise the little one?

Today is Saturday and it is my responsibility to take care of the little one today. So, what does it take to take care of the little one for a day?

Love, caring, attention, patience, tolerance, a whole lot of energy. This confirms my realization that Samantha has an amazing Super Mom! We both love her lots!

Today she is all smiley! Smiling wide, laughing, talking... maybe it's my turn to take care of her today? A new 'victim' for her attention? Fed her milk this morning, breakfast, bathed her and after a nap, she's all smiling! A wide open mouth smile, showing the two teeth at the bottom. A funny thing though, the top row of teeth are starting with the third and fourth, not the front two. Well, everyone is different I guess, the first two at the bottom started appearing from 4 months!

Speaking of a whole lot of energy, I'm updating this blog with a cup of coffee in hand. I guess 'office' work is a whole different type of challenge! I look forward to another day tomorrow! See ya.

Oh yes, the blog should be updated more frequently. I guess I can post post some back stories from the past week. Now, let me dig up this past week's photos. Look out for them!

Toys R Us

All ready to go in her car seat! Wearing the flower hat as well. A little wave of the hand and we're off!... to Toys R Us.







Here's a flower for the cute little one!
One thing to note, it is good that she's enjoying her trip to Toy R Us and even better that we can all leave the store without her hanging on to the toys. She was really excited about all the toys around her, especially the Elmo toys!

When we left, she was already drowsy and soon fell asleep.
Ahh.. nice.

The car wash

Here she is in my car at the car wash! We've changed the position of her seat to the front facing position. This gave her a whole new perspective of riding in the car.

Hmm.. the rollers and spraying all around doesn't seem to bother her much. She's content with her Patrick doggie!

A tip for those looking for car seats, get a quality one. After all, it's for the precious little one!

Would new parents be interested in looking for 'real-world experience' reviews of baby/toddler equipment? I realize that there's not many out there that is catered for Malaysians. This leads me to another new idea. Look out for the announcement in a future entry! Meanwhile, if you have such experience (looking/shopping/using) baby/toddler equipment, give me a buzz!

Once upon a time in...

I wonder what she was dreaming about...

Pa...

A single "Pa.." after I gave her her bath today. That made my day :)
Now to teach her to say "Ma.."

Lor Mee and Lo Shee Fun

How do you actually spell these two really delicious dishes? Once again, nods and bounces provide approval :) boing boing boing...arrrr arrr arrrr (translated to "more more more")

How to have a happy, bouncing, nodding baby

Today, she's all active.. talking her little heart out. ya ya ya... da da da... ba ba ba.. ;) I recorded some of this. Wonder what she'll think when she's old enough to understand this.

Here's the start of Samantha's food critic career. Whatever we eat, she wants some too. If it tastes good, the result is a happy, bouncing and nodding baby in the baby chair! Today she had a taste of wan tan mee and sui kow. Bounces of approval followed.

ya ya ya.. ya ya ya ya..

She's really talkative today! a mix between 'ya ya ya' and 'la la la' and 'da da da'. Words can't really describe that sound. Maybe she's just teething and it's really bugging her ;)

Also she's managed to stand unassisted for a whole... 5 seconds before crashing back down onto the bed. That's a new record. Now.. if only she'll sleep earlier!