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I know I haven’t updated for quite a while…and there are lots to update!

In the meantime tho, here’s the most recent pic I have of Elena…look closely and you may just catch a glimpse of her bottom two teeth…

Elena was with us for 3 lovely days over the long Merdeka weekend. She was such an angel…so well behaved!

Foodwise, I made potato, broccoli and pumpkin for her this week, and I also let her try some mashed bananas as well as steamed apple. She made a funny face the first time she tasted the banana, but probably decided that she liked it as she leaned forward eagerly to eat more when I put the spoon in front of her. She’s eating more now, but still not enough to be called a full meal…I really wonder when we’ll be able to reach that milestone!

When she’s not in the mood to eat, however, nothing we do can make her open her mouth. One day, she was in exactly this sort of mood. We thought that switching on her favourite DVD (Your Baby Can Read series) would keep her entertained (and somewhat distracted)…but no! She usually laughs with her mouth open when she watches the DVD, but this time…she smiled with her lips closed so we couldn’t sneakily stuff her food into her mouth… *hits forehead* My mom switched off the TV when she still refused to eat, and you know what she did? She threw a temper tantrum and absolutely refused to look at my parents. I was torn between amusement and horror (that a 7.5 mth old baby can actually merajuk) when I heard it.

Luckily, she seems to enjoy sitting in her Stokke chair now that we’ve removed the harness. I found that if I push the chair right up to the dining table, the harness isn’t really necessary. She’s quite content to sit in her chair, banging away on her tray while we grab a quick lunch or dinner.

Development wise…well, she’s now able to ‘crawl’…backwards! She moves pretty fast and I’m just wondering when she’ll start to go forwards coz when we put her in her cot, she’ll shuffle backwards till she hits the end of the cot and then she’ll start complaining (read: crying) coz she can’t move anymore. She doesn’t seem too inclined to flip from tummy to back either…very strange indeed!

I finally managed to decorate the walls of her room during the weekday and hang up the lamp that I bought for her room. She was fascinated with the hanging lamp when I brought her into her room (ok, future room… ) as it would sway when the fan is switched on. As of now, the room is still devoid of furniture as I’m waiting for Ikea’s new catalogue to come out.

All in all, it was a perfect long weekend!

I cooked cauliflower for Elena to try this week. She’s eating a bit more now compared to when we first started, but surprisingly, she doesn’t seem to have much of an interest in food…she eats as if she was being forced to!

We had a good weekend spending time with her. Going to sleep with her by my side and waking up with her snuggled against my pillow was heavenly. She’s still monopolizing the bed…in fact, she kept coming closer and closer to me that I was left with literally a sliver of space right at the edge of the bed!

We put her in her Stokke chair for the first time this week. It wasn’t easy getting her in, especially with the harness attached. I had to make some minor adjustments with regards to the height of the footrest too…my initial estimate was too low. Elena sat in the chair for awhile, but in the end, she still struggled against the restraints and we had to carry her out. Look like it’ll take some time before she gets used to it.

I finally had time to take more photos of her this week. The great thing about taking Elena’s photos is that she’ll make eye contact with the camera lens which means I’m able to get some nice face shots. The bad thing? She moves so much and so fast that many of my shots are blurry! Since the photos are usually taken in the room, I don’t have very good natural lighting and have to rely on using a slower shutter speed. Still, I did get some nice shots and here are some of my favs (the rest are all on FB)…

This is one of my favourite pics of her…she looks so relaxed and happy…

Future gymnast…

To counter my post-Elena-weekend depression (we just sent her back to my parent’s place), I started looking through photos of her when she was born.

I haven’t seen those photos for quite some time now, and boy oh boy, I was really struck by how much she has grown!

This photo of her was taken the day after she was born…look at how thin her arms and legs were! I still remember how her head could fit in my palm.

And look at her now! This photo was taken last week…she’s bonny and blithe, as active as can be.

The only thing that has not changed? Her voice. She was the loudest one in the special care nursery despite being one month premature, and today, she can still scream the house down…

We brought her back to our new house this week! In the past few days leading up to this weekend, I’d been running around like a madwoman trying to get everything ready. We’d already bought her cot and a lovely bedding set, but I had to buy extra diapers, clothes, blankets, milk powder, rice cereal, etc. etc. etc….so exhausted it’s not funny. But it was more than worth it! I was so happy to have her home, even though it was only for the weekend…she slept on our bed on Saturday night and seeing her face when I woke up the next morning was the best feeling in the world!

We also finally started her on cloth diapers this week! I washed and dried the diapers three times before passing them on to my mum to try to ensure maximum absorbency. Unfortunately, within the first 2 days, we’d already had four ‘accidents’… The thing about my girl is that she hardly pees when she sleeps (which is not a bad thing). But when she wakes up…flood alert! I think I probably didn’t put enough inserts into the diapers hence the leaks.

However, cleaning the pee-soiled diapers is easy, just remove the inserts and throw the lot into the washing machine. Cleaning the poo-soiled diaper…hmm…it was abit icky at first, but I got over it. After all, it’s the product of what we feed her…haha…! I just held the diaper above the toilet bowl and used the bidet spray to wash off the poo, soaked it overnight and then threw it along with the next day’s diapers into the washing machine. I suppose cloth diapers are a lot about trial and error…certain ones work, certain ones doesn’t…but it’s abit hard to experiment if I’m not the one using it on her most of the time…sigh….

After much researching, I finally bought a Stokke Tripp Trapp for Elena to use in our new house. I like the idea of her being able to ‘eat’ at our dining table together with us, and the feedback that I read about Stokke from the net has been really good. I bought mine from Bebehaus @ 1U…decided to go for the full monty…the chair, the baby set, cushion, harness and the plastic table top that has interchangeable bases. What color? Red!

I initially had fears about the chair tipping backwards, and it didn’t help when I found some videos on YouTube showing exactly that. However, when I ‘tested’ it at the shop, I found that the feedback and instructions in the manual was right…as long as the floor is smooth, the chair will move backwards instead of tipping. But if there’s something restricting the chair (I used my foot), then yes, it’ll probably tip backwards. Since we’ll be using it on our marble floor, I won’t have to worry about it tipping, plus our table doesn’t have an edge for Elena to push her legs against. Anyhow, children are not supposed to be left unsupervised in their high chairs in any case, so I’ll make sure I keep a watchful eye on her when she’s sitting in her Tripp Trapp!

Developmental wise, she’s now able to sit quite well by herself. However, we still have to sit behind her as she has a tendency to topple to the side sometimes (coz she bends her legs as if she’s trying to stand up), or to the back (coz she like to straighten her legs and arch her back). Her hair is finally growing thicker, but it’s still taking a really long time to grow longer. It’s quite stiff though…she definitely took after hubby in this aspect! Can’t wait till her hair grows longer…then I can start buying hair clips and hairbands…