i loovve..."Finally had some time to upload some of Elena’s videos!
Here’s one of her in her cot kicking her legs ala Riverdance. She’s looking up at her cot mobile…the typewriter-like sound is made by two tortoises moving up and down as the mobile turns. And oh…she was already kicking for a good 5-10 minutes before I started recording her… 
Good things are meant to be shared…what a lovely ad (I noticed Thai ads are usually very good…either extremely humorous or very touching). Ok la, the last part with her hair flying about is abit over-the-top, but overall, nice!
Elena turned four months old this week, and the whole family went out for dinner to celebrate. Gosh, I never knew how tiring it was to just go out for a short trip…it feels like we packed up half her stuff just to go for a two-hour dinner. She cried all the way there (I think she was felt too hot sitting in the car seat), but fell asleep at the restaurant, waking up only at the end of our dinner for her feed. We bought a little cake to celebrate, and managed to take some photos of her and my parents together.
New trick of the week
She’s learning how to hold her milk bottle! For the past week, whenever I feed her (but only when she’s not really really hungry), her hands will come up and curl around her bottle. However, once she has satiated her initial hunger pangs, she’ll start playing with the bottle. How?
1. She curls her fingers around one of the fingers on my hand that is holding the bottle and gives it a good yank. Sometimes, she does it hard enough that I end up dropping the bottle.
2. She’s in a ‘biting her fist’ mode these days. So sometimes, she actually tries to insert her finger into her mouth while the teat is still in there. Once she gains entry, she uses her fingers to push the teat out and then, in goes her fist!
3. She uses her palm to push away the bottle.
Oh, and I suppose I need not mention that she only does it when I feed her?
Sleeping
She’s still sleeping through the night, yay! However, she doesn’t take very long naps during the day unless someone is there beside her. I’ve noticed many times that after patting her to sleep and putting her down on her mattress, she’ll open her eyes slightly and peek out from underneath her eyelashes to check if I’m still around. If I am, and if she’s sleepy enough, she’ll close her eyes, give a contented sigh and fall back to sleep.
On one occasion, I put her down on her mattress only to find that she was still awake and boy…the disgruntled look she gave me was hilarious! And not only that, when she saw that I was looking at her, she rolled her eyes and juling-ed me before closing her eyes (while her mouth was still pursed up in a ‘I’m not satisfied’ look). At that moment, her wai kong happened to walk in. Elena opened her eyes slightly to look at him (but she didn’t move, only her eyeballs moved towards the doorway), and then closed it again, pretending to be asleep. Seeing that she was (purportedly) asleep, my dad walked out. As soon as he disappeared, she peeked out from underneath her eyelashes at the direction of the doorway and smiled. And then she turned back to me and juling-ed me again…
Feeding
Looks like 4oz every three hours is no longer enough. She’s asking to be fed at every 2.5 hours now, so I think we’ll have to increase the quantity to 5oz soon. Breastmilk factory is experiencing a drought due to zero demand…I predict my factory is going to go bankrupt soon.
Development
She loves it when we carry her under her armpits and let her stretch her legs. She’ll give me a huge grin everytime I carry her up! Sometimes, I wiggle her body from side to side while singing ‘La Bamba’ and she smiles every time!
She’s still watching the ‘Your Baby Can Read’ starter DVD…I’m quite impressed that she has been able to sit through the full DVD every single day! I’ve ordered the flash cards from Babyland (Set 1 was unavailable when I was there) and I’ve just received a call from them that the stock has just arrived, so at least she’ll have another thing to keep her occupied during the hours when she’s awake.
And how ’bout Mommy
My hair is DROPPING…‘nuff said.
I’ve had long hair for ages. The length may vary, but it has never gone above my shoulders.
Recently, my hair started dropping…part and parcel of post-pregnancy. I didn’t like washing my hair and towel drying it only to find lots of long strands of wet hair stuck to my towel.
The weather has also been so hot that I’ve been tying up my hair every day. Plus, I don’t even have time to let my hair dry properly before tying it up coz I don’t like carrying Elena with my hair down (in case it gets into her mouth, not to mention her hands!).
Over the past week, I mused over whether I should cut my hair short. Of course, I was apprehensive…it’ll take ages to grow it out if the cut wasn’t nice. I played with virtual makeover softwares online (InStyle & Cosmo - Cosmo’s software is easier but not that many hairstyles to choose from, InStyle’s software takes abit longer, but there are lots and lots of options). I searched for pictures of hairstyles that I wanted (couldn’t find any that I really liked). And I surfed the ‘net for hairsalons @ The Curve (I wanted to try a new place, being the serial hairstylist cheater that I am…plus, I wanted somewhere near to where I’m currently staying).
While I couldn’t find any haircuts that I particularly liked, I did read some good reviews about a hairsalon called Hairkunst, located at The Curve, and decided to give it a try.
Result?
A very much shorter and layered hairstyle which falls just slightly above my shoulders. The photo above is after a blow-dry at the salon. The next morning, after washing my hair, towel drying it and scrunching some products on, I get a more tousled/messy type of look:
What I love about the cut:
1. My head feels so much lighter
2. It doesn’t take a long time for my hair to dry naturally
3. The shorter cut accentuates the slight waviness in my hair (I’ve never noticed it before, but the stylist insists it’s there)
4. The split ends are gone!
What I love about the salon:
1. Location, location, location!
2. The senior stylist, Jojo, patiently listened to what I wanted and gave her own suggestions and input
3. Price! RM55 omg!
Do I miss my long(er) hair? Well, not really. It does feel weird running my fingers through my hair only to grasp air after a few inches though…
I’ll remember this week as the week I found out exactly how cheeky my girl can be.
Tell me…do babies at close to 4 months react this way or is it just a coincidence?
What happened was this:
Elena has learnt how to grab the tissue paper that we put under her chin whenever we feed her. The first few times, we thought she’d accidentally closed her fist near the tissue as opposed to actually grabbing it.
However, during one feed, she closed her fist around the tissue and gave a little tug. I went “Ehhhh” in my ‘warning’ voice. She stopped. Then she tugged again. Again, I went “Ehhhh”. And again, she stopped. This went on for two more times (and all the while, she was looking at me). Finally, she flashed me this super-cheeky smile (with the bottle teat still firmly stuck between her gums) and pulled the tissue right out from under her chin and threw it onto the floor.
The second time it happened was during the next feed. She did the same thing, and so did I. This time, instead of giving me a smile after we went a few rounds of ‘pull-ehhh-pull-ehhh’, she opened her eyes really wide and gave me an innocent look and pulled the tissue right out from under her chin again!
The third time it happened was the next day. Same routine, except at the end, she ‘ehhhh’-ed back at me really loudly before pulling the tissue away. And after that, she had the cheek to laugh! Yes, she opened her mouth wide and laughed and laughed and laughed soundlessly.
*faints*
Ya, don’t give me that innocent look, you cheeky girl!
My mum said she doesn’t act as if she’s just four months old. Well, I wouldn’t know, seeing as she’s my first baby! Nevertheless, it’s amusing (and exasperating) at the same time. Though I shudder to think how I’ll get bullied when she can talk and walk…