sooyindotcom

The solid food journey continues! As Elena is quite prone to rashes and has had mild cases of eczema, instead of following the ‘wait-three-days-before-trying-new-food’ rule, we decided to extend it to one week before letting her try something new. This week, I prepared pureed organic carrots for her…I steamed the carrots and then mashed it through a sieve. Since babies won’t be on pureed food for a very long time, I thought I could get away with using a sieve vs. buying a hand blender. So wrong! My hands were so tired by the time I finished!

During the past week, my mom fed her during the day while I was at work and she told me that if I let Elena see the spoon going towards her mouth and say 1….2….she’ll obediently open her mouth at the ‘3’. I tried that on Saturday with the pureed carrots…and you know what happened? The minute she saw the spoon, she cried! And again, she started squirming to get out of her chair…I barely got anything into her mouth before I had to carry her out of the chair to pacify her! My mum had more success when we tried again during her next feed, but she took at most one teaspoonful of carrots before she started squirming to get out of the chair again. During the rest of the week when my mom fed her, she also did the same thing…ate a few spoonfuls and started squirming. I wonder if it’s the chair or the food?

This week was also the week Elena ‘found’ her voice. She has started screaming and squealing for no reason…actually, I wouldn’t say for no reason…I think she screams for fun! She’ll just look at you, open her mouth and screeeeeaaaaammmm till her face turns red! And boy…she is LOUD! My dad could hear her screaming as soon as he steps out of the elevator… Who would’ve thought my little angel would have the voice of a little devil?

The rash at the bottom of her chin never really subsided (it comes and goes) and it flared up quite badly at the beginning of the week so we brought her back to the child specialist again. This time, she prescribed a mild steroid cream to apply together with the intensive moisturizer (Cetaphil) that she prescribed last time…I was really apprehensive about using the steroid cream, but it reached a stage where the patch became really red and raw looking. I was so afraid that it would get worse so we applied a little bit of the steroid cream for two nights. As soon as it started improving, we stopped the steroid but continued on with the moisturizer…and yay, it worked! For the first time in a long long time, the rash disappeared and the skin at her chin became nice and smooth.

Developmental milestones…she’s learning how to sit! She still needs support, of course, but she’s getting quite steady in the tripod position (hands supporting her body)! Can’t wait for the day she can sit all by herself…then I’ll have a new angle for taking photos… !

After much thought, I finally bought her the Fisher Price Rainforest Jumperoo. I’ve wanted to buy it for quite some time as I know she loves to ‘jump’ (she always kicks her legs whenever we carry her), but it’s so expensive! Furthermore, she won’t be able to use it for a long time as the weight limit is around 11kgs, though I suppose when she outgrows it, I can always sell it off. I did hunt around for other alternatives but this was the only one that allowed her to jump safely (vs. the jumpers that are attached to the doorframe) so I decided…what the heck…why go back to work if I can’t buy stuff for my darling girl whenever I want, right? In the end, I was so glad I purchased it!

It’s very sturdy, very colorful and although Elena looked abit apprehensive when we first put her in, she soon found her footing (literally) and she looked pretty happy in it!

We went out as a family this week for my birthday dinner. Poor girl…when she was born, we hardly ever took her out as she was premature and I was super-paranoid that she will fall sick with all the germs floating around. Then, when she got bigger, the H1N1 flu started going around, and so we kept her in the house as much as possible too. So whenever we do bring her out (usually for dinners, and it’s usually at Chinese restaurants where we can book a room), she gets so excited and starts looking around…her head swivels like a table fan! Left…right…up…down!

The highlight of this week…we started her on solids! I bought a box of organic rice cereal, and on Saturday, she had her first mouthful! She was quite eager to eat as she kept moving forward to ‘receive’ the spoon. However, she doesn’t like to be confined to the booster chair…and after a while, she got impatient and started squirming, so we had to stop. I think she ate less than half a spoonful of cereal… and here I thought she would wallop the whole bowl…

There was one night when hubby and I were out till quite late…we were shopping for house stuff again…and when we came back, my mom told me that Elena couldn’t go to sleep. We figured she was probably so used to seeing me at night that she could sense something wasn’t right that night. My mom said that she would fall asleep in her arms for awhile, then wake up, look around, give a little whine, then close her eyes again…fall asleep, wake up, look around…it went on the whole night till I came home, poor girl! I felt so bad when my mom told me about it…

She has also been doing some funny stuff with her mouth. She’ll pucker it up and make a ‘chup-chup’ type of sound…I think her gums are itchy and she’s trying to relieve the itch by sucking on the side of her cheeks. She looks like a little goldfish when she does that!

She’s smiling a lot these days, and there are times when I look at her and think…gosh, she’s going to grow up to be such a cheeky lil’ girl! She has this cheeky grin that makes her look as if she’s up to no good and every time I see her smile like that, I can’t help but to think to myself…I’m gonna have one bundle of mischief on my hands once she starts walking and talking!

A short one this week…

My little girl is learning how to crawl! When she’s on her tummy (and not busy chewing off her fingers), we can see that she’s trying to use her legs to push herself. Her bum goes high up in the air, and her legs start kicking…unfortunately, she doesn’t get very far (in fact, she hardly moves at all!) and it frustrates her so much that after some time, she’ll start crying…

She can now hold her sippy cup with both hands and direct it to her mouth. In fact, she loves drinking water so much that when we taken the cup away from her (babies shouldn’t be fed too much water…at most 3-4 oz a day when they’re not on solids), she refuses to let go and actually gets angry!

We took her to the paed on Tuesday for her monthly immunization, and gosh…she’s already 7.8kgs! As usual, she only cried when the needle went in and was fine after that…it’s a lucky thing she has chubby thighs….haha…not so painful!

…to see Elena smiling at me gives me such great joy.

I’d been busy the past few nights, following hubby out to search for stuff for the house. On Tuesday night, my darling girl was taking her evening nap when I got back from work, and by the time we got back from house-stuff shopping, it was already past her bedtime and she was asleep again. My mom told me that she was very agitated when my mom was putting her to sleep at night…it was as if she was already used to seeing us during that time of the night and couldn’t fall asleep (this happened another time as well when I was out late…she would close her eyes, nod off, and then wake up, look around and make some noise…then close her eyes, nod off and wake up again…).

Yesterday, I left work at 5pm sharp and made it home by 5.45pm. The minute I popped my head into my mom’s room, Elena turned and looked at me and my heart really felt like it was going to burst with joy. She was so very excited, smiling widely and as I got closer (my mom was carrying her), she waved her arms wildly and tried to touch my face (and ended up hitting me instead… ) and kicked her legs as if she wanted me to carry her. You cannot imagine how happy I felt at that moment (and guilty too, for not being able to spend more time with her!). I cuddled her and buried my face in the crook of her neck…gosh, I love that sweet baby smell…and gave her kisses all over!

That night, after we got back from house-stuff shopping (again) and after her last feed, I carried her over to the bed to sleep with us. She lay in the crook of my arm, turned over sideways and kinda ‘hugged’ me (I say kinda coz her arms are still so short… ). I held her close and patted her…and when I peered down at her to check if she was asleep, I saw that her eyes were still wide open, but she was just laying still in my arms as if she was enjoying being held (and those who know my girl knows that she hardly ever stops moving). And then after awhile, she gave a little sigh, closed her eyes and went to sleep.

So you can imagine how hard it was for me to get up this morning, leave her in bed and go off to work…

Jocelyn, from Jenlia Maternal Services, paid us a home visit this week. She was recommended by a friend of mine, and I decided to buy the 5-times home visit package @ RM100 per visit as Elena’s visits to the paed at DSH will lessen soon as she’s finishing off most of her immunizations. During each visit, Jocelyn will assess Elena’s development to ensure that she does not miss any important milestones, as well as check her general health and weight, and also help to answer any questions we may have. This visit was timely as Elena will be starting solids soon and I had tons and tons of questions to ask!

Elena’s development is right on track, and Jocelyn commented that she’s a very happy, contented and well-stimulated baby (thanks to my mum who plays with her every day while I’m at work!). The funny part was that when we were talking, Elena started babbling as if she wanted to be included in the conversation!

Jocelyn also recommended a book that she co-wrote, Asian Parenting Today, which I bought the very same evening…it had a really helpful section/schedule on solid-feeding which would make it very much easier for all of us!

Elena’s rash at her chin has unfortunately gotten worse, and despite using the Sebamed Facial Cream daily, the red and scaly patch refused to disappear. She was also getting a kind of rash on her body as well, it looked like goose pimples that wouldn’t go away! We went to the children specialist near our place and the doctor said that the rash on her body as well as her chin was actually eczema. She gave us a more gentle bath oil to use as well as a tube of Cetaphil intensive moisturizer. Luckily, after applying it for a few days, the red patches finally began to subside! We were all so relieved to see Elena’s skin return to it’s original baby soft state… …