Almost A Year

Evan, 11 month old

My baby boy is getting older. Though he is probably not gaining so much weight. He looked slimmer, not very fatty and chubby, but healthy, grow, and develop well. I enjoyed watching him mastering new skills day by day.

At his 10 month old age, I could say he was really on the move. He could control his movement from standing to sitting without toppling over. He learned to balance his body so that he could get up from kneeling to stand up on the floor only for a few second. He was also started to walk by holding on hands or furniture. So we had a lot of fun practises pre-walking movements He loved pushing furniture and we started to hold his hands to walk him around the house. He even could stand unaided and made a few steps if I let go of his hand!

His exploration on food has widen. One day we went to a restaurant (TGIF) and had a blast of new food. He had his first french fries and fried sweet potato and pear in slices, and he loved them. But I still give him plain chicken/meat porridge with vegetable on daily basis.

There's something that quite annoying. That was when he mastering his fine grasp between finger and thumb, and very accurate, and have full control of his hands. He was so in love with dropping and picking up games. He would drop food, toys, or spoon-everything endlessly from highchair then watch them fall, then shout and point for me to pick them up, only for him to drop them again.

However, I was so excited to see that he finally could stack his sized cups and rings in the pole, and that he enjoyed put things to the bucket or container, not for so long, though, as he got distracted to something else easily.

Another interesting thing was he would stay still and listen when I talk as if I was reading one of his book. At least it save my time and energy when feeding and changing nappy. His favorite was the story about Toby's Train :)

As for the schedule, there was a slight change:

7am = wake up, bottle
8.30 = breakfast: cereal &fruit
9am = bath
10am = bottle
10.15 = morning nap
12pm = lunch : porridge

2pm = snack (fruit or bread or anything)
3pm = bottle
3.30 = afternoon nap
5 pm = dinner : porridge
06.30 = bath, then play and read book
7.30 = bottle
8 pm = sleep
4 am = bottle

New other things he had last month:

- I notice sometimes lullaby bothering him. He would put his hand on my mouth as if saying "please don't sing anymore, i want to sleep!" :)

-However, lullaby still be a perfect weapon to make him settle when restless or difficult to get to sleep. Come To the Window and Twinkle-Twinkle Little Star usually will make him finally asleep and settle.

- Having the room pitch dark will make him go to sleep better.

- Walking walking walking. That's what he want most of the time when he is awake. Hardly play with his toys anymore. He just love to walk and touch things on the way, or walk and push chairs or tables.

The highlight was just a day before he turned 11 month old, somehow he tripped when he crawl. He bumped his face to the hard floor. That was the first time he got really injured after lots of hit, bump, and fall. This time his lips were bleeding, quite bad, followed to the swollen of his upper lip. I learned that the ice was helpful to stop the mild bumping injury. His swollen lip was gone after around 3 hours. Still, it was a heartbreaking looking at him bleeding and crying.

M Day

It's a Mother's Day today here in this part of the world.

I celebrated by a surprise cake bought by Hubby and a time-off to the mall. Wish Sale still on, though :(

Mother's Day here is actually quite big. Sign and offer in relation to this day are everywhere in the mall.

Mother's day in Australia is in May, and December in Indonesia. This year I should have 3x mother's day! :)

Something to play with

Just an update of new toys I recently crazy about

* Canon EOS 450D - I finally bought it. But it's not on my hand yet, coz I didn't buy it here. The price here is ridiculously expensive (3x more expensive). So I asked Dad to buy it for me, and i'll pick it up later, in Jakarta, hopefully soon, as planned. Can't wait to play with it.

* Scrapblog.com -Love this. I've been trying to make the real scrapbook for four years and have no result. It need lots of time, material, and equipment. But with this digital scrapbook, at least I can finally start to make one.

* epaper.kompas.com - a digital version of Kompas newspaper. Now I can read Kompas newspaper without even subscribe it, whenever, wherever I am! It's free, easy to use, and fast. They upload new issue exactly at 00:00 WIB so I practically can read it first (it's 5 hours ahead than Jakarta, here) while people in Indo still sleeping and will get and read the real issues in the morning-their time. You can even read issues from days before! Impressive!

* Facebook.com - of course, same as thousand other people in the world. It's amazing on how it could drag my memory into my life 20 years ago, how I could meet lots of old friends. I enjoyed looking at friend's photos and their status, as well as changing my own status and make comments on other's. I even quite addicted to one of the virtual e-game they have. It's sooo bad so that facebook is the first site I visited everyday and everytime I go online. But I know I'm not alone :) Wonder how long this Fb-euphoria would last.

Almost Walking

Evan, 10 months old

My baby boy is 10 months old now. I looked at his photos when he was still a small baby. Such a different look! His face is not as round and full as before. Yet he still looks sweet-cute little asian boy. He is also very very active, that made me finally give up to do everything by myself and decided to have a full time maid. Means that I'm now have maid who come everyday, works 7 hours a day, except weekends and public holiday. I worried at first, but I'm glad now. She is not the best, but she is quite good. She can do almost everything including cooking, baking, and sewing. And most important is that she listen to what I said and get along well with Evan. However I haven't have a heart to leave Evan with her alone yet.

As usual, here is the update news about what has happened in the 9th months age.

Nine months was the time to change a few things, again. It was the time for doctor check up and another boost of Hep B vaccination. He was 10,5kg, 77 cm. Couldn't believe he only gain 1 kg in 3 months. But doctor said it's normal considering he is more active and release more energy.

He got better in cruising along the floor. I could say he mastered standing-up-with-support last month. He learned to bend his knee to go back down after standing up. He got to stand up and browse tables, curious and touch everything on the table. A clock and a frame broke from this new habit. He started to stand without support in the cot only for a few second, and started to move his legs high when I try to hold him to walk. His hand, feet and body are getting stronger so that he could push chairs and tables when he kneel or walk. We started to get busy watching him so he didn't fall to the hard floor. Though he bumped his head couple times on the floor or wood furniture and had bruises (ouch!).

He started to like books more. He could flip the book's pages and busy with them for a couple minutes (only). :)

The highlight for last month was the change of routine and diet as doctor said he is ready to eat more solid food like rice, chicken, and meat. Oh dear,.. that was hard. There was a trial and error to make porridge that he likes. It takes about 3 weeks until I finally found the right way.

He didn't look impressed at first, but then gradually he get used to new food. But it quite hard to feed him in the high chair. He just didn't like to get trap in the chair. I gave him variation of vegetable, meat and chicken, plus variation snack like cheerio, biscuits, boiled pasta/carrot/broccoli, steamed fruits, and bread. He started to eat french fries to sometimes when we eat out. He could eat finger food by himself and enjoyed them. I don't - it's soooo messy! ;0

We also change the way he drink milk, so that since then he always had milk before bed, which make my life easier. He would easily finish the milk and fall asleep. Though he still need a doze of milk in the middle of the night to make him go through the night.

So here is his schedule started last month

7am = wake up, bottle

8.30 = breakfast: cereal &fruit

9am = bath

10am = bottle

10.15 = morning nap

12pm = lunch : porridge

02.30 = bottle

3pm = afternoon nap

4.30 = dinner : porridge

05.30 = bath, then play and read book

6.30 = bottle

7 pm = sleep

3 am = bottle

Other than that, here are some new habits and skills I acknowledge :

- he shrank his eyes, making his eyes looked more chinese when he smile.

- when have bottle before bed, I'll hold him on my lap, and he'll hold the bottle with his right hand, and the other hand will scratch his un-itchy head.

- started new routines before going to bed at night: 4B (Bath, Book, Bottle, Bed)

- No more interested in Danny & Daddy tv show. Watch Barney sometimes. Looked interested in quick changing moving pictures like ad on TV.

- Song he like: The Wheel on The Bus, Incy Wincy Spider, Balonku, and Naik2 Ke Puncak Gunung.

- His favorite book is Barney is Big and Busy Book: In the Garden.