Dearest Sophie,

Happy 1st Birthday!!!!!

We are so proud of you our little one and just so so happy that you are in our lives. We thank God for his love and grace upon your life. You are so blessed!

Mommy has been planning for your birthday party (held last Sat) the past few weeks:- calling all your friends, putting together all your favourite things (ducks, balls, balloons, food, bright colours etc…), choosing the special candy castle cake with special star candles, and more. We chose everything that you could recognise and name. Hee that kinda explains why the theme was simply Sophie – your fav things and friends.

I was so happy when you arrived and immediately started smiling and enjoying yourself playing with your friends! After that, I couldn’t find you most of the time coz everyone was trying to carry you or play with you. You were passed from person to person. Mommy and Daddy had a great time catching up with friends that we haven’t caught up with for a while.

All your friends and family brought special presents that they took time to choose for you. We thank God for each one of them. They are all very special to us. Every person invited for the party is special to us. I pray that you will grow up to love and treasure each of your friends and family members like the way we do. (P/s a special shout out to DN and Beks who were ill and couldn’t make it to the party. We pray you’ll get well soon and we missed you!)

Mama and Yeye made special porridge for you that day. You ate so much! Grand aunt was so amused that you ate so fast. I’m really glad that you have no problems with food and eating and have mastered self-feeding with a spoon. You are now able to self feed for lunch and dinner, after which I’ll give you a bathe.

Daddy and I have one conclusion. You love FOOD and COMPANY. If you have either, you’ll be totally satisfied.

Today being your actual birthday, we spent the morning opening the presents (ya! Daddy made us wait till your actual birthday to open them. I tried to convince him otherwise but failed! Argh ) and then we went to Sentosa! We went to the beach, had lunch at Cafe Del Mar (hee… a treat for Daddy and I for making 1 year! ), Underwater World, had tea at Vivocity and back home.

You really enjoyed yourself! You kept saying "wah, wah" when we were at the Underwater World tunnel. Super funny. And you were such a good girl, falling asleep at the right times – lunch and tea. Daddy and I had such a relaxing time just chatting and chilling.

You’ve been such a darling to us and we love you. Happy Birthday sweetheart.

Love
Mommy

P/s for party and Sentosa photos, look here.

Dearest Sophie,

You are one month away from your 1st birthday! Do you know that you’re so blessed? You’ve already received 2 birthday presents and it’s not even your birthday yet.

I can’t believe how long we’ve been together as a family. Right now I can’t even remember how life was like before you arrived. You’re such a gift and joy that it was prob quite boring before this.

The past month you’ve learnt to

- pull yourself to stand on our living room table
- stand on your own for like 3 secs
- waved bye and hello
- clap on command (yes! finally!)
- say ball when you see balls and point to the balls in the book when asked
- say woo woo when you see a dog
- help to put back your toys when asked to
- eat on your own with your hands in public
- recognise familiar people and "call" them
- play with other kids

So simple i can even clap with my eyes closed!

Look at that look! I got daddy’s watch! Hiak hiak..

Sophie’s first time eating on her own in public! Look at the rice all around her mouth! haha… Don’t be fooled by the spoon… she uses her hands and thank God for the Munchkin that have the best suction bowls around. Super useful for self feeding in public… We had pepper crabs and bamboo clams while sophie had rice. Kept her busy for the whole dinner. Yipee!

Sophie helping out in the housework by sorting tupperware, in her bathtub. Mommy, this cover doesn’t fit this tupperware! Ya right… haha that will be the day… I was trying to keep her at one area in the kitchen while i was cooking her lunch. So i put her in her bath tub. A no no coz right after she got bored, she tried standing and crawling out of the tub. Argh…

Yesterday night, you played with your cousins for the first time. We played catching. You were squealing and having so much fun! Hee… a bit tiring carrying you and running after the two older girls but I really enjoyed doing that with you. You really love playing and you love your toys. You are so happy when people come over and play with you. Sometimes other kids are busy with their own things but you’ll keep going to them, wanting to play with them.

This is Sophie’s fav past time. Watching kids play at the playground. She can do this for a long time and I can eat Pocky (strawberry) and read newspapers. I’m going to enjoy this while it lasts…. before she starts walking and demands to join in the fun!

My favorite time with you is when we get tired from playing and we lie on the floor and you lie on me for like a few mins. I really hope that you’ll never stop doing that.

We love you very much little chickabee!

Love
Mommy

Dearest Sophie,

I can’t believe it! It’s been ten months since you’ve entered into our lives and turned it all around, in a good way. You’re turning 1 in 2 months. Wow….

You’ve started crawling around lots (still commando style) and really fast if you have your eye on something. You spend your days exploring everything – the carpet, shoes, mommy’s magazines, food crumbs, handphones etc… It’s amazing how you can spot all the small little crumbs that I missed. Thanks for pointing it out to me so I can clear it! You also help to clean the floor each time you crawl. Very helpful. Hee… Recently you’ve ventured into the rooms and sometimes I can’t find you. But you love to be found… coz I will also come to lift you up, give you a hug and big kiss!

You love food and you’ll eat almost anything. So far you’ve not rejected any food. However, you’ll get bored if I feed you all the time and you have nothing to feed yourself with. You’ll also start making noise if I take too long to get your food ready. It’s thankfully easy to feed you and I really thank God for that. It brings me SO much pleasure seeing you finish all your food. Since you turned 9 mths, we started you on tea time. You get an extra yogurt treat after your nap and milk. You love it! I’m totally amazed that you can finish one tub of Yoplait Baby Yogurt (rather big one actually..) at tea and 2 hrs later, have dinner. Where does all your food go?!?! Let’s hope that it’s the brain… hee.

You love new things, new toys and new experiences. Flip side is that you get bored easily. I used to divide all your toys into 4 bags. One bag for each week of a month, hoping that you’ll forget about your first set of toys by the time it comes back to its turn. But nowdays, by the second/third day you’re bored and you can’t be bluffed. So we have to rotate your toys every few days. It’s cool coz on the first day each time, you can spend a long time sifting through the whole bag giving me lotsa time to catch up with cooking and chores. Although you like new experiences, it generally takes you a while to warm up like the last time at the Gym class.

You love to interact. You love playing "Where’s Sophie" – I’ll pretend that i can’t find you and look around for you and you’ll wait for me to find you (establish eye contact) and if I still don’t, you’ll make some noise like "hey!", and I’ll say "oh there you are!" and you’ll smile and laugh. You love it when people ask you "What sound does a lion make?" and you’ll give your famous roar! It’s hilarious! We’ve since moved onto "What sound does a monkey make?". You love it when people come by or if you see kids at the playground. You’ll stretch out your hand to touch them. It’s so cute when you do that. You’ll also smile widely at the next door uncle each time he calls you. Sometimes you wave bye.

You’ve started "talking" a lot and your general understanding has grown lots! Very noisy these days. All sorts of sounds you make. Sometimes you imitate me, esp me last word. You’ve started calling "dada" or "di" or "da…di" when I ask you where’s daddy. But you’ve yet to call me "mama". Instead you call me "nana" or "jiejie"… strange…. It’s really fun to communicate with you these days… You seem to know a lot of things like when i say mummum which is time to eat and you’ll start moving your lips/mouth, would you like a drink and you’ll look at the bottle, you’ll point at various things in the books as I read, etc…

You can jive! You’ve started bouncing to music recently. You don’t do it very often but it’s very funny when you do.

You fell sick for the very first time (besides the colic) last week. It’s been hard on you sniffing and having a runny nose, throwing up in bed and being completely miserable. But thank God you’re ok now and you could still sleep through the night without much difficulty. It’s only in the daytime that you need me with you most of the time. On the other hand, we spent the past few days exploring every part of the house since we couldn’t go out!

And most of all, I think I am your fav person in this whole wide world. It’s been hard to leave you on your own these days coz I think separation anxiety has set in big time. On good days you’ll play by yourself while I’m in the kitchen but on bad days each time i put you down, you’ll whine or protest. Also when Daddy n I go on a date or when i leave to go to the market, you will cry! Poor thing you. You just started doing this coz in the past you’ll be totally nonchalent esp if mama (my MIL) plays with you. I really hope you’ll grow out of this and be really confident that I will never leave you and not come back.

Daddy and I love you very much.

Love

Mommy

Dearest Sophie,

This is a photo of you turning towards the CD player and "dancing" to the song! Everyday we’ve been playing you the same CD and you love it and can recognise it each time we turn it on. You’ve started learning to dance and move to it. So cute! That’s you on the right watching TV.

I can’t believe it. 3 more months and you’ll be a year old. It’s amazing how time flies.

We’ve been doing a lot more this month coz you’re staying awake longer, getting more mobile and constantly taking everything in. We go for walks, go out with friends, go shopping, do a bit of singing and dancing, experiment diff foods and recipes etc.

You are really well behaved most of the time and I really thank God for that. You can pretty much manage sitting in the stroller when we’re out shopping or out for walks. Once we took you out with our friends to East Coast for seafood till 12am and you did so well! You took a little nap before we went and lasted thru the dinner in the high chair. Hee… but you had a major meltdown just before we got to the car to go home but once the car started, you were fine.

You really enjoy being in the company of people. As long as there are people around, you’ll be very happy.

Jimmy trying to take a pic w you while you were awake. You were not very pleased but he was i think. hee…

On Sat nite, we had friends over. At abt 9 plus, you were asleep but i think you heard us laughing and started to cry really loudly. I tried to rock you, nurse you (YA!) etc… but you just wouldn’t go back to sleep. Finally I took you out to meet everyone. After 1/2 hr, we put you back to sleep and you slept on your own, totally satisfied that you’ve seen the crowd. You are so funny.

You love it when Uncle next door says hi or when the kids come running. You’ll SMILE at them. Actually most times you smile at most people, esp those you know. Really cute. The auntie downstairs calls you smiley gal.

You are starting to really enjoy the company of your grandparents. Oooo they love you SO SO MUCH! Grandpa wants to carry you all the time. He has successfully put you to sleep a few times. Ye ye did that too recently. Ma ma and occasionally Grandma has been looking after you while mum n dad go on dates or out with our friends. We actually are starting to have a life again. Woo hoo!

What are some of the new things you’ve been doing this month?

1. Sitting with us at the dinner table for meals. This is great coz when we go out for meals, you will happily sit on the baby chair and play.
2. Experimenting with finger foods and practising your pincer grasp (using the first two fingers to pick up things)
3. Clap. Ok… you don’t actually clap but you recognise the word and will hold your hands up and sometimes together. Think you haven’t quite figure how to put them together and release them. Hee.
4. Wave bye. I’ve seen you do this but you don’t do it all the time.
5. Stand. You love standing. You are still crawling on your tummy using your hands to pull yourself forward and you can’t pull yourself up yet properly BUT you love to stand. You just want to stand.
6. Fascination w buttons, strings, zips
7. Talking to other kids. You’ve started trying to "talk" to other kids but not many "talk" back coz they are all busy moving around. Since you can’t move much, you talk. Hee.
8. Laugh and scream really loudly. Your voice is quite soft, at least that’s what most people say but recently i noticed that you’ve been laughing loudly and screaming, just for fun. Hmmm…
9. You’ve dropped one nap, so down to two.
10. Your tooth has emerged!

There must be a million more new things you’ve done and Mommy is struggling to keep up with you!

That’s you preparing to go to sleep.

You are truly a joy to have around. Such a blessing… Everyday we thank God for you my darling…

Love
Mommy

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Originally uploaded by sophie8mths

Dearest Sophie,

You are 8 mths old today! 4 more months and you’ll be a year old. Time really flies…

You’ve grown up so much since the trip to Australia. You’ve been smiling and lauging a lot more at things around you. You actually know what to laugh at and how to smile at the camera! Funny gal you…

Aiyo you smile a lot and also whine a lot. Maybe you’ll be a cross between a sanguine and a melancholic, like your mummy me!

You did SO well on the trip. Your grand aunties all commented that you are very well behaved. They said that for a baby, you did really well coz you were out with us from morning till nite almost every day! For two whole weeks. Thank God for the times you were cranky and they were really forgiving bearing with your cries – refusing to sit in the car seat (you know it’s against the law!), refusing to take a nap, refusing to let others carry you at nite… Mommy is SO proud of you little trouper!

Since you’ve been back, you’ve started to sleep thru the nite again. Thank God coz during the trip we did so many no nos, like patting you to sleep, nursing you to sleep so that we will not disturb the rest of the family. But you’re really good… within a few days you’re back to normal sleeping patterns. You’re even sleeping till 7plus these days! What a treat for me!

You’ve also started moving forwards on your own by pushing with your hands, not quite a proper crawl yet but i think you’re getting there. But you get really frustrated when you are tired of launching forward and you can’t get your toy.

Recently you’ve become very attached to Mommy, I can’t seem to leave you alone to play. I have to carry you all over the place to sit on your bumbo – into the kitchen, dining room etc.. It’s also been quite hard on your grandparents coz you are not very willing to be carried by them. Sigh… i hope this separation anxiety, where you start to realise that you’re a separate person from me, will be short term. I know it’s tough but no worries ok? once you start being able to move on your own, you’ll prob be glad you’re not the same person as me! Heh…

We love you VERY VERY much and I pray that you’ll continue to bloom as this cheery gal that we’ve come to know…

Love lots lots
Mommy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dearest Sophie,

You are 7 mths old today! Mummy finally managed to take a picture of you sitting unsupported!

You’ve been able to sit unsupported for a while already but not for very long. But as the days go by, you are getting steadier n steadier. You can even sit in the bathtub to have your bath now, which means you can splash water and play with your rubber duckies that Jovann’s mummy bought for you.

Yesterday, mummy saw you attempting to crawl! But it was more like a snake, you were desperately moving your body to get to the $30 on the bed. Smart gal!

Nowadays your grip is really strong and you try all sorts of ways to pull stuff from all over the place – from the table, behind you on the changing table, my hair, our glasses etc… You can grip onto the curtains and stand on the sofa too!

You’ve started eating baby biscuits and you love it. You’ll cry when there’s no more. You eat really fast too. A bit stressful to feed you coz you’ll cry when I feed you too slowly! You can finish latching on and eating solids in all but 15 mins. I counted today. You’re already onto 3 solids meals a day – breakfast, lunch n dinner with a milk feed at tea.

The most wonderful thing is that you’ve started sleeping thru the nite without waking up for feed from 7 – 7. Sometimes you wake up a bit earlier but that’s ok coz i’m so happy i get to sleep thru the nite too! Good gal!

You’ve been a really happy baby, constantly smiling. It’s so nice to see you smile all the time….. i love just watching you smile and happy. I love it when i tickle you and you laugh. But you turn into another baby by 7pm if you’re not in bed. You become Ms Grouchy! Nothing can pacifiy you except mummy carrying you.

I think you could be starting to have separation anxiety coz sometimes when i’m not around, you start looking for me and will cry if i don’t appear fast enough. Even when daddy or grandma carry you, you’ll still cry but once mummy carries you, you stop immediately. Heh… secretly i’m really enjoying that special privilege but sometimes it gets really tiring for mummy coz you don’t want to let go. But it’s okie, I’ll enjoy it while it lasts coz I know once you’re mobile you prob want to wander off on your own…

You’ve been so fun to play with that sometimes after you go to sleep at 7, i keep thinking about you and what we did during the day. But I’m glad you sleep at 7 coz at least mummy has some down time to rest, eat dinner and hang out with daddy.

I’m really glad I’m staying home to look after you coz every day is such a joy (tiring like mad) and I wouldn’t exchange this for anything else.

You are the bestest baby in the whole wide world!

Love
Mommy

Dearest Sophie,

You have grown so much over the past month. I feel like i can really communicate and understand you much better now.

I like your personality very much.

- You like to take things slow and be gently handled. Even when you’re feeding, you like to stop and look around first and then continue. Normally i just go with your pace. You don’t like a whole barage of things coming at you at once.

- You appreciate sincerity and you listen. It’s funny how you tend to ignore people who patronise you. Haha… However when someone loves you and speaks to you gently, you quietly listen and observe with your intense and inquisitive eyes. You’ve actually scared some men/boys with your intense stare and sincerity. Heh…

- You show your likes and dislikes pretty directly. No beating around the bush. I like this mummy – smile smile laugh laugh. I don’t like this mummy – wail wail wail! That makes things a lot easier for me.

- You are one determined little gal. When you want something, you just need to have it. You will make this funny "emmmm" (like doing the big one type of sound. "gek sai" sound.) when you are trying to do something you can’t yet do. Like when you wanted to flip but couldn’t, you make that sound. Super funny.

- You really enjoy having people around but you don’t necessary enjoy them carrying you. You much prefer if they play with you when mummy is carrying you OR when you are in the pram or on the mat/bouncer.

You are a great bundle of joy. I really enjoy spending all my time with you. But when you’re crying and wailing, it can get really difficult and frustrating. Recently you started to learn how to whine. It’s not a cry/wail but a whine. Hmmmm…. you vely kuniang leh. But we’re still learning what to do with that. To give in or teach you to wait.

Physical development wise, you’re still small sized. (Btw, we’re going to change your PD coz mummy cannot tahan her anymore and she keeps calling you Grace instead of Sophie! It’s been 5 mths!! Argh.)

At 5mths, you are 5.85kg, 62.5cm tall n 41cm for head circumferance. Still didn’t put on much weight since 4 mths. Approx in the 10th percentile. But it’s ok lah. We’ll do our best and then trust God already. You look happy and healthy. In fact other than eczema & rashes, you’ve not fallen sick since birth. Once or twice you had high temperature but it went down pretty fast. Thank God for that.

We’ve started you on FM to top up 2 of the BM feeds. Essentially i’ll feed you and then offer you FM after and let you take as much as you want for 2-3 feeds a day. Hopefully that will fill you a bit more in case my BM is really not enough and increase your appetite so you’ll drink more.

You’ve been flipping happily and much happier doing tummy time. Neck still a bit wobbly but much stronger than before. Sleeping well too. You’re doing well from 10pm – 6am and still taking 3 naps a day and comfortably 1 1/2 hrs to 2hrs each nap.

Thank God for the past month. Mummy’s looking forward to seeing you grow stronger and start feeding on solids soon!! Yipee… more things to buy… yey! Red, blue, green colour spoons/bowls/cups here we come!

Love
Mummy

Dearest Sophie,

You are 4 months old!

The past month has been quite exciting. You’ve moved from observing your fist to grabbing things with your hands. Anything! You have started to grab our specs, t-shirts, even your mobile that you used to quietly look at!!! The funniest is when you grab my hair when i try to put you down in the cot as if you’re afraid that i’ll drop you! Heh. The best thing about that is that you can start playing with toys! Mummy keeps getting you new ones.

Oh! And you can finally steady your head when we carry you.

You have a real keen sense of concentration and highly determined. When you start to notice something, you’ll stare at it for a long time. When someone speaks to you, you’ll also focus very hard to observe. It’s really fun reading to you coz sometimes you look like you really understand! Ah………. but the flip side is that you’re also very stubborn. Once you start crying, you also go all the way! Very hard to get you out of it. Argh……

You’ve grown so much in your ability to interact. Mummy loves talking and singing to you coz you always smile and react in some way. You’ve also started "talking". But it’s really strange coz sometimes you don’t really "talk" through the day but once i put you on the changing mat to wipe you before putting you down to sleep, you start "talking" and even singing. Aiyo! So cute! How to put you to sleep?!?! I think it’s your strategy of getting out of sleeping. Smarty pants you.

Some of your fav things are
- wind >> recently it’s been VERY windy and you love it! You laugh when we’re downstairs, enjoying the wind
- tv >> you love watching tv. you’ll arch your head towards it. But no watching tv yet okie?
- talking to pp >> you love it when people talk to you and sometimes you try to talk back.
- ABC song >> you’re starting to mimic sounds so you love it when i sing ABCDEFC etc… coz you get to hear each sound of the alphabet. Funny to hear you imitate Mummy…

You also went thru a period where you refused to feed properly. You’d fuss each time i fed you. Wah super frustrating. I think i was more worried then frustrated coz i wasn’t sure if you were drinking enough. As a result, you didn’t put on much weight the past mth. When we saw Dr Chan for your 4th mth visit, you weighed only 5.56kg, only 60gms from last mth. So little! But you grew to 62cm from 59cm. Mummy was so stressed out by Dr Chan coz she kept looking at Mummy and insinuating that I’m too skinny to produce enough milk for you!!! Argh!!! Mummy was so worried about your weight that i spent a lot of time looking online and asking around. In the end, I decided that you’re just genetically small (like me!) and you were on a nursing strike (yes! there’s such a thing when babies hit 3.5mths) and since you’re back on track and drinking, I’ll stop worrying so much.

Oh yes and the best thing that happened this mth was that you started sleeping thru the nite at about 3.5 mths. Finally! Mummy can now sleep from 11 to 5/6am! Only now Mummy needs to work on sleeping earlier so that I can sleep a longer stretch. Heh.

It’s really getting more and more fun getting to know you… there’s more to learn everyday. Your smiles really make my day.

Love
Mummy