It must be such a pain to read my blog these days coz everything is so rushed and I haven’t taken time to write properly. I know most people appreciate that bloggers who take time to write interesting posts and things of significance but things are all over the place recently for us and I just haven’t had that space to focus.

Really sorry about that.

I’ve been sick this week too. I’ve not been so sick for a long time. Thank God my MIL is on holidays. She’s a kindy teacher. She’s been ever since James was in kindy. Long ah? No one ever works so long at one place anymore. My dad’s been working at his company since I was born. Goodness! The only person i know that has never changed job who is my age is RINGO LOW! Ok i digress. I was sick and now I am well. So I am back with a vengence. So much lost time.

Anyways… poor Sophie. I haven’t spent much time with her this week. I’ve been letting others babysit her – James, MIL, TV (good ole Your Baby Can Read video series – I really think it works!), food. Ya, food. Talking about food. I announce – Sophie can officially feed herself with a spoon. She has been doing it the past week and I think she is pretty competent. Anything more than 5 consecutively spoonfuls into the mouth is considered a pass right?!?!? Come on! She’s only 11 mths! Hahaha… Anyways she’s eating on her own now, whether or not it gets it.

I really hope i can spend more time with her tomorrow onwards. Back to normal life.

The Serve05 girls came by to visit today coz Sarah (in the middle) is back from the UK for hols.

It was really nice catching up and they are all in 3rd yr uni already. 2 doctors in training and one in Arts taking psy. When I first met them at Serve, they just finished A levels. Time really flies. Hee… but some things don’t change… we still talk about boys.

"I love daddy. He makes me do the funniest things!"

Sophie’s really been enjoying James’ company recently. She squeals and calls him when he comes home. He’s been taking her out for walks, feeding, bathing her etc… For a while, he’s been really busy with work but he’s working around it so that he has more time for her. It’s really paying off coz she’s super happy each time she sees him.

I’ve started to let Sophie eat some of her meals on her own. She loves feeding herself and is getting harder for me to feed her.

I’ve been making pasta/potatoes, fish and veggies for her meals so that she can help herself to them. She has been doing quite well! For this meal, she had shell pasta, pumpkin and fish. Today she had potatoes, broccoli, carrots and fish.

I try to cook more so that i can keep adding to her portions as she eats. If she’s done, it’s easy to tell coz she’ll start mashing the food and throwing them around or putting them on her hair. Hee… at that point I’ll remove everything and plonk her into the the bathtub for a nice wash.

It’s so satisfying to see her grow up and become more independent. While she eats, I can actually sit next to her to read a magazine. What a luxury…

This is a picture of Sophie’s first attempt with the pencil, with my help of course! Hee… I was bored and she was sitting on my lap. I had a pencil and a notebook near me so we did this! Super cool don’t you think?

Sophie’s been absorbing everything so fast and it’s been very fun teaching her.

Theme of the month is ANIMALS!

I’ve been teaching her animal names and their sounds. Since she’s mastered the lion’s roar, everytime I read a story that has a lion in it, she’ll automatically roar when she hears the word "lion"! Super funny. Everywhere we go, I’ll point out animals to her e.g. dog, cat, birds etc… Now she’ll spot them and point them out to me! Hee….

We pick out books, games, songs, toys that have animals in them too. I’ve been eyeing realistic plastic animals to buy for her but so far they are either too small or too big.

Oooo the library has been SO good. This round i picked out two animal books (with lovely illustrations…. very very nice) and one book on Baby’s First Tooth… hee. Sophie recognises the dog, the ball and the lion in the books and of course baby. She doesn’t say the words yet but she’ll point and make noises. We can keep the books for 2 weeks so everyday for 2 weeks we’ll read the same books every morning. Now she knows it’s reading time coz she’ll point to the books! Hee…

Besides animals, over the past week, Sophie’s learnt to say ma (or at least make the "m" sound) and even wave bye!

Ok. I’ve decided what to do with this separation anxiety phenomena.

I’m bringing Sophie everywhere i go in the house.

Sophie has entered into a terrible phase. The books say that babies from 8 mths onwards begin to experience separation anxiety, that is, when they realise that they are a separate person from you but they want you with them all the time. Not all babies go through it but my little darling seems to have gotten really sticky to me. She’ll cry each time I walk away and it got so bad that even when i attempt to put her on the floor, she cries! Oh dear… 

I was trying all sorts of ways to help her through it – e.g. training her to be on her own for little amounts of time, hoping to stretch it, going away and leaving her with other people e.g. James/MIL/mum etc… but it was just not working. I happened to talk to a friend last nite and she went through the same thing with her little one. Apparently she clung onto her leg (not standing yet, crawling!) while she was cooking. Ahhhhhhh…. Ok Sophie hasn’t reached that stage yet so I thought i better do something. She was saying that it’s just a phase and don’t feel like you need to leave them on their own and it’s not a personality thing. Her daughter is 4 now and she is super independant.

That really gave me the peace of mind to follow my heart and just be with Sophie and not be afraid that she’ll be spoilt or become really demanding next time etc. I tried it this morning and it was great! Almost 100% zilch whining. Woo hoo! And she could even play on her own while i move around the house coz I kept coming back and talking to her. She was one happy girl today.

Looks like it’s working and I just need to keep praying for wisdom each day as we face new things.

Sophie’s two lower teeth are out! I was trying to get a pic of them this morning… this is the best i got! It’s so hard to take pictures of babies!

Sophie is wearing a Old Navy bodysuit given by CY’s mommy.

She’s back to normal with a bit of runny nose but generally ok. It’s sooooooo good to hear her babbling and see her playing again…