The morning after

reunited

Her balloon no longer floats, but she still wants to hold on to it (together with her monkey) while watching Tinker Bell (AGAIN!)

For the love of balloons

We went to a wedding reception tonight. Mia got a big red balloon from a little girl there. She loved it so much that she refused to let go of it... at the dinner table, on the dance floor, in the car on our way home, ....

... even as she lay sleeping once we got home. It was a struggle for me to take it away from her, but thankfully, I managed to pull the balloon away from her.

Okay, bonus pic time:

That's our girl!

11 months today!

Our baby girl is 11 months today. She's growing so fast. She can say "papa, mama, mo-mom, bye-bye" now. And when she says "mo-mom", it means she wants solid food, not milk, not water.

As you can see, she hasn't got teeth yet! I think she's saving them. Weight wise she's 9.2 kg. She did hit 10kg earlier this month but she hasn't been drinking her milk as much lately, plus she had a bout of high fever last week and is now recovering from "fake measles".

She prefers to eat rice not porridge. No more mashed potatoes. I think she's gotten bored of it. She's been eating rice mixed with other dishes like fish, chicken, gravy, soup, potato, carrot, taufu and minced meat since she turned 9 months. A couple of weeks ago she had her first taste of fried noodle and she loves it. She likes to eat cakes and bread too. Don't worry, we don't feed her the whole thing. We still have to chop any food into tiny pieces using the edge of a spoon or fork. Thankfully she doesn't have any problem digesting food. She poops easily everyday and no complaining of tummy ache. I suppose the gripe water in her water which she loves to drink helps.

She stands at 3cm short of 70cm. Yes, she can stand all by herself while gently clapping her palms together. It's something she likes to do a lot. She waves "bye-bye" to her papa, me, grandma, and cousins when any of us are leaving.
We didn't take her out anywhere today. As her "11 month" treat, I let her choose a DVD to watch on TV. She FINALLY decided on a "Shrek" DVD. Normally, it'll be Tinker Bell, Elmo, Madagascar, or Toy Story DVDs. Honestly, I'm getting tired of watching these. And I have to sit and watch with her otherwise she'll cry.
Mia likes to play hide and seek now. Her favorite place to hide is this place: behind the front door!
Another thing she likes to do is to take things out of my purse. I think she's wondering whether RM10 is enough to get her a new t-shirt?!

She's very eager to learn to walk. She uses this huge storage container (with wheels on the bottom side) to practice her walk at home.

Sometimes, Mia can be a handful so I put her inside the container when she's naughty hence the container is called the "Punishment Box".
She especially likes it when I help her to dress up her toys. Here's her Piglet wearing her disposable diaper and tied with a golden ribbon.

If I want to get her to fall asleep faster, I just have to lie down on the floor with her, hand across her chest and soon enough, bliss. Peace and quiet and I can do my work. Unfortunately, at most times, I would fall asleep with her and I'd only wake up when she wakes up. So much for time to do work! LOL!

At night, she'll in her crib without making any fuss. But come morning time, she wants to play, roll and tumble then continue to her sleep on our bed.

A late birthday celebration

Mia & I treated our dear friend Teresa for a birthday lunch today. Her birthday was last week but she was out of town then. Her mum (Lola Dora as we call her, came along).
Here's the place we had lunch. A German restaurant here in Kota Kinabalu. The last time I came here to eat was when I was still the enjoying my "carefree single days". That's how long its been.

We were stunned to see so many changes to the establishment. It's so cosy and beautiful there now.

First the food. By adding RM5.99 to the course, we were able to enjoy a full set lunch. This includes the salad from the salad bar, soup, dessert (rich choc ice-cream served in a wine glass) and a glass of cooling iced lemon tea.

Salad & soup

Birthday girl chose a foot long sausage

Her mum went for a chicken with fish dish

For me, it had to be Bratwurst sausages. My favourite kind.

Had we known that the portions were going to be big, we wouldn't have ordered so much.


Next, birthday gifts.

Look at that. Mia is trying to dig the gift out. I have yet to make Mia understand the concept of "gift giving". LOL!

We gave birthday girl a handbag and a 2-year planner (2011-2012)

A quick tour of the refurbished/renovated Gunter's Gasthaus.

They have guest rooms now. The price: RM120 per nite. The rooms look nice and cosy. Each have their own ensuite (huge!) with shower facilities. Every room has its own color theme. This is just one of them.

If you're planning to have a dinner party with a small group of friends (6 - 10 pax), it'll be nice to book these "cubicles" or "gazebos". So fancy!

Outdoor eating area... cosy kan. It's so sad that I won't be able to do up our house this way for at least 5 years.

Good use of egg shells!

Basikal tua pun boleh jadi decoration oh!

Also another deco we saw there. Best birthday wishes to Teresa... who coincidentally was born during the year of the pig! May you be blessed with many many more birthdays.

Shoes, shoes!

I've been meaning to blog about this for quite sometime, but between me losing the camera's card reader and the computer going into ICU due to a "fried" display card, I couldn't.

About 2 weeks ago, we attended my best girl's wedding. At the reception the same evening, we met up with the lovely Lucinda (Cinda) and her handsome boy Jacob. Our Mia fancies Jacob, she literally chased after him. Who wouldn't, look at this gorgeous little man:
Cinda never ceases to amaze me. She's the patient wife to a Donald (LOL!), a great cook, a yummy mummy to 3 beautiful kids and to top it off, she's really crafty too. Check out her blog and see for yourself.

Well, that evening, not only did Jacob gave our Mia a flower, but she also got a special gift from his mummy.

Unfortunately, she fell asleep on the way home and continued to sleep even when I changed her into her pajamas.

First thing the next morning though, we opened the blue prezzie tied with the red ribbon and were amazed to find these gorgeous pair of red shoes.

Look at them! These were handmade by Cinda. Aren't they gorgeous?!
Mia's loving them. She looked so proud to be the owner! It fitted her just nicely.... I had pictures of her prancing around in the living room, but those pictures are in my handphone and have yet to retrieve them. And yes, you may have noticed that our girl has perky boobies!

Here she is again watching her Elmo DVD in those shoes. Evidently our Mia is blessed with big feet like her momma.... and she 2 weeks on, she can't fit into them anymore. Awwwwww. Dang. I wanted to bring her out shopping in them. I'm keeping these shoes for the "Number 2". Meanwhile, I surely hope Cinda's "Etsy Shop" opens soon so I can browse and buy, buy, buy! Ooops, shouldn't have said that now husband is gonna find out! LOL!

Anyway, I went shopping to Citymall the other day and saw these:

Spikey shoes! They were just too cute, I couldn't help myself. So I bought a pair for Mia.

She can practice walking around the living room now without me being worried about her slipping on those tiles.
Our girl however, thinks these spikey shoes have magical powers to help her climb over the fence!

Happy Birthday Takako!

It's Takako's birthday today... Happy Birthday to you Takako! 3 pink balloons for you from each of us. We hope you had a BIG and HAPPY celebration today.

As you can see, our family is getting bigger too.... Our baby girl is bigger, I'm bigger, and yes, Frederick is bigger too! See that batik he is wearing? That's the one we bought in Bali when we visited you!

9 months

Our girl is 9 months today and weighs 9kg. Yeah! or in her own word(s) "aiiiiiiiiiiii".

That's right, she cheers herself by saying "aiiiiiii" every time she accomplishes something eg:

• standing up
• landing on her bum
• walking round the coffee table while holding on to its edges
• finishing her meal

She hasn't grown any teeth yet. We'll have to make do with her toothless grin for now.

She likes to meet people and isn't afraid of to greet, smile, 'chat', and eherm.... showoff her skills.

She babbles a lot. With the exception of 'bah-bye'; and 'papa', I really can't understand anything she's saying but I pretend to be able to, just to encourage her. She doesn't say 'mama', or 'mummy' at all. Just 'papa'.

She doesn't like to sit in her walker for too long and when she's had enough, she'll literally dive out of the walker and start crawling to the nearest edge of a furniture that she can get hold on to support her in her walk.

She loves to smile for the camera and when others are laughing (be it people, the tv or the radio), she'll laugh as well.

She opens drawers. Those set of steps you see there, she's climbed to the top much to my shock. I thank our lucky stars that she didn't fall. It's time that we buy some safety gadgets.

She likes to do what we do, eg read the mail.

And when she sleeps, she has to be surrounded by her 'friends' to watch over her.

I love gifts. It doesn't matter whether they're expensive or otherwise. What matters most is that the gift comes from the heart of the giver. I do admit though, there are times when have to think "WHAT?!", only to break out in laughter later.

Thankfully, our little Mia has inherited this appreciation for gifts received. Well, anything new that she can get her hands on is considered a gift for her!

Last week she got some gifts from Auntie Takako sent all the way from Tokyo. Here's one of them:

Thank you Auntie Takako... baby is loving the feeding bib! Just what we need for a messy eater like her. Lets hope she'll take up diving like you and her papa when she's a little older so she'll get to see real fishes in the sea.

More on the other gifts from Auntie Takako soon.

Time to cut the painful silence

12 August 2010

Its been 12 weeks, 4 days since I felt my world collapse and my heart torn to pieces. My dad passed away on the day that our Mia turned 6 months, and my best friend got engaged.

I still remember the night clearly. I was updating my blog, saving it as "draft" when I got the call from my brother around 11pm to tell me that our daddy was in hospital. I immediately called on my husband, carried our sleeping Mia and rushed to the hospital.

When we got to the hospital, the doctors were still trying to revive my dad. I managed to go in the emergency room and felt his ice cold feet as they were trying to save my dad. Words cannot describe the agony my sister, brothers and I felt as we knew in our hearts that there was nothing that can be done anymore and our daddy is no longer with us. He was only 60 years old.

Since that moment, it was the support and help of our relatives and friends that helped us get by the difficult times as we made preparations for our daddy's funeral which was held on 26th May 2010 at St Aloysius Church, near our family home before laying our dad in his final resting place, at our family burial ground. It was the kind words and encouragement following the funeral that also reminded us that daddy is in a much better place now.

Thank you all for all your condolences, flowers, donations, visit to our family home, attendance at our daddy's funeral, and messages sent via SMS, Facebook, emails etc. May God bless you all.

I've tried over the past weeks to bring myself together to update my blog, but each time I log in, I freeze. Last Sunday, I tried again, only to find myself crying uncontrollably because all those emotions of the night my father passed away overwhelmed me.

So today, I made a decision. Cry as I am while I'm doing this, I am going to update my blog starting with publishing the blog entry I had saved that night, before the call came.



6 months today!

Weight: 7.8kg

She can't crawl yet, still trying to drag her body on the bed and on the floor. Most times, she'll roll and roll to try and get to where she wants to get.

She's a champ at maneuvering her baby walker and can "glide" really fast. She'll find every opportunity to get out of the house.

A lot of things need to be changed on this day:

Pacifier (chu-chut) upgrade. She's got 2 new Avent pacifiers... it'll take a while for her to "break into" these, so we'll still KIV the old one, just in case we need it.

Change in diet: I've changed her rice cereal to that of organic. She gets rashes all over when I fed her with Cerelac from Nestle. A messy eater she may be but she can finish more than half a bowl each feeding.

She loves her feet... loves teddy bears, especially the giant type.... LOL! That's Uncle Magdy (her giant teddy from Canada)

Sleeping like a baby

One of the many things that Mia loves to do first thing in the morning is to be placed in her walker, prance around the living room in it and watch her Chinese cartoon "see yang yang" followed by Bananas in Pajamas.

Well, early this morning I had to go out for an appointment and asked my husband to keep an eye on her. I left her on the bed with him and told him that if she's not going back to sleep, then bring her downstairs and put her in her walker.

That he did. She went about her normal routine making a lot of noise at the same time. My husband then noticed that her head was bobbing as if fishing, and then she became quieter and quieter. Next thing he saw was:

Is she staring at something, or simply resting?

She fell asleep. In her walker. Chubby cheek resting on the little ball. Poor girl must have been so exhausted! My husband didn't realise her "lots of noise" was her telling him she wants her mid morning nap.