Words, Words, Words

Arannatee's picked up a new favorite word! 'Jatuh' which is fall in Bahasa Indonesia because she loves throwing her cutlery around and she drops quite a few things. She's used it when her pull-along truck overturns, when she falls, when things fall off the high chair.. She also seems to know 'eat' in Hokkien as well as 'makan' and the ASL sign for that...We were counting the no of words that she could say and we kept on getting different numbers each time, ranging from 20 to 30. So here goes, I'm going to attempt to list them all, and do it chronologically.

baba, mama, bird, book, the end, dog, flower, car, why, bye-bye, boy, ball, bubbles, walk, wet, up, nenek, kakak, eyes, jatuh, owie (for pain), wow, how, bar (for belly-button), zara, take, get, hot, press, bear, bag

Spain hereeeee we come!

Farid was attending a conference in Pamplona, Spain and I decided that we were going to go along. We had almost 2 weeks there. It was so much fun. I really enjoyed myself. Went for full day hikes, appreciated the cool/cold whether very much and it was just nice to be away from Singapore.

Walking!

She walked 2 days before her 1st birthday. 3 steps before she went on her knees again. She'd been standing for ages, close to 5 or 6 months now, so we sort of expected her to walk early too, but maybe cause she's pretty heavy and the falls she'd sustained made her very cautious, she has not started taking her own steps independant of any handholds till now. Yesterday, she walked 10 steps!

Baby signing!

Arannatee has been signing consistently for a while now....things like dog, clapping hands, waving good-bye, waving her hands in excitement in general. But yesterday, she signed cat when she saw the pic of a cat in a book! We know she knows what signing means now....Am pretty happy we stuck with baby signing. It's exciting to know what she's talking about. She also says dog when she signs it. And now any 4 legged statue or farm animal she sees, eg pig...also gets the apellation of "dag" or "dig"!

Modifed: 2 days after the post above, she also started signing "tree"!

Swimming with a noodle!

Arannatee had a another milestone yesterday and today. She learnt how to balance on the swim noodle! It's soooo cute to see her paddling away with her arms over the noodle. We've got videos of that. It's not as easy as it looks cause another baby (around 16 months or older) was given the noodle by her dad to try it but could not balance! Next weekend we'll show her off!

Wow...

Holidaying at the Beach

We spent a wonderful 4 days on Redang Island at the end of June. The idea was hatched on Wednesday, and phone calls made on Thursday and by Thursday night, we were on the bus! Arannatee's first night time trip...She was very good and I was impressed. I expected lots of disturbed passengers but that did not happen..phew..

We were the only ones at the resort all of Friday. It was nice. Everything was catered to us. We visited Pasir Panjang which was a mistake since there were way too many people. The place was a monstrosity and a joke with so many new resorts and massive nos of people, a bit like Thailand's beaches...so sad. We were very glad to be at our rustic low key resort...
At Redang, Arannatee was in 7th heaven since we let her crawl everywhere and play with water and we were with her all the time! She gets both Baba and Mama all to herself! Her first taste of seawater was hilarious. Wish I had that moment on camera. And her first taste of sand too. Of course both were not her last, she kept on drinking seawater everytime she was in the water and putting fistfuls of sand in her mouth when she was on land! Sigh!

All in all, a wonderful, fantastic holiday. We were even able to dive! And Arannatee was not even freaked out by the loud noise of the speedboat that took us there, in fact, she fell asleep while nursing...

And it was the first time in a long while that Arannatee slept alone in a bed, since there were 2 beds. It was nice to be able toss and turn and not disturb her. And she did not wake up in the middle of the night to play, so there are benefits to sleeping separately...

Making music

Our little one just learnt to clap! Sooooo adorable...Today is a Wednesday..last Sat or Friday, she started making music in her bath by hitting the stacking barrels she plays with in her bath. And she's got rhythm! Maybe that's her thing, forget the piano or the violin, let's do percussions! She's also scooping up water in the barrels and splashing it everywhere. Jolly fun!

She stood up!

Arannatee pulled herself to standing yesterday. On the dining room chair. What a milestone! Unfortunately, she got scared and started crying. She's a gentle soul, startles easily if there are loud noises.

Today when I walked into the room, I found her at the window at her favorite pasttime, watching the world go by outside. What's amazing is that she pulled open the drapes herself. She is amazing...Love her loads.

GD and his methods

I've just discovered Glen Doman. Exciting! I'm berating myself for not having researched early childhood education a lot earlier and now I've wasted 7 months!!! Oh no.

All the books are fantastic. I've been reading and the How to Teach Your Baby Math and How to Teach Your Baby to Be Physically Superb and Arannatee seems to be responding a bit to the exercises. I've just made the flashcards for math (with lots of help from mom, actually she did 75% of it). And I just started her 1st session today!! She did seem interested. Hopefully she'll remain interested...

She's getting to her feet!

Wow, she's pretty fast. On April 17, she was on the bed with me when she put her hands on my body and stood up! And she also been able to sit herself upright from a crawling position and from sitting to crawling. I don't think words can express what a mom feels when she sees her baby developing and mastering new techniques. Very exciting!!!

Milestones in development!

My lovely daughter is now 5.5 months old!! She's really advanced since my last post...She's now able to kneel (about to crawling and sit by herself!) She's been rolling onto her stomach from lying on her back since before her 3rd month, around 19th of Dec. Brilliant! When she was midway into her 4th month, she started doing double rolls from stomach to back in the same direction and then she mastered rolling to the other side! And she's been doing little crawls in the skydiving position...

Now she's wriggling her butt preparatory to real crawling. Amazing girl....she's about 2 months ahead of her peers in all the milestones! I'm so proud of her, always so alert...That's actually the downside sometimes, she does not take naps!!!!

The very 1st swim was on Nov 12 2005 when she was only 7 weeks old!! Or to be precise, 1 month and 20 days. And Farid dunked her, I was upset with him... now's she taken to water like a little duck! Dec 16th was her 2nd swim...

Camping with baby

Baby camping!! We might start a whole new trend here....:) We took Arannatee camping over the CNY hols in Malaysia..it's our favored spiritual forest spot where we renew our spiritual energies. We were there to introduce our daughter to the spirits of the forest since they play such an important role in our lives. Arannateee loved the outdoors. She loved the very cold waters of the river..simply could not get enough of it...she was also introduced to the texture of river bank sand and to campfire. So many new experiences. And the brave little girl had no problems whatsoever bathing in cold water. In fact, she took it better than I. At night, I think the unfamiliarity of the experience got her a bit fussy...it took a while to calm her down till she would suckle....