Two Months to ONE.

This is a long update, which serves as a milestone-record for me since she is fast approaching the 12 month mark. Here goes…

The Celebration….
Today Aurelia Sarah turns 10 calendar months old. Initially there wasn’t any plan to celebrate her birthday; we thought the three of us would just have dinner at- where else- Jurong Point.

But in the evening, my elder sis suggested that we celebrate her 10-month birthday anyway- so off to Teban mother and child went, ferried by Tok Ayah (of course).

Ooyah’s Aunty Wati presented her with a colourful tricycle which Ooyah gleefully posed in. She was more amused with all the blinking lights more than anything else. She couldn’t even sit still for a moment, and her foot even got caught near the wheel. Good thing she wasn’t SPEEDING.

In the end, we decided to have dinner at Swensens at- you guessed it- JURONG POINT. We left Teban so late that there wasn’t any time to travel anywhere else further, so JP was it. We had a good time, and the night ended off with a group of waiters (much to her delight!) presenting her with her ice-cream cake and a birthday song!

The Progress so far…
2 more months, and our baby will be A YEAR OLD. That’s really fast. I was looking through her pictures and it is sad that she won’t always be a baby. As she grows older, she’s getting more mobile and active, and her baby fats (whatever little she has) are slowly being shed.

She’s about 70cm tall and probably weighs about 9kg. She’s pretty stretched out for a baby (tall and not very blubbery) and strangers always think that she’s a year old already. She’s still wearing size M mamy pokos.

She has two lower teeth which just sprouted about 2 weeks ago. My sis says they look like the back part of staples ( _ _ ) while her papa says they look like gigi cicak (lizard’s teeth.) Ha ha. Every chance she gets, she will ‘pretend’ to bite you on the arm with her new ‘weapons of destruction’ complete with growling sounds. Ooooh. Scaryyyy.

She can be left for up to an hour to play on her own, supervised, in her playpen or in the hall. Her favourite thing to play with is her plastic car and she really looks like she is ‘repairing’ that car when she meddles with rattles, wheels and buttons on that car. She will tire herself out after playing for 2-3 hours, after which she will have 2-3 hour naps.  That’s basically how she occupies her time every day, playtime alternating with naps. Her last nap will be from 7.30-9pm; at 9pm when her Papa gets home she will wake up to play with him till 11pm. That’s when she’ll finally go to bed till about 9am the next morning.

Her favourite thing to do now is to crawl up to this huge magazine basket we have in the hall, pull out the magazines one by one (preferring to pull out the THICK AND HEAVY ones out first), until the basket is emptied. While she does this she will mumble some incomprehensible things but it sure does sound like she is reading aloud the contents of the mags as she flips through the pages, possibly mimicking me reading to her.

Her favourite line would be ‘Pteh, ppptehhh, ptehhh’ and ‘mumm…mummmm’ (while blowing bubbles with her saliva). She will mimic sounds that we make, for example animal sounds like growling sounds, ’baaa’ and ‘mmmoooo’.
Whenever we count aloud with her, she will shout out ‘TENNNN!!!’, usually when we get to four or five. It’s so weird.

Lights being her object of attraction, she is able to point at any source of light when we say ‘Where’s the lamp?/ Mana lampu?‘

She responds best to ‘Aurelia Sarah’ as compared to other nicks like Ooyah or Sarah. And when I ask her ‘Where’s Mama’s baby?’ she will smile cheekily.

Sometimes I will pretend to be a teacher (hey wait a sec- I AM ONE!) to a ‘class’ of soft toys and dolls and ask ‘Which one of you is AURELIA SARAH?’ and ask her toys one by one ‘Are you Aurelia Sarah? No?’ and she will wait in anticipation for me to ask her, with a sneaky grin on her face. When I finally ‘get’ to her and ask ‘Are YOU Aurelia Sarah?’, she will chuckle gleefully!

Now she is practicing to put up her hand when I say ‘Which one of you is Aurelia Sarah? Put up your hand!’

She claps her hands on cue, and when we sing ‘Tepok Amai-Amai!’ or her favourite catchy tunes come on. She is able to turn her palm (like Kumar’s/the Miss Universe handwave) when we sing ‘Neng Neng Pak’ and open/shut her palm when we sing ‘Ram Ram Rep’ (sheeeeeshhhh ALL the extinct Malay songs and games she knows…)

She is able to pull herself up by the side of tables, her cot, chairs and whatever is reachable (the stereo speakers and FAN too! Gulp.) She can stand for up to 15 or 20 minutes at most. When she’s tired, she’ll put one leg onto a knee, wobble-wobble a bit, switch legs (reminds me of the seniman bujang lapok scene where the 3 bujangs sit on imaginary stools!), and eventually sit down, only to pull herself up again after about3-5 minutes.

She loves to hang on to tables/chairs/sideboards and ‘cruise’. Sometimes she forgets to hold on to the furniture, especially when her favourite tunes come on the TV. She will stop to clap her hands, which means she will plop down if she’s standing and not leaning towards the furniture!

As always, she enjoys DANCING more than anything else and she does this while standing, sitting, crawling, and even sleeping (I would be singing a lullabye to her and she’d be moving her body, half-asleep).

Her favourite music to listen to would be traditional Malay songs, but the one that will mesmerize her is ‘Si Dia Datang’ by Ahmad Jusoh. Basically she likes zapin, and when the CD is played, she will stop fidgeting. She will listen intently to the melody and lyrics and she looks as if she is reminiscing. For as long as my traditional Malay cd runs, she will sit still and eventually fall asleep. The whole family is amused by her change in behaviour when the classical Malay songs like zapin, joget and ghazal are played, as if she’s been sedated! I guess the music soothes her. Or perhaps in her previous life, she lived in that era. Who knows?

As to why she likes traditional Malay music so much, I believe it’s due to the fact that I myself am an avid fan. My mom always says it’s unbelievable that she has inherited my old fashioned taste in music. When I was pregnant, I listened to my ghazal and traditional Malay music CDs all the time. On top of that, I was always overseeing my Malay dance girls during their practices, and no prizes for guessing what kind of songs they were dancing to.

Every morning, after watching Sesame Street (her favourite bit is the Elmo’s World segment), she will have a bowl of rice or brown rice porridge. The ‘menu’ has to be changed daily so its either tofu, chicken, ikan bilis or fish with different kinds of vegetables every day (carrots, peas, broccoli, tomato) . She’ll have 2 porridge meals a day. She also takes half a pear/apple/persimmon or whatever soft fruit we have, everyday. Her appetite is good and her favourite snack these days would be Gerbers’ Graduates Finger Food, Strawberry flavoured puffs (they’re like TASTELESS honey stars!) She takes about 180ml of similac stage 2, but less frequent since she has started on solids.

Her pincer grip is good, and she’s better with her left hand. (Probably a southpaw like me?)

She’s had her ears pierced, and to date, she’s been injured ONCE. Let that be the FIRST and LAST, please.

(Okay I’m really worn out after typing this entry. Shall stop now.)

Happy 10th Month, Aurelia Sarah, the light of our lives….