Happy 1st birthday to our little darling!

We have been so blessed that the little one was relatively problem-free, health-wise, for the past year. He coped with the various vaccinations well, and did not develop a fever for any of them (if I recall correctly).

As such, it was really worrying when he developed a fever on the night before his birthday party (!) and was even vomiting. We ended up searching for a 24-hr clinic in the middle of the night; where he was given a suppository to bring down his temperature. Even then, he was still in relatively good spirits, and did not seem too unwell, save for his elevated temperature.

The next morning, he didn’t really seem to be getting better, hence we decided to make a trip to the hospital to consult his paediatrician where he was diagnosed with gastroentitis. Sigh. Poor little fellow. It was scary to see him vomiting after only a small meal, and also when he was given medication; in fact, I recall I could feel and hear his stomach rumbling before the contents were emptied. :(

With all that going on, we weren’t really in a mood for a party, but everything was good to go so we decided to go ahead. Thank God the little darling managed relatively well, and did not really make too much of a fuss. It was stressful for us though; getting ready for the party and taking care of him as well. The scariest point for me was when I gave him a quick bath before the party and he suddenly started shivering and his lips turned blue! Yikes. I really freaked out. Fortunately my sister (who is a doctor) and my mum were around to help. We quickly dried and dressed him, and wrapped him tightly to keep him warm. We really thank God nothing serious happened…

So what about the party? It went quite ok, all things considering, although a few guests could not make it at the last minute because their kids were ill. We had HEAPS of food left over as a result!

We opted for a jungle safari theme; and I spent so much effort fashioning vines, branches and leaves out of brown paper, green construction paper and green ribbons. Took me a few late nights, phew. I also gathered as many animal soft toys I could find; even picking up some at the flea market organised at the office. Hubby and my brother helped to put up the decorations, and I thought it was really cool that they hung some of the toys from a line stretched across the function hall! A whole lot of dark green, light green and yellow balloons completed the jungle look. Admittedly, we could have done more with the decorations, since the hall still looked rather bare; but it really costs so much time and money! Ah well. Truth be told, it all started with the idea for the birthday cake.. and somehow it morphed into an entire jungle safari theme for the party! (I actually tried to make coconut trees but we abandoned that idea after giving it a try... :p)

The birthday cake from Just Heavenly was a huge hit- complete with a monkey climbing a tree, an elephant and a hippo swimming in a lake! We chose them since the little one has a particular liking for his ‘Monkey See, Monkey Zoo’ soft cloth book, which has various cute animals featured inside. The cake looked fabulous and was really delicious too! It did not come cheap; but we wanted to have something special for the little darling’s very first birthday! :)

It was nice to be able to celebrate with a small group of family and friends; wished he was feeling 100% though... We do thank God that he was at least able to attend the party, and was not THAT unwell he had to be stuck in bed.

Lovely gifts from family and friends :)

On the actual day of his birthday- 28th April, we rounded up a couple of cute cupcakes and a candle just for him...

Happy Birthday my dear little sweetheart! Mummy and Daddy are so blessed to have you!

Bedtime stories

For some reason, at about the 1-year mark, the little one started to kick up a big fuss whenever we put him into this cot. He absolutely refuses to sleep in it and would cry most awfully when he put him down after his last feed, which is something that we’ve been doing for the longest time. As a result, we’ve had to make do with settling him in our bed, and transferring him to his cot after he falls asleep. In fact, sometimes even that has not been successful- i.e. he wakes up and starts screaming his head off; so we had to let him sleep in bed with us for the entire night. Guess he considers his cot as some kind of prison- he really hates it that much.

Getting him to sleep in his own room has always been all the cards; guess all the signs were already pointing in the right direction. And so, we took the plunge and began to settle him into another bedroom, and took turns accompanying him throughout the night.

We’ve moved on to buy a guardrail for the mattress so that he doesn’t roll off it, baby-proof the room as much as possible (it’s amazing how much padding one has to prepare, considering how babies can get themselves into the most awkward of situations/positions and hurt themselves), as well as invest in a baby monitor with video function. This was put in place to get him to eventually sleep by himself.

We're pleased to say that he seems to be settling quite well in his own room. Praise God! Although it has only been a few days, we certainly hope he's gotten used to the idea. Of course, one of us still has to accompany him until he falls asleep, and we still have to do a fair amount of shuttling to and fro in the middle of the night (at least twice a night), but hopefully we persevere through all of it. It was been really tiring and rather stressful; but we will commit this to the Lord.

He's unwell as I type this; so one of us will have to sleep in the same room with him until he gets better. Hope he doesn't backtrack; otherwise it's back to square one again for all of us. Yikes. Keep us in prayer!

Long overdue update on the little one

It’s been ages since I last posted an update on the little one. So much has happened in the last few months! He celebrated his 1st birthday (more about that in a separate post); and he has really grown and changed a great deal. It is simply amazing to be part of this.

Some random bits of information:

• Sometimes he likes to sit on the floor and pivot himself on his bum. Round and round he goes- so funny!
• Over the last few months he's learnt to do things like wave bye-bye (although he doesn’t seem to be so keen on that nowadays), clap hands, and do ‘dim chong chong’ (say that in Cantonese). Cool.
• He can crawl amazingly fast now.
• He also has quite an innovative way of playing his toys- in particular things that can roll- e.g. balls, bottles, etc. He throws them and then crawls to chase after the rolling object. This can go on for a while; so we're not complaining!
• On the downside though, he simply enjoys chucking everything around.. But apparently this is normal; ah well..
• From about 11 months or so, he’s learnt to ‘cruise’- i.e. walking as he holds on to furniture. He doesn’t quite have the confidence to let go and walk on his own yet, although there have been a few times where he did let go as he moves from one place to another (e.g. from the nearest sofa into someone’s arms; the distance of 1 step or so, haha).
• My mum's house has a staircase; ever since he could crawl quite steadily, he made it all the way up to the top of the staircase, and recently he's learnt to come down as well. His favourite thing to do now is to climb the staircase and bring along a toy with him as he goes.
• We finally managed to buy a suitable pair of shoes- he hated them at first but now he's finally gotten used to the idea of wearing shoes.
• He’s finally at 5 teeth, after being stuck at 4 for the longest time. And it looks like 2 more are on their way!
• When it comes to sleep, he has to have his bolster. He sniffs one end, sucks on his lower lip and mumbles ‘mmmmmmmm’ in a sing-song manner. So much so that his bolster looks and smells kind of gross and we've started to refer to it as his 'yucky-yucky'. We really should post a video of him and his bolster on Facebook at some point. =)
• Some time ago we discovered he could identify things like the fan, aircon, mirror, etc. We asked him where it was, and he would like in the direction of the item. Cool! He then progressed to pointing at the item; and over the months he's learnt to identify a whole lot of other things- cupboard, bolster, pillow, mummy's handbag, clock, his toys (e.g. ball, bear, star, bus, etc), piano, and so many others. This has since progressed to him signalling to us when he wants to be picked up, and then he would point where he wants us to go! His favourite spots are the fridge (to see the magnets) and Grandma's keychain collection. Absolutely hilarious. Hubby likens him to a compass! Hahaha =) Oh, and he can also pick out specific items- e.g. Grandma's pitcher plant keychain, Turkish eye key chain, etc.
• He's also quite a 'talkative' baby; not that we understand him of course, but it sometimes seems like he has a LOT to say. For now at least he can say 'star' (although it comes in variations of 'ar' and 'tar' at times). We've also heard 'da-da', 'ma-ma', 'mam-mam', 'ba-ba', 'deh-dee' so it's been quite fun to watch.
• Food-wise, I've started being less paranoid and let him try different stuff that we adults eat- e.g. small bits of mango, banana, kiwi fruit, apple, pear, orange, watermelon, ice-cream, cake, chocolate, etc. I remember the look on his face when he first tasted ice-cream; oh, how it screwed up! Hahaha. Now whenever he sees me eating, he'll come right over, hoping to get a taste.
• My mum had a decent amount of success trying to start potty-training him; in the sense of encouraging him to poo when she made him sit on the potty. However, over the last few days, he's been rather naughty and insisting that he didn't want to poo (by vigorously shaking his head or refusing to sit on the potty), but would then progress to do his business a mere 10 minutes later! Standing up quietly in a corner, no less. Suffice to say, my mum has been exasperated over this. :p

He's now about 13+ months old; and it's amazing to see how much he has developed over a short 4 months! I guess in baby terms, 4 months is really quite a long time. I really ought to blog more consistently; I'm pretty sure I'm missing out a whole lot of stuff...

Praise God for our little darling! :)