Norelle is 8 months old

Hi all. Norelle is 8 months old today. My baby is a big girl now. But not in terms of her size though...she looks smaller than other babies at her age. Or rather, she is a petite baby. Not underweight, just petite. Small bones I guess, like me.

She is on her way to full recovery after her 1-month stint of endless sickness (fever, baby measles, running nose and cough) Her appetite is up again which means I will be occupied during night times making purees for her. I am not complaining, in fact, I enjoy doing so.

She is quite clingy to me now. Having her 'velcro' to me once she sees me is no fun - AT ALL! Just hope that this phase will pass soon. Other than that, she is fine. Always flashing her BIGGEST smile (no teeth yet) to everyone and displaying her endless energy.

Now she is starting to respond to me when I talk to her or ask her some questions. When I ask do the 'milk' sign, she will go and pick up her milk bottle and she will look at the aquarium when I ask her, "Where's the fish?". She will look for her rubber duckie when I ask her to. Well I know all these seem easy/small compared to other babies at her age but nevertheless, I am so proud of her achievements. The fact that she understands what I am saying is already a great feeling and having her responding to me is a bonus! I am looking forward to have more interactions with her.

The 'shy' look (only for 0.05 milisec)

At 8-Month Old - doing what she does best - SMILE :)

An eventful day

This gonna be a looong post…

I was on leave yesterday as my parents-in-law went for their routine check-up at the hospital. I started the day at about 8.30am (which considered later than usual) as Norelle slept in longer. The reason for that? The night before yesterday, she slept in about 9+pm and I was dead tired so I slept earlier as well. At about 12+am, I was woken up by her cry - usual. And she fell asleep again after I stuffed the pacifier into her mouth. And I did the most natural thing, sleep and man I did sleep like a baby. You know why? Because while I was in La La land, I was woken up by a loud THUD! And the next thing I know - Norelle was screaming on top of lung. I turned to her side and to my horror, she's not there!!! Yup, you guessed it right - SHE FELL OFF THE BED!!!!!! I jumped off the bed and found her face-down lying on the floor. I carried her up and pacified her. She cried for a while more and fell asleep again. Then I looked at the clock, it showed 6.40am...which meant I had a straight 6 hours of slumber. It felt so good but on the other hand I felt bad as I couldn’t prevent Norelle from falling. So for tonight, I placed a mattress at the side of the bed – for that ‘Just in case it happens again’ scenario which I hope it won’t.

So we slept in a bit later and started our day as usual. Changed her diaper and brought her down to the living hall and let her play by herself as I went and prepare her breakfast. Fed her cereal with 2 cubes of peach and broccoli mixed with sweet potato. Not too bad. She finished most of them except a little left over for the broccoli. Too thick I think. Then she poop so I prepared her bath. After her bath, she took her morning nap at 11am. She woke up an hour later (she morning nap is usually 2hours) and she refused to sleep again. Then I dressed her as I was meeting my girlfriend for lunch. It was my first time driving with her being all alone in her car seat at the back.

I went to pick up my friend at Phileo Damansara 2. She was OK as the distance was quite near. Then we headed to Decanter at Setiabakti for lunch. The place was nice and cosy and the food was great. Norelle was at her best behavior where she did not fuss when seated at the high chair and was extremely smiley. I ordered escargot and steak pie for me and some toasted bread for Norelle. She enjoyed her bread so I managed to have my lunch in peace.

Then we headed to The Curve as I wanted to get some small microwaveable containers for heating up her purees. I managed to find the microwaveable snack cups by Nûby at Anakku. A good buy at least I am now able to store some cereal/purees in them when going out. I also bought a pair of shoes for her and also a new teether and a pair of pants (on sales, ok) and a pack of Healthy Times Apple Cinnamon Puffs!!! Hehe...I am a happy Mommy. But I was not able to get the Baby Yogurt as apparently Cold Storage had run out of stock??? Both Baby Heinz AND Baby Yoplait!!! There you see..I did not buy the whole departmental store back, ok.

She slept in her pram at about 4+pm, as I did not want to wake her up from her nap..I walked around for about 2+hours then we headed home. She was still tired and continued sleeping in her car seat and we when reached home at about 7pm, I woke her up as I do not want her bedtime to be interrupted. Then MIL came and delivered my dinner – I love my MIL and about 9pm, I wanted to prepare Norelle for her bedtime and she gave me a good night work-out – she pooped. I had to washed her and ‘fighting’ to dress her up (our usual routine before sleeping) and fed her milk and then she’s off to her La la land – leaving me with sweaty body and a good soiled diaper to be washed…..

So there you go. Quite an eventful day huh? Miss HY terribly (another 22 hours to go before he comes back from Bangkok)

Good night.

Twinkle twinkle little Moon

On Tuesday we celebrated the 'Lantern Festival' a.k.a. 'Moon Cake Festival'. The nite was bright where the moon was big and round and shone brightly thus literally like a star. The weather was fine too. Not too hot, a bit breezy - just the perfect day for this ocassion. As usual, dinner with my in-laws where my MIL (mother-in-law) whipped up a good 9-course dinner leaving us all like the smiling buddha - the smile on the face as well as the tummy too :P

Did the most natural thing - 'played' with lanterns and candles. More like me carrying Norelle looking at her cousins, uncles and aunties lighting up the candles and lanterns. Took some photos of Norelle where she tried to crush the lanterns everytime we went near them.

Snapshots of Norelle

Just a simple slide show that captures Norelle's milestone so far. Enjoy. Oh, please turn on your speaker when viewing. Thank you.

I am a Star!

span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#339999;">Well, not quite. Just something that I did for Norelle (not exactly, I just uploaded her picture)..Thought it's quite fun and surprisingly easy to do :)

Anyone who's interested, give it a try...here

Norelle's a Mummy's Girl

Hahaha…see? There’s definitely no mistake about the result. Norelle is truly a mummy’s girl. She’s got all the good genes from me…:). But I do think that she has daddy’s nose. To be frank, even HY and I cant really tell exactly who she looks like. Maybe a bit of him and me - the fact that she's OUR baby :)

And oh, I want to thank Vivianz for sharing this wonderful site with me.

The light at the end of the tunnel...(soon)

Updates. Norelle's fever has finally subsided (last Saturday) and so happy seeing her being smiley and happy again. Well, she's not 100% of her usual self but that's enough seeing her getting up and playing again. She's still a bit weak and her appetite is low. She doesnt seems to be hungry and not so much interest in taking her milk. She has not been on solid for about a week and me being the 'gung-ho' type, tried feeding her pureed carrot and broccoli on Saturday morning. She took a few spoons of them and that's about it. It's fine with me even though I have to pour away most of the them. And I tried again on Sunday, it got a bit better. She managed to finish 2 cubes of pear puree and 1TB of multi-grain rice cereal. But her milk intake is still not back to normal.

After the fever, I realised that there were some red bumps on her back and soon after, her whole body and face were covered with all those red spots (like heat rash). Hubby did a quick search on the net and found that it is Baby Measles. It happens usually after a high fever and there is no cure/medication for it. And it will usually stays on for few hours/days.

Sigh...one incident after another. And now at night, she wakes up every 2 hours - wailing on top of her lungs for no reason. Her cry is so loud and heart-wrenching. Sounds like she's in pain/fright/ or something....I really dont know why...She doesn't want her milk, she's not cold/hot and she can barely open her eyes (can tell that she's really tired and still sleeping) Could it be she's experiencing trauma from all the mid-night feeding of medicine? I really don't know the answer and seeing her crying unconsolably makes me sad and lost....

Hoping that the light at the end of the tunnel will appear soon...real soon....

Fever, fever go away!

Since this morning (about 4am) Norelle's forehead was quite warm. Took a temperature and it read 37.5oC. Fed her paracetamol and about an hour later the temperature subsided. Phew! HY and I didn’t manage to get enough sleep and I kept waking up taking her temperature every now and then. Have no idea what causes the fever – could it be she’s teething?

Morning came and off we send Norelle over to MIL’s. Called home while at work and Norelle was pretty cranky (as expected) and she vomited. Felt so helpless seeing her like that and even more so when there’s nothing I could do to take away her discomfort. She’s still having fever now – her temperature raised up to 38.2oC. She was very tired and she slept early (at 7.30pm). I fed her paracetamol again and she vomited it out together with her milk. But she continued to sleep even though her clothes (and mine) were covered with puke. My heart ache looking at her being so weak and fragile. Just hope that the fever will subsides and I want to see my cheerful, active, smiley Norelle again….

I like food!

Since Norelle hit 6 months, I have started semi-solid with her. I have exclusively breastfed her for the first 6 months of her life and on the day she turned 6 months, I couldn't be happier. I'm not saying that I dislike breastfeeding her (I do support breastfeeding - so mummies who are reading this, do continue with the good work!) I was eager to let Norelle trying out her first food besides milk. I have read up a lot on weaning and already printed out quite a fair of baby food recipes so, I just cant wait!!

Ok, I started Norelle with Heinz's baby rice cereal mixed with little breastmilk. I was all prepared with the feeding essential and prepared the cereal. Then, I put Norelle in the Bumbo seat and laced the bib around her neck. I got the sippy cup ready, wipe cloth, some hot water (just in case I need to dilute the cereal) and most importantly my great enthusiasm! In my mind, I pictured Norelle would be eagerly awaiting the cereal where she will open her mouth big and wide and taking every spoonful of cereal with great sense of joy :)..Ahhh, wouldnt it be so perfect..just like on the tv???

*Snap* , then I was hit with reality! She hardly opened her mouth and when she did, I fed her the cereal and ....she gagged and *phui* out all of them! Then she squirmed her face and shut her mouth tight!! Next, she started to wiggled her way out from the Bumbo and she wailed!! I gave up after merely 5 minutes of feeding her.

But that didnt deter me from trying. Everyday my MIL (mother-in-law) and I tried and tried again feeding her the cereal and she did took a teeny weeny bit of it. Well, that's an achievement. And this lasted for almost a month. Into her 2nd week of semi-solid, I started making some purees for her. I made pear puree for start. Well, that seemed to do the trick. She was eating a bit more with the pear puree. And now in her 7 months (one month since she started solid) she is taking it well, in fact very well.

Now she is looking forward to take her solid and I have since introduced quite a fair of variety of food to her. She has tried (so far) pear, carrot, sweet potato, potato, pumpkin, spinach, broccoli, apple, and chicken. I made all the purees before hand and I freeze them in air-tight containers. It's actually fun doing all the purees and seeing the food turning into mushy state :)

So what's next on her menu??? I'm thinking of zucchini and something with cheeseeeeeee...

Busy munching away - she loves spinach

My new found Abilities (so far...)

For the past few weeks/months, Norelle has achieved quite a lot at her age. Let's see...

@ 4 months she managed to flipped over succesfully and since then she wouldn't want to on her back and that makes our lives more challenging especially when changing her clothes/ diapers.

@ 5+ months - out of fun, one evening I tried putting her in a 'sitting' position just to 'try' out. To my surprise, she managed to hold on to that sitting position (no aid) for about 10 secs. I was estatic. Later on, I tried again and she did it again. I was so happy that I snapped so many pictures of her (more or less in a same position) till to a point where she got a bit awestruck - there, she got her first experience photographed by a 'papparazi'...:P

@ 6 months - she has been sitting quite well on her own at this time (but will still tumble over when she got excited). During the day, she'll be put in her cot (at MIL's) as my MIL does her chores. So, one fine day, she was playing in her cot and suddenly she started pulling herself up using the cot rail. My oh my...this girl is really daring. And the best thing was, when she managed to stand up, she will gave you the BIGGEST grin where you thought she strike the lottery! And from that day onwards, she has been busy 'perfecting' her new found ability. But this 'hard' work of her also resulted in many bumps on her head/legs/hands, etc. Now somehow it makes my life easier (sometimes) that I just put her in standing position when I change her clothes/diapers.

@ 7 months - Just few days ago I realised that she started to raise her cute lil' bum in the air as in getting ready to march forward but tend to stop everytime her bum was high up in the air. Then today she finally able to move forward on her knees - no more 'crawling' like a snake. It's still a funny sight seeing her getting on her 'fours' and doing the proper 'crawling'....

My baby is really a big girl now...

Norelle and her standing 'stint'

The Beginning

Hello. Finally Mummy and Daddy set up a blog for Little Norelle after Mummy had spent quite a fair numbers of hours sitting in front of the computer.

Ok, let's start with the basic. A little background on the Little One:Norelle Chew Zeen Hsiu arrived 6 days earlier than EDD on 30.01.2007 at Subang Jaya Medical Center @ 1406pm weighed 3.37kg. Such a beautiful baby and already busy suckling her little fingers when she was out. She loves to smile and even does that in her sleep. And oh, she was the 'biggest' baby at the ward.

Since birth, Norelle has developed her own character and here are some of the things which describe her -

Norelle likes:
attention food (ooohh.....her favourite)
to be carried (even though Mummy will try every hard not to do that often)
to watch TV (in this case it's educational programme like Baby Einstein and Baby Signs)
to bath (she loves the water so much but used to wail like no tomorrow when she is younger)
to go 'kai kai' (more like tag along Mummy)
to be in the crowd (she is such a PR Queen - always put forth her 'BEST' behaviour)
to be in her Baby Bjorn
to 'bully' her Yeh-yeh (paternal grandfather - trust me she is good)off course she likes to manipulate her daddy (what do you expect?? She is his Little Princess)
Last but not least...she loves to SMILE =)

She dislikes:
to drink water (to her it's like forcing poison down her throat)
to be left alone (not exactly alone - just out of sight)
her milk to be too warm/too cold (has to be the exact temperature!)
to change diapers (I wonder her back and bum have torns as she doesnt like to lay down)

Well, so far this is what I can think of. Will definitely add on as time goes by.... Stay tune for more exciting updates of Little Norelle!

Baby Norelle busy suckling her lil' fingers