Constipation has begun

My oh my, today is the 2nd day I've changed Hayley's formula from Enfalac A+ to Enfagrow A+ and she started having constipation problems. I have no problems with the switching over though and have to agree with other blogger moms that Enfagrow A+ is much sweeter than Enfalac A+. The moment you open the packet, you can immediately smell the vanilla flavour.

I know that to help her ease the constipation I have to give her more water, more veges and more fruits. I can do that on weekends when she is with me but on weekdays I have to rely on the babysitter and I hope she is doing what I told her to do. Hayley's recent boycott towards water from a bottle is not helping either. She will not drink as much as she used to from a bottle. She will drink when fed with a spoon. It makes the whole process much more tedious but I guess we don't have a choice. I even tried sippy cut but she will just play with the cup.

Today she poo-ed in the evening and the stool was hard. She cried and clung on to me like a koala bear. How long more should I let her try out this formula before changing it to something else? I really don't like to change her formula unless if I really have to and the babysitter is already pestering me to try something else.

She finally called 'papa'

My little girl started calling her 'papa' a couple of days after her birthday. It is amazing how turning 1 changed her. Her teeth finally came out and she called her papa. We tested her and confirmed that she knows what papa means and she's not just calling for the sake of calling. I asked her once 'where is your papa' and she pointed towards the papa and calling him at the same time :-)

So it's papa for him and mama for me. I would love for her to call me mummy but I will settle with mama for now.

My little girl is growing up.

The teeth are finally showing

Hayley's teeth finally decided to come out to see the world when she turned 1. The funny thing about this is that only the right lower and upper front incisor came out. I thought for most babies both the bottom or both the top front incisor would come out together but hers is different. It looks so funny when she smile now as you can only see 1 teeth at the top and the other at the bottom and both are on the same side.. hehe.

First pair of shoe

When Hayley turned 1, my mom insisted on buying her the very first pair of shoe. As usual she would ask me to pick the shoe and then collect the cash from her. My mom is not the type who likes shopping or picking gifts or giving surprises (those typical moms). For birthdays, she would either ask us to shop ourself and then collect the money from her OR she would just give us angpows (red packets with cash in it). Come to think of it, I have never ever received any gift from my mom for my birthdays since I could remember so it will not be any different for Hayley.

Anyway, as I don't fancy burning a hole in her pocket, I opted for the cheap range and most importantly comfortable for Hayley. I prefer the cloth type which is light and easier for her to learn to walk in them. I went to Anakku, Baby Poney, Disney, Kiki Lala and all the other kiddy brands that I can think of but could not find one that I like. The shoes I saw are either too small for her or they are too expensive. I don't think its worth spending a lot for a pair of shoe that would only last her for a couple of months. It would probably be a different story if she knew how to walk. If she knew how to walk, I might be more willing to invest in a better pair.

In the end, I found this :-)

It's very cheap, Baby Kiko for only RM19.90 with 10% discount and Hayley loves it. The moment I took the shoe off the shelf, she clung on to it and refused to let go. We decided then that this will be THE pair. My mom was happy too since she only has to pay RM20 for them.

And we picked pink because it matches the dress that she will be wearing on her birthday :-)

Hayley's 1st Birthday (more photos)

Hi again,

As promised, here are more photos from the birthday party courtesy of Aunty Jessie and Uncle Dino :-). Remember to also go here http://kiasumom.blogspot.com/2009/02/hayleys-1st-birthday.html for the 1st posting on her birthday.

The birthday girl

Me, Hayley and Jessie. We have to use our face to 'force' Hayley to look in front ie the camera. There are far too many distractions at the restaurant hehe.

Love this shot. The colours are amazing.

Different angle of the cake

Hayley loving her birthday cake

Hayley playing 'knock head' with Samson but he is scared of her. Samson is about 3 months younger than Hayley but he doesn't look like it. Strong and big boy :-)

The pretty little Ms Hiu

Mrs and Ms Hiu :-). Her shirt says 'Here comes trouble', hehe

With Dino, our photographer for the day. Again we have to use our face to force her to look front. BTW, why is my hair in a mess? Can you see all the baby hair? They started growing when Hayley was 9 months old. It's getting out of control.. haiz...

With tuaso, aka big sis in law. Papa looking sleepy haha

Handsome little Jadrian Phua who loves to sing and dance. Jadrian's mummy is Jodie.

Samm and Sam-son, get it? Sam's son = SAMSON :-)

Super cute Samson. I've booked him for Hayley.. haha

Caitlin my niece will be celebrating her 1st birthday on 10th March :-)

The Yew family said THANK YOU

2 days after the jab..

Surprisingly the jab on Sat went quite well. Thankfully Dr Wong was on leave that day and another doctor (a male doctor and I forgot his name, shame on me) took over for the day. This doctos is great. I told him that Hayley is afraid of doctors (thanks to Dr Wong) and he was very understanding. As he needs to do the routine of listening to her lungs, checking her ears and mouth etc, he did it like a caring doctor. He distracted Hayley by playing with her. He used toys and he even spoke with her in baby language - which is great. Hayley didn't cry during the routine check (she normally cries if it was Dr Wong) but she did during the jab. This time, instead of her thigh, the doctor went for her buttock. She hugged her papa so tightly during and after the jab. She cried for a while and very quickly regained her composure.

The doctor said there is a likelyhood that she will get fever after this jab. The nurse said the fever might come only after a week and during this time we have to give her more fluid. I am monitoring her temperature closely and I am hoping that she won't get any fever.

During the check up I also took the opportunity to clarify some doubts with the doctor. I confirmed with him that it is ok for me to give Hayley yogurt and cheese. He told me that I need to be adventurous is preparing Hayley's food. Apart from the nutritions, I also need to expose her to various taste and texture of the food. He said if I didn't she might end up being a picky eater and I could not agree more.

As for her growth, the doctor said she is petite (probably just like me and hubby). At 12 months, she is aprrox 73cm in length and 8.34kg in weight. When she was 9 months, she was 7.89kg. She gained very little despite having 3 - 4 bottles of 7oz milk a day, 2 bowls of porridge with fruits, biscuits and bread in between. The doctor said there is nothing to be concerned about cause she looks healthy and she doesn't look skinny. He did ask me if she was an active baby - indeed she is. Anyway, the doctor said as long as she's continuously gaining and growing, there should be nothing to worry about. He did ask me to feed her a little more than the usual though.

Now, her next jab will be at 13th month. I hope Dr Wong will be away again then.. hahaha

Here comes another jab

I am bringing Hayley for her 12th month jab tomorrow - the MMR. I always dread when it comes to jabs. I hope she won't remember the previous nightmare and get over with this jab like a trooper. I hope she won't get fever too. Sigh... I really hate tomorrow. That is why it is now 12.32am and I am still blogging. I can't sleep. Now that she's much older, she is more aware of the environment and the things people will do to her. I am sure she is going to scream her lungs out and I will be crying with her too. Sigh......... sigh...... sigh........

Apart from the 12th month jab, there will be more
13th month - Chicken pox
15th month - 3rd Pneumococal and
18th month - 1st booster

According to the Immunisation Schedule provided by the specialist clinic, there is also Hepatitis A jabs which she needs to take at 2 and 2.5 years old. I believe this is optional. I will think about this when the time comes if its optional.

Apart from the above, she also needs to take MMR booster at 4 years and 2nd booster at 6 years and lastly BCG at 12 years.

So many JABS! They should just try and come up with a solution to merge all the jabs into 1. That would be a dream come true for all mommies :-)

1 year 5 days old

Hayley is 1 year and 5 days old today. I am sure some of you are waiting for the photos from her 1st birthday, to be honest, I am also waiting for them :-).

A friend who owns a DSLR camera offered to take photo for that day and I'm still waiting for him to send the photos to me. As he's helping me willingly, I don't want to pressure him so will let him take his time to download and send the photos over. It may take another week or even month. Who knows?!

Anyway, I will surely post those photos once they are ready. So stay tuned!

On a different note, I know some parents dread when their babies are turning into toddlers. For a change, I kind of like it. Well, don't get me wrong. I do miss those baby times but I felt that since turning 1 my little girl has grown up so much in the last couple of days. She seems more communicative (she can't really speak yet except for a few simple and basic words), cheerful and playful. She also behaves like an adult sometimes.

Here are some of the cute little things she does which amazes me:

1. The papa was sitting on the floor watching TV with his back leaning against the sofa and his legs slightly curled up. The little one crawled towards the papa and rested her back on his legs (using his legs as the back support) and then curled her legs. She is copying the way the papa sits.

2. I was changing her diaper early one morning before going to the babysitter's house and she pointed at the direction of the dining table and said 'mum mum'. I turned to the table and saw the loaf of Gardenia sitting directly facing her :-)

3. She picked up a dead insect on the floor and looked at me (she know that I will scold her if she put it in the mouth) and when I reached out my hand, she obediently gave the insect to me. I threw the insect into the bin in front of her. Then she picked up another one using her left hand. When I reached out my hand (expecting her to give it to me), this time she reached out her right hand and pretended to put something on my hand and quickly put her left hand into her mouth. Isn't she cheeky!

4. Lately she refuses to drink water. Not sure if because she's teething (her teeth are finally showing, top and bottom 2). So sometimes when I want to feed her water she would pretend to cough!

5. She can dance! My little girl can dance and pretty well too. Apart from moving her bum from left to right whenever she hears music that she likes (she will even dance to the sounds of drums like those from the lion dances) she also moves her upper body as if she's doing ripples. I caught her doing that a couple of times. She surely had my dancing genes :-)

She sure is the love of my life :-)

Hayley's 1st Birthday

As you would have known, we celebrated Hayley's birthday at a friend's restaurant. We booked 3 tables and prepared a 7 course lunch to cater to our close family and friends. Like all celebrations, there would surely be happy and unhappy moments.

Well, let's talk about the unhappy moments first so that I can end the post with the happy stuff :-). Like all parties that involves food, the most common problem is having friends who accepted the invite and then declined at the very last min - aka 'kite flyers'. 3 close friends did that to us so we were rather upset. Although they have valid and genuine reasons but we still can't help but feel upset but of course we do not blame them. So we ended up with only 7 or 8 people at each table with lots of food to spare. Thankfully we invited all close friends so they don't really mind packing back the leftovers else the food would have gone to waste and we do not condone food wasting!

Apart from the above, it was happy moments all the way :-).

Although with only a few friends and families, it was fun nonetheless. Everyone came on time except my mom who had to work so she arrived 30 mins late and everyone was waiting for her with growling stomach. I have 2 pregnant women at the party (both due in May), 2 moms whose babies are born in 2008 (both younger than Hayley) and another 2 moms whose kids are above 3. So the moms-to-be and the new moms and the veteran mom have lots to share and talk about :-). There were lots of kids and babies there to play with too.

I also invited Hayley's babysitter so that she could meet my family. Having aunty there really helped. She helped me feed and watch over Hayley when I had to entertain my friends. The usually friendly Hayley was rather shy on her birthday. She didn't allow anyone to carry her (at least not instantly). She needed time to warm up but thankfully she didn't cry when others insisted on carrying her. As usual, to keep her occupied to her seat, we have to bribe her with food :-).

Hayley tasted cakes for the first time on her birthday (well this is as far as I know as I am not sure if aunty ever fed her with cakes before at her place). We gave her both the cupcakes as well as the jelly cake. We gave her a little bit of each to let her try and she enjoyed them as usual (she'll eat anything and everything - proven from the fact that she ate an ant!). Even though she knew how to blow into the whistle, unfortunately she doesn't know how to blow the candle. She thought they were toys and wanted to reach for them. I had to blow the candles on her behalf and of course cut the cake for her.

Here are some of the special things I prepared for the party (apart from the cake of course):

1. A thank you gift pack for kids (I bought stationery, sticker pictures and M&Ms chocos). I wrapped them up nicely in wrapping papers. I also tailored made the cards with the special cartoon characters that the kids like. Eg Cadence like Barney, Ying Hui likes Winnie the Pooh etc. The gift was given to kids age 3 and above. Unfortunately I did not get anything for babies as I didn't know what to get for them. Sorry friends with babies :-(

2. Twin cupcakes for the adults nicely wrapped in a box which I ordered from Yummies By Audrey. They were specially designed in conjunction with Valentine's Day. If you visit Audrey's blog, you will also see Hayley's cup cakes being posted there :-). As for the thank you card, I did it myself using photo paper and photo printer. I even translated the message into Mandarin (for some of our Mandarin speaking friends) although I don't know how to read them :-). I used the free online translation tools and got some of my colleagues to check.

The party started around 1.30pm and ended around 3.30pm. We wanted to stay longer to chat but we have to respect the restaurant's break time which is from 3 - 6pm. The kids were happy to receive presents. Cadence my 4 year old niece even asked me 'yi yi, how come no present for my little sister?'. I had to explain to her that the presents are not suitable for Caitlin and she nodded her head. What a good little girl she is.

Hayley knocked off immediately in the car on the way back. Nothing I do will wake her up. It was quite funny and rare. She's not really the type who will fall asleep on her own. I guess the air conditioning and the rocking movement of the car really does the trick. Anyhow, it was tiring for her and us as well.

Here are some more photos to share (I am being featured here for the very first time :-)). As I have not received all the photos yet, I will share more in the 2nd post once I have received them:

The birthday girl

With her favourite pose - the pouty lips or ''chu chui' (pigs mouth)

The gorgeous 3kg jelly cake that cost us RM135

The 3 of us

My best bud Jessie and me (look at the bun in her oven :-))

Every successful party would not have been successful without the help and support of friends and families. Therefore, we would like to thank the following from the bottom of our hearts:

1. Andrew & Alexis for buying the 2nd birthday cupcakes and bringing them to us on purpose on Friday night. They were yummy (all the guests said so) and beautiful. Uncle Andrew is like a godfather to Hayley. He's also the Santa Claus as he often brings her gifts :-)

2. Dino (Jessie's hubby) for being my photographer for that day. Dino is now into photography and recently bought a new DSLR camera and the photos he took are beautiful. His first baby will arrive in May and the camera would come in handy to capture those special moments :-). They are expecting a girl with a pointy chin and big round eyes, just like her mom!

3. My sis Ai Nee for helping me collect the cupcakes from Audrey all the way from Mon't Kiara.

4. My eldest sis Alice for the cool Adidas shoe for Hayley.

5. Jodie for giving me discounts for the food, recommending yummy dishes and making sure everything turned out well :-). Everyone said the food was good and I am glad to hear that.

6. All our dear friends (Jane, Ling Yi, Samm, Kin Fei, Samson, PCK, Hock, Bro Chuen, Bro Chuen's wife and son, Dino, Jessie, Jodie, Jadrian and families (my mom, both my sis and tuaso - aka my eldest sis in law) who attended the party and showered Hayley with lots of kisses, hugs, good wishes and angpows!

And guess what, I was told that 14 February 2010 is also the first day of CNY. So it will be 3 happy occassions for us in 1 day next year. She sure is born on a very special date! HEHE

Training my little one to sleep by herself

During the long CNY break I took the opportunity to train my little one to sleep by herself. I am not letting her sleep alone but I am just training her to sleep without me lullabying or patting her. I am quite surprised that it wasn't that hard. I thought by now it would be hard to change her habits but to my amazement it only took me 4 days.

Day 1 - I took her up to bed at 9pm as usual. I put her in the cot and wished her good night and gave her a kiss on her forehead. The moment I turn away she starting crying. I ignored her and lie on the bed. My bed is just next to her cot. She cried and yelled and tried to reach for me. I pretend to be asleep. She actually cried, occassionally with tears and occasionally without (those fake cries) for almost 50 mins! But in the end she fell asleep on her own.

Day 2 - Again we went up at 9pm. I did the same ritual of wishing her good night and kiss on the forehead. This time she cried or pretend to cry for 30 mins and then fell asleep.

Day 3 - Same ritual, 5 mins of crying and it took her 20 mins to fall asleep.

Day 4 - No more crying or yelling when I put her in the cot. She immediately lie down and started playing with her toys, bolster and blanket. She fell asleep on her own in 20 mins.

That was easy or so I thought. On the 5th day we brought her out and came home rather late. It was way past her bedtime. We reached home like 10pm. We immediately got her ready for bed and the moment I put her in the cot, she started behaving like her old self ie DAY 1!

Tonight was actually the 7th night and she took around 20 mins to sleep with 5 mins of crying just like in Day 3. I don't understand why there is a reformat button in their system. Now I think twice if I want to bring her out late. I am so afraid that DAY 1 will happen again. I really cannot bear hearing her cry and yell for 50 mins!

8 more days to go...

See, now I am left with 8 days :-(

Anyway, am happy to say that I have finally made up my mind on how to celebrate Hayley's 1st birthday ... finally... phew....

We are going to celebrate at a Chinese restaurant that belongs to my friend's parents. The extra 20% discount she is offering me is very tempting.. hehe. We have invited 30 close family members and friends for a 7 course lunch. We wanted to invite more but unfortunately since it is Valentine's Day, most of them already had plans with their loved ones. I foresee the same happening going forward if I do plan to celebrate Hayley's birthday each year. I guess this is the downside for being born on a special date.

Well, now that I have picked the venue and confirmed the menu, I need to go shopping this weekend to get some 'thank you' gifts for the kids and adults attending the party. Since it's V Day, I am thinking of stationery for the kids and chocolates for the adults or maybe chocolates for both to save the hassle :-)

Countdown to Hayley's 1st Birthday - 12 days

Boy oh boy, time flies. My baby will turn 1 in 12 days.

I still don't know what to do with her birthday party. Should I invite everyone or just close friends and relatives. Should I have it at a restaurant or should I have it at the club. Should I go for Chinese or Western or buffet... gosh.. all these choices are driving me nuts. And as usual hubby isn't helping. He's really good at 'tai-chi'. Tai-chi-ing all the decisions to me :-(

One thing for sure is that we will surely have a party for her. Both me and hubby didn't have our 1st birthday party as we are not from well to do families so we want our baby to have everything we didn't have.

And talking about cakes, I love those jelly cakes which I got to know from friends and also from www.lifeasamummy.com (http://www.qjelly.com/) and also theme cakes from mamamin (http://mamamin.wordpress.com/) . Again I didn't know which to choose. Sigh....

Anyone has any good ideas on how to make a baby's 1st birthday party memorable?

Please don't ask me to have it at home (although I love to) cause I don't have a maid and the clean up after the party will drive me nuts.