Jan’s first steps

For a long while, Jan has been walking around, but she always need to hold on to something, like to her toy car or to a chair.  Because of that, many of us had made wrong predictions of when she will be able to walk unassisted.  Jan just seem to be delaying that milestone again and again, and we concluded that she found no value in that new skill, since walking seemed so much slower than her crawling (come to my house one day and leave the kitchen door open…before you can catch your next breath, she would have emptied all the kitchen cabinets).  In fact, she crawls so much that I think she clocks at least 1km of crawling every day!  Anyway, on Jan’s not walking, I wasn’t too anxious as I was dying to have a kid running around in the house yet.

Above: Jan’s photo taken in late May of her pushing her toy car.  She also likes to push the dining chair and sometimes the stand fan…

One day before her birthday, Jan took her first and ONLY unassisted step…*sigh*…was she trying to do the minimum so that her parents can proudly wear the “kid walked before one” badge?  Over the past few weeks, we coaxed her to take more steps.  Now she has achieved a 800% improvement.  Impressive ya?  That means she doubled every week!  At this rate, she will be able to walk 4,503,599,627,370,496 steps when she reaches two!!! (ok, bad joke.  But if you are laughing, then you are not any less geeky than I am)

Exploring the new bridges

We went to explore the bridges connecting HortPark to Mount Faber.  Before I went, I thought: two bridges, no big deal.  Fortunately, I was pleasantly surprised.  The bridges helped create a very nice trail, and better still, this trail is close to my place!

The trail was also very stroller friendly, so we would highly recommend it to families with young children.  Even if you don’t fit this category, it is still a nice trail to walk, run and maybe blade??

We started at HortPark (along Alexandra Rd) and ended at Mount Faber.  The drivers caught a cab back to the starting point when we got to the Henderson Waves Bridge.  The only trouble with starting at HortPark is that there is a steep climb when you are about to reach telok blangah HILL park.  So if you want to avoid, you can try to drive up to the park and find parking there.  There aren’t a lot of lots but we spotted a number of vacant lots.  I guess many people didn’t know about those parking spots.

 

I recommend doing a picnic on Henderson waves!  Go early in the morning or near sunset time

Check out all the photos on our web album.

Jan’s 1st Brithday

Jan turned ONE last Sunday!  We held a birthday party for her on Saturday at our place.  Check out her dress and birthday cake!  Though uncoordinated, they turned out to be amazingly harmonious in colour and style!

Her birthday cake also turned out to be much nicer than we expected.  We spent many hours trying to confirm the design, and when we did, neither of us had a good idea of how it will look like in the end, ‘cos we mixed elements from a few designs.  When I saw the cake on the actual day, I loved it!  A lot of kudos should go to my wife and her colleague Lawrence.  My wife for picking the cute bear, and Lawrence for helping us bring the bear to the cake shop a few days in advance.  I believe the cake makers drew inspiration from the bear and put together the final sweet-looking cake.

Pei Tze’s aunt also made a very cool looking jelly cake.  This, like the cake, exceeded my expectations.  I attribute it to the clever addition of garnishes like the deer, the fence, the plants and the “grass”.  Pei Tze added a final, genius touch to it…she put the jelly on a piece of glass (take from our TV console…), and that just up the class by several notches!

 

There was a lot of preparations to be done.  But thanks to the many pairs of hands that came to help, we managed to set up in time.

 

In almost no time, the guests began arriving!  Imagine the frenzy we were in…thank God most of the things went well.

 

There were also a lot of babies and toddlers...you might actually think we were running a nursery.  Fortunately, we had a play yard in the living room.

It didn't take long before the house was overflowing with people.  We estimated that there were 50+ adults and about 10 kids in the house!!

Thankfully, we had a huge area outside our house, which is rather unusual for HDB flats.  We were able to fit the catered food and a make-shift canteen in this corridor space.

    

The high point of the celebration was marked by the cake-cutting.  Jan probably did not understand what was going on.  I on the other hand, was awestruck when I realised that so many people were celebrating the birthday of a one-year-old!!  I then understood that it was really not just a birthday party, but a day where we celebrate the victory of surviving the first year of parenthood! ;-)

Well, we are definitely very thankful for how God has seen us through this past year, of how He has provided and protected us.  Happy 1st Birthday my little girl!

Excursion to West Coast Park

Yeah! We are going outdoors!

 

 

 

 

 

We went to West Coast Park on a weekend morning, wanting to get some fresh air and to make it a family excursion.  After Jan's first milk feed, we quickly got out of the house and headed towards West Coast Park.  We got there at around 8+am, so the Mac there was not crowded yet and we easily found a parking lot.  Then my wife got her favourite MacDonald breakfast...*embarassed*...

Jan got her first taste of coffee (ok, just kidding...already she is very active without the caffine...) ..and after that she seems to be getting her mouth onto everything...

 

The breakfast was enjoyable, as the Mac there has outdoor seating and the weather was great that day -- not too hot nor too gloomy.  We then took a quick stroll around the park.  That was enjoyable too, saw a number of people sitting on mats laid out on the grass, as well as people camping in tents in the park.  A great place to spend a weekend morning.

No-no! No-no! No-no!

Yes, we have been using that word quite often recently.  Yes, Jan does understand this word.  And yes, she does gets unhappy at times when we say that word to her, as you can see in her photo.

We believe that as parents, one of our greatest responsibility is to draw boundaries for our children; help them know the parameters that are safe for them.  And definitely these parameters should change as the child grows.

The book "Babywise" gave me fresh perspectives on boundaries.  The book asked, "will you let your 10-month-old play with the remote?".  My answer was yes, but I didn't realise that I would be exhibiting inconsistent behaviour when I refuse her the remote when we are at my neighbour's place (fearing that she would bang or drop the remote).  She is not yet old enough to understand the reason...so ya, seems like we parents need to think quite hard of what is ok...my take is to let her stick to toys for now and slowly let her touch more stuff when she exhibit greater maturity.

My colleague has a good way of describing this philosophy.  He said it is called loving the "V" way.  Notice how the letter "V" is narrow at the bottom and widens as you move to the top?  Same way with boundaries.  It's easier to start with very strict boundaries and slowly relax them as the child goes, compared to doing it the other way round.

Change is not easy

If any of you had followed us in changing your baby's schedule, I hope it went well for you =)

It was definitely not easy for us -- there were tense moments when we wanted to blame each other, when we questioned the usefulness of the change, and when we wanted to give up.

Jan was not used to the schedule during the first few days, and after we put her to bed at 7:30pm, she would wake up exactly half-an-hour later, thinking that she just had her usual 3rd nap of the day.  She would then be ALL READY to play...and it was very difficult getting her back to sleep again; it took an hour or more before she relented.

Thank God, now she has gotten used to the new schedule!  The good of this new arrangement is that we are free to do our stuff after 7:30pm, and we can eat our dinner at leisure.  The bad is something we have not tackled head-on yet--how will it be when we have to be out till late and she won't get home till about 10 or 11pm?  Will she be able to start her sleep outside?  Or will she be super-cranky through the night?  *sigh* don't worry too much lah, let's do it one step at a time.  The bottomline is that we are happy that she is getting more sleep, and already we are seeing that she is less cranky during daytime now.

Can this work for you?  It's really for you, your spouse and all the care-takers to decide.  I think what is important is for all to agree that it is something that you want to do, and expect a rough transition period during the first week.

New Schedule?

We had been wondering if we should let Jan sleep earlier. Nowadays she goes to bed at 9+pm. Comparing notes with our friends' babies and recommendation from Supernanny (yes, the USA supernanny series), that timing is too late. So now we are trying to get Jan to bed by 7+pm, and let her sleep as usual to 7:30am. Here's the new schedule that we are trying:

7:30am Wakeup and drink milk #1

8:30am Breakfast

10:00am Morning nap

11:30am Milk #2 + lunch

2:30pm Afternoon nap

4:00pm Milk #3

5:00pm Dinner

6:00pm Bath and get ready for bed

7.00pm Milk #4

7:30pm Bedtime

Well, this is definitely work-in-progress, but if it works out well, we hope that Jan will sleep better at night and give us more time in the evening. Also hope that it will help her be a happier baby in the day.