Weekend mishap - luckily a small one

Daddy made a cup of tea on Saturday night with hot boiling water. Zara as usual got excited when she saw him with the purple glazed mug. I'd already told him many times not to go near Zara when he's drinking hot tea, but he's too distracted by her excitement to take note. Zara wanted to touch the mug, and he allowed it. Letting her touch the mug, and teaching her the sensation is HOT. "Daddy's tea is HOT HOT, Zara". Zara just got more excited. "Zara cannot drink tea yet, but Zara can smell it", he put the cup near Zara's nose for a sniff. Zara opened her mouth, and wanted to take a sip. I have to interupt at this point and carried her away, and told daddy to drink his tea some where else. Once the mug was out of sight, Zara forgot about it, and started looking for other things to play with. The following morning, when I was dressing Zara up, I spotted she had a blister on her index finger, clearly caused by a burnt. I couldn't think where else she could have burnt herself besides from the very hot tea mug. There was also red blotch on her nose, I suspected it's from the steam from the tea. I showed daddy and he agreed it must have been from the tea mug. In another day and time, I would have kicked up a fuss, but because he seemed sorry and Zara is ok and not complaining, I just told him he should not do this again. I just can't imagine what would happen if the whole mug of hot tea was spilled on her, especially she has such quick hands nowadays.

Stand Up!

On Friday evening, after dinner, we had some grapes in the living room. She was standing supported by her hands leaning against the coffee table, when the grape was served, and she spotted the plate of grapes. I sat her down on the floor next to the coffee table, so that it'll be easier for me to feed her small pieces of the skinned grape. She was, however, very eager to reach for the grapes. While sitting down, she reached for the corner of the table, and tried to pull herself up. My heart skipped a few beats as she failed and fell. A few times she landed on her bottom, once or twice, she almost lost her balance and nearly landed with her head knocking on some thing or the floor. She wasn't deterred by any of these falling. After I helped her sit back up, she tried to pull herself up again . She was able to lift herself up high enough for her to see the grapes. More temptation, more determinations! Then she tried to get more help, she used her hands to pull herself, and at the same time use her 4 little teeth biting on the corner of the table to further propel herself. I of course told her NO, NO BITING, and pushed her head away from the table. She still didn't give up hope, and continued pulling, falling, pulling, falling. Having a glimpse of the grape when her head was high enough to spot it. Then in finally happened! She managed to pull herself up standing!! Hip Hip hooray! I carried her and shouted. She had a big grinned, kicked her legs a few times, indicating she's also very happy with herself. Samantha che-che clapped for her, Ah kim clapped for her. Her grinned widened, her kicking more furious. She was making happy noises, and coughed out some small pieces of grapes in the process. She achieve another milestone today. She was very pleased with herself, I was happy, and daddy was very proud of her (although he didn't see it and learnt of it later in the night).

Baby, Boo!

This seems to be Zara's most favourite book. I bought many books for her, and none interest her as much as this one. She really enjoys it each time we read this book to her. She smiles and gets all excited the minute we take the book out, she'll try to place herself on our lap and then leans back against us, all ready for us to read this to her, she smiles when each page is turned. Every time, when we reach the page KISS KISS, I LOVE YOU, she just leans forward and kisses the baby photo on that page!! And when we reach the last page with the mirror on, she either leans forward to kiss her own image on the mirror, or she'll give herself a big smile. She has never kissed anybody or anything before until we started reading this book to her (well, opening her wet mouth touching our faces or the floor don't count as kissing), she just learnt how to kiss from this book. We found out that she'll kiss anything that looks like a baby (e.g. a doll which is made to look like a baby) or photos of babies in books, magazines, even paintings of babies or little children. When we thrust our faces forward and ask her for a kiss, she'll push our faces away with her little hand, and look the other way round.

Is your baby a girl or boy?

We always get this question. Even when we dressed Zara up as feminine as we possibly could. There were two occasions which I find the ones asking the questions too blind to see the 'details'. One was when she was dressed up in her spaghetti strap body suit (on the left), and another when we dressed her up in pink with accompanying pink head band (below). We were out on both occasions, and there were people (men actually who have kids with them), who asked "is your baby a girl or a boy?" Well, I know she doesn't quite have the feminine feature yet, and her hair is so little, that people may actually think she's a boy; but come on, she has this feminine looking outfit on. Argh! Are these people too blind to notice it or these people actually dressed up their sons in spaghetti strap dresses and let them wear pink hairbands?

Ball Kicking

The ball is singular, so it has nothing to do with the male anatomy. It happens to be something Zara showed us she's able to do yesterday. We were home, and she wanted to do her round of 'walk walk' in the living room. Then she spotted the ball, and stopped. She started kicking (or stamping her feet , since she was standing); "Ugh", she said, and grinned at me. She wanted the ball, I interpreted it. I told her she needed to sit down, so we could play, and she sat (it means she really wanted to play with the ball). At first she was happy sitting down, with me passing the ball to her, and she kicked it back to me or wherever the ball may end up. Then she started raising her hands, and bounced up and down trying to stand up. I pulled her up, and she held my hands trying to walk towards the ball. The momont we reached the ball, she raised her little foot, and nudged the ball with it. We moved towards the ball again, and she did the same thing. I started cheering at her, 'Zara, kick the ball ball!', 'kick the ball ball!', and we chased the ball around with her nudging or kicking it. She was very pleased with herself, and wanted to do more ball kicking. Daddy saw what she did from the dining table, and got excited too. So he joined us, and his turn to walk her around chasing after the ball, and kicking it. The more we cheered for her, the more she wanted to show off her new skill. We both thought she's quite amazing, despite her wobbly legs, she could kick a ball! Daddy even claimed he saw her dribbling the ball on a few occasions. Well, as parents, we are entitled to feel amazed with our baby's achievement, and pleased with our ability to produce such good genes (even when probably majority of the babies can do the same thing at her age). It's just normal for parents to feel proud even over the baby's minutest feat. That night, she slept really well. Probably tired by the ball kicking.

Crawl...

3 weeks ago, she was contented sitting. Then she wanted to stand, and enjoyed holding on to our bed frame or hanging on to the wooden chest for support. Soon after that she found out it was fun to 'walk walk' around the house with her hands holding on to ours. Weekends cause bad back aches, lowering ourselves to accommodate her height, allowing her to hang on to our hands walking around the house, chasing after Russ, our cat. Yesterday, she started crawling (she used to crawl a bit, but with not much enthusiasm, yesterday, she seemed to have mastered it, and enjoy her new found mobility, even though her crawl is still with her tummy not lifted off the ground). Tuyam, our domestic helper, told us while she was preparing Zara's bath water in the bathroom, she left Zara in the room with some toys. A moment later, our little one had helped herself to the bathroom, eager to take her bath. We saw the same mobility and eagerness to explore in our home early this morning. She wanted to know what her daddy was doing, so she crawled to the bathroom to check out. Greeting him with a cheeky grin when he peeked at her from behind the shower screen. I told her it's time for us to leave the house, and she needs to put on her pajamas pants again (I left only her diaper on earlier, so that she can crawl around easier on the paquet floor), and she came to me without assistance. Hip Hip Hooray! I cheered for her. In the car, on our way to Ah Kim's and Ah Ku's house, she seemed to be so pleased with her achievement, she didn't take her normal nap, even when we were stuck in a really bad jam, and took longer than usual to arrive. Her mobility excites us and at the same time worries us. It's time to seriously look into child proofing the house.

Am I too late

Our little one is already 8month old, too late to start a journal for her? Filling up pages in a 'paper' journal after she's gone too bed was just too tiring, hand writing was getting really bad, sometimes I can't even make out what I wrote. With an electronic one, I won't have this problem. Let's see how discipline I will be