6 months!

Dayana is 6 months old. time flies really fast! pretty soon i'll be missing the newborn i started out with as she toddles her way into toddlerhood (which, in my opinion is another mind boggling matter, but i'll deal with it when i reach that milestone =D).

baby's progress (that i can think of):

1. at exactly 6 months old, she weighs at 5.5kg. that seems light, don't you think? planning to bring her to her paediatrician to gauge her progress later.

2. she has stranger anxiety... she'll cry if an unfamiliar face looks her in the eye. i haven't been over to my fil's place for so long that Dayana has already kinda forgotten about them. so when Uncle Alfie wanted to play with her, naturally she burst into tears T_T. i wonder what i should do to overcome this. i see some people's baby seem open to unfamiliar faces and wouldn't mind being carried by a total stranger. i am soooo hoping that Dayana will be like this. makes Mommy's life easier =P.

3. puts everything in her mouth! the first thing she'll do when she gets her hands on something, she'll aim it straight for her mouth. i caught her trying to put a chopstick wrapper into her mouth, and she made this weird face as if it tasted horrible. haha. she can take out her pacifier from her mouth but she has yet to master putting it back in her mouth. my brother wants to bet rm50 that Dayana is a lefty. aya nak bet?

4. she has preference for things now. like for instance the other day i handed her a new toy to play with which i bought a long time ago but never gave her, a bunch of toy plastic keys (because i read somewhere that babies tend to get bored with the same thing) but she chose to ignore it and play with her older flower teether instead. and she prefers Mr. Spidey to Freddie the Firefly.

with Mr. Spidey

5. i dunno if she has a favorite TV show yet, but i let her watch Little Einsteins on the Disney Playhouse channel. you get to pat your hands together during the rocket launch (patpatpatpatpatpatpat), and Dayana always gets a laugh out of that whenever i help her pat her hands together (and i like how they'll feature a classic composer in each episode. and the way one of the character will go "i cannn-not beee-lieve it!" whenever they're one step closer in solving the puzzle. hahahah).

6. laughs at her reflection if we play peekaboo in front of the mirror. dunno whether she knows that she's actually staring at her own reflection or not. she laughs and babbles in a very loud voice too. she laughs if we talk to her in an exaggerated voice, like what my mom likes to do when talking to her.

7. in the earlier days towards her 6th month mark she loved to touch her toes. now i can't really recall if she still loves to do that. when she's free from her diaper during a diaper change she'll start kicking her legs everywhere until she moves off her changing mat T_T. it gets more and more difficult to put a diaper on her.

grabbing her toes

8. been teaching her her ABCs with some flashcards i printed and laminated. so far only made it to the letter J. she seems more interested in getting her hands on them and putting them into her mouth. now she smiles whenever i sing "ABCDE~". dunno if she understands that it's from the alphabet song or if she just like listening to the song. lol.

9. gave her water in her sippy cup. will gladly accept the cup but when she takes her first sip and finds it not containing her usual milk, most of the sippy cup contents will dribble down her chin and drench her clothes. haiz. she'll also give me a disgusted look. did i mention she started her solids on the exact day she turns 6 months?

10. she can anticipate things if you do them repetitively. like for instance if i count to three and then bounce her in the air, she'll squeal with delight. the next time i count to two then stop, she'll squeal anyway (kene tipu) =P.

11. rolls depending on her current mood. if we set her down on her tummy she'll immediately try to roll on to her back, but if she's on her back, she'll wiggle to the side like an ulat. means i don't have to start worrying about a rolling baby yet. heck, we haven't even childproofed the house yet.

12. doesn't like to sit still in her bathtub. loves to strech her legs out, so she'll end up slipping and sliding in the tub. she'll lompat sakan if we suppot her under her arms. and her hair sungguh serabai, no matter how many times i brush it.

i started Dayana on solids last Saturday, the day she turned 6 months old. initially i wanted to give her her first taste of solids during lunchtime, but since the earlier part of the day was taken up with sending Significant Other's car for a car wash and Dayana's 5th month (delayed) jab, i ended up giving her first taste of baby cereal at 6pm (also due to the fact that Significant Other wanted to catch her first solids intake on videocam but the cameraman wanted to have a snooze first *smacks forehead*). i mixed one spoon of baby cereal with 3 spoons of breastmilk. then i set her down in her bumbo seat, complete with the tray and tied a bib around her neck (which wrote 'Daddy's Little Princess'. hehe).

it ended up in a messy disaster. hehe. most of the food ended up on her mouth and on her bib. and she was more interested in getting her hands on the spoon. and when i wanted to spoon baby cereal into her mouth, she ended up blowing cereal bubbles! ahahahah. but she really lookes like she enjoyed herself. i guess it was a new experience for her. i'm sticking to the 4-day rule, so i'm gonna introduce to her red apples next =D. no pictures on the first day though, because Daddy was busy handling the videocam and i was busy trying to get some food into Dayana's tummy.

but here are some photos i manage to take the next day while my mil was feeding her. after she finished with her food (the next day progressed a bit better than the first) my mil allowed her to play with the spoon, which she ketuk sepenuh hati on the tray. my brother commented that we should buy a drum set for her. see how lousy the photos are? my camera quality is detoriating! uwaaaa~~~

the BEFORE photo

the AFTER photo =P

yesterday i decided to cook daging goreng kunyit and cheese omelette. as well as french beans with sambal, just to finish off the french breans before they go bad. my brother dropped by too, with an empty stomach, so decided to cook for three. i got the recipes from the Salt & Tumeric blog my friend had given me ages ago but never got around to browsing it. the dishes kinda turned out OK, but i wish i had fried the potatoes in advance before adding them in the recipe, so i took longer to complete my cooking expedition. and my brother helped me out abit =P. sungguh kelam kabut ok. my brother complained that there was no kuah in any of the dishes (ei slow slow la, next time i try kari ok =P). the omelette turned out to be rather plain (i only added milk and cheese to it), and it looked slightly penyet since i failed at folding the omelette nicely. but if you like cheese, you won't need to complain. hehe.

today is only the second day in March but i'm already bloke = blur + broke. sigh.