when your LO starts to walk...

now that Dayana has discovered that she can get into more mischief - and especially since she now discovered that she has feet - i find it really hard to keep an eye on her 24/7. she tots around the room more efficiently now and her hands are really quick at grabbing stuff ( i realize she loves to create milestones everytime the Daddy is away, lol). the maid tells me she'll make a beeline for the stairs whenever she gets a chance. mil won't allow her to roam freely around the house until safety gates are installed (you never know what kind of mischief little babies can get into).

she already knows that her crib is the most boring place to be in unless it's bed time. so now all my attempts to bribe her to stay in her crib are futile, haha. one time i wasn't looking, she miraculously climbed out of her crib and onto our bed, until now i am baffled at how she did it T_T omg (although i have a feeling she used the toys in her crib as stepping stones). luckily at the time i placed her crib close to our bed, leaving no gap in between. a reminder to myself: i need to adjust the crib level to the lowest setting.

since there's nobody to give their full attention to her, she'll be spending most of the hours of the day lepaking in the buai while the maid goes around with the house chores. as a result, she'll spend most of the day dozing (sungguh tak productive langsung), and i'd be facing the problem of putting her to bed on time every single night because she slept too much during the day. the earliest i can get her to sleep on a weekday is about 1am ok. and that's crazy. this morning? she woke up at 5am. and refused to fall asleep. she began making those "ek ek ek ek" sounds that can really get on my nerves. then she'd start to scream like mariah carey (najua i sooo totally get you now about the screaming phase) and at that rate how the heck could i continue my slumber? so today i was wide awake at 5am, thanks to my living breathing screaming alarm clock.

(on another note, since i woke up early, i got to work early and i miraculously got through to the end bit! omg. and totally bombed, hahahah. sungguh ke'malu'an besar. chis chis chis. i swear i could hear my deskmate laughing at me in his head).

so my solution to this little problem could be one of three things (or could be all three):

1) get safety gates to be installed around the house so that a small section could be hers alone to explore safely... but safety gates are expensive. and i don't know what brand to look for. do i need to get many many safety gates? *blur* any recommendations? the house i'm staying in is 2-storey, all the more reason to babyproof the split levels.

2) start looking for a nursery to send her to. this one i've been contemplating on doing so for a while now but because of our limited budget (due to my irresponsible spending during my past life, sigh) i need to delay this plan for now. i think it's time for Dayana to start hanging around with kids her own age instead of us foggies. and she needs to stimulate her brain more. i don't think she learns much at my mil's. nobody dedicated to teach her anyway. and i hope she doesn't pick up Indon slang from the maid any time soon, haha. i just don't know of any reputable nurseries (translation: affordable) in SA. does anyone know? at least at nurseries i can at least rest with knowing that her brain cells are busy at work =D.

3) get a playpen, if safety gates prove to be expensive. but are they useful? a playpen was one of the items in my babylist when i was pregnant, but i never got around to buying it last time because i didn't think i'd be needing it in the early stages of babyhood (i wish i bought a sleeper cot though. from liyana's and farrah's blogs (and in my opinion =P) i think this item would be really useful, even if you didn't decide to co-sleep together, no kidding). with a playpen my dot would be able to have more space to move about safely, and she'd spend less time in the buai. i have a walker but Dayana doesn't like to stay in it for long periods of time. anyone feel free to correct me if i'm wrong about the usefulness of a playpen. i might start to look for a secondhand playpen if they're useful.

or even better, if anyone has any better ideas on how to secure a baby while giving her ample space for her to explore on her own freely, do let me know =D. at the moment she's having the time of her life in my room messing up her Daddy's DVD collection and pulling out all the contents of my makeup bag and not bothering to put them back T_T.

unloading my stuff

p/s. she's not a fan of SSC. sigh. will update my SSC journey later. toodles~!